tired_fedora

Erm, @mod, what does one do when a mod breaks rule 1?

Great. I also don’t love any country having nukes, so there’s already two of us. I was well aware that your point was not about Iran, that’s why I made the cynical counterpoint I made.

I’m also aware of the history of the Cuban missile crisis and fully agree with your analysis of who’s to blame for escalating and for de-esalating the situation. Serious question 1: Can you point me to any credible sources that the US was about to place nukes in Ukraine in 2022? I can only find statements by some Ukrainian government officials in 2021-2022 that they want NATO membership or develop their own nukes, but no affirmation by any of the Western nuclear powers and no indication that they wanted both. That also happened long after Russia had invaded Ukrainian territory in 2014 and under continued intimidation of Ukraine by Russia. Serious question 2: Can you point me to statements by NATO officials indicating they want to nuke Russia or Russian positions on occupied Ukrainian territory? Because Putin has made several rather thinly veiled nuclear threats over the last 4 years.

Edit: Iran is far away from the US, but it’s very close to many US allies. Russia, too, has nukes outside its borders (Belarus), and was openly considering to expand that list, though the US is admittedly way bigger in that regard.

Iran had a fatwa against nuclear weapons

That part is entirely true! However, as you are certainly aware, given your immense knowledge about world events, many country leaders have previously said one thing and done a different thing. From the publicly available data I can gather, Iran was not complying with international agreements they had ratified regarding enrichment limits up to about 2015. Given the publicly available information, I am willing to believe that Iran actually did not further their nuclear weapons program under JCPOA between 2015 and 2018. I don’t believe there is much doubt that they have since picked their nuclear weapons program back up; at the very least after the US re-introduced sanctions.

On a side note tying this back to the original discussion: Ukraine did have nuclear weapons and gave them up only under broad guarantees of continued independence… so… yeah.

no matter the cost

I did not expect to find a supporter of the US bombing of Iran in this discussion.

Things we agree on:

• The Nazis did horrible things in Europe before and during WW2.
• The USA invaded or otherwise waged war against multiple countries in the middle east and that is not okay. Other NATO countries supported these actions. Note: My original comment was about wheat shipments from Ukraine, which is why I had focused on Ukraine and Eastern Europe in general.
• Not holding elections in Ukraine, while legal by their constitution and not uncommon in countries at all out war, does not look great.

Things I hope we can agree on:

• Ethnic and cultural groups (like the Kurds, the Crimean Tartars, the Palestinians, the Crimean Russians, and many others) have a right to self-determination. This is often expressed as a right to statehood, although that is complicated by the benefits of self-sufficiency that larger states can provide. This tension is not always easy to dissolve. This is related to the next point:
• The post WW2 international order has outlined a legal framework to prevent conflict on that scale from happening again, which is the legal framework I am referencing in a number of posts above and comments below. While flawed (e.g., broad veto powers of some countries in the security council), this framework is a great achievement and should carry weight, as it’s the best we currently have to determining when countries can use military force and when not.
• Since World War 2 any Central and Eastern European country basically had a choice of associating with either Russia or the USA, both for economic and security considerations (choice is often very euphemistic here: Many of the Eastern European Countries were conquered during WW2 and then had a long struggle towards being allowed that choice). Many of these countries chose the USA over Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. The reasons are certainly complex, but among them may be a preference of the populace of these countries for a capitalist liberal democracy over an autocratic oligarchy with or without the face of communism (pre/post 1990). Associating with one of these blocks has led these countries to support or at the very least not principally oppose military actions of at the very least questionable legality and morality, especially in the Middle East.
• Sweden held no colonies since 1878, and even those were rather few. Some Baltic territory was colonized by Imperial Germany. Of any European countries, these may have among the least “blood on their hands” regarding the exploitation of the Global South.
• The Swedish airspace is not sacrosanct. You had asked about Russian aggression in recent history. I brought up these maneuvers over Swedish airspace (as well as attacking undersea cables and most likely the Nordstream 2 pipeline), the invasion of Georgia in 2008 (as well as in the early 1990s), the invasion of Crimea in 2014 and of the rest of Ukraine in 2022. This goes in addition to invading Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan to fight local uprisings or independence movements (going back to that tricky question of self-determination), as well as supplying arms and expertise to various proxies during the Cold War. If “recent history” goes back as far as WW2, this also includes the invasion of Poland, as well as the occupation of most of Eastern Europe for the 45 years following WW2.
• Sweden used to be neutral, non-aligned, and non-aggressive until some time between the late 1990s and early 2000s. It only joined NATO in 2024, a process that really gathered steam only after and because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
• The major public protests against the regime in Iran before the war were largely carried by the populace and were beaten down with disproportionate violence. This does not change the fact that opening war against Iran by the US was an act of aggression that was almost certainly not in accordance with international law.

