Comment by victorbjorklund
6 days ago
No one would lift a finger for him. Russia just watched. The Chinese too. They may be allies in words but in the end each dictator just care about themselves. Just like how Trump wouldn’t help any ally unless he got something out of it.
Power wins in anarchy. International relations are anarchy. There is no actual international law.
> There is no actual international law.
There is, of course, both private and public international law. You don't know what you're talking about.
There is something by that name, but it doesn't mean much. On the international level, it's all voluntary. States can choose to be part of the international courts. The US (and many other high profile countries) famously are not participating, which is why they can effectively just commit war crimes left and right.
In contrast, if you go rob a grocery store, you can't just opt out of punishment. "I'm not a member of this court system" does not work as a viable defense strategy, even if some souvreign citizen types sometimes try (and always fail).
International treaties are really just statements of intent and can be withdrawn at any point. Worst that happens is that next time you try to make a treaty, your counterpart may not trust that you uphold your side of the deal. There is no higher authority to effecticely appeal to, in contrast to the grocery store case.
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Not in any real sense because states are sovereign.
There are things like the UN which some states, not all, agree to uphold the policies of. But they are also free not to agree to uphold the policies of the UN.
So ultimately it's a bunch of peers in an an anarchic system that do the best for themselves to persist. Cooperation, war, etc.
I think it was meant in a "international law is a farce" sort of rhetoric
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Of course they didn't. While I can't imagine Russia is exactly happy that it lost an ally in the Western Hemisphere, this kind of action is very much aligned with Putin's multi-polar worldview where the great powers leave each other to play empire in their respective spheres of influence. It helps justify things like invading Ukraine. I can imagine some in the Chinese military are over the moon right now, taking notes on how to force regime change in Taiwan.
More importantly, Putin didn't really have an option to help.
They sent over like, maybe a couple Anti Air systems? But they really couldn't spare that many in the first place!
It's not like Russia can sustain serious power off the coast of the US.
The most he can do is complain. What's Russia going to do, sanction the US?