The "existential threat to Russia's security interests" is a bit of a Russian propaganda thing. No one was out to attack Russia. They have the world's largest nuclear arsenal. Ukraine was peaceful, hadn't joined NATO and wasn't formally planning to.
I think it's more the "Russian Empire grew by about 50 sq km per day over 400 years" thing and they are behaving now as in the past. Times change though. Empires are a bit nineteenth century.
A citizen of the west saying what you just said is analogous to a Soviet citizen saying:
The "existential threat to the USA's security interests" is a bit of an American propaganda thing. No one was out to attack the USA. They have the world's largest nuclear arsenal. Cuba was peaceful, hadn't joined the Warsaw Pact and wasn't formally planning to.
regarding the Cuban missile crisis. The only difference is that Cuba was more than twice the distance to DC that NATO nuclear warheads are from Moscow and nuclear missiles travelled much slower in the 1960s than they do today. You are welcome to have your perspective, just remember that your perspective is shaped by a media landscape that is just as partisan, just as biased, and just as shaped by propaganda as Russian perspectives are.
Further, consider that NATO's 2008 Bucharest declaration stated Ukraine would become a member. It's not like Russian concerns about Ukraine NATO membership came to them in a fever dream, these were concerns rooted in real, credible, public diplomatic discussions.
It is frustrating that Western audiences accept framings about US security interests that they dismiss as propaganda when applied to adversaries. It's a double standard that betrays a lack of principled willingness to apply "defense" philosophy equally and impartially. If your application of principles isn't impartial, that's not principled reasoning, that's just cheer-leading for your own team.
Of course, this isn't to deny that Russia was still wrong to invade Ukraine, or that the Russian military's actions are most accurately described as an invasion. Like I said before, two wrongs do not make a right. It doesn't matter whether Russia or the US refers to their military activity as "special military operations" rather than an invasion, it doesn't matter whether or not they have cited legitimate security interests before starting the invasion, invading another sovereign country, "firing the first shot", is a clear violation of the non-aggression principle.
As this relates back to the original discussion, I'd further add that even if you don't care about principled consistency whatsoever, the US/NATO (essentially the same thing, NATO without US troops and ISR capabilities is mostly bureaucrats disseminating .pptx files in Brussels) track record on regime change (Iraq, Libya, etc.) doesn't inspire confidence that "taking down" the Venezuelan government would even be likely to produce good outcomes. Principled reasoning, consequentialist reasoning: the logical conclusion is the same: the US should not invade Venezuela for regime change.
I admit to bias in that I don't see aggressive dictatorships and peaceful democracies as equivalent. The Cuban missiles were a problem because of that in a way that Ukraine being democratic isn't.
Ironically the Russian Federation is probably creating much more of an existential threat against itself by invading Ukraine. Before it was doing fine, now a good part of the globe opposes it and the economic sanctions and loss or Russian lives may cause it some issues.
This comes down to realism versus wishful thinking. In the real world, force is used to resolve geopolitical problems - as we’re seeing in Venezuela now and saw previously in Iraq, Serbia, Grenada and countless other countries with US. The alternative is pretending that every country can act however it wants without repercussions. Ukraine deliberately instigated conflict with hope that Russia does not react militarily instead of playing both sides like Kazakhstan, etc.
On no one was out to attack Russia - that's probably true today but Ukraine and broader Eastern Europe realignment is more of 50-100 years project and nobody knows what happens in 20-30 years. US is on a brink of invading Venezuela and blockade is already borderline act of war (that was casus belly for US declaring war on Germany in WW1) so it's not like NATO/US are some peaceful paradise.
And on “not formally planning to”: Ukraine literally wrote its intention to join NATO into its constitution. That doesn’t get more formal than that.
The NATO thing is justification that even Russia has not applied consistently. Putin is on record saying that Ukraine is part of the Russian sphere of influence, which means, according to him, they get to install their crony of choice. If NATO was their real concern, they could withdraw now in exchange for promises not to join NATO, but they also refuse to give up territory they've occupied or to allow any security guarantees from the west, all but setting up the next stage of their invasion.
> The US has to stop. The US is not the world's policeman, and the US had no legitimate right to declare itself such.
