Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Berkut]

I guess "all people, everywhere" means something different then I thought it meant.

Turns out it means mostly people being invaded?

[Josquius]

I guess "all people, everywhere" means something different then I thought it meant.

Turns out it means mostly people being invaded?

No?
I hope you're just grasping here and don't actually think this.
It means any group in the world- a right that being invaded doesn't erase.

[DGuller]

Stopping the war in a way that enables a lot more wars in the future is not a good thing.  I'm not sure why it's so hard to see.  This whole discussion is so utterly incoherent, and by whole I mean half of it.

[The Brain]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: peace can never be the top priority of responsible government.

[Josquius]

Stopping the war in a way that enables a lot more wars in the future is not a good thing.  I'm not sure why it's so hard to see.  This whole discussion is so utterly incoherent, and by whole I mean half of it.

Exactly. Thats why people having the democratic right of self determination is so important.

[Zoupa]

They already had that in Ukraine before 2014. I'm not sure what your point is anymore. Everyone agrees that democracy is good.

An invaded country is beating back a much larger, autocratic one. Stopping the war would not be a good thing, especially for the civilian population stuck in the occupied areas during this ceasefire.

At this point, russia will be lucky to get a ceasefire once the last vatnik has left Ukraine's territory.

[alfred russel]

During the cold war the US never committed to opposing a soviet war on the scale it has in Ukraine. I would guess that aid to Ukraine in terms of financial cost has approached if not exceeded the annual russian military budget. Weapons systems that are superior to anything Russia possesses have been delivered.

I agree that Russia is radically weaker than the USSR--it is basically a country with the economy of Canada trying to act like a military superpower. I agree it is more dangerous as a result.

I'm trying to think of any post-WWII wars that the USSR undertook on a similar scale.

1956 Hungary and 1968 Czechoslovakia saw the USSR bring in hundreds of thousands of troops to both countries - on a scale even exceeding Ukraine.  1979 Afghanistan as well.

I think the difference between Ukraine and those other countries was A: Ukraine had a friendly government over the last 8 years with which the West had time to build up trust and confidence.  B: Ukraine managed to hold out until more and better supplies could be brought in.  You could kind of tell by how comparatively little support Ukraine was getting pre-invasion that the West was prepared to see Ukraine fall relatively quickly.

We've been through this round of argument a few times in the past few months and i don't really want to rehash it again, but the USSR had much of eastern europe under military domination throughout the cold war. Sometimes countries got independent minded and needed something like a formal invasion to keep them in line, but in no case was NATO ready to send over heavy artillery units, etc.  to support them had they held out a bit longer. We didn't send in military equipment to support the insurgencies that did exist in places like the baltics. My take, which i really only think would be argued here, was that the soviets had something like a sphere of influence in eastern europe where they could act without military action against them, though doing so was something of a PR / diplomatic nightmare.

[mongers]

When this war is over* Ukraine will need to be a part of NATO under our nuclear umbrella or it will have to it's on nuclear weapons. Those options are the only things that will deter Putin or a future Russian nationalist leader.



* Doesn't necessarily have to be peace or a treaty ending the war.

[Barrister]

We've been through this round of argument a few times in the past few months and i don't really want to rehash it again, but the USSR had much of eastern europe under military domination throughout the cold war. Sometimes countries got independent minded and needed something like a formal invasion to keep them in line, but in no case was NATO ready to send over heavy artillery units, etc.  to support them had they held out a bit longer. We didn't send in military equipment to support the insurgencies that did exist in places like the baltics. My take, which i really only think would be argued here, was that the soviets had something like a sphere of influence in eastern europe where they could act without military action against them, though doing so was something of a PR / diplomatic nightmare.

But there was no formal recognition of a sphere of influence.  The US/West gave moral support to dissidents in Eastern Europe / USSR, and sometimes more.

Curious you mention the Baltics, because my googling suggests that the west did in fact send military supplies there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_war_in_the_Baltic_states

If the invasion of Hungary in 1956 turned into a more protracted struggle I have no doubts the West would have funneled in resources to the anti-Soviet resistance.

[Berkut]

I guess "all people, everywhere" means something different then I thought it meant.

Turns out it means mostly people being invaded?

No?
I hope you're just grasping here and don't actually think this.
It means any group in the world- a right that being invaded doesn't erase.

I think the right to self determination does not at all apply to "all people, everywhere". This is trivially easy to show, since you've agree to that yourself, despite what you said. If it doesn't apply to 30 people who want to secede from their local town, then it clearly is not ALL people, EVERYWHERE.

The desire for self determination is insanely complex, and has to be balanced against the desires of other people's self determination, the reality that there are practical limts to the organization of political entities, and *changing* exisiting structures is difficult and fraught with peril.

So I don't think at all that ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE have any right to determine on their own whether they want to be part of some particular political entity, nation, state, whatever. This is so obviously true it amazes me it has to be discussed.

What I *really* do not understand is the idea that this complex reality of separatists issues ought to be encouraged in wartime - that one way to get a "referendum" if you cannot get one outside of violence, is to start killing people until others are tired enough of it to agree to the referendum you could not get them to agree to (or that failed) otherwise.

[Berkut]

Stopping the war in a way that enables a lot more wars in the future is not a good thing.  I'm not sure why it's so hard to see.  This whole discussion is so utterly incoherent, and by whole I mean half of it.

Exactly. Thats why people having the democratic right of self determination is so important.

It is so not important in most cases.

It is incredibly important in a very, very, very small number of cases.

