[wat10000]

I was careful to say “strong aggressors.” You don’t need to go after every tinpot dictator who decides to pull something stupid. But something like Russia conquering bits of their neighbors should have been stopped early.

Europeans didn’t get aggressive with Germany until they invaded France, at which point it was too late to bring things to a conclusion without years of fighting and tens of millions killed. A stronger response to anything up to and including the invasion of Poland could have averted the catastrophe.

[roenxi]

> But something like Russia conquering bits of their neighbors should have been stopped early.

So would it be fair to say that your WWII lesson is leading you to suggest escalating a war with a major nuclear power as the proper path forward? Because that should be setting off alarm bells that you learned the wrong lesson.

You can see in the world's reaction to the 2003 Iraq invasion; the correct response is no escalation and let the government of the defending country get pancaked. The damage is kept to a reasonable minimum and then some attempt can be made to put civilisation back together again. A China or a Russia going in to escalate the conflict or trying to stop the aggressors would have been a disaster for everyone. We could have had something as bad or worse than the Ukraine war 20 years earlier.

[wat10000]

If we had put the kibosh on Russia’s adventures in 2014 then we wouldn’t need to fret about escalating to nukes today.

The world had no choice in 2003, the US couldn’t have been stopped regardless. Fortunately the US didn’t aim for conquest.

[roenxi]

The US has been pouring military aid into Ukraine since 2014 and the net result is that the Russian army mobilised and despite terrible losses is marching across Ukraine. If the US had poured more resources in, the mobilisation would only have happened faster.

The chain of events you seem to be suggesting is something like Russia has good relations with their neighbour, then that neighbour's government collapses in a highly suspicious coup and then, presumably, the US military starts to overtly move in and set up military bases. If you think that is the path to peace I'm not sure what lessons to even try to draw from WWII, it doesn't look comparable to me apart from a common thread of strategic lunacy. But it is remarkably aggressive and would just have accelerated the timeline for Russia's invasion. I don't know what you expect Russia would do, but given their actual response to NATO's involvement in Ukraine it would be aggressive and undiplomatic if NATO had been more visibly involved.

I suppose we wouldn't have to worry about escalating to nukes today, since we'd have answered that question some time in the 2010s and the rivers of blood shed would be congealing by now.

[wat10000]

> highly suspicious coup

Ah, well. You should just lead with “I support the Russian invasion,” it would save time.

[hollerith]

There's a huge difference between wanting the Russian invasion to succeed and judging that the US's opposing it is not worth the cost (in Ukrainian lives and US money) or the risks (of the Kremlin doing something desperate or vengeful if the invasion turns ugly on them, like helping the Iranians and North Koreans obtain ICBMs capable of hitting US cities).

[wat10000]

Note the phrase I quoted.

I’m not saying this because they argue against intervention. I say this because they’re parroting the exact nonsense talking points that Russia uses to justify the invasion.

[roenxi]

I'm sticking to theme here, if you feel a highly suspicious coup justifies invading a country then you're definitely not working at a level where you're drawing the right lessons from WWII. How did you make the leap from that to supporting an invasion?

[mopsi]

> The chain of events you seem to be suggesting is something like Russia has good relations with their neighbour, then that neighbour's government collapses in a highly suspicious coup and then, presumably, the US military starts to overtly move in and set up military bases.

1. Russia and Ukraine did not have good relations. Ever since the USSR collapsed, Russia has been harassing Ukraine with everything from territorial enroachments to poisoning their presidents:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Tuzla_Island_conflict

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-43611547

Andrey Illarionov, who was Putin's senior advisor at the time of the Tuzla island conflict, credits that as the pivot point where Putin first articulated territorial claims over Ukraine, far wider than only the island. He recalls a specific meeting with top Russian military leadership on 17th September 2003 as the moment when Putin first presented the long-term strategy to undermine Ukraine's sovereignty with the same pseudohistoric mumbojumbo we've come to know.

2. There's nothing "highly suspicious" about the Maidan. Ukraine's government torpedoed a trade agreement with the EU at intense Russian pressure (which included economic embargo), people came to the street to voice their protest, the pro-Russian government responded with increasing violence, which ultimately led to them fleeing the country after the police snipers killed over a hundred people. Ukraine's parliament voted to hold snap elections and a new government was voted into office. The events are extremely well documented, known by the hour, and any insinuations of "CIA-backed coup" are purge garbage, an insult to intelligence, and a sign that the person spreading them has not bothered to learn about the topic at all. Since when are general elections a coup?

