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What gives any arbitrary country a mandate to exist though? We recognize that plenty of other social institutions are transient. Nobody demanded a massive international intervention to continue the existence of the Whig Party or the Studebaker Corporation. Why are countries unique and special? Also, this seems like a very modern thing: nobody is demanding we bring back Tanganyika or unwind German unification.
I get the desire to preserve the Ukranian culture and community. But you don't need a sovereign nation for that: compare the re-establishment of the Welsh language and culture, for example.
Would the population have been better off-- at least in the "not exploded" sense-- by backing down with a quick surrender in exchange for some "we'll formally tolerate your cultural differences" legal concessions? I'm sure at this point, it's impractical to negotiate to that, because there's too much bloodshed and burnt bridges on both sides, but it seemed like it was never even on the table: the Western world decided an independent Ukraine had to exist even if everyone involved knew it was going to be a very painful and expensive endeavour to keep it.
... Ukraine decided an independent Ukraine had to exist. They voted for independence in 1991, with over 90% in favor. Ukrainian relations with Russia soured after Russia decided to invade and annex part of Ukraine that they had formerly promised to respect the sovereignity of. Russia is an oligarchy with no controls on the behavior of its leader, who has openly signaled that he believes that Ukrainians are just a kind of inferior Russian who need to be taught their place. The West offered the Ukrainian president refuge. The Ukrainian president refused and chose to stay in his country. Hundreds of men and women sacrificed themselves in the opening days of the invasion to buy their country time to resist. Millions have volunteered.
What deal, exactly, do you expect to be made in that situation? In what way was any of that the West's decision?
Take a step back, and rethink your approach to this. Ukrainians are capable of making their own decisions.
The West chose to make the "fight for your survival" play look more viable. If other countries send enough tanks/planes/missiles, perhaps Russia can be pushed back in a matter of a few months without huge loss of territory.
Conversely, if Ukraine was left to their own military and financial resources-- no sanctions to hamstring Russia, no sweetheart deals on equipment-- they could spend a few weeks burning through what they had, and then perhaps degrading to a years-long insurgency situation akin to Afghanistan. The best story you can sell is "We're going to have years of violence and misery, and if we're really lucky, our occupiers will decide we're too much hassle and expense and leave on their own accord." With that alternative, maybe a brokered deal would look more compelling.
... so your argument is that, hopefully, and this is an insane hope, that if Ukraine was unable to resist militarily at the outset of the invasion, that they MIGHT decide a protracted war was more trouble than survival was worth, and submit to a negotiated genocide?
I don't know why point is he even making. He's looking like a total evil jackass and has only proven that either he loves to troll, is actually trying to make tankies look like homicidal maniacs (they don't need any help) or is actually evil lol!
It seems like we always slippery-sloped this conflict from the beginning. If Russia is given a square millimetre of land, then they'll demand all of Ukraine, Poland, and for good measure, North Carolina, and of course kill everyone there.
Let's look at this from a different perspective.
Putin has a need to posture and project power. Most autocrats do, and especially in a country that's otherwise stagnant. Russia can hardly point to a robust economy or major international stage presence in the last few decades, and the continuing encroachment of institutions like NATO and the EU in his backyard just make them look even more impotent and irrelevant.
That's why the Donbass was such a great target, if you look at it from a marketing perspective: it lets him say "We're important! We're powerful! We still have a sphere of influence!", and wrap it in an appealing (to a domestic audience) story of "We're reuniting a community of fellow Russophones, who have been repressed by a country that didn't get the memo that slapping the Black Sun on every surface isn't the best PR choice ever". It promised a cheap win that 's full of the exact symbolism he's after.
From that perspective, it might have spiraled into a "we have to conquer/control all of Ukraine" situation because anything but a full formal surrender will be a military and political hairball to enforce. But does they even want that? It's way more difficult and expensive, and presents a much less compelling story to rally the public behind; you have to really try to force the "de-Nazification" angle to try to make it remotely look palatable.
If we reconceptualize the situation as "what's the cheapest way to let Putin walk away with the win he actually craves", that might have been simply putting on a big stage act and saying "uwu you're so big and strong, we can't possibly stand up to your mighty military, here's a token concession, please let us live, and can we have a treaty of mutual friendship because we like you so much more than those weak EU people?" He gets the street cred he craves at home, and overall bloodshed is minimized. Yes, it's still incentivizing a bully to be a bully, but generally people prefer that to being dead.
That’s why the Donbass was such a great target, if you look at it from a marketing perspective:
"That's why Jews were such a great target, if you look at it from a marketing perspective."
You'te not wrong, from a genocidal maniac perspective.
