There’s a difference between isolationism and abandoning our insane post-cold war policy of trying to democratize Iraq, Afghanistan, and every other country in the world we could.
Realist foreign policy allows for authoritarian great powers and liberal democratic great powers to co-exist more peacefully
Realism pines for the cold war. Actual realism to me suggests that the cold war, or any world inhabited by authoritarian and liberal democratic superpowers, is an inherently unstable situation that will lead to conflict eventually.
You can whine about global hegemon all you want, but the fact is liberal democracy is a better way to live. People want that. This makes authoritarian regimes unstable when they try to co-exist with liberal democracies. Hence liberal democracies become an existential threat to them.
The point is not to push global hegemon, the point is to acknowledge that liberal democracies present an existential threat to authoritarian regimes, and therefore authoritarian regimes create an existential threat to liberal democracies. Whether it happens in Ukraine or somewhere else doesn’t matter. The friction will always be there.
On your values - you play a lot of word games with “not encouraging” when what you really mean is “actively shun”. You give Ukraine zero agency in their own aspirations, as always.
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There is! You seem quite clearly to be with strict isolationism, though.
Sure, if you simply hallucinate what I’m saying.
The last time the US attacked someone primarily to spread democracy was I think Grenada. Maybe Serbia if you consider democracy synonymous with humanitarian concerns in Kosovo.
So you’re ok with maintaining current democracies, but not creating new ones?
Who here is defending the US for trying to democratize Iraq or Afghanistan?
You’re equating forcing democracy on a country that’s never had it, with not shunning a country that is willing to die to preserve their own existing democracy. Those aren’t remotely the same things.
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once again I say, relativism is a hell of a thing. The fact that in international relations, we call it “realism” is just absolutely laughable.
spoiler: relativism is bad, there is always a line, there always SHOULD be a line, and it doesn’t matter if it’s moral, cultural, political, or geopolitical.
You ruined my trap.
Keeed falls into his own traps pretty well.
I think we should leave it to the people in the various countries around the world to set up and implement whatever system of governance they want.
Where’s your line in Yemen?
What happens if a country decides they want to be a democracy and an authoritarian orders his army to say nuh uh?
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Already past it, but that’s a different thread. where’s YOUR line on Yemen?
I don’t think we should be helping the Saudis wage their war, as we’ve been doing for many years.
And what if the people in that country are willing to fight and die to remove that authoritarian, then Putin decides to send his special ops in to help the authoritarian kill them?
And the US responds by…… sending John McCain to give speeches and our diplomats making obvious political suggestions. Clearly the US is GWB going nuts on Iraq in this situation and not Putin…. spheres of influence, don’t you know?
Yes, exactly! Is it a good idea to create instability in the face of a powerful but fragile and vulnerable nuclear-armed power? Opinions vary!
Yes, the friction will always be there. Do you choose to exacerbate it or not? That was the question facing Western policymakers for the last 15 years.
Saying the US should have dumped cold water on Ukrainian NATO aspirations doesn’t deny Ukraine agency. Countries can only join NATO by unanimous consent! And not arming Ukraine doesn’t deny them agency. If that had been the US policy then Ukraine could still do whatever it wants. They just wouldn’t have any misconceptions that the US would actually fight with them if push came to shove.
No US President had ever hinted that we might be interested in fighting a land war with Russia in Ukraine. This could be confirmed by the lack of US troops in Ukraine combined with the prewar intelligence estimate that Ukraine would be quickly overrun.
who indeed
None of these support your claim.
Maybe you’re right, I have no idea. I’ve read a lot of stories the last few weeks saying Ukrainians are bitter about being abandoned by the west. But with realist foreign policy the last 15 years there would be no mistake, we couldn’t abandon Ukraine because no one would think we were ever with them.