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Notes -
To anyone who has discussed the issue with pro-Ukraine people.
Why do people support Ukraine fighting against Russia, with a strange militaristic fervor, instead of supporting surrendering / negotiating peace?
Anglin makes the points that:
-the war is severely impoverishing Europe due to high energy costs
-the war is destroying Ukraine ( population + territory / infrastructures / institutions)
-continuing the war increases the chances of a world war
Is it cheering for the possible destruction of Russia?
Something to do with the current leadership of Russia, anti-LGBTQ, pro-family policies?
Is it about the 1991 borders of Ukraine, issues with post-Soviet Union border disputes?
Notion that 'if we don't stop Putin now he will never stop no matter what'? Is it something about broadly standing up against aggression of one state vs another, supporting the 'underdog'?
The issue with that one which seems to be central to Alexander's March 22 post is that there isn't much that seems capable of stopping Russia.
Sending another 100k Ukrainians to the meatgrinder for that end seems a little bit harsh coming from people with very little skin in the game.
Just signaling what they are told is the correct opinion?
Is it about saving face, sunk cost at this point?
What would be the best case scenario for a Ukraine/State Department victory?
To my understanding, Putin is not the most radical or dangerous politician in Russia, and an implosion into ethnicity-based sub-regions would cause similar problems to the 'Arab Spring'. Chechens for example would not appear very West-friendly once 'liberated' from Russia.
Not only that, but economic crisis in Europe could generate additional security risks.
Pro-Ukrainians don’t usually grapple with the hard issues that make Ukraine a unique and complex case.
America meddling in Ukrainian elections. America promoted an insurrection in the Ukrainian capitol, changing the results of their presidential election, by funding fake news media that pushed debunked stories. (The irony should not be lost on us.)
NATO expansion onto the doorstep of Russia, the enshrining of NATO membership into the Ukrainian constitution, and joint naval drills and training for when membership became safe.
The cultural continuity between eastern Ukraine and Russia
The soft “cultural genocide” of indigenous ethnic Russians in the east of Ukraine via oppression on Russian-language small businesses and journalists, forcing them to speak Ukrainian in shops, publishing in Ukrainian on the front page whether offline or online.
The will of the people of Crimea to join with Russia in 2014, not just evidenced by their election but by our own government’s polling done by the the broadcast board of governors. This was unacceptable to Ukraine.
An obvious hypothetical is, what would we do if Cuba decided to host Russian nukes? How about if Canada joined a “defensive” alliance with China? We would obviously do the same thing that Russia is doing with Ukraine. When a rival superpower uses corruption and media propaganda to influence elections of your neighbor, which results in a push toward joining their military bloc, you take action. It’s that simple.
If you support America’s exclusive hegemony, this is probably a good idea (fuck Russia!). If you support Western civilization, this is probably a bad idea.
You'd think there would be more than a few "unique and complex" aspects to take into account to the other direction, such as:
the long history of Russia/SU violently stamping down on Ukrainian national consciousness reflected in things like Czarist language bans, the Stalinist anti-Ukrainian turn etc.
the pre-2014 (one might even say pre-2022) process of slow death Ukrainian language in face of Russian minority's unwillingness to use Ukrainian in daily life necessitating the use of special privileges for Ukrainian language to prevent this language death
Russia's long history of considering the ex-Soviet states as its special playground for intervening at will right out of gate (Abkhazia/South Ossetia/Transnistria), as well by fomenting hybrid operations in eg. Baltic countries, considerably contributing to the attraction
Russia's specific past confirmation of Ukraine's borders including Crimea as valid, flagrantly violated in 2014 and then violated even moreso in 2022 (whatever polling of Crimea's population is immaterial when considering this violation - the German seizure of Sudetenland in 1938 was surely supported by the great majority of local population, that did not make it any more valid)
the general role of the seizure of Crimea in hypercharging the conflict in Eastern Ukraine and turning it into an Ukrainian/Russian one - something pro-Russians, as a rule, almost seem to treat as an individual event with no particular connection to the rest of the conflict
Even if one still would believe in the justification of the seizure of Crimea, opposition to Ukraine's NATO quest (a post-Euromaidan development BTW - NATO membership was not at a stake at any part of Euromaidan, and even the immediate post-Yanukovich govt at first eschewed NATO), opposition to Ukraine's language laws, one might still expect these things to be taken into account or noted in some way, but no, it's all just about Ukrainians hating Russia and Russian language for seemingly no reason at all and eight-years-of-bombing-Donetsk, again, for seemingly no reason at all.
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