The right to reject a government or political entity that refuses to allow you an equal political share in the body politic, or the right to reject a government who refuses to consider your own interests in favor of others? Very important.

The right to demand your own state because the state you are in doesn't let you piss on people who you don't like? Or because you want to destroy another states sovereignity? Not very important at all.

[Josquius]

I guess "all people, everywhere" means something different then I thought it meant.

Turns out it means mostly people being invaded?

No?
I hope you're just grasping here and don't actually think this.
It means any group in the world- a right that being invaded doesn't erase.

I think the right to self determination does not at all apply to "all people, everywhere". This is trivially easy to show, since you've agree to that yourself, despite what you said. If it doesn't apply to 30 people who want to secede from their local town, then it clearly is not ALL people, EVERYWHERE.

The desire for self determination is insanely complex, and has to be balanced against the desires of other people's self determination, the reality that there are practical limts to the organization of political entities, and *changing* exisiting structures is difficult and fraught with peril.

So I don't think at all that ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE have any right to determine on their own whether they want to be part of some particular political entity, nation, state, whatever. This is so obviously true it amazes me it has to be discussed.

It's all people everywhere. That in reality there's rules governing how this works and its not the anarchist free for all of your imagination doesn't change the underlying concept. This is the case with basically any simple idea put into practice.
It's pretty stupid to expect a few dozen people could form a country.

It's obviously not true in practice now. Plenty of examples of even supposidely democratic countries sitting on huge secessionist movements. But they're in the wrong and people should have the right to decide their own fate. History is full of examples of rights that people should have not actually being available to them.

What I *really* do not understand is the idea that this complex reality of separatists issues ought to be encouraged in wartime - that one way to get a "referendum" if you cannot get one outside of violence, is to start killing people until others are tired enough of it to agree to the referendum you could not get them to agree to (or that failed) otherwise.

Youve got this backwards.
I don't believe crimea has a special right to a referendum because it was invaded.
Rather I believe it should have this right by default.
The invasion does not eliminate this right they already have.

If that was the case then let's imagine a theoretical where its agreed that's the way things work - wouldn't it make sense for country A which is worried about a wealthy province becoming independent to arrange for a neighbour to invade it just to eliminate that right?

[alfred russel]

But there was no formal recognition of a sphere of influence.  The US/West gave moral support to dissidents in Eastern Europe / USSR, and sometimes more.

Curious you mention the Baltics, because my googling suggests that the west did in fact send military supplies there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_war_in_the_Baltic_states

If the invasion of Hungary in 1956 turned into a more protracted struggle I have no doubts the West would have funneled in resources to the anti-Soviet resistance.

I'm aware that there was not a formal declaration of sphere of influence! Supposedly all those warsaw pact countries were sovereign as well and not militarily dominated puppets.

I specifically picked out the baltics because I knew it was a very long struggle but i didn't know the US/NATO supported it...if they did it is news to me, but in any case it is obviously far more limited than anything today.

It has been mentioned that the Cold War didn't have the USSR threatening to use nuclear weapons, which is true. They didn't need to--the threat was well known to everyone. And everyone behaved iwth restraint and with a conscious effort to avoid anything that might lead to nuclear war. That isn't what i see right now.

[Josquius]

They already had that in Ukraine before 2014. I'm not sure what your point is anymore. Everyone agrees that democracy is good.

An invaded country is beating back a much larger, autocratic one. Stopping the war would not be a good thing, especially for the civilian population stuck in the occupied areas during this ceasefire.

At this point, russia will be lucky to get a ceasefire once the last vatnik has left Ukraine's territory.

A Russian withdrawal and UN posting to the occupied areas would be part of an optimal peace deal. It's a necessary precondition to have a fair referendum.
As said Russia obviously wouldn't agree to this.

And let's not let current events rewrite reality. Ukraine is definitely a country heading in the right direction, especially in contrast to Russia, but pre 2014 Ukraine wasn't exactly a healthy democracy and when it comes to the right of self determination even considerably more advanced democracies don't do very well.

The invasion is absolutely irrelevant to this fundamental statement of rights that people should have. If Jamtland wants to join Norway  - it should be their right to have a referendum on this (and Norways to decide whether to have them) without a single shot being fired. And if some nutty nationalist from either side does fire shots then that doesn't make this ideal any more or less valid.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Man, the sphere of influence idiocy again. The United States nor USSR ever "recognized" spheres of influence. Both sides worked to undermine the other wherever and whenever was feasible throughout the Cold War. If spheres of influence were a thing, the Soviets never would have supported Castro--who ruled a country famously only 90 miles away from the United States (and their decision to go in there in fact nearly caused a nuclear war), and the United States would not famously have very heavily supported the Mujahideen in Afghanistan--a country in central Asia well outside of any NATO areas of concern.

Using Hungary or Czechoslovakia as evidence of spheres of influence is stupid, both were functionally occupied states, who for most of the Cold War had very pro-Soviet governments. The conflicts that happened that resulted in direct Soviet invasion did not structurally allow for easy intervention, as the Soviets moved in almost effortlessly and in huge numbers. In the case of Hungary, it was also a landlocked country that no NATO country shared a border with, so any intervention would have involved seriously problematic behavior--probably going through quasi-neutral Austria which itself opens up a lot of problems.

Czechoslovakia since it bordered a NATO power we likely could have done more, had the Czechs been able to effectively resist for anytime at all, which they weren't--their leaders even told their people not to actively resist the Soviet invasion. There was no mechanism, feasibly anyway, to involve ourselves in those incidents. Where such opportunities presented themselves, both we and they took them.