The US has the largest military on the planet, and the (relative) peace of the last 80 years is largely based on a credible threat of our willingness to use it. That power can be used for good; at the moment, we are simply not choosing to do so.
Was dropping two atomic bombs on civilian populations good?
Was the US's role in the Korean war good?
Was the US's intervention in the Chinese civil war good?
Was the US's massacre of Puerto Rican freedom fighters, nationalists, and independence-seeking rebels during the Jayuya uprising good?
Was the US's invasion of Vietnam good?
Was the US's covert military operations in Laos using the paramilitary arm of the CIA good?
Was the US's overthrow of the legitimately elected leader of Iran to install a US puppet good?
Was the US's actions to destabilize a laundry list of Latin American countries to seize control of raw materials and commodity production and place it under American corporations good?
Was the US's invasion of the Dominican Republic to quell mass democratic uprisings against a military coup that seized control from a democratically elected leader good?
Were the US secret bombing campaigns against Laos and Cambodia good?
Was the US invasion of Grenada good?
Were the US's attacks against Iranian-owned offshore oil drilling platforms good?
Was the US occupation of Panama good?
Was the US invasion of Iraq good?
Was the US bombing of Serbia good?
Was the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan good?
How about the drone strikes against civilian weddings - good?
How about illegal humans-rights-violating extrajudicial rendition, detention, and torture programs, good?
Is this all "peace"? Is intentional mass murder of civilians "good" when we do it? Is Trump the first president to abuse US military capabilities in the last 80 years, or are you being selective and partisan in your recollection of one of the world's most prolific purveyors of incomprehensible violence against civilians, interference in the democratic processes of other nations, and violators of human rights in the last century?
We're getting far off track from the important point here though, which is that the US should not invade Venezuela, just as Russia should not have invaded Ukraine (the latter being a point of comparison for the former, not the subject of the conversation).
The answer to your question "are these last 80 years really peaceful?" is yes, in context. Look at the horror of the world wars, or the preceding ~1000 years of barbarity and wide-scale religious wars. The US does not always use its power wisely, but the alternative is to cede that power to someone else: nature abhors a power vacuum.
Modern anti-vaccine nuts have spent so long living without measles that they've forgotten the good that vaccines do and take their good health for granted. Anti-US-power nuts have lived in a world largely without large-scale conflicts, held in place by our NATO allies and the credible threat of force, and you've forgotten what a world without that stabilizing effect looks like. Spoiler: it looks like the 30 year war but with nukes.
But Putin himself didn't see that promise as binding and relevant. He publicly stated that Ukraines relationship with NATO was solely a thing between NATO and Ukraine and none of Russias business. Only later had this always been different.
What's next?
Let's revive the treaty of Westphalia?
Plus, any treaty takes bits of the sovereignty of a nation and limits the will of the voter. See how the US never ratified UNCLOS. But a pinky swear by Baker should limit the US forever?
The idea that those seasoned soviet diplomats got somehow hoodwinked is also a bit silly.
Are we only accepting the public declarations of Russian leadership as credible when we like and agree with them, or are we being selective and ignoring the things they say that don't match the boogeyman in our head?
Notice how they offer to put it in writing, to reduce the room for ambiguity and misunderstanding that the west disingenuously exploited when doing diplomacy with Gorbachev?
We're getting far off track from the important point here though, which is that the US should not invade Venezuela, just as Russia should not have invaded Ukraine (the latter being a point of comparison for the former, not the subject of the conversation).
When the west negotiated with Gorbachev the Warshaw Pact was still existing. Everybody had big problems on their hand and nobody thought about NATO membership of nations that still were part of the Pact.
It is not about agreeing/disagreeing. If you publicly cancel a claim you no longer have it.
But just listen to what local Russian politicians/media tell their people and what Russians think. They are very comfortable with their imperial/colonial agenda and all these discussions/arguments we are having are primarily for western consumption. Read the propagandist narratives that Russia put out for the winter war or Hitler with the Sudeten Germans. You could just change the names and many pamphlets would fit right in current Russian propaganda.
Russia will always say everything and let people in the west sift through it to find things that fit the various agendas. In the end Russia will have more than it did before like in Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Donbas and the invasion they are running right now.
