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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.
I don't even really understand the question. People, at least in wester democratic countries, believe that the legitimacy of rule comes from the consent of the governed. This isn't a perfectly consistent belief as few beliefs are shown in a kind of status quo bias that has them opposing forcible annexation but also opposing many secessions. But the underlying belief is quite simple. It is axiomatically evil to use force to make people join compacts that they do not want to join, Russia is doing this with their invasion and allowing Russia to be reward for breaking this rule sets an unacceptable precedent.
You seem to think they should be operating on some crude non-iterative maximization of total utility in the near term like unthinking animals. But they learned from the Nazi days that appeasement doesn't work and expansionist tyrants can only be adequately answered with absolutely no tolerance.
Ukraine has been bombing civilians in the Eastern parts of the country, and is forcing men within its borders to join its armies, it's not exactly a model of 'consent to be governed'.
Here is on the other hand John Bolton bragging about overtaking other countries' governments.
Why do I somehow doubt the people on the side of John Bolton when they tell me that Russia has no good reason to be wary of their next-door neighbor inviting John Bolton and his buddies to build up military installations on their border?
Expansionist tyrants like the ones attacking North Africa, the Middle-East, setting up puppet regimes in South America for decades...?
I'm not super interested in debating the specifics of who has shader allies, I'm simply explaining that it is very hard to invade a country explicitly to conquer it and not look like an aggressor. If putin got backed into it by Bolton out playing him at 8 dimensional 52 card pickup then putin really really sucks at 8 dimensional 52 card pickup.
History is written by the victors, that's true. Russia looks like an aggressor to you but everyone else sees their behavior as restrained compared to US hegemony.
US might win that game, at the cost of destroying all their Western European allies.
Nobody else cares about Putin invading his neighbor.
If anything else, every other country is going to be even more distrustful of the US, as they can just break all rules of international trade and blockade you for minor border disputes.
The alternative to expensive heating is maintaining a substantial military that occasionally kills an appreciable portion of your workforce. Europeans of the future will count this as an unmitigated win.
This is incredibly naïve. In what universe does successfully defeating your rivals and preserving the sovereignty of not even allies harm one's credibility? Are you actually able to look at the Russia Ukraine conflict and conclude that nations should strive to be on the Russian side of the equation? If you're an Eastern European country watching this go down you'd trade just about anything to be in the good graces of uncle Sam. I bet you can find that "America, world police" song on juke boxes in Poland.
Expensive heating and expensive power. The kind of stuff you need to run factories that would help you equip an army when you inevitably come to need one.
Successfully defeating your rivals? First they could start by successfully defeating the Taliban.
Guess what, they celebrate the coincidence of getting out of Afghanistan in time to have the resources to tackle Ukraine.
At least the Russians have the balls to resist American commands. I imagine a number of Eastern-Europeans would understand that.
Yes just like the Poles strove to be on the good side of Britain and France, how'd that work out for them at the time?
Maybe they should remember that the Soviet conquest of Poland was possible thanks to the American lend-lease?
Yep and that should be incredibly shameful.
Here's Germany 40 years under America vs 40 years under Soviet Union.
Great job, russia! Fucked up East Germany so badly that not even muslim immigrants want to live there.
How many muslims live in Russia, again?
Plenty of muslims living in Russians but they are not purposefully importing them afaik.
Russia is arguably better at managing multiculturalism than NATO.
That's one way of looking at it. Another way to look at it is that an atheistic or muslim Germany would not be very much German at all.
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