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Suggesting the defender in a war should just stop fighting, or that helping them is bad because if they did not have the ability to defend themselves, they'd quickly be unable to fight and the war would end with their defeat, is not anti-war. It is appeasement, and that is ultimately pro-war, because it creates a situation in which starting wars of aggression can benefit the ones who start them, which inevitably leads to more wars being started. To be against war, in the long term, one must support a situation in which starting wars is against the self-interest of those in the position to do so, and one of the clearest ways to do that is to try to ensure that those who begin wars of conquest or other such aggression, lose them.
Stopping wars is actually starting wars, I am very smart
Or maybe you're intentionally playing with words. In which case let me point out that the West didn't start the war. Russia did. They had a whole "special military operation" about it.
Fucking peaceniks, greatest Russian allies out there. Absolutely disgusting mentality.
Okay, they did, I agree. Now, how does that help us end the war?
Is ending the war in Ukraine as fast as possible (i.e. by handing Russia control over it) a desirable outcome when we KNOW due to multiple historical precedents, public declarations, and even stated intent from Putin himself, that Russia will immediately move to invade other countries like Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldavia, Georgia, etc?
Of course it fucking isn't. Russia backing the fuck down and learning to respect national sovereignty is the entire point of this war.Also, ignoring the geopolitics (which is a stupid enough sentence by itself...), who the fuck are you to tell the Ukrainians what they should or should not be doing? They want to fight Russia, they don't want sheltered western bois telling them to surrender to the oppressor who will genocide them, again.
Your line of thinking is wrong. It's patronizing, it's belittling, it's cowardly, it's unproductive, and it's DANGEROUS. It's how we got the Munich treaty, the Vichy Regime, and Collaboration. So we fight Imperialism, wherever we see it. We fight the Nazis when they invade our country, we dunk on the US when they commit imperialism in the ME, and we militarily enable our allies to drive Russia out of their sovereign territory.
But they’re not driving Russia out. They’re losing. The counteroffensive was a failure, the Russians are pushing further in in the north, Russia has air superiority and will for at least 8 more months until training for the US provided fighters is completed… and in the meantime dozens of thousands of people have died, and dozens of thousands more will continue dying until peace is made.
Do you genuinely see a path forward, knowing the current situation, where Ukraine fully and completely pushes out Russia, without putting foreign troops on the ground? I’d be interested in hearing it, because that would indeed likely be the best outcome, but it’s looking less and less likely the longer the war goes on.
I am not a military strategist so I will refrain from proposing "paths forward" for what is obviously going to be a drawn-out battle against well entrenched Russian defenses. I'd recommend Perun's latest video if you really care (though I haven't found the time to watch it yet, but he goes REALLY in depth about big picture strategies).
Regardless, as long as the Ukrainian government asks for more weapons, I say we provide those. Seems like a simple enough request to fulfill, especially when they are the ones carrying the risks and paying for it with their lives, so again, who the fuck are we to say "nuh-uh, stop, it's too difficult for you".
I appreciate the recommendation. I’ll put it on tonight when I do my exercises. I respect your position, it’s more nuanced than most people I’ve had similar discussions with. I hope whatever happens, peace comes sooner than later.
Where did I claim to be smart? I am merely pointing out that, if you give those who start wars what they want, they have an incentive to go and start more of them.
Considering your takes, I certainly didn't assume you were smart, although I don't think intelligence is a qualitative measurement.
In terms of wars, you do realize that wars are started for different reasons, right? The material realities that start wars differ vastly from war to war. Also, if the USA is any example, losing a war does not do anything to stop a country from starting another one.
OMG YESSS ICE DRAGON COOL!!!
Anyways, you have the right idea about it being unjust that those who start wars of aggression reap benefits from starting them. That is why it is best for both Russia and Ukraine to resolve this using peaceful negotiations, as the reason why america is pouring military hardware into the latter is to bolster its own war of aggression against Russia motivated by cynical geopolitical interests.
This current conflict has a long and bloody history stretching way back from 2014 till now. It is called the "Russo-Ukranian war" and started with the Euromaidan incident when the EU used far right groups to antidemocratically depose a pro-Russian Ukranian president and plant someone who is more aligned with their agenda so that they could put pressure on Russia, as Russia was starting to get unfriendly towards the American trading bloc.
As such, the true nature of this conflict is an awful proxy war between Russia and NATO (america), where innocents suffer and the rich get richer.
Therefore, I think we would both agree that it is not good for america to send more weapons to Ukraine as this would be fulfilling america's own selfish geopolitical interests using the lives of innocent Ukranians.
Nice profile too btw
While in principle I do get the idea that a negotiated peace is preferable to a situation where the two parties in a conflict simply fight themselves until one side physically cannot, I do not see a way in which that can reasonably be done in the case of this conflict without one side being beaten militarily, because the goals of each side are not comparable. Russia has been trying to annex territory from Ukraine, but as far as I have seen, Ukraine has not sought to take land from Russia (if you take only the current phase of the conflict, one might suggest that they are seeking to retake Crimea, but as you yourself pointed out, the conflict itself has been ongoing for longer than the current large scale war has been going on, and as such, even if the Ukrainians managed to take it somehow, that would not represent the addition of new territory not in their possession before the conflict started). The problem this presents is that, if one were to negotiate a "white peace", that is to say, just put the border back to how it was before the conflict started, then that effectively represents Ukraine accomplishing pretty much all of its major goals and Russia none of it's own. As such, Russia has no particular reason to accept this, unless physically forced to by virtue of military defeat, which would kind of defeat the point of a negotiated settlement in the first place as that would simply represent a Ukrainian military victory anyway. But on the flipside, ceeding any of the disputed land to Russia represents a situation where Russia wins- maybe not anything like as big a win as they would like, but they would in that scenario have started a large scale war (regardless of how exactly the conflict itself began, Russia did take the step of turning it from what it was into a full-scale war, by invading Ukraine), and then ultimately gained territory from it, which is exactly the sort of precedent that we've already established needs to be avoided. What then, is left for such a settlement to be?
