How some of the post-federation Ukraine threads feel like

The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets

bruh you are cheering for throwing real human people into the meat grinder because it will cause negligible wear on the meat grinder's parts. Isn't that absolutely horrible? Ukraine sucks, Russia sucks, nothing comes of war between them but suffering for the innocent people who have absolutely no agency in the matter

Snark free answer:

We believe that the expansion of the American empire is one of the greatest threats facing the world today. The strength and reach of America far surpasses anything that Russia could ever hope to achieve. Russia is only a fraction of the political and economic power of America.

We don't like Russia. It is a neoliberal and reactionary state (like Ukraine). But we do not accept the idea that blood should be shed to weaken an "unfriendly" (read: designated target) state in service of maintaining American supremecy in the area via NATO.

Tldr; why is the US supporting Ukraine a bad move? Because it supports US global supremacy.

Snark:

Liberal Democrat

wtyp

I appreciate the answer, if you don't mind me asking, are you American? If so, it just seems strange to me that you don't want your own country to be a strong political and economic power. If you're not an American, then that's an understandable opinion to have. It's possible I'm misunderstanding the theme of this instance.

And also:

Tldr; why is the US supporting Ukraine a bad move? Because it supports US global supremacy.

I disagree with this because it isn't only the US that is aiding Ukraine, it's NATO.
- I appreciate the answer, if you don't mind me asking, are you American? If so, it just seems strange to me that you don't want your own country to be a strong political and economic power.
  
  I'm an American and I don't want my county to be a strong geopolitical power. It's only the rich who gain any benefit from that, and they are engaged in class war against us, so the stronger they get the more they can hurt us. Instead of (the upper class of) my nation getting stronger, I want my class to become stronger. The interests of the working people of all nations are aligned against the common foe of the rich and powerful, and the richest and most powerful people in the world benefit from America getting stronger - not us.
  
  Our politicians are wasting money that could be spent on schools, infrastructure, healthcare, or any number of things, on pointless weapons and slaughter because it allows them to line their own pockets through the military industrial complex. How on earth does the average American benefit from that?
- it isn't only the US that is aiding Ukraine, it's NATO.
- I am American. I know you called yourself a commie jokingly, but I, and most people on Hexbear, am a principled communist.
  
  We don't view the world through the lens of patriotism or defending "our" nation. The working class of America is also oppressed and exploited by the capitalist class of America. The exploitation is amplified when it is turned towards non-American states, especially those in the periphery. While we as Americans benefit from the exploitation of the periphery nations, we (the working class) have more in common with the working class of other countries than we do with our exploiters. Through this lens, we do not seek for our country to be "stronger" (read: globally militarily dominant). We want our country to be liberated from capitalist oppression, and we want other countries under our grip to be liberated, too.
  
  I take your point about the US not acting alone because NATO countries are participating. I think if you look into the history and structure of NATO, you would find that the US has an outsized influence within NATO, and that most people who subscribe to realpolitik recognize that NATO is largely an arm of the US military. This is because of the global presence of the US military all over the world. Many of these countries depend on the US for defense, and the US can leverage its military strength to pressure the host countries into all kinds of policies. Look up a map of US military bases to get a real picture of the influence the US has over the NATO countries. If you really wanna make a comparison, then look at the number of foreign military bases held by the US vs. the number held by Russia or China. It's a staggering difference.
- Bruv I've never had armed Chinese soldiers occupy my city to crush a pro-democracy movement, but I have starred down the barrel of US army M4s in Minneapolis.
  
  America is NATO. Go look at the relative spending per member.
- you don't want your own country to be a strong political and economic power.
  
  If the influence of my country is a detriment to the healthy development and peoples of other countries then yes it absolutely is fine to not wish my country to be 'strong' in the sense you've defined.

The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets.

Why is the weakening of one of the few countries willing and able to challenge American unipolar hegemony a good thing from your perspective?

Well, it's a good thing from my perspective because I'm an American, I want my country to be powerful.
- I want my country to be powerful
  
  It's not your country though, the state there is not subordinated to the social class you belong to. No matter how much you cheer on the bourgeoisie they will not stop being your class enemy.
- a stronger u.s. means more death squads, more right-wing coups, more death. it means no leftist movements worldwide will be allowed to gain any meaningful ground. as a citizen of the u.s. i hope every day for its collapse
- we got a live one bears!
- How do you feel about the iraq war?
- ^ This is why I don't hate on MTWists and fans of Settlers
  
  Third worldists of any tendency are always correct.
- The Americans here don't want their country to be powerful because they are leftists (actual leftists, not Democrats) and recognize that the US has been destroying leftist movements across the globe, including in their own country, for a century or even longer. Hope this helps.

