this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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None of these are valid concepts. The reality is that Russia is in a conflict with Ukraine. Activating alliances brings those other countries into the conflict, which is exactly how WW1 became a world war. The USA has nothing to do with this conflict (except the entire casus belli, but let's go with your position). If the US was neutral, Ukraine would lose and Russia and Ukraine would negotiate a security arrangement to prevent further conflict.
But the US has supplied Ukraine with the equivalent of the entire Russian military budget 3 years in a row. Ukraine keeps fighting exclusively because of US support. But, that has been limited to the borders of Ukraine, which creates sufficient ambiguity that only allows Russia to escalate rhetoric. As soon as the US's involvement creates the conditions for strikes on Russian territory, now the USA is a participant in attacks against Russia, making it an escalatory move on the USA's part. The USA could just stay out of it and this whole thing will resolve itself with far fewer deaths and far less destruction.
Accept, Russia broke international law when it attacked Ukraine. As it broke its own treaties to respect 1996 borders in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nukes.
So nope. Also, the only reason Ukraine is not a part of NATO. Is that same treaty where they agreed not to join.
So anyway, you try to argue this. If Russia is the first to launch nukes. They started WW3.
Uhh, that's completely illogical. Yes, Russia broke international law by invading a country. That's true. That does not give the USA the right to attack Russian territory. That's not actually how international law works.
There are lots of reasons Ukraine isn't part of NATO. The first one is that Ukraine made a political commitment with Russia to remain neutral. The second is that Russia made it clear that Ukrainian neutrality was to be respected by NATO allies. The third is that the USA knew how dangerous it would be to bring Ukraine in so they worked on every other former Soviet Republic first. The fourth is that the NATO allies don't all agree on bringing Ukraine in. And the fifth is that NATO policy forbids admitting a country in an active border dispute.
You can say that nukes make it WW3, but that's just vibes. World war is when a war between 2 countries expands to include more countries. Right now, the war is between Russia and Ukraine. If the USA gets involved, then the USA is escalating to world wars. Your vibes are not the standard.
The USA is an Allie of Ukraine. And was helping it fund its defence against Russia before their attack.
It's like your bullshit about the start of the first world war. The UK had a treaty that Germany thought we would ignore. They were warned if they attacked the nation, we would defend them.
That is how international support works. When nations like Russia ignore internarial agreements they make, they threaten the whole world's peace by making it clear their word is not to be trusted.
The whole fucking idea that Russia can attack its neighbours and the rest of the world must mind its own business is a fucking crap attempt to bully the world. Its no more than an attempt by a bully to gaslight the world and unworthy of consideration.
And before you bring it up. Yes, I know the US can be no better when it comes to being an international bully. Does not give Russia an excuse to ignore its own internatioal treaties and threaten the world.
Actually, this entire tragedy is absolutely contextualized by the USA's behavior. The USA has demonstrated, over and over and over that it will launch wars of aggressions against it's enemies and it will do so with both its own army and with NATO.
In that context, when the USA spends 30 years saying one thing to Russia and doing another, when it spends decades building forward military bases all over the world to encircle China and Russia, when it moves nuclear-armed submarines and nuclear-armed b52s into theaters on the other side of the world, when it destroys entire countries and rebuilds them as unsinkable aircraft carriers, when it runs military drills that are literally indistinguishable from preparing and launching invasion forces, when it threatens everyone's national security by building capabilities to undermine the international MAD framework, when it regular uses rhetoric saying nuclear strikes are not off the table...
In this context, when the USA is literally taking actions that are known, publicly, internationally, and for decades, to undermine the security of Russia, specifically the creation of forward bases in Ukraine along the border that Russia and the world have all shown for centuries is indefensible, a border a long which Russia has been invaded 3 times by Western Europe, the most recent being the Third Reich, where each invasion killed millions of Russians,
Russia's choice to invade it's neighbor actually makes way more sense when you consider this context. In fact, it is the decontextualization that demand and insist on that makes this so difficult to talk about. You, and liberals like you, literally say to ignore the context and just take this incident in isolation and judge it morally, and then only admit limited context in if we isolate that context and judge that context separately and morally, so that you can say "two wrongs don't make a right". This is bullshit. The case for Russia's invasion has everything to do with the context of the behavior of the US and NATO, and in fact the context of Western Europe, and that context reveals for us a process that has been ongoing for over a century.
You don't get to say, "yeah yeah, the USA does bad things but that doesn't give Russia the right...." When literally the exact reason, stated multiple times by Russia, Russian generals, and the Russian president, AND the assessed reason by NATO generals, US generals, US presidents, European and American diplomats, and independent analysts, is the physical, military, strategic threat posed to the world's 3rd biggest military power by the world's 1st biggest military power.
