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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

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The idea that one is not threatened by a neighboring state because there are other neighboring states unaligned with Russia doesn’t make sense. I am not threatened by five enemies because I have four?

Let me rephrase it: Ukraine joining NATO does not improve significantly NATO capabilities regarding Russia. I'm sorry, but the idea of a land invasion through Ukraine is ridiculous. It would mean a nuclear war. We are avoiding to send troops to Ukraine to avoid a nuclear conflict, but somehow we would invade Russia? And even if we wanted to take the risk, it would make more sense to attack from the baltic states as they are a lot closer from Moscow and Saint Petersburg than from Ukraine.

Ukraine is small, it will always be weaker

No, it won't be weaker if it has stronger allies. Russia would never have dared to invade Ukraine if it was a NATO country. And the birth rates mean nothing, as they can change fast. Russia also has declining birthrates, so the population ratio might very well be constant.

NATO violated the promise not to expand east as part of the negotiations involving German reunification.

The Russian propaganda says so, but until "they told us" becomes an international treaty, it's meaningless. If those promises even existed, they were never part of a formally approved treaty. No country has ever felt bound to respect oral promises of former leaders. It is just insane to claim they should. But even assuming that those promises were formally made and broken, I don't see your point. My argument was that Ukraine could not trust Russia security guarantees because Russia violated its security guarantees toward Ukraine twice. Are you claiming that Ukraine should actually believe Russia because NATO also broke some of its promises? It makes no sense at all.

Russia also has declining birthrates, so the population ratio might very well be constant.

No it wasn't constant. In 1991, it was 3:1 but it soon became 4:1, as Ukraine both had less TFR and negative net migration. Russia's ethnic minorities (esp. Muslims) have greater TFR.

The future is not always like the past.