I'm a dirty commie

I am literally a Liberal Democrat

wow this place sucks now

Death to America

Permanently Deleted

So if January 6th traitors were being aided with weapons from Russia we should have laid down and let them win to preserve lives?
- ukraine had its jan 6th incident in 2014, the current war is a result of the coupists succeeding and the eastern part of the country not lying down and letting them win to preserve lives
- A good comparison might be "what if Maine really wanted to be independent, or maybe even join Canada?"
  
  Would it make sense to:
  
  Give American neo-Nazi paramilitaries free reign to attack Maine
  
  Seek an alliance with a group of nations expressly designed to fight a war with Canada
  
  Get into a bloody stalemate of a war with Canada if they invade on behalf of the people of Maine, who don't want to be here anyway
  
  Keep fighting that war long after the point it becomes apparent that we will not be retaking Maine
  
  A better solution would have been to negotiate with Maine separatists, perhaps addressing the reason they want to leave, and at bare minimum act like a sovereign state with a monopoly on legitimate violence and destroy the neo-Nazi paramilitaries in your own house. Might also help to avoid the "fuck Canada" military alliance, too.
- What if the world was made of pudding

I want you to look at the words "supporting Ukraine" then look at the rest of the paragraph you said after it. Especially the "why is this a bad thing?" part. Compare that question to the rest of what you just said. Really consider the words you typed.

Now tell me if that actually sounds like you "support Ukraine" at all, or if you've just fallen for the same Jingoistic propaganda the US uses to justify all its wars and foreign intervention. Dead Ukrainians are not supported Ukranians. If you actually support Ukraine, you should push for peace, not more weapons to be sold to their government.

That's actually a fair point. To be totally honest, for me personally, I'm not exactly for Ukraine as much as I'm against Russia, if that makes sense. However, I do recognize that Ukraine got unfairly invaded by another country, and they should defend themselves.

If you actually support Ukraine, you should push for peace, not more weapons to be sold to their government.

I want peace, but not if that means Russia takes Ukraine against their will by force.
- Others in the thread have helpfully outlined Russia's goals for this conflict, but it is important to note that this didn't come out of nowhere one day (even if that is how the western press tries to present it.) This has been escalating since the coup in Ukraine in 2013, Russia has repeatedly tried to be diplomatic, and has had their concerns dismissed. Hell, Russia doesn't even want to be antagonistic towards NATO if they don't have to be (they even tried to join them in the early 2000s).
  
  As others have said, we don't support Russia, we aren't Russian nationalists. We do however, want to try to understand a conflict and why it happens, and if there was any way to prevent it from happening so we can make sure similar conflicts don't happen in the future.
  
  The problem with the western media (US media in particular) is that it tends to just point to another nation and just call them bad guys, like the villain in a movie. This doesn't analyse anything or provide any preventative power (in fact, for the US, it is usually the opposite, they want wars so they can keep their military industrial complex ticking over and making profit off of death and destruction.)
  
  If people uncritically accept that an "enemy nation" is a bad guy, they can easily fall for the next bad guy, and the next, and so on forever. The only way to actually prevent stuff like this is to try and understand why it happens.
- To be totally honest, for me personally, I'm not exactly for Ukraine as much as I'm against Russia
  
  If nothing else, your honesty is refreshing lol
  
  Seriously, this is still about 2016 and that Russiagate bullshit for these people
Russia invaded their country with a military with the intent of taking land. What would peace look like?
- Peace looks like guaranteeing Ukrainian neutrality by taking NATO membership off the table and likely ceding the DPR and LPR to the Russian federation at this point.
  
  At this point if Ukraine gained back the DPR it would almost certainly result in an ethnic cleansing.
  
  So Russia gets to attack a sovereign nation and demand their land and peace looks like just giving it to them along with making sure the country they attacked is open to future attacks? How is that in any way a justified peace solution? What prevents Russia from doing it again?
  
  yes.
  
  And what prevents them from doing it again is that they would have a buffer against NATO aggression, but you probably think NATO is a benevolent peace loving organization instead of a band of butchers and war criminals hell bent on subjugating the entire planet even if it kills every human being on earth.
  
  The war didn't start with the Russian invasion, Ukrainian paramilitaries have used internationally banned cluster munitions in the donbass since 2014. Ukraine could have ensured peace and retained all of its territory by guaranteeing a ceasefire and self-determination for the eastern regions, but they did not.
  
  NATO could have ensured peace by dissolving after the USSR was destroyed, or at least not continuing to expand east as they promised, but they did not.
  