At some point, you will have to acknowledge that the USA and Western European allies have been militarily threatening Russia since Napoleon marched across Europe to invade Russia via Ukraine, and that this did not stop when Russia became the founder of the USSR and it did not stop when the USSR was dismantled and Russia stood alone again. It did not stop under Bush 1, he continued it. It did not stop when Clinton took office, he continued it. It did not stop when Bush took office, he continued it. It did not stop under Obama, he continued it. It did not stop under Trump, he continued it. It did not stop under Biden, he continued it. The military threat to Russia has been there continuously for over 100 years. Russia has been responding to that threat via military interventions into Ukraine starting ont 2014.
When nations like Russia ignore international agreements, it is in the context of the USA ignoring international agreements. You cannot divorce that context and you cannot pretend they are separate. The USA ignoring international agreements and devastating entire nations is exactly the context in which Russia must maintain its national security. And, like most countries, Russia has watched the foremost military power, the current torch holder of the European empire, the same Empire that has invaded Russia multiple times, has watched that empire violate international agreements and kill millions while simultaneously undermining Russian security. At some point, a response was going to happen, and in fact, everyone in the Western establishment knew it would happen when they made moves to bring NATO into Ukraine because everyone in the establishment KNEW it was strategically required for Russia to do so in order to remain safe. EVERYONE KNEW THIS, it was openly discussed. And the USA, under Clinton and every president since, followed Clinton's position that publicly they would tell Russia Ukraine would remain neutral but privately they would spend decades trying to get Ukraine to join the West and be anti-Russia.
Well guess what. When you know exactly what will undermine someone's security and then you spend 30 years making it happen, you're going to get the response you expect.
Open you eyes to the fact that the invasion of Ukraine is exactly what the USA expected to happen (though they didn't know when Russia would choose to react) and they took all the necessary actions to make it happen. The blood of Ukrainians is on the USA's hands.
"That does not give the USA the right to attack Russian territory." What? There is no chance of this.... No one is even suggesting it. Seriously touch grass
There is no chance of the USA attacking Russian territory? Really? The USA has trainers, weapons, supply chains, recon, targeting intelligence, all confirmed on the ground on the ground in Ukraine and likely multiple unconfirmed capabilities on the ground as well. There is ABSOLUTELY a large chance of the USA attacking Russian territory.
ATACMS are USA weapons, that require USA training and often USA/NATO operators to function, USA personnel for maintenance and repair, etc. Each incremental escalation brings us closer to USA actors pulling a trigger to hit a target in Russian sovereign territory. The USA is salami slicing right now, and Russia is 100% correct to call it out, take preventative action, and prepare for escalation.
"There is no chance of the USA attacking Russian territory? Really?" yes, exactly. Unless Iran is attacking Ukrainian territory. Seriously, this is complete bollocks. "The USA is salami..." And yet it is Russia who is attacking other countries and annexing territory... not the US. You are really full of shit here.
Yeah. You're not paying attention. No one is disputing that Russia invaded Ukraine. Invading Ukraine is not a cassus belli for the USA. They don't have any standing to enter the war, but they are salami slicing their way to direct involvement. Again, they have boots on the ground in Ukraine already and they are heavily involved in the conflict. This particular move, to use ATACMS on Russian territory is, in fact, an escalation towards greater risk of US direct involvement.
The only one full of shit is the person who thinks Russia invading Ukraine justifies any and every action the USA chooses to take.
"They don’t have any standing to enter the war," That is true, but then they are not entering the war. No more than Iran is.... And I like the phrase "boots on the ground"... utterly meaningless.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/04/18/just-how-many-us-troops-and-spies-do-we-have-in-ukraine/
Back in 2023, we had a small leak of documentation establishing almost 100 special forces from NATO countries operating in Ukraine, with almost 20% from the USA.
This according to the NYT.
https://theintercept.com/2022/10/05/russia-ukraine-putin-cia/
https://www.intellinews.com/us-says-sending-military-trainers-to-ukraine-is-inevitable-325773/
I'm sure you'll be able to find comparable levels of involvement of Iran in the conflict, though. I'll await your sources.
"I’m sure you’ll be able to find comparable levels of involvement of Iran in the conflict..." My point was that Russia was using Iranian weapons to attack Ukraine... So by your logic Iran was attacking Ukraine. Especially as they would have had to train Russian troops to use those weapons. But if you are talking about "boots on the ground" those could not compete with the (at least) 10,000 North Korean troops in Ukraine. So by your logic North Korea are also attacking Ukraine. Who is escalating here?
