Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[OttoVonBismarck]

Russians as a people are monsters, accept it or be intentionally delusional. Those are your two options.

[PJL]

I think a distinction should be made between dehumanizing the enemy and calling out and attacking a system that dehumanizes its own.  The Russian military system aims to create "orcs" as has been detailed here.  Is this to say that the soldiers are no longer human?  No, it says the psychological, social, and physical pressures intentionally put on these soldiers dehumanizes them, makes them into the brutish thugs we have seen in their fights - both past and now.

This is in no way saying they are no longer human, but instead saying they have been programmed and controlled to not act within the norms of other social groups. They can and should be called out for this.  This is also not saying that they should no longer be treated as not human, but rather as culpable parts of a system that engenders this behavior they are responsible and the system is also responsible.

As Threviel said, they are not Tolkien Orcs, but rather people who have are part of a system that creates this very similar behavior.

Thing is, you could say much the same of Tolkien's orcs, if you believe the corrupted Elves / Men theory. So to some extent they still are Tolkienish orcs.

[Berkut]

I think those kinds of distinctions are all well and good, but largely lost when it comes to the sticking point of soldiers treating each other in the pressure of a battlefield, or how citizens think about and justify treatment of their enemy.

I imagine you can make similar kinds of thoughtful distinctions between calling Japanese soldiers "Japs" or "slopes" and the society that creates them and turns many of them into dehumanized butchers. 

But these kinds of labels have an emotive appeal to them. Maybe in some cases you need that, when it comes to getting Marines to shove a flamethrower into a bunker and incinerate everyone inside. But it is also the language that is used to justify shoving Japanese Americans into internment camps, and convincing the American public that it is no big deal to firebomb cities.

It is the language used time and time again to setup the conditions that have led to atrocity, and not just atrocity by the bad guys, but atrocity by the good guys as well. No amount of horrible shit the Viet Cong did justifies My Lai, but I think that the language around turning Vietnamese into "things" instead of humans in response, at least in part, to the horrors of the Viet Cong, leads to shit like My Lai.

And again, I just don't see any utility in it. I don't think we have to call Russians soldiers "orcs" in order to properly identify the problems in the system that created a bunch of soldiers who don't seem to care too much about how they treat civilians, or to properly respond to them doing so. Rather, I think calling them "orcs" is a way to justify to ourselves returning their atrocity in kind.

[Berkut]

Russians as a people are monsters, accept it or be intentionally delusional. Those are your two options.

Fallacy of false dilemna.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The utility is in understanding the nature of the enemy, when your enemy are Imperial Japanese, Nazi Germans, or modern day Russians it is worth understanding they come from a place of evil, evil thoughts, evil ideas, evil desires, evil goals. That means the way we should treat them is different. We should have recognized this decades ago with Russia, but "we" didn't, I say we in quotes because many of us did, but led by Bush, Merkel, Obama, Cameron et al. either we pretended Russia really didn't have evil in its nature, or more cynically those individual leaders prioritized economic engagement over dealing with reality. Now that there is a better understanding of what we are dealing with there should be a better understanding of how to deal with them.

When you have identified an irredeemably evil enemy whose very nature is antithetical to your own, entire lines of diplomacy and economic relationship should simply be closed. That doesn't mean we go warmaking against every evil society on earth--that is the stuff of fantasy, there are ways to have rational, realpolitik based diplomacy with such societies, but not if you don't understand their nature. In the specific context of Russia right now and its war in Ukraine--our immediate goal is to hurt Russia and Russians as much as we can without imperiling the geopolitical strategic interests of the Western alliance. Hurt them however, and wherever and whenever we can.

In a longer term we should strive to create a wall of separation between us and their society, it is not our job nor a realistic outsider goal to change an evil society, but we do not have to integrate with it economically and socially.

[Berkut]

I don't disagree with much of any of that, and you didn't have to call them orcs once to make that argument.

[OttoVonBismarck]

And you don't have to call Donald Trump a liar to win a campaign against him. It doesn't mean there is anything wrong in doing so--or that there isn't significant upside. You appear to have not put much thought into your position, frankly, other than just "feeling bad" that people are saying orcs.

[viper37]

Russians as a people are monsters, accept it or be intentionally delusional. Those are your two options.