The "existential threat to Russia's security interests" is a bit of a Russian propaganda thing. No one was out to attack Russia. They have the world's largest nuclear arsenal. Ukraine was peaceful, hadn't joined NATO and wasn't formally planning to.
I think it's more the "Russian Empire grew by about 50 sq km per day over 400 years" thing and they are behaving now as in the past. Times change though. Empires are a bit nineteenth century.
A citizen of the west saying what you just said is analogous to a Soviet citizen saying:
The "existential threat to the USA's security interests" is a bit of an American propaganda thing. No one was out to attack the USA. They have the world's largest nuclear arsenal. Cuba was peaceful, hadn't joined the Warsaw Pact and wasn't formally planning to.
regarding the Cuban missile crisis. The only difference is that Cuba was more than twice the distance to DC that NATO nuclear warheads are from Moscow and nuclear missiles travelled much slower in the 1960s than they do today. You are welcome to have your perspective, just remember that your perspective is shaped by a media landscape that is just as partisan, just as biased, and just as shaped by propaganda as Russian perspectives are.
Further, consider that NATO's 2008 Bucharest declaration stated Ukraine would become a member. It's not like Russian concerns about Ukraine NATO membership came to them in a fever dream, these were concerns rooted in real, credible, public diplomatic discussions.
It is frustrating that Western audiences accept framings about US security interests that they dismiss as propaganda when applied to adversaries. It's a double standard that betrays a lack of principled willingness to apply "defense" philosophy equally and impartially. If your application of principles isn't impartial, that's not principled reasoning, that's just cheer-leading for your own team.
Of course, this isn't to deny that Russia was still wrong to invade Ukraine, or that the Russian military's actions are most accurately described as an invasion. Like I said before, two wrongs do not make a right. It doesn't matter whether Russia or the US refers to their military activity as "special military operations" rather than an invasion, it doesn't matter whether or not they have cited legitimate security interests before starting the invasion, invading another sovereign country, "firing the first shot", is a clear violation of the non-aggression principle.
As this relates back to the original discussion, I'd further add that even if you don't care about principled consistency whatsoever, the US/NATO (essentially the same thing, NATO without US troops and ISR capabilities is mostly bureaucrats disseminating .pptx files in Brussels) track record on regime change (Iraq, Libya, etc.) doesn't inspire confidence that "taking down" the Venezuelan government would even be likely to produce good outcomes. Principled reasoning, consequentialist reasoning: the logical conclusion is the same: the US should not invade Venezuela for regime change.
I admit to bias in that I don't see aggressive dictatorships and peaceful democracies as equivalent. The Cuban missiles were a problem because of that in a way that Ukraine being democratic isn't.
Ironically the Russian Federation is probably creating much more of an existential threat against itself by invading Ukraine. Before it was doing fine, now a good part of the globe opposes it and the economic sanctions and loss or Russian lives may cause it some issues.
This comes down to realism versus wishful thinking. In the real world, force is used to resolve geopolitical problems - as we’re seeing in Venezuela now and saw previously in Iraq, Serbia, Grenada and countless other countries with US. The alternative is pretending that every country can act however it wants without repercussions. Ukraine deliberately instigated conflict with hope that Russia does not react militarily instead of playing both sides like Kazakhstan, etc.
On no one was out to attack Russia - that's probably true today but Ukraine and broader Eastern Europe realignment is more of 50-100 years project and nobody knows what happens in 20-30 years. US is on a brink of invading Venezuela and blockade is already borderline act of war (that was casus belly for US declaring war on Germany in WW1) so it's not like NATO/US are some peaceful paradise.
And on “not formally planning to”: Ukraine literally wrote its intention to join NATO into its constitution. That doesn’t get more formal than that.
The NATO thing is justification that even Russia has not applied consistently. Putin is on record saying that Ukraine is part of the Russian sphere of influence, which means, according to him, they get to install their crony of choice. If NATO was their real concern, they could withdraw now in exchange for promises not to join NATO, but they also refuse to give up territory they've occupied or to allow any security guarantees from the west, all but setting up the next stage of their invasion.
> The US has to stop. The US is not the world's policeman, and the US had no legitimate right to declare itself such.
