How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[Patooka]

NATO collectively flat out lied about satellite images,

You sole proof of this starts with the word "apparently". Your desperation is showing, you might need to take a breath.

 

[scombrid]

If you start with "people have fundamental individual rights that should not be violated" and "initiation of the use of force is bad"

...then it follows that Ukrainian defence of their rights against the Russians, who initiated the use of force against them, is a good thing that should not be allowed to be extinguished simply because the Russians have the strength of numbers and strength of arms to do so.

By the Ukranians,.

Which leads us inexorably to "someone should help Ukraine to defend itself against Russia", and thence "we should help Ukraine to defend itself against Russia", via the principle of 'if not me, then who?'.

If you want to go help, then you go help. Why don't you?

So, do you think that the NATO nations, who have the capability to help Ukraine defend its rights against the Russian aggression, should intervene? If not, then what part of my reasoning from your premises do you take issue with?

A government is tasked with the duty of protecting the people under the care of that government. The US government is supposed to protect the US. The UK government is supposed to protect the UK. The French government is supposed to protect France. I hope you see where that is supposed to lead.

If you come across a big bully robbing some weedy kid, and you have the means and the skills to defend the victim, you have a duty to do so. Seeing that scene and saying "It's not my place to get involved, but I am appalled at the robber's initiation of the use of force and shall tut very loudly as I walk away" would make you an arsehole, not a libertarian.

Bad analogy is bad.

Every time I say "don't get involved" people say I support Putin or Russia. That is a straw man. I have been very clear about my non-interventionist position, but people who either can't or won't read insist that it means I support the opposite side from their side.

Reminds me of a certain quote by Rev. Niemöller.

Hello Godwin's Law.

Non-interventionism and neutrality is a myth in cases like Ukraine. A person feels good to say it is all. But it doesn't wash. It's like witnessing a murder and not wanting to get involved.

Cool story bro.

Non-interventionism and neutrality is a myth in cases like Ukraine. A person feels good to say it is all. But it doesn't wash. It's like witnessing a murder and not wanting to get involved.

Nicely put.

That is a very well stated fallacy.

We see here why the ultra-nationalists like the Neo-libertarian philosophy so much. Each country is an island unto itself in their world so might makes righ. Any one stronger country or multinational-corporation that has a bigger net worth than the GDP of a country can do whatever it likes to the weaker country and intervention by third parties is against the libertarian rules. Sure they say that all transactions should be fully voluntary but if their is nobody to enforce that rule then the big country/company can just take what it wants from weaker parties. Also, within a country, if an authoritarian government arises then no outside country has a right to intervene. The far right loves that idea and is why they have adopted so much "libertarian" language to cover for their real motives. The only freedom they want is the freedom to impose their version of white christianist sharia without the federal government getting in the way.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Buddy, I'm sorry to tell you but the Russian news is about as reliable as dog shit. No one believes it. And of course Turkey didn't buy those lies either. People in the west aren't so gullible. And deep down, you know that your media is lying to you. Putler controls the Russian media. With all the death and misery that Putler is causing, I don't know how Russians sleep at night.

To know what your government is doing to the population of its neighbor; the rape, torture, murder and starvation of innocent people? They lie to themselves. Anything less would be too psychologically traumatizing. Well, to anyone with a conscience.

I used to think barbos was a victim of a lifetime of propaganda. With all the evidence that has been made available here, I no longer believe this.

 

[TV and credit cards]

If you start with "people have fundamental individual rights that should not be violated" and "initiation of the use of force is bad"

...then it follows that Ukrainian defence of their rights against the Russians, who initiated the use of force against them, is a good thing that should not be allowed to be extinguished simply because the Russians have the strength of numbers and strength of arms to do so.

By the Ukranians,.

Which leads us inexorably to "someone should help Ukraine to defend itself against Russia", and thence "we should help Ukraine to defend itself against Russia", via the principle of 'if not me, then who?'.

If you want to go help, then you go help. Why don't you?

So, do you think that the NATO nations, who have the capability to help Ukraine defend its rights against the Russian aggression, should intervene? If not, then what part of my reasoning from your premises do you take issue with?

A government is tasked with the duty of protecting the people under the care of that government. The US government is supposed to protect the US. The UK government is supposed to protect the UK. The French government is supposed to protect France. I hope you see where that is supposed to lead.

If you come across a big bully robbing some weedy kid, and you have the means and the skills to defend the victim, you have a duty to do so. Seeing that scene and saying "It's not my place to get involved, but I am appalled at the robber's initiation of the use of force and shall tut very loudly as I walk away" would make you an arsehole, not a libertarian.