European colonial powers often committed war crimes in their colonies during the 20th century, most often during their decolonization wars.  The US war in Vietnam wasn't pretty either.  There war crimes committed and uninvestigated by the US Military during the Korean War.  Not that the locals were always angels either, but still. 

It is not unexpected from countries with an imperialist doctrine.  Doesn't mean much of the society itself, except that might makes right.  They accept it as part of being a powerful empire, to be rejected is inconceivable.  The entire Iraq war of 2003 was planned with the mindset that most of the Iraquis would welcome Americans with open arms and work together toward democracy and prosperity without significant hiccups.  For the Russians, to be rejected as such was inconceivable as well.  The soldiers react with frustrations, and the difference with the modern NATO armies is we all investigate and prosecute potential war criminals now.  Trump supporters would likely not, but the military establishment, for now*, will not go along.  Russia is still at the stage where they accept this as the normal course of war.



*Before Berkut has a brain hemorrhage or something, I simply mean that top military echelons could be replaced by pro-Trump with the same mindset as the current Republicans, when they retake the presidency.

[viper37]

Did we have any confirmation about the presumed chemical weapons attack on Mariupol?

[Barrister]

Did we have any confirmation about the presumed chemical weapons attack on Mariupol?

No.

Very difficult of course to confirm as it's a very active war zone.  But I did see it pointed out that it's a big industrial port city that's been reduced to ashes so the air is likely full of all kinds of toxins anyways.

[Threviel]

Orcs is an excellent shorthand for how the Russians behave.

Perhaps Berkie could find another nice description to use.

[Berkut]

And you don't have to call Donald Trump a liar to win a campaign against him. It doesn't mean there is anything wrong in doing so--or that there isn't significant upside. You appear to have not put much thought into your position, frankly, other than just "feeling bad" that people are saying orcs.

The difference is that calling someone a liar who is lying is a factual statement about what they have done.

Calling someone an orc is an attempt to label someone as non-human.

If you think calling someone a liar is that same as calling someone an orc, I suspect the one who has not put much thought into their position is yourself.

And what makes you think I feel bad about it? I think it is a shitty, dangerous thing to do, and I elucidated why I felt that way with some detail.

[Berkut]

Russians as a people are monsters, accept it or be intentionally delusional. Those are your two options.

European colonial powers often committed war crimes in their colonies during the 20th century, most often during their decolonization wars.  The US war in Vietnam wasn't pretty either.  There war crimes committed and uninvestigated by the US Military during the Korean War.  Not that the locals were always angels either, but still. 

It is not unexpected from countries with an imperialist doctrine.  Doesn't mean much of the society itself, except that might makes right.  They accept it as part of being a powerful empire, to be rejected is inconceivable.  The entire Iraq war of 2003 was planned with the mindset that most of the Iraquis would welcome Americans with open arms and work together toward democracy and prosperity without significant hiccups.  For the Russians, to be rejected as such was inconceivable as well.  The soldiers react with frustrations, and the difference with the modern NATO armies is we all investigate and prosecute potential war criminals now.  Trump supporters would likely not, but the military establishment, for now*, will not go along.  Russia is still at the stage where they accept this as the normal course of war.



*Before Berkut has a brain hemorrhage or something, I simply mean that top military echelons could be replaced by pro-Trump with the same mindset as the current Republicans, when they retake the presidency.

No worry about any hemoraging here, I share your concern.

Frankly, going around calling our enemies "orcs" sounds a lot like calling immigrants "wetbacks", and it is the kind of language I expect out of the more intolerant parts of American society. I don't think we should embrace it, even if it does give us a little thrill of tribalism to define the enemy as beyond human, beyond consideration, and deserving of any harm we care to inflict on them.

THere is a reason zombie movies are so popular, or why fantasy makes the bad guys ugly and clearly non-human.

[Jacob]

Interesting article comparing the evolution of the Ukrainian and Russian armies from the perspective of Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.). Nothing that's new and shocking to this audience, I don't think, but full of fascinating detail:

https://www.thebulwark.com/i-commanded-u-s-army-europe-heres-what-i-saw-in-the-russian-and-ukrainian-armies/

[Maladict]

You made me check. I wouldn't have thought that Russia had such a bad population pyramid. They have a larger % of children than Europe, but their % of 15-25 is lower.

Russia in the late 90s was no place to have kids.