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I don't see "clearly good versus evil" at all. From the other perspective, Ukraine is a rebellious breakaway province of Russia. In American history, the Confederacy dearly wanted to be independent at one time - was it unambiguously evil to fight a war to stop them? (granted the slavery thing muddies the waters considerably, but still). There have been lots of wars all around the world to subdue would-be breakaway provinces of greater powers. What business of mine is it whether Ukraine deserves independence or is an uppity breakaway province when I've never set foot within a thousand miles of the place?
A Russian would say they're on the side of good because they need the buffer space to defend against the next Western invasion, which has in fact happened twice in the last 250 years and been horrifical lethal to the Russian people both times. Do you expect them to believe us when we say we totally have no intention of ever doing that again, while NATO keeps gobbling up countries closer and closer to their border?
"Unambiguously evil" is not a characteristic of breakaway countries in general; it's fact-specific to this one case.
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Needless to say I disagree with your analysis. Ukraine is not only a sovereign country but one acknowledged by Russia, and given specific – broken now – assurances, hell, Putin even congratulated Zelensky specifically with winning presidency, like he did for all his predecessors! It's the perfect opposite of the consistency demonstrated by the Chinese with regards to Taiwan, and the Chinese are piss-poor diplomats themselves. I thought that «no take-backsies» is one Schelling point everyone could reasonably agree on. (The notion of NATO as a rival empire is not utterly useless in practice, but from the perspective of those «gobbled up» countries...)
But it's notable that the more unhinged Russian propagandists are also deploying this analogy.
Egor Holmogorov of RT, September 17th:
Part of the reason why I disagree with the "good vs evil" framing is that, once you have framed a conflict in that way, there is no way to end it except the total elimination of the side perceived as "evil". If you want to find peace, eventually you have to see the issue from the perspective of both sides and be able to come up with a solution that acknowledges the physical reality and the concerns of both sides. This is basically impossible if you see the other side as evil. One of the characteristics of most conflicts is that, presuming they didn't end with the total elimination of one side, they tend to end when both sides become weary enough of fighting that they're willing to let go of calling the other side evil and see things from their point of view enough to make some concessions.
I'm not sure if you're trying to make it a bad thing, but personally I see it as a good thing that I can independently come up with an argument similar to what a Russian Nationalist war-backer would use. Now, I certainly don't agree with this fellow when he makes the arguments that total destruction of Ukraine is desirable or that nuclear war is preferable to a perceived Russian loss. I don't agree that it means the "end of Russia as a state and nation", but he does have a little bit of a point in being concerned about how "Big Bad Russia" will be seen in the region after an effective loss to Ukraine and what their longer-term future will be after that.
Does it seem reasonable to be concerned about how effective the Russian nuclear arsenal would be after the poor performance of their more sophisticated forces in Ukraine? From a Western perspective, I definitely don't think we should see it as, well they probably won't work right so Russia is no real threat - far too dangerous to be even a little bit wrong. But from a Russian perspective, if you perceived an existential threat from the Western powers and saw your nuclear arms as the sole trump card guaranteeing your security, how safe would you feel?
Or seek the total elimination of the side perceived as evil, as you note in the prior sentence.
Well yeah. But if we decide we're going with that solution, then we validate the allegedly paranoid fears of the Russian Nationalists, including the guy that @DaseindustriesLtd quoted above. If that's the plan, then it's their best move to seek to dominate Ukraine and any other neighbors who they view as uppity at any cost as a necessary defensive buffer against our upcoming attempts to totally eliminate them.
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