The US has the largest military on the planet, and the (relative) peace of the last 80 years is largely based on a credible threat of our willingness to use it. That power can be used for good; at the moment, we are simply not choosing to do so.
Was dropping two atomic bombs on civilian populations good? Was the US's role in the Korean war good? Was the US's intervention in the Chinese civil war good? Was the US's massacre of Puerto Rican freedom fighters, nationalists, and independence-seeking rebels during the Jayuya uprising good? Was the US's invasion of Vietnam good? Was the US's covert military operations in Laos using the paramilitary arm of the CIA good? Was the US's overthrow of the legitimately elected leader of Iran to install a US puppet good? Was the US's actions to destabilize a laundry list of Latin American countries to seize control of raw materials and commodity production and place it under American corporations good? Was the US's invasion of the Dominican Republic to quell mass democratic uprisings against a military coup that seized control from a democratically elected leader good? Were the US secret bombing campaigns against Laos and Cambodia good? Was the US invasion of Grenada good? Were the US's attacks against Iranian-owned offshore oil drilling platforms good? Was the US occupation of Panama good? Was the US invasion of Iraq good? Was the US bombing of Serbia good? Was the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan good? How about the drone strikes against civilian weddings - good? How about illegal humans-rights-violating extrajudicial rendition, detention, and torture programs, good?
Is this all "peace"? Is intentional mass murder of civilians "good" when we do it? Is Trump the first president to abuse US military capabilities in the last 80 years, or are you being selective and partisan in your recollection of one of the world's most prolific purveyors of incomprehensible violence against civilians, interference in the democratic processes of other nations, and violators of human rights in the last century?
We're getting far off track from the important point here though, which is that the US should not invade Venezuela, just as Russia should not have invaded Ukraine (the latter being a point of comparison for the former, not the subject of the conversation).
The answer to your question "are these last 80 years really peaceful?" is yes, in context. Look at the horror of the world wars, or the preceding ~1000 years of barbarity and wide-scale religious wars. The US does not always use its power wisely, but the alternative is to cede that power to someone else: nature abhors a power vacuum.
Modern anti-vaccine nuts have spent so long living without measles that they've forgotten the good that vaccines do and take their good health for granted. Anti-US-power nuts have lived in a world largely without large-scale conflicts, held in place by our NATO allies and the credible threat of force, and you've forgotten what a world without that stabilizing effect looks like. Spoiler: it looks like the 30 year war but with nukes.
4 replies →
But Putin himself didn't see that promise as binding and relevant. He publicly stated that Ukraines relationship with NATO was solely a thing between NATO and Ukraine and none of Russias business. Only later had this always been different. What's next? Let's revive the treaty of Westphalia?
Plus, any treaty takes bits of the sovereignty of a nation and limits the will of the voter. See how the US never ratified UNCLOS. But a pinky swear by Baker should limit the US forever? The idea that those seasoned soviet diplomats got somehow hoodwinked is also a bit silly.
Are we only accepting the public declarations of Russian leadership as credible when we like and agree with them, or are we being selective and ignoring the things they say that don't match the boogeyman in our head?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/lavrov-offers-...
Notice how they offer to put it in writing, to reduce the room for ambiguity and misunderstanding that the west disingenuously exploited when doing diplomacy with Gorbachev?
We're getting far off track from the important point here though, which is that the US should not invade Venezuela, just as Russia should not have invaded Ukraine (the latter being a point of comparison for the former, not the subject of the conversation).
When the west negotiated with Gorbachev the Warshaw Pact was still existing. Everybody had big problems on their hand and nobody thought about NATO membership of nations that still were part of the Pact.
It is not about agreeing/disagreeing. If you publicly cancel a claim you no longer have it.
But just listen to what local Russian politicians/media tell their people and what Russians think. They are very comfortable with their imperial/colonial agenda and all these discussions/arguments we are having are primarily for western consumption. Read the propagandist narratives that Russia put out for the winter war or Hitler with the Sudeten Germans. You could just change the names and many pamphlets would fit right in current Russian propaganda.
Russia will always say everything and let people in the west sift through it to find things that fit the various agendas. In the end Russia will have more than it did before like in Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Donbas and the invasion they are running right now.