Things we don’t agree on (written from my perspective):

• NATO has no combat troops in Ukraine by its own and by third party accounts. Small numbers of non-combat troops have been deployed, e.g., for training Ukrainian soldiers, though the vast majority of these is not in Ukraine.
• While the political far-right is sadly growing in many European countries, most European countries are still functioning democracies. In fact, European countries are consistently ranked among the most democratic countries in the world. The memory of the terrible crimes and victims of Nazi Germany in WW2 is preserved. Only fringe Neo-Nazi movements glorify the perpetrators.
• Georgia did not start the Russo-Georgian war of 2008. You point to attacks on Russian “peace keepers”. I can equally point to articles saying South-Ossetian separatists, using weapons supplied by Russia, started the escalation by attacking Georgian villages. One can then also ask why there should even be Russian “peace keepers” on Georgian territory. That’s a euphemistic way of saying Georgia fought against occupying forces, a view I’m sure you’ll agree on when it’s about the 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan, for example.
• The 2014 Ukrainian revolution was not a coup led by foreign powers. At least between 2014 and 2022, Ukrainian democracy was working fairly well. It was definitely more free, fair, and just, than Russian elections, to name but one example.

I feel like our interpretation of events differs enough not to really warrant further discussion. Nevertheless, here are the responses to your requests:

• Most importantly, I don’t think we will agree on whether a revolution or a coup happened in 2014 Ukraine. Of note here is that 73% of the parliament voted the president out of office, which gives this “coup” a pretty decent democratic basis.
• In addition to that fundamental disagreement, I think we are circling a hen-an-egg problem here, because I can always bring up some earlier aggression from Russia / the Soviet Union and then you can bring up some earlier aggression by NATO. They were in a cold war: There’s plenty. Fact is, both the invasion of 2014 and of 2022 were illegal by international law and by the very agreements that Russia had signed before.
• By all statistics which I’m aware of you are correct that most Crimeans wanted to join Russia in 2014. To make sure that was also reflected in the polls, multiple records of manipulation have been recorded by government and non-government organizations, the most severe IMO being to take away people’s identity documents. Various sources linked on the wiki, e.g., this one. The referendum was also held after Russian troops invaded the peninsula, whch is definitely not okay: Irrespective of the outcome of a referendum, Sweden could not just seize St. Petersburg and then hold a referendum there; that’d be absurd. And all this is irrespective of the genuinely difficult question whether such a referendum is binding. Neither the Ukrainian constitution nor the international agreements of 2003 (co-signed by Russia) contain such a mechanism. Secession is also not considered a general right by international law and it would probably lead to chaos if border regions constantly changed hands. However, I understand the semi-normative appeal of a referendum and I concede that most Crimeans are probably alright with being Russian for now. You may contrast the parliamentary decision I quote further up with this referendum and you are right to do so. Legally speaking, one of them just changed the government of an existing state while the other one moved the borders; the latter of which is much more invasive to the international order. The first one also asked the representatives of that whole country (alas, did not ask every single person in that country), while the second one only asked the region in question.
• This also leads to my next point: It seems that most of Ukrainians want to associate with Europe. If Russia is so big about letting people choose whom they want to associate with, why invade Ukraine in 2022? The same argument works for the occupied part of Georgia. Or for the regions predominantly settled by Crimean Tartars.
• And if we do bring up the middle east for some reason, it also applies to the Kurds. However, I don’t think bringing up the middle east contributes much to the topic at hand. Are you saying Russia was protecting countries in the middle east by carrying out military maneuvers over the Swedish airspace? Sweden and the Baltics didn’t really play an instrumental part in any of these campaigns. Did the US illegally invade some countries? Oh for sure! And they totally did pull NATO countries into some of these campaigns (e.g., Operation Enduring freedom). But how does that justify regularly threatening the Baltics or Sweden (the latter of which even used to be neutral before its chagrined association with NATO due to growing pressure from the East)?
• Are you suggesting the Baltics and Sweden should’ve allied with Russia to prevent them from being invaded by Russia? (Edit 2: That worked our really well for the democratic movement in Belarus… /s).
• In my reading of history, the Baltics and Sweden suffered both under Nazi occupation and Soviet occupation and both are commemorated with much pain and suffering in those countries; Nazi occupation of these countries, although a terrible part of history, is not really related to this discussion, though.
• Finishing with a petty little point on the side: Russia is not fighting NATO right now. Russia is fighting Ukraine, which receives weapons from NATO. With NATO boots on the ground, this conflict would look very different very quickly. However, NATO is demonstrating that, at least for now, it remains a defensive alliance that only springs into action when a member state is attacked by a foreign state adversary (or in the case of Operation Enduring freedom “a foreign state adversary”).