  This invasion is happening in the 11th hour after the total failure of diplomacy at every level. The territory Ukraine would hypothetically be losing by pursuing peace has been contested for a long time.
- Ah, silly me, I forgot, history began in Febuary 2022. War is peace, we can't negotiate with the enemy. We just need to keep selling weapons for profit, I'm sure there's no issue with that. Not like a country profiting off this conflict would encourage their citizens to think that Russia is a nation of mindless demonspawn who only understand violence. Just got to keep selling ineffectual and very profitable weapons and fight Russia down to every last man, woman and child in Ukraine. That'll help the Ukrainian people! Much better than trying for that silly peace nonsense. After all, Russia did a bad guy thing. So we can't talk, or discuss terms or try to understand them or their motivations. They the bad guys. It's not like Ukrainian's lives matter anyway, as the average smug American, I can't even point to it on the map! And there's plenty more people to die for our profits when those guys are all gone!
  
  Russia did do a bad guy thing. Ukraine doesn’t want to let them have their land. If Russia was interested in peace, maybe they should have started with it and not attacked a neighboring nation.
  
  They did start with it. Does "Minsk II" mean anything to you?
  
  No it didnt. it did a goood guy thing. it did a Humanitarian Intervention to Prevent the Kiev Regime from Slaugherting their national Minority in the Donbass ( think Kosovo War) after Kiew Refused the Misnk 2 agreement. Your Just Extremly wrong infromed That you are wrong informed is not you Fault ,It is in the US interest to paint cartoon cersion of its Enemies that Bootlickers then repeat .. that you refuse to inform yourself and run with the stupid cartoon version told to you by the must non Trustworthy party imaginable is your Fault ,.. please grow out of it.. Your might really be wrong informed ....
  
  Wanna check if , this is offical OSCE Report ? Can you see the Reasons for Russias Intervention ?they are Marked there on the Map ...
  
  PS. Propaganda mostly happens to smug people that think it happens to everybody but them .. Never them, they consume Mainstream Media when the Topic is Foreign Policy and consider themself of Elite Knowlede..
- faschist beeing prevented from killing their hated minority. this is what peace will look like ,
  
  sorry but the Slaughter of the Donbass will be stopped . And if every last "ukrainian victim" ,will be Married to the Donbass soil by their Cruel High Priest Zelensky , then so be it.. Theres A Material way to Peace (Peace thee day after the Last Ukrainian died ) and a Interlectuall way to peace ( 3th Try ! ) ... Both work , the one you Support will Kill way more then the "Kosovo" Way ,that we support.. its also Inhumane and cruel..
- How far do you want to go? Absolute peace would be the end of the nation-state and the use of violence to uphold class society. That's an useless idea for this, though. Maybe a more useful goal for peace is stopping the encirclement, sanctioning, and blockading of all countries. Or not conducting coups to install puppet governments right next to geopolitical enemies. Or at the very least accepting diplomatic solutions to a war when they arise instead of slipping your proxy another check and sending a couple thousand more people to get killed.
  
  In short, we're a long way out from peace, but NATO's actions have arguably put the world in more peril and violence than even Russia's. Even if that weren't the case, unless you're Russian yourself, you probably have a lot more you can do to pressure the NATO countries to stop fighting to the last Ukrainian, rather than somehow pray Putin into surrendering.
  
  Why can’t Putin stop attacking Ukraine? Why is it on everyone else to stop when Russia is clearly the aggressor here? The war would be over in a flash of Putin simply decided to stop attacking.
  
  The war was going on before Russia sent troops in and would likely continue even if they withdrew.
  
  Because NATO will use Ukraine as a base from which to destabilize, balkanize, and destroy the rf. That's the answer. Until Ukraine is forced to accept Neutrality and NATO is forced out of Ukraine Russia won't have a defense against NATO aggression.
  
  Why can’t Putin stop attacking Ukraine? Why is it on everyone else to stop when Russia is clearly the aggressor here?
  
  Why do all these other countries always have to bow to these maximalist US demands? Can you name one example over the past 50 years where any country chose to do so and it made things better for them and tgeir neighbors, not just the US?
  
  You're just parroting imperial talking points dude.

I'd like to ask someone who disagrees with me why they think that supporting Ukraine is a bad move?

I don't think the Ukrainian state as it is is worth supporting. It's not this bastion of democracy and freedom the western media pretends it is, it's a shitty corrupt oligarchy same as Russia.

The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets.

I don't care about Russia getting weaker at all tbh. I'd much rather see the west greatly weakened than Russia as they are the bigger threat to world peace and prosperity.

The reason I'm against the west helping Ukraine is they're clearly not helping them win the war, just prolong it. I'd much rather the war end right now with Russia (probably) getting the bigger piece of the cake as it stops the meat grinder on both sides. It's not because I give a shit about Russia winning, it's about stopping the killing. I don't believe people living in the war-torn area would be much better off under Russia or Ukraine as both states suck shit anyway, so stopping the killing is the best they're gonna get for the time being.

You can just say youre a liberal. We're literally communists (and socialists and anarcists of various tendencies). You arent left wing. You support capitalism and the US. You support the US hegemonic global order, and its imperial exploitation of periphery nations.