Bad analogy is bad.

Every time I say "don't get involved" people say I support Putin or Russia. That is a straw man. I have been very clear about my non-interventionist position, but people who either can't or won't read insist that it means I support the opposite side from their side.

Reminds me of a certain quote by Rev. Niemöller.

Hello Godwin's Law.

Non-interventionism and neutrality is a myth in cases like Ukraine. A person feels good to say it is all. But it doesn't wash. It's like witnessing a murder and not wanting to get involved.

Cool story bro.

Non-interventionism and neutrality is a myth in cases like Ukraine. A person feels good to say it is all. But it doesn't wash. It's like witnessing a murder and not wanting to get involved.

Nicely put.

That is a very well stated fallacy.

We see here why the ultra-nationalists like the Neo-libertarian philosophy so much. Each country is an island unto itself in their world so might makes righ. Any one stronger country or multinational-corporation that has a bigger net worth than the GDP of a country can do whatever it likes to the weaker country and intervention by third parties is against the libertarian rules. Sure they say that all transactions should be fully voluntary but if their is nobody to enforce that rule then the big country/company can just take what it wants from weaker parties. Also, within a country, if an authoritarian government arises then no outside country has a right to intervene. The far right loves that idea and is why they have adopted so much "libertarian" language to cover for their real motives. The only freedom they want is the freedom to impose their version of white christianist sharia without the federal government getting in the way.

The most flattering definition I can come up with for libertarianism would be: good men who do nothing. A more realistic one should be obvious.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Buddy, I'm sorry to tell you but the Russian news is about as reliable as dog shit. No one believes it. And of course Turkey didn't buy those lies either. People in the west aren't so gullible. And deep down, you know that your media is lying to you. Putler controls the Russian media. With all the death and misery that Putler is causing, I don't know how Russians sleep at night.

To know what your government is doing to the population of its neighbor; the rape, torture, murder and starvation of innocent people? They lie to themselves. Anything less would be too psychologically traumatizing. Well, to anyone with a conscience.

I used to think barbos was a victim of a lifetime of propaganda. With all the evidence that has been made available here, I no longer believe this.

You think that he's a paid mouthpiece for Putin? I hope for the world's sake that you are correct. I'm very pessimistic. I fear that his views represent the majority of Russians. My fear is that the majority of Russians really want war and are divorced from reality and compassion. And that Putin just represents the majority. If I'm right, the world is screwed. If I'm right, very little chance of a peace. If I'm right, we must immediately stop importing Russian oil/gas. All effort should be made to destroy the remaining tanks and ships that Russia has, because they won't stop. I hope that I'm wrong. I think that we'll find out when Putler undergoes his cancer surgery in a couple weeks.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

You think that he's a paid mouthpiece for Putin? I'm very pessimistic. I fear that his views represent the majority of Russians. My fear is that the majority of Russians really want war and are divorced from reality and compassion. And that Putin just represents the majority. If I'm right, the world is screwed. If I'm right, very little chance of a peace. If I'm right, we must immediately stop importing Russian oil/gas. All effort should be made to destroy the remaining tanks and ships that Russia has, because they won't stop. I hope that I'm wrong. I think that we'll find out when Putler undergoes his cancer surgery in a couple weeks.

WW3 really has begun. It just isn't 1941 yet. The parallels between the two Hitlers are unmistakeable.

As for barbos and his defending Hitler I don't find this unusual. The populations of the Axis powers in WW2 did the same thing. That whole obedience thing has a lot to do with it. Barbos is being obedient, serving the master, clinging to the abusive guardian, afraid of having to compete on a level playing field, afraid of losing, afraid of change, somehow butthurt, ignorant of democratic freedoms, accustomed to the status quo, etc. He is a product of his culture. Given the same inputs any one of us would be the same.

 

[Harry Bosch]

You think that he's a paid mouthpiece for Putin? I'm very pessimistic. I fear that his views represent the majority of Russians. My fear is that the majority of Russians really want war and are divorced from reality and compassion. And that Putin just represents the majority. If I'm right, the world is screwed. If I'm right, very little chance of a peace. If I'm right, we must immediately stop importing Russian oil/gas. All effort should be made to destroy the remaining tanks and ships that Russia has, because they won't stop. I hope that I'm wrong. I think that we'll find out when Putler undergoes his cancer surgery in a couple weeks.

WW3 really has begun. It just isn't 1941 yet. The parallels between the two Hitlers are unmistakeable.