Edit: Adding this for completeness: I brought up Sweden and the Baltics because the second strongest military in the world (Russia) has much less reason of being afraid of the 26th strongest military (Sweden), than Sweden has a reason to be afraid vice versa. Even saying that Russia was afraid of the USA by proxy doesn’t change this much, A) because the US is not in Sweden, they could just project through Sweden, while Russia could actually march at Sweden if it wanted to, but more importantly, B) because number 2 vs number 1 is a much less drastic difference than number 2 vs number 26. Ranking linked here. Before 2022, everyone thought Russia could just overrun its neighbor states (like Ukraine) whenever it wanted to and this drove many of them into the arms of NATO, which has yet to invade a member state.

Alright, here goes the sarcasm. I must’ve forgot the NATO invasion of Crimea in 2014. Sorry 'bout that. Wasn’t there this whole story of NATO stripping the voting rights of Crimean folks who wanted to join Russia just before the impromptu post-hoc referendum to justify that invasion? I must’ve also forgot about the NATO invasion of Georgia in 2008, darn! But I’m pretty sure I remember the invasion of Donbas and Luhansk in 2022 quite right.

As for your second argument:

what do you think a state should do when the most prolific invader in the world gathers weapons and military personnel on its borders

Great question! Now do the same for the Baltics or Sweden. You’ll be surprised how nervous smaller countries get when one of the strongest armies in the world regularly executes larger and larger maneuvers at their borders and in their airspace. They might even think about joining a defensive military alliance. If Russia doesn’t want that, then it was not the brightest move to double down and invade Ukraine.

Ukraine is also a significant wheat exporter and invading it in a war of aggression didn’t really help with that tbh:

• https://www.csis.org/analysis/war-ukraine-and-global-food-security-impacts-four-years-later
• https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01915-5

Remember the wheat shortage in Northern Africa that almost turned into a famine in 2022… yeah. Maybe we should blame the side that started the war more than the side that is defending against an aggressor, even if the latter uses some shady tactics, like targeting non-military targets. It’s not like the other side were above that.

This is an interesting post because it mixes valid arguments with bogus just well enough to give the tankies (yeah, I’m talking to you) a defensible fall-back position. The Ukrainian military has a Neo-Nazi problem: Undeniable. Is that also a cornerstone of Russian anti-Ukrainian propaganda? Youbetcha. In comes the dog-whistle. Ukraine losing the war right now: Yup, unfortunate reality, though they seem to be fighting with every nail and tooth. “Losing the war”, yes, but not “Lost the war already”. And Russia is paying with heavy losses for that. And let’s not forget that this is only the case because Ukrainian allies (Hey, that meme shows a corner of the EU flag, what a coincidink) don’t get their shit together and put boots on the ground themselves; otherwise the power balance would look quite differently. Everyone, including the Russian military, expected the war to be over in a week (by official statements, anyway). Yet here we are, even though Ukraine is fighting one of the largest conventional armies in the world. Oh, and lastly: Enlighten me, how is Ukraine, not Russia, the Imperialist in this war?!