We don't because we are actually communists. We support the global working class against the global ruling class. We stand against the US hegemonic order whether we are American or not, because we have an internationalist perspective.

And Russia is not being made weaker. The US shorterm gains have mostly been against their European vassals who have been made weaker as a result of this conflict. The US saw them getting more independent by having ties to the Russian Federation and buying they're oil. The US was able to shut that down and poach companies from investing in Europe to move invesrment to the US instead due to the energy crisis.

The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets.

The way you see it is filtered through 30 layers of western media whose interests are presenting Russia as both weak and about to collapse (for almost a year) but still strong enough that if it wasnt for NATO they would steamroll all of Europe.

In reality while economically Russia might not be doing that good (mostly thanks to the neoliberal ghouls in the central bank), militarily they are really not giving their all in the Ukraine conflict, i dont even think they are halfassing things. This is presented as weakness in western media.

Don't use the R-word ever again, if that's what that last word you tried to post was.

1st. we would only castrate you if you wanted free SRS for gender affirming care

2nd. we are all liberals here (this is a joke, we're commies, anarchists, and socialists)

3rd. i support the civilians of donbas and the surrounding area, who were bombed after America couped the geopolitically neutral government of Ukraine in favor of an anti-Russia government. being geopolitically neutral was a very obviously good take for the whole country, now their economy is in shambles and the average person on both sides in donbas are having a terrible time. ukraine is unlikely to recover to or go beyond its pre-1991 economy at this rate.

for context, im a czech communist and believe slavic countries should at minimum have a freedom of movement agreement, though preferably i think we should be one country, we have so many tiny countries that are prone to being bullied, couped, and imperialized by foreign powers such as america. we all speak relatively similar languages, its very easy to learn enough of another slavic language to be able to have a shared vocabulary with anyone

The way I see it, the longer this war goes on, the weaker Russia gets.

We support the concept of multipolarity. We believe that that the US/NATO being the sole, dominant world hegemon is a bad thing. One big reason why we think that is because developing countries have suffered greatly under the neocolonialist policies of the World Bank and IMF, but they've been forced to accept whatever deal they're offered in order to have the market access needed to survive. In a multipolar world, these countries would have more options, and would have more ability to play major powers against each other.

We also oppose capitalism. Both the US and Russia are capitalist countries, so we oppose both of them, but we consider the US to be the higher priority, because it is more powerful. We do not believe that the interests advanced by the US government and bourgeoisie are consistent with the interests of the American people.

Sure it's costing the US (and other countries) a lot of money and resources but we are essentially weakining a not-so-friendly country of ours without having to send our own troops to fight it.

The lives of Americans are not worth more than the lives of Ukrainians, or Russians for that matter. We want a swift end to the war, because, uhh, we value human life. Ukraine has been completely unwilling to negotiate or consider any territorial concessions, but realistically that's likely to happen whether we keep throwing people into a meat grinder for the next 20 years or not.

So, you believe that Ukraine should just give up and allow Russia to take whatever they want?

Also, forgive me because I think I'm misunderstanding the theme of this instance. Isn't this an instance for right-wing, conservative, Republican discussions, or is it something else?
- Yeah. Ukraine should give up and respect the autonomy of the Russian speaking Ukrainians who don't want to be wiped out by Galacian Nazis.
- So, you believe that Ukraine should just give up and allow Russia to take whatever they want?
  
  The situation is more complex than you'll get from the media. Separatists in Donbas, an area with cultural ties to Russia, rose up after the old government was overthrown and the new government banned political parties and shut them out of the political process, and Ukraine signed a ceasefire which it then broke by shelling civilian targets. Even if Russia withdrew, it's not clear that the fighting would cease.
  
  In any case, Ukraine has been refusing to consider any concessions at all, which is just unrealistic at this point. They'll either cede territory now or they'll cede it in 5 years with a lot more dead bodies.
  
  Also, forgive me because I think I'm misunderstanding the theme of this instance. Isn't this an instance for right-wing, conservative, Republican discussions, or is it something else?
  
  Lol no we're like actual communists here
- Isn’t this an instance for Republican discussions?
  
  Yes 😎 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_faction_(Spanish_Civil_War)

How does Russia get weaker? Their trade with the rest of BRICS has been skyrocketing, their technology is actually getting developed for once, and the country is more unified than ever. All this war has done is decouple the Russian economy from the European one, which, sure, isn't ideal, but that's already happened.

Now? The EU is more dependent on the US, and Russia is more dependent on China/India rather than the EU. Globalization is backsliding, and that's dangerous because globalization is what kept the peace after the Cold War.

Russia is weaker because the ruble is tanking, there aren’t developing better technology because we won’t give them the tools to do so, they are using up their military equipment faster than they can replace it and they are literally losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
- Any day now the ghost of kiev will descend from the heavens and save the day