As for barbos and his defending Hitler I don't find this unusual. The populations of the Axis powers in WW2 did the same thing. That whole obedience thing has a lot to do with it. Barbos is being obedient, serving the master, clinging to the abusive guardian, afraid of having to compete on a level playing field, afraid of losing, afraid of change, somehow butthurt, ignorant of democratic freedoms, accustomed to the status quo, etc. He is a product of his culture. Given the same inputs any one of us would be the same.

Well, my question is more does Barbos represent the majority opinion in Russia? Or is he in the small minority or even working for Putler. If Barbos is in the majority, and the Russians really do believe that the west is nothing but Nazis who want to invade Russia - we're fucked. If the Russians truly believe this, there will be continuous war for a long time. Russia will only stop their killing once they start running low on weapons. But they'll just pull back. Allow the west to continue buying their oil; they'll rebuild their arenol, then attack again once they have enough weapons again. Rince and repeat.

 

[steve_bank]

The reporting over here seems to say by reasonably independent polls a majority of Russians support Putin. They echo the 20 yes of propaganda fear mongering against the west and NATO as an immediate existential threat.

An anaology woud be te the republican 'election was stolen' popular belief.

A ways bacjk there was reporting on Putin's popularity. The rugged Russian male. Video of him riding horses bare chested in rugged country. Songs written about him. A leader cult, a comparison to Hitler is not too far off. Puting knows how to push Russian cultural buttons.

Like 'There are no hpomosexuals in Russia'. Yea right.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Well, my question is more does Barbos represent the majority opinion in Russia? Or is he in the small minority or even working for Putler. If Barbos is in the majority, and the Russians really do believe that the west is nothing but Nazis who want to invade Russia - we're fucked. If the Russians truly believe this, there will be continuous war for a long time. Russia will only stop their killing once they start running low on weapons. But they'll just pull back. Allow the west to continue buying their oil; they'll rebuild their arenol, then attack again once they have enough weapons again. Rince and repeat.

As steve_bank said I think the majority do support him, and for all those reasons I previously stated. Given open access to information that might not be the case, just as the majority of people in the U.S. do not support our homegrown Orange Hitler although he has a sizeable following. This is the reality that we should embrace if we are going to see real change in Putinstan eventually. The Russian Hitler controls all aspects of information and punishes persons who threaten his control. The U.S. would be no different. And as odd as it might be to say, Putin might do very well in a system with democratic freedoms, but like barbos he too is a product of his culture and those inputs.

We will always have Hitlers on the globe. The key is to keep them as powerless as we can by staying informed. Once a majority of people believe or are willing to accept that the moon is made of cheese we have lost.

 

[Copernicus]

Well, my question is more does Barbos represent the majority opinion in Russia? Or is he in the small minority or even working for Putler. If Barbos is in the majority, and the Russians really do believe that the west is nothing but Nazis who want to invade Russia - we're fucked. If the Russians truly believe this, there will be continuous war for a long time. Russia will only stop their killing once they start running low on weapons. But they'll just pull back. Allow the west to continue buying their oil; they'll rebuild their arenol, then attack again once they have enough weapons again. Rince and repeat.

As steve_bank said I think the majority do support him, and for all those reasons I previously stated. Given open access to information that might not be the case, just as the majority of people in the U.S. do not support our homegrown Orange Hitler although he has a sizeable following. This is the reality that we should embrace if we are going to see real change in Putinstan eventually. The Russian Hitler controls all aspects of information and punishes persons who threaten his control. The U.S. would be no different. And as odd as it might be to say, Putin might do very well in a system with democratic freedoms, but like barbos he too is a product of his culture and those inputs.

We will always have Hitlers on the globe. The key is to keep them as powerless as we can by staying informed. Once a majority of people believe or are willing to accept that the moon is made of cheese we have lost.

I would counsel caution on making broad generalizations about what the majority of Russians believe, not to mention what our own Russian member here really thinks (vs what he posts). The polls in Russia can be reliable on noncontroversial topics, but they are carefully managed by those who want to stay in control of public perceptions. And people interviewed on the streets are not reliable indicators because they might not always say what they think is true when a stranger shoves a microphone in their face and asks them what they think. Westerners don't react the same under similar circumstances, because they don't usually feel their political opinions could land them in trouble with the authorities.

