That’s kinda the question, right? Is what is going on right now, the destruction of vast swaths of a country and the deaths of tens of thousands of people, many innocent, a better outcome than if we hadn’t helped? Idk, it definitely isn’t a slam dunk yes
Do you think Putin stops at Ukraine? (Not a rhetorical question I legit don’t know)
There’s really nowhere else to go after Russia takes what they want of Ukraine, assuming they win. If they can take Odessa they’ll probably annex Transnistria. But literally everywhere else they can go in Europe is already in NATO and it’d trigger a direct war with the US.
Idk, probably not? Feels like there’s a strong bayesian inference to be made now that we know he has already invaded Ukraine. Whether that was as apparent before, idk
But who would be next?
Aren’t there a ton of former USSR nations not in NATO? The vast majority of them right?
Although googling it tells me some, like Croatia, became part of NATO in the 2000s so it isn’t all.
That’s a decision for the Ukranians to make, no? They are obviously under no obligation to use the weapons we provide to defend themselves.
The other aspect is that in a world where we just let Russia have Ukraine isn’t it a ticking time bomb anyways? Eventually revolution or similar will come. It seems like kicking the can down the road to me based on the response from the people who live there.
Not in Europe. You’ve got the little ones in the Caucuses and then your various stans in central Asia.
I think you’re mixing up former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact countries. Warsaw Pact countries were Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria. Yugoslavia was non-aligned. All of the former Warsaw Pact countries are now in NATO. Three of the soviet republics are now in NATO, the Baltic countries. Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania.
Finland, Sweden, or Norway
There’s the rest of Moldova, of course. And do Georgia and Tajikistan count even less than Ukraine?
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As in aren’t in NATO that were formerly USSR? None of these countries were in the USSR and Norway is already in NATO?
Read hundreds of posts here catching up today so I apologize this is a stale take but I completely disagree that posters here are hypocrites for Iraq or Afghanistan. If the US decided to start a military campaign to take some or all of Mexico or Canada 0% here would be for it.
Can i just amend my previous post to Europe and Asia and we move on? Nitting about what imaginary line countries belong in matters zero. My apologies for the innaccurate post.
There are lots of former USSR countries that Putin would head to next after Ukraine right?
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What do you think about the French involvement in the American revolutionary war?
What about Soviet support of North Vietnam?
Were they both bad things that led to more suffering than capitulation would have and also unnecessarily antagonistic to the great power that was the aggressor?
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The Ukrainians were subjected to genocide even before western weapons arrived. There isn’t a 3rd way where 10s of thousands of innocent Ukrainians aren’t killed. Russia wasn’t rolling in as a benevolent peacekeeper but then Western weapons made them do the genocide. There is only letting Russia grind it out in Ukraine for as long as it takes them (followed by the torture and execution of any dissidents and enough ethnic cleansing of the rest via forced deportation so as to eliminate Ukrainians as a culture), or helping them beat the Russians back.
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Where Putin would go after Ukraine is to resume his subversion campaign on Europe and the US. The election stealing stuff we were worried about before. Most of Russia’s cyberwarfare operatives are now focusing on Ukraine.
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Russia has been committing atrocities in Ukraine since 2014. The areas Russia took in 2022 were immediately, even the ones quickly liberated, turned into complete horror shows. There’s no serious balancing of evidence that suggests a better outcome for Ukrainians by capitulation.
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I would go as far as to say capitulation has never worked out for the capitulating side in these situations. I would love to see some examples otherwise.
Even the US south still regrets it 160 years later.
Well, if you look at Vietnam War from the Soviet perspective you can’t start with direct American involvement. The Soviet involvement goes all the way back to the early fifties and the war with the French, who had US support and backing. I’m used to thinking about the Vietnam War from the Western perspective, as first a war against the colonial French. The country gets partitioned at the end of the First Indochina War and then the US becomes the main backer of the South and takes up the same fight as the French. You can kind of understand why the French would want to fight to keep control of their colony but their fight was just wrong. The subsequent US involvement in the next decade was equally wrong but also totally batshit insane, based on the incredibly dumb and destructive domino theory. So the Western imperial/colonial Indochina wars were just plain wrong and incredibly evil so no, of course I don’t think their support of the Vietnamese was wrong.
Ah, but don’t I think that the Russian war in Ukraine is wrong and evil? Sure. But to me that’s not the question. You’re asking if Soviet support for Vietnam was bad. Bad how? Morally bad? Bad in that it hurt the Soviets? Good in that it was a morally good thing to do? Bad in that it didn’t minimize suffering? These are all different things.
So when do I think countries should get involved in a war? That’s really the important question, and that’s what I’m answering when I say I don’t think we should have gotten involved in Ukraine. In my view, countries should get involved in a war when their core national interests are at stake. The Ukraine war is probably at its core about who governs the southern and western third or so of Ukraine, Moscow or Kiev. Is that question of critical importance to the US? I don’t see how.
So applying that framework back to your original questions, I have to say I don’t know. Was supporting North Vietnam really that important to the Soviets? Supporting USA#1 important to the French? I’m not knowledgeable enough about their perspective to say.
But then you might say, OK, but what’s the harm in supporting Ukraine? We can afford it, even if it’s not in our vital national interest. Sure. The harm is that I don’t understand the end game. The Russian elites have to win this war. If the Ukrainians win and push Russia out of Donbass and Crimea, what happens next? What will Russia do to prevent that? Do the Russian elites view that as an unacceptable outcome that they will do anything to prevent? I think maybe. So the cycle of escalation that this could lead to might spiral out of control and lead to some very bad outcomes.
Ancient world had a lot of very good examples. Not sure what a good modern example would be, but I’m sure there are some.
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