As a side note the only person here who is threatening to use nukes again and again is Putin.
You're right, the transfer of arms between warring and non-warring countries is something of a nuanced problem. On the Iranian side we're talking about cheap drones that Russia could do without, while on the US side the US has sent literally the equivalent of the entire Russian military budget to Ukraine twice. The only reason Ukraine is still standing is because of the USA. This is not true for Russia and Iran. But, there is a case to be made by Ukraine that they might want to launch a war with Iran and DPRK to stop their weapon supplies. When Ukraine decides that, they can prosecute that war.
On the North Korean troops, we still have zero confirmation on them being in Ukraine at all. Only yellow journalism from Ukraine and the West. I will wait till I see proof before I believe it. But again, even if Korea was involved, Ukraine could declare war on DPRK and fight then to stop their support of Russia. Let me know when they decide to do that.
Who is escalating here? The USA. Russia, in 1992, made clear and transparent what they could and could not defend against militarily. They sought a security framework that would mutually maintain the security of Russia, the former Soviet republics, and Western Europe. They even sought to join NATO to achieve this. One of the things Russia stated it could not defend against was a nuclear capability and a ready military presence in Ukraine. To maintain security in the region it was mutually agreed that Ukraine would remain neutral and that NATO would not expand Eastward.
In 1992, after the meeting that established this, Bill Clinton immediately went to his generals and asked for a plan to get Ukraine into NATO. Immediately. Duplicitously. Every expansion of NATO nuclear capabilities and military readiness Eastward was an escalatory step.
Russia, at every turn, warned of the threat but appeased and appeased and appeased because they wanted to be integrated into the world economy and they had established their escalatory red lines. The escalations through the 90s and early oughts were below their red lines.
Then, the escalation got worse. The coup in Ukraine in 2014, where John McCain and Victoria Nuland were on the ground celebrating, was a clear escalation along a security red line and for that Russia responded by annexing Crimea.
The escalation from the West continues as Ukraine began killing ethnic Russians in the Donbass and Ukraine and the political elite of the US got closer. The escalation got to the point where Russia had credible intelligence of military readiness being deployed at the Ukraine border and political discussions of admitting Ukraine into NATO.
Again, Russia chose not to appease this escalation and launched an SMO to create a limited invasion to achieve several goals: 1) protect ethnic Russians in the Donbass, 2) engage Ukraine in a border dispute so it couldn't join NATO, and 3) militarize the border to establish readiness in the face of increasing escalation.
Russia was immediately willing to negotiate with Ukraine but the US and UK made it clear that Ukraine was not allowed to negotiate on its own behalf. Instead they essentially delivered more materiel than Russia's entire military budget for 2 years. Each delivery was an escalation of more and more lethal technologies, but was also coupled with intelligence, special forces, and other actions, each of which were escalations.
Russia has responded to each escalation. But Russia itself has clear goals that it has stated from the outset and has been willing to negotiate on for literal years. And they are the same goals they stated in 1992 while negotiating with the lying duplicitous Americans.
As for whether Russia is the only one threatening nukes, I think you'll find that the USA unilaterally withdrew from multiple nuclear treaties, has openly stated they were building a nuclear kill chain in the Pacific to counter China, openly discussed winning a nuclear exchange, openly discussed developing tactical nuclear weapons, and is the only nuclear power to have ever used nukes against targets. Those targets were primarily civilians, by the way.
So, you can continue to pretend that history started when you want it to, you can pretend that Ukraine and USA are passive victims with no agency who have never done anything that could be considered escalation, and you can pretend that the USA deploying nuclear-armed submarines to Korea and nuclear-armed b52s to West Asia are not threats of nuclear war, but if you do, there's just no reason to engage with you because you're not participating in reality.
Russia can fuck off with its definition of neutrality. Russia was absolutely fine when pre-maidan Ukrainian “government” wanted more integration with Russia. Russia’s neutrality definition is submission to Russia’s will. And BTW, NATO was never a goal until Ukraine got attacked. Ukraine wanted economic integration with west.
You mean the democratically elected government, which was replaced by a US-backed coup “government”[1]?
I’ll check your supposed evidence when I have time. For now let’s say it was US backed. Somehow it’s bad when US is backing coup but Russia attempting to occupy sovereign country is totally fine. Why Russia is not trying to restore elected government if its cause is so good? I don’t know what that very funny cookie supposed to mean but eat it yourself