It is safe to assume that Russians generally feel that NATO has been aggressively closing in on Russia's borders, because the fact is that all those former "allies" rushed as quickly as they could to join it after the collapse of the Soviet empire. Putin's main agenda seems to be to reclaim territories that he feels were at least native European territory to the Soviet Union--Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, the Baltic countries, etc. He seems a bit less concerned about reclaiming the Muslim "stans", although he wants to control their natural resources. Ironically, the worst destruction that he has brought to Ukraine is in exactly those areas where Russians think the people are most strongly in favor of Russia. Mariupol, for example, was an entirely Russian-speaking city with many people who were pro-Russian before the war. All of that is changed now, as is the way that Russians and Ukrainians now think of Vladimir Putin. He may no longer have the broad public support that he had just a few months ago, now that Russia is stuck in a quagmire of war and worldwide rejection. And the sanctions are just now beginning to really have a serious impact on their living standard.

 

[Elixir]

He may no longer have the broad public support that he had just a few months ago

“May”?
Only saturation level propaganda can maintain public support while atrocities are adopted as SOP. People are bad, but most are not purely evil.

 

[TomC]

He may no longer have the broad public support that he had just a few months ago

“May”?
Only saturation level propaganda can maintain public support while atrocities are adopted as SOP. People are bad, but most are not purely evil.

I don't mean this as whataboutism, but Bush II managed it for years.

It doesn't surprise me that Putin is doing it as well. Unfortunately, it's a tendency of humans. Believe whatever you hear or see if it matches your preconceived notions.
Tom

 

[Elixir]

He may no longer have the broad public support that he had just a few months ago

“May”?
Only saturation level propaganda can maintain public support while atrocities are adopted as SOP. People are bad, but most are not purely evil.

I don't mean this as whataboutism, but Bush II managed it for years.

It doesn't surprise me that Putin is doing it as well. Unfortunately, it's a tendency of humans. Believe whatever you hear or see if it matches your preconceived notions.
Tom

Agreed. Bushbaby’s house of cards lasted for years, but how many? It came tumbling down with the recession he helped cause. I don’t think Pootey's will last another four years, mainly because it has gotten more and more difficult to keep tens of millions of people uniformly isolated from facts on the ground.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The below link is a great story that just warms my heart! The thieving Russians (sorry for the tautology); have been stealing tractors and shipping them to Russia (among other things). Apparently, John Deere was able to electronically disable these tractors and they are now useless to the Russians!

Russians plunder $5M farm vehicles from Ukraine -- to find they've been remotely disabled | CNN

Russian troops in the occupied city of Melitopol have stolen all the equipment from a farm equipment dealership -- and shipped it to Chechnya, according to a Ukrainian businessman in the area.

www.cnn.com

 

[bilby]

He may no longer have the broad public support that he had just a few months ago

“May”?
Only saturation level propaganda can maintain public support while atrocities are adopted as SOP. People are bad, but most are not purely evil.

I don't mean this as whataboutism, but Bush II managed it for years.

It doesn't surprise me that Putin is doing it as well. Unfortunately, it's a tendency of humans. Believe whatever you hear or see if it matches your preconceived notions.
Tom

Agreed. Bushbaby’s house of cards lasted for years, but how many? It came tumbling down with the recession he helped cause. I don’t think Pootey's will last another four years, mainly because it has gotten more and more difficult to keep tens of millions of people uniformly isolated from facts on the ground.

I think you are right that Putin will not continue to enjoy popular support from the Russian people for many years (indeed he may not enjoy such support now).

I think you are mistaken to imagine that it matters.

Russians have lived under rulers who were widely reviled, far more often than they have lived under rulers who were widely popular. But things have rarely changed as a result; It's always required widespread and direct suffering of the Russian people themselves to push them to the point of revolt against the state apparatus - and each time that this has occurred, the new rulers have rapidly become as bad as the old ones.

Democracy is not the norm in Russia. Nobody cares, nor expects anyone in power to care, about the opinions of the masses - beyond the very low bar of trying not to push them into armed revolt. Putin isn't worried about his performance in the mid-terms, or at the next Presidential election, because his country doesn't have such things other than as window dressing, and his population knows it.

I imagine he looks at the western news media, and is slightly amused by their constant concern about public opinion amongst ordinary Russians - something that is at best a minor and trivial concern for Putin himself.

 

[steve_bank]

Post WWII we occupied Japan and MacArthur with the power of a Roman administrator orgehestrated the change from a feudal type of society to a democracy. We are are still there. We were in South Korea for decades until the govt stabilized. Germany.

China pragmatically changed to a more modern state, albeit authoritarian. If Iran stopped harassing Israel and the sanctions were removed Iran would grow economically.

Russia is stuck. I'd have to say it is something in the culture. The revolution followed by Stalinist purges may have eliminated middle class intellectuals who could have made the Russian economy work.The aristocracy followed Stalimism creaed a culture of obedient followers?