Just going to reply to myself here, as I did not finish what I was thinking earlier (I was on my lunch break and as I like to take time to reply to these things, I ran out of time, my apologies). In any case, what I was trying to say is, that I do not think a mutually satisfactory peace settlement can be achieved here, due to the sides involved having completely exclusive objectives. As such, I see three options for how the war could end:
- some degree of a Russian victory
- some degree of a Ukrainian victory
- a long grinding war of attrition that never results in victory for anyone and settles into a frozen conflict, like seen in Korea.
I think most will agree that the last one is a bad outcome, due to the result of a long war with no resolution. I personally do not believe a Russian victory is acceptable either, for the reasons I talked about earlier, about rewarding aggression. Therefore, the only remaining option I see as plausible is a Ukrainian victory, therefore I take the stance that Ukraine should win. If Ukraine were to win, I further hold that it is preferable that they do so quickly and decisively, as it is better that the war be resolved with the minimum number of casualties, on either side, and a war of attrition does not do that by definition. Ukraine does not currently seem to have the resources required to achieve this, given that their current counter-offensive operations are proceeding relatively slowly. I therefore do support giving them those resources, and more, if they need it, and security guarantees afterwards- not because I am in any way in favor of war, but because I honestly believe that doing so is required in order for it end as quickly as realistically possible with the lowest chance of a similar war breaking out again soon after.
I imagine that you and others in this thread will disagree with the premises I take, or the conclusions I draw from them, but I hope at least that I've been able to make my reasoning clear on how I arrive at the conclusion that I do.
Why is it so critical to punish Russian aggression? It’s not like it’s the only aggressive state around, and definitely not the worst? Hasn’t the fact that not a single official responsible for the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Yemen been punished a bigger factor in rewarding aggression?
Id say that those officials should be or should have been punished, the fact that they have not been is not a factor in how I feel that the current situation should be dealt with. "Other people got away with it" is not an excuse
I’m not saying it as an excuse, I’m trying to point out that aggression has been rewarded before this. You’re arguing that it is critical to punish Russia to send a message to other states that aggression won’t succeed but I’m saying that ship has already sailed
That would make it even more critical though, because it would not enough to reinforce the status quo, it would be necessary to demonstrate that things that once were considered acceptable on the international stage no longer are.
By that logic isn’t it far more critical to punish the truly bad actors? George bush killed way more people than have been killed in Russia's invasion. What message does it send that he’s allowed to roam free?
UA, and by that I mean its state, has been a naked pawn since 2014, responding to Western interests to stoke and prolong civil war by the Russian border, target ethnic Russians with discrimination and violence (and Roma, and LGBTQ+ people, etc), and generally toy with joining NATO, a highly aggressive anti-Russian military organization.
The dominant Western propaganda narrative is to try to get everyone to forget the breathless reporting their media outlets did on Ukraine from 2013-2022 and to instead use absurd little terms like, "unprovoked invasion", which I would guess is also where the idea of UA being simply defensive comes from. Yes, they were invaded by Russia, but they've also been ratcheting up pressure on Russia for a decade through various cynical moves, beginning with a coup against a government that was becoming slightly friendlier with Russia. The most notable events just prior to the RF invading was a huge ramping up of shelling of the Donbas, including civilian population centers.
Anyways, yes it is bad to keep pushing the "escalate and fight to the last Ukrainian button". It would be much better if Ukraine were forced to negotiate peace and were not acting as a pawn against Russia rather than a state protecting its own people.
I'd like Ukrainians to be alive and not in a war.
Wow I didn't know russian shills followed us to lemmy
Its not nice to call ppl shills m8
Lmao, I'm sorry I hurt the poor fascists feelings
Why r they fascist?
You guys seem to support fasciZt governments.
Inb4 America/Ukraine are the real fascists.
How is wanting a war to end without more innocent lives being lost "supporting" a fascist government?
If Russia wanted to end the war so bad they could just leave. Ukraine doesn't have that option.
Russia invaded Ukraine to gain new territory. If you want the war to end as it stands now, then you're okay with giving up land and the people they've kidnapped from it to a fascist regime in a war of aggression. That's supporting a fascist government.
Okay but instead of making infantile suggestions that no one with any sort of adult mind think is even possible, including the US and Ukrainian Militaries, why don’t we talk about actually likely ways to end the war? Why are the two choices perpetual war and unilateral surrender? It sounds an awful lot like you want to fight “to the last Ukrainian”, to me.
They are getting paid.
Well we had to do something, Joe Biden owes us $2000 and we need the money
Reasonable and nuanced opinions aren't allowed on the internet. What are you trying to do here? To show that you've got media literacy that's a little better than Russia=bad.
Ah yes, because a war of defense is the same as a war of offence. /S
Helping an ally defend themselves from an aggressor is based
Saying they should fend for themselves is fucked.
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Nazis have no right to self defense
Yeah the Wagner Group and their enablers can fuck off.
Or are you saying that you drank Russia's Kool Aid of their justification for their invasion of Ukraine?
Edit: Apparently the comment this was a reply to isn't here anymore or this got slapped onto the wrong comment somehow? But this was a reply to someone saying that Nazis don't get to use self defense or something close to it.
The 5 in your username is your age, isn't it?