So you reckon appeasement works when dealing with expansionist right wing governments?
Lol, I always wondered how the world ignored Hitler. This guy illustrates it well
Brokered peace deal would mean more torture chambers and child trafficking.
One of the key differences to other instances is that Ukrainian culture was not really tolerated in the USSR, and definitely not in the imperialistic cute of Russia today. Rather, Russia learned from the demise of the USSR that it's better to remove cultural and societal differences within its nation. And it's going the same route as other empires have in the past and are doing today. Enforcing the use of its language, forcibly educating the youth in Russian culture and schools, often by literally abducting them from their Ukrainian homes and relocating them to Russia into Russian families. Kidnapping a people's children is literally one of the five acts that make a genocide, according to the UN genocide convention from 1948.
There are many examples to show that putting peace above all else is dangerous. Using your example, the Welsh were violently suppressed and exploited for centuries by the English, following a similar scheme. The Welsh language was forbidden to teach, Welsh traditions were replaced by English, and power of autonomy was transferred to the English. Nowadays less than 20% of the Welsh can speak their language, and that is after the "resurgence" and it being allowed to be taught again.
Other examples are Native Americans, the Armenian genocide, Czech Sudetenland, Poland, oh, and remember what China is doing in Xinjiang? All of them posed no or little violent resistance in exchange for promises of peace and cultural autonomy. It rarely takes more than a few months before contracts with powerless people are broken.
Nations are just figments of imagination, but are an expression of communal will of a number of people. Modern ( as in last two centuries) concepts of human rights revolve around the freedom of people to choose how to live their lives. We usually consider it admirable if people are allowed to freely live their chosen cultures and tradition. We also consider it proper that people are allowed to choose what kind of society they want to live in/migrate to. We also grant asylum to those forcibly prevented from living their way of life and being persecuted in their home nation.
Nations are a construct allowing specific sets of societal rules to be applied to a large populace. An internationally recognized nation is also considered integrally protected, even if one nation might not agree with the internal societal rules of another country. These global base rules are very bare bones, but they are one of the big reasons we all get to live in the era dubbed "long peace". Yes, there's still wars and ugly conflicts, but at least there has been no major total war involving superpowers. Even the Ukraine war is luckily still limited in scope. Were Russia to unleash their full military might, it quickly would devolve into a humanitarian disaster not seen since the world war.
Why does the arbitrary nature of countries favor the invader though? What about the argument that Russia is an arbitrary country that doesn't need to violently expand into neighbouring countries?
I'm going to assume that you're arguing in good faith and aren't just a troll.
I myself am very anti-war, but I tend to take a more practical standpoint, because in order to avoid war, both sides must work at peace, not just one.
There's a few problems with your line of thinking.
For one, you suggest that Russia formally agreeing to tolerate Ukrainian culture would be enough, but suposing Ukraine did back down on that condition, how could they possibly trust Russia to stick to their word once any bargaining power they had is gone, especially since Russia has previously recognised Ukraine as a sovereign nation and had no problem ignoring their own word on that.
That brings me to problem two, or modern day notion of nations is relatively recent, but it does seem to work. Before the world wars, there was always borders changing and this was seen as normal. But since at least world war II this has changed, nowadays nations choose to recognise other nations right to exist with a given set of borders, this is a fragile system and if we simply allow countries to arbitrarily go against it without any repercussions, then why would any other country abide by it?
Also if Russia and Ukraine could agree to have Ukraine become part of Russia, I, as someone from neither country, would have nothing particularly against it, as long as it was entirely peaceful diplomacy, Russia removed that option the moment they started gathering troops near the border, because at minimum, that's a threat.
I am no expert on the history involved here by any means, so if I have made any mistake, feel free to correct me, I'm simply thinking through the logic.
the Western world decided an independent Ukraine had to exist even if everyone involved knew it was going to be a very painful and expensive endeavour to keep it.
Tell us you're a troll without saying you are one. The Western world isn't the arbiter of global politics. Ukraine voted for independence in 1990 and the rest of the world recognised them as an independent country that could exercise their own domestic and foreign policy. Whether they align with the West is none of other's concern. Denying a country of such right is essentially enabling Russia's genocidal intent on Ukraine.
Do you want to go back to constant wars?
Recognizing countries has been a great way to stop invasions. The borders we drew might not have been perfect, but the peace generated is worthwhile
You're a dumb fucking cunt.
Edit: I'd like to add that I hope you die today and that your pets eat your face and die from all the poison in your body, you shit eating God damn worm.
Amen
Ukraine decided to exist. They wanted independence. Russia aren’t invading over “cultural differences”. Stop trying to justify the invasion.