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It’s strange that 95% of the comments at this moment appear to be strongly against the sanctions and displeased with the govt. Probably the reason china escape

by mint2 6y ago

It’s strange that 95% of the comments at this moment appear to be strongly against the sanctions and displeased with the govt. Probably the reason china escapes is China has more leverage over the world than Russia, and Russia has an order of magnitude more leverage than Iran. That’s why the response diminishes in that order. But it seems like most commenters don’t want any response. Escalation has dangers, but How are they sure appeasement will go well? I mean, it literally was a major cause of WW2. Basically a tightrope act is needed. I’m not going to armchair it.

sudosysgen 6y ago
There is no risk of "WW3". No one is about to try to invade the entirety of Europe and kill 150+ million people, enslaving a billion. These are all fairly self-limiting conflicts. China is interested in Taiwan (maybe) and a defensible path to the Pacific and Indian oceans. Russia is interested in having a buffer state against NATO. If you want to counter these objectives, then there is going to be a cost. But the cost of these objectives being realized is nowhere near that of WW2, so an armed confrontation is not worth it. The truth is that there isn't really any good solutions here. Both of these powers are in a situation where they feel that if they do not secure these strategic advantages there is a risk of disaster. The answer is either convince them that this is not the result in order to lower what cost they are willing to incur to achieve them, find a way to create an equilibrium between the US and those other powers, or use military dissuasion (which will be incredibly costly and might be impossible). In the end this is pretty much just a very difficult position. But you should not compare tactics that do not rely on the threat of massive violence to appeasement, none of these powers is willing to do anything near WW2.
- mint2 6y ago
  I have severe disagreements with your assessment particularly the part below: “ There is no risk of "WW3". No one is about to try to invade the entirety of Europe and kill 150+ million people, enslaving a billion. These are all fairly self-limiting conflicts. China is interested in Taiwan (maybe) and a defensible path to the Pacific and Indian oceans. Russia is interested in having a buffer state against NATO.” It both severely overplays the expectations people had in the early 1930’s, hindsight is 2020. And underplays the goals of China and Russia. And it doesn’t acknowledge what’s already happened like invasions and labor camps.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    What? No one thought that Hitler was going to be tame in the early 1930s. People thought that Hitler wasn't going to attack them, but kill other people instead. It's very different. Hitler himself said that his goal was to kill half of all Eastern Europe much before WW2 starting. >And underplays the goals of China and Russia. And it doesn’t acknowledge what’s already happened like invasions and labor camps. There is no interest for either Russia or China beyond that. A war in Eastern Europe is not in the interests of Russia, because of NATO and existing military capabilities. What is in the interests of Russia is to keep Ukraine out of NATO. The invasion of Crimea and the Donbass only happened after Ukraine expressed intent to join the EU and NATO, not before. As far as labour camps, penal labour for unjustified offenses is simply par for the course in the Earth of 2021. It is sad. And it has nothing to do with the assertion that China somehow wants to invade all of Asia or something equally ridiculous.
    - mint2 6y ago
      You’ve set up the Straw man arguments, I’m not going to defend “ridiculous”, to use your terminology, claims that I’ve never made. I did not say China has published intention to invade half of Asia, like you imply I did. They did essentially rip up the agreement in Hong Kong, and intend to completely dominate the entire South China Sea with their nine dashed line manifest destiny type claims, and they are trying to re-educate away Uighur culture. So no, they haven’t declare they want to invade half of Asia and it’s unlikely they will do that, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t on a very risky path. And just because I focused on China here, doesn’t mean Russia is squeaky clean.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        The things you're describing aren't even close to a world War. That's the ridiculous part. They did rip up the agreement in Hong Kong but Hong Kong was already sovereign Chinese territory, it was just breaking an international instrument, which is bog standard. And sure, it seeks to dominate the seas near to it. To note, the nine dash line is just a negotiation trick. It used to be an eleven dash line and a ten dash line also, and Chinese diplomats admitted that they don't seek territorial waters beyond 12nm of land. It's the same strategy as was used in the claims with Mongolia or in claims to the arctic - make vague grandiose claims then walk them back once you secure your strategic advantage. What China is really after is to control the waters that allow its supply lines to be secured. They see themselves as vulnerable to a blockade and their main enemy is the dominant sea power. It has some risk, certainly. But that risk is bounded well below the risk of a confrontation between two superpowers, and importantly is not ideological or irrational but driven by simple calculus that the present situation leaves China to be too vulnerable. That's so insanely far from WW2 that isn't not even close. Any comparison to that effect is hyperbolic. It's much closer to the establishment of the Monroe doctrine both in maximum impact and in motivation. The same applies to Russia. None of them want to start invading a dozen other countries, rather they have a national interest they want to protect and act as far as is necessary to achieve that.
nickik 6y ago
Equating all 'appeasement' and point to WW2 is tiered old argument. Arguably the US the aggressor anyway. The US made a number of promises to first Soviet Union to end Cold War and then to Russia. Pretty much all of them have been broken by the US or not renewed after promises. The US took major advantage Russian weakness. The US extend the boarder of its nuclear weapon protect zone to a few 100 miles of one of the major Russian cities. And realistically had Russia not acted, Georgia might be part of NATO now. And almost certainty the US is constantly 'cyber-attacking' Russia as well. Not to mention that punishing the whole Russian population is immoral way of response. What the US has done to Iraq the last 70 years isbeyond inexcusable
- mint2 6y ago
  Russia invaded Ukraine and repeatedly commits major cyber espionage against the USA, to the point they arguably changed the result of our presidential election (and I don’t mean altering vote machines) to name but one instance but no!! The aggressor is USA. Yeah we do cyber attacks and many other fairly inexcusable things. But to claim USA is the aggressor in this cause is highly debatable. And I’m not saying appeasement will cause ww3, I’m saying it’s had a past history of not working in a spectacular fashion, so it’s weird to default to it.
  - nickik 6y ago
    You should look up what the US did for Russian election. The US was deeply involved. > Russia invaded Ukraine The Crimea was part of Russian empire for 100s of years and even in the Soviet Union it was part of Russia, not Ukraine. It was a pure political move to increase his own power in the central comity by Khrushchev to move it into Ukraine. This was done without any asking the population. Then it defaulted to Ukraine because of the way the Soviet Union broke up. It should be part of Russia. Now the way it happened is certainty sub-optimal and warrants a political response and negotiation but the US should not exclude recognition of Crimea as a diplomatic option. > Yeah we do cyber attacks and many other fairly inexcusable things. But to claim USA is the aggressor in this cause is highly debatable. I was playing devils advocates. But seriously, if you are Russian its easy to construct a case. And from my Swiss perspective who the good guy is, very much depends on the situation, I don't just default to USA good, Russia bad. Both governments do a whole lot of evil stuff. > And I’m not saying appeasement will cause ww3, I’m saying it’s had a past history of not working in a spectacular fashion, so it’s weird to default to it. But that's the point. The US did not 'default' to it. The US took major actions that were directly against opposed to multiple signed treaties with Soviet Union and Russia. When Russia tried to argue the point, they were dismissed and ignored. Despite strong objections by Russia and multiple red lines, NATO still went ahead with expansion and would have continued if Russia had not responded. What would the US do if Russia attempted to put a nuclear cover over Cube, Mexico and Hawaii? I think we know.

