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.
Here is the first result you get when you Google “Zelensky US broken promise”:
Failing to deliver the planes, which obviously was made after the war was started and relatively minor.
Or maybe and bear with me here cuz it’s a wild theory, but just maybe “who cares about the risk of nuclear holocaust? Never Again means Never Again!” is the natural reaction of any people that finds themselves being slaughtered?
You demand more intellectual honesty from people getting bombed than your own internet posting
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How am I being dishonest, ikes?
The bottom line is if you’re going to do the morally repugnant thing in shunning Ukraine, you better be 1000% sure it’s the pragmatically correct thing. And in no way is that clear in this case. At best it’s arguable.
The realist crowd is contorting themselves into knots looking for any argument to justify doing the morally repugnant thing.
How about we just say who the hell knows how history is going to play out - so let’s do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may? Crazy talk I know.
I think the problem, keeed, is you’ve somehow muddled together invading Iraq with helping Ukraine in your mind. So you continually try to justify not helping Ukraine by comparing it to the US actions in Iraq in Afghanistan. Which makes zero sense.
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To add some support for this, there was plenty of conflict during the cold war. Plenty of hot war. The US in Korea and Vietnam. The Soviets in Afghanistan. You don’t need Russia to have lost its superpower mojo to get war.
All that’s really going on is Putin wants something and he has the means to get it, that’s all. Realism doesn’t add anything useful. [I mean it’s not generally useful. It’s definitely useful to Putin as bullshit. Like it’s at least slightly more convincing than when Lavrov says Russia didn’t attack Ukraine.]
Well, Mearsheimer’s realism predicted that Putin would use various levels of force to make sure that Ukraine didn’t join the West. If you’re saying that could be predicted without realism, then OK, sure. But then the additional layer is asking a couple of three questions before implementing your Ukraine policy. First, is this a part of the world you’re willing to fight and die for (resounding no). Second, given that the answer to the first question is no, should the policy in Ukraine be antagonistic or not to Russia’s perceived interests? And to what end?
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Is doing the right thing direct western military intervention? That is crazy!
I have not gotten these muddled together and mentioned them in passing once in the whole thread I think. The only way Iraq, Ukraine and Afghanistan are related is through the incredibly foolish end of history democratic evangelism. Which I think was pretty much US foreign policy of the US post cold war, pursuit of global liberal hegemony.
If you saw a friend getting bullied, would you let him get beat up just because the bully might go get a gun and come back? Or would you step in to help, and deal with the consequences when/if he came back? What if your kids were watching?
Well now the bully is back with his gun, and we’re trying to deal with the consequences w/o getting shot. But that’s not on us. It’s on the bully. We did the right thing.
Yeah it’s not that simple. But also it is. If we in the West claim to have any values at all, we can’t shun a country like Ukraine that wants to share those values. Otherwise the whole thing is meaningless and we’re resigning ourselves and our kids to live in a shitty cold war world in perpetuity.
This is clearly a fundamental values disconnect that probably isn’t worth discussing any more. We both don’t have any confusion on where the other stands.
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We’re starving a million Yemenis right now, the west doesn’t have any fucking values.
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Doing the right thing is not shunning Ukraine when they reach out. Where did I advocate direct military intervention?
Lol democratic evangelism. People can see and decide for themselves if they want that. Again you give Ukrainians zero agency in what they want for themselves, and assume all their dreams of democracy have been planted by the US. You seem to have a mental block on that, maybe because the whole theory starts to fall apart when you give Ukrainians agency.
Stop pretending authoritarianism and democracy are morally equivalent outcomes and people only lean one way or another due to evangelizing.
One moral failing does not make failing every other decision correct.
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And you would fix that how? Cut off the Saudis? Sounds good to me.
Glad the West only had this one oopsie
For a guy getting so upset about people allegedly putting words in his mouth, sheesh.
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Yeah, sure people can decide whatever system they want. Let the US stay out of it, especially in Russia or China’s backyard. The US did not stay out of this process in Ukraine, however. That’s what I object to.
Right, and I think we had a moral imperative not to blow them off. And I also think it’s far from clear that blowing them off is even the pragmatic thing to do.
We know where each other stand, not much left to discuss.
So upset? The fuck you talking about?
Why?