Lenin came to belive that a sudden break to communism would be destructive and advocated the vanguard, a communist core that over time would guide Russia to a true communist state. Lenin died and Stalin won a power struggle. The democratic faction was eliminated.

Putin is desperat;y trying to prop up an image. Remmeber the Russian Olympics fiasco?

 

[Elixir]

I think you are mistaken to imagine that it matters.

Russians have lived under rulers who were widely reviled, far more often than they have lived under rulers who were widely popular.

Yeah, I was thinking that even as I wrote that Putinistan probably won't last.
In some ways, the Russian people are to blame for tolerating asshole leadership over the centuries. But then, we just barely managed to get rid of one that was as bad as any of them (only stupider), at least temporarily.
You observe that in Russia, "nobody cares". I don't pretend to know if that's really the case, but it's easy to conclude that Americans actually do care, at least a little bit. So maybe we won't go down that rat hole quite so readily.

The revolution followed by Stalinist purges may have eliminated middle class intellectuals who could have made the Russian economy work.The aristocracy followed Stalimism creaed a culture of obedient followers?

I think it goes back further than that.

 

[bilby]

You observe that in Russia, "nobody cares". I don't pretend to know if that's really the case, but it's easy to conclude that Americans actually do care, at least a little bit. So maybe we won't go down that rat hole quite so readily

When I say that in Russia "nobody cares", I am not talking about ordinary Russians not caring; I am talking about the people in power.

In a very real sense, the rest of the people do not exist politically.

That's the difference between Russia and America; In America, public opinion can change things. In Russia, it cannot.

The changes wrought by public opinion in America can be good, bad, indifferent, good for some and bad for others, laughable, serious, dangerous, and even surprising. The media and most of the people are busy discussing all these things. But nobody in America questions whether public opinion matters - it's so obviously of critical importance to the direction the nation and its leaders take that it's not sensible to waste time wondering whether it's true.

In Russia, public opinion changes nothing. The only opinions Putin need consider are those of his potential rivals and potential allies in the tiny oligarchy that runs the country. And that has always been true of Russian politics. The tsars, the politburo, and now Putins oligarchs, need to keep the wealthy, the powerful, and the chiefs of the military and police, onside. The support of the rest of people was and remains utterly irrelevant. Unless and until they are actively hunting down your secret policemen and hanging them from lampposts.

Americans expect their opinions to matter (even if they don't always grasp that their neighbour's opinion might legitimately cancel theirs out).

Ordinary Russians expect their opinions not to matter. Expressing those opinions isn't going to achieve anything good, ever. But it might get you arrested. So when a pollster asks "what do you think of this policy by our leadership?", you either try not to answer at all (or better yet, not to be asked in the first place); Or you tell them that you agree with the leadership and trust them to do what is best.

 

[Copernicus]

The below link is a great story that just warms my heart! The thieving Russians (sorry for the tautology); have been stealing tractors and shipping them to Russia (among other things). Apparently, John Deere was able to electronically disable these tractors and they are now useless to the Russians!

Russians plunder $5M farm vehicles from Ukraine -- to find they've been remotely disabled | CNN

Russian troops in the occupied city of Melitopol have stolen all the equipment from a farm equipment dealership -- and shipped it to Chechnya, according to a Ukrainian businessman in the area.

www.cnn.com

I love this story. Putin did not exactly turn Russia into a state-run criminal enterprise. I think that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union did that when they helped create a huge underground black market economy by shutting down legitimate economic enterprise that market economies regulate through legal means. When I was in St. Petersburg in 1997, a large group of friends from an online virtual worlds community came out to meet me, and we all drove in a caravan out to a park for a sashlyk barbecue and Georgian wine. Just about every car in that caravan had been stolen in the West and transported to Russia. My wife and I were given a place in the fanciest van, which had a TV hookup in it. At the time, the Yeltsin government was running a campaign to try to get the government to replace their foreign car fleet with cars manufactured in Russia rather than abroad.

Putin is very much a product of that Soviet past, so the looting of territories that his army occupies is just business as usual. What a shocker that they went through all the trouble to steal that shiny new Western-manufactured farm machinery only to find that it was so much scrap. Not to worry, I'm sure. They'll put their best criminal minds on finding a way to get around the security blocks.

 

[Elixir]

In America, public opinion can change things. In Russia, it cannot

Maybe not directly. General discontent can be disregarded, but when economic interests are threatened by social upheaval the rich have the most to lose. Problem is, Russians have been upheavaling for centuries, and have yet to realize any capacity for self government. They always need or want or at least allow, a dictator, preferably a violent one with low regard for human lives other than their own.

I don’t get the appeal.