by mint2 6y ago

sudosysgen 6y ago

There is no risk of "WW3". No one is about to try to invade the entirety of Europe and kill 150+ million people, enslaving a billion. These are all fairly self-limiting conflicts. China is interested in Taiwan (maybe) and a defensible path to the Pacific and Indian oceans. Russia is interested in having a buffer state against NATO. If you want to counter these objectives, then there is going to be a cost. But the cost of these objectives being realized is nowhere near that of WW2, so an armed confrontation is not worth it. The truth is that there isn't really any good solutions here. Both of these powers are in a situation where they feel that if they do not secure these strategic advantages there is a risk of disaster. The answer is either convince them that this is not the result in order to lower what cost they are willing to incur to achieve them, find a way to create an equilibrium between the US and those other powers, or use military dissuasion (which will be incredibly costly and might be impossible). In the end this is pretty much just a very difficult position. But you should not compare tactics that do not rely on the threat of massive violence to appeasement, none of these powers is willing to do anything near WW2.

mint2 6y ago
I have severe disagreements with your assessment particularly the part below: “ There is no risk of "WW3". No one is about to try to invade the entirety of Europe and kill 150+ million people, enslaving a billion. These are all fairly self-limiting conflicts. China is interested in Taiwan (maybe) and a defensible path to the Pacific and Indian oceans. Russia is interested in having a buffer state against NATO.” It both severely overplays the expectations people had in the early 1930’s, hindsight is 2020. And underplays the goals of China and Russia. And it doesn’t acknowledge what’s already happened like invasions and labor camps.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  What? No one thought that Hitler was going to be tame in the early 1930s. People thought that Hitler wasn't going to attack them, but kill other people instead. It's very different. Hitler himself said that his goal was to kill half of all Eastern Europe much before WW2 starting. >And underplays the goals of China and Russia. And it doesn’t acknowledge what’s already happened like invasions and labor camps. There is no interest for either Russia or China beyond that. A war in Eastern Europe is not in the interests of Russia, because of NATO and existing military capabilities. What is in the interests of Russia is to keep Ukraine out of NATO. The invasion of Crimea and the Donbass only happened after Ukraine expressed intent to join the EU and NATO, not before. As far as labour camps, penal labour for unjustified offenses is simply par for the course in the Earth of 2021. It is sad. And it has nothing to do with the assertion that China somehow wants to invade all of Asia or something equally ridiculous.
  - mint2 6y ago
    You’ve set up the Straw man arguments, I’m not going to defend “ridiculous”, to use your terminology, claims that I’ve never made. I did not say China has published intention to invade half of Asia, like you imply I did. They did essentially rip up the agreement in Hong Kong, and intend to completely dominate the entire South China Sea with their nine dashed line manifest destiny type claims, and they are trying to re-educate away Uighur culture. So no, they haven’t declare they want to invade half of Asia and it’s unlikely they will do that, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t on a very risky path. And just because I focused on China here, doesn’t mean Russia is squeaky clean.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      The things you're describing aren't even close to a world War. That's the ridiculous part. They did rip up the agreement in Hong Kong but Hong Kong was already sovereign Chinese territory, it was just breaking an international instrument, which is bog standard. And sure, it seeks to dominate the seas near to it. To note, the nine dash line is just a negotiation trick. It used to be an eleven dash line and a ten dash line also, and Chinese diplomats admitted that they don't seek territorial waters beyond 12nm of land. It's the same strategy as was