3. Nobody was building any military bases in Ukraine before Russia invaded, and even then it took years before Ukraine got any serious backing. The whole narrative of the US enroaching on Russia is again a total garbage, completely detached from facts. Until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US government was in the process of dismantling and removing Cold War era assets from Europe. For example, they deactivated all heavy armour brigades and removed all tanks from Europe by 2013.

Since you keep posting the same debunked narratives and obviously have an interest in this topic, why not spend some time to learn about the actual history of relations? Why keep reposting the same propaganda talking points that have no substance?

[roenxi]

> Since you keep posting the same debunked narratives and obviously have an interest in this topic, why not spend some time to learn about the actual history of relations? Why keep reposting the same propaganda talking points that have no substance?

I don't know if I ever mentioned it to you so I will talk to this because clear communication is important - I can tell you're very passionate about this topic but your posts are long rambling tangents that don't address the points I'm making. They're not persuasive to me, and they look a bit desperate if I'm being frank. I don't mind you posting because it does seem genuine and if it makes you feel better who am I to complain just because I disagree? But if you actually expect me to change my opinions tangents and random trivia aren't likely to work.

Eg, in this case (1) is a non issue. Russia has disputes like that with pretty much all their neighbours as far as I know. Things like that don't stop countries having good relations. India and China have similar disputes and they still manage a reasonably productive working relationship. If that was where Ukraine-Russia relations were right now that'd be a fantastic improvement over the status quo and I'm sure in such a hypothetical the Russians would be overjoyed to have such a tolerant government running Ukraine.

(2) is a wild claim that a coup over international relations is normal where I really don't see why you feel that is a justified position or how you expect to persuade anyone. There is a photo floating around of Victoria Nuland handing out food to protesters in Ukraine; that there was US involvement at some level is beyond question.

(3) Military bases are a reasonable hypothesis. There was talk about bringing Ukraine into NATO and even without that it has been established that there were CIA bases [0]. It isn't a big step to go from that to a proper military installation. And you can see on the map that NATO is indeed encroaching on Russia's borders [1]. That is just a matter of fact; no matter how you feel about Russia's response.

[0] https://www.yahoo.com/news/cia-maintains-12-secret-bases-212...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO

[mopsi]

I am not desperate, but astonished why you remain stuck reposting the same garbage-tier propaganda narratives instead of actually learning about the events from high quality sources.

(1) Relations between Ukraine and Russia have been very poor for a very long time. For example, throughout the early 2000s, Russia tried to extort Ukraine through gas supply cutoffs. The poisoning of Ukrainian president by Russian agents in 2004 marked an especially sharp deterioration of relations. At least by European standards, this is very far from anything described as normal.

(2) There was no coup in Ukraine. The pro-Russian president Yanukovych got 108 people killed when he mismanaged his response to protests, lost all support he had in Ukraine overnight (even his own party turned on him), and ran away into hiding in Russia as he was about to get criminally charged and jailed. Ukrainian parliament assembled, voted unanimously to hold snap elections, which were held a few months later and recognized as legitimate by everyone, including Russia.

(3/1) NATO is not some expanding organism that keeps swallowing countries. Rather, Russia's western neighbours have joined the military alliance to bolster their national security as a reaction to Russian democracy deteriorating into a hostile totalitarian dictatorship. Sweden, for instance, abandoned 200 years of neutrality because military experts assessed that Russia can attack without a reason, and that Sweden would not be able to withstand alone the kind of attack that Russia has launched on Ukraine, and therefore needs to have access to the pooled resources of the entire NATO, which are especially vital to protect cities from missile attacks.

(3/2) Central and Eastern Europe has not seen any foreign military bases in the 20-30 years that they have been in NATO. Russian trolls love to talk about missile bases being built on Russian borders, but not a single such site exists. Until Russia attacked Ukraine, European military preparedness was at record lows, and Cold War era infrastructure was in the process of being dismantled. The present difficulties of the European NATO members in assembling a combined force of 25 000 soldiers for a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine is an excellent illustration of this. Prior to the invasion, the military balance in Europe was slowly tipping in favor of Russia, not against. It's undeniable if you look at the numbers. Europe was on the last stretch of disarming itself, with Germany being the best example: of the ~5000 tanks in 1980s, only ~200 remained. All while Russia was running a massive army modernization program and pumping out that many tanks each year.

[rayiner]

That makes no sense. If we had escalated in 2014 we would’ve risked nukes then too. Russia has been a nuclear power the whole time.

[wat10000]

It’s a lot easier to back down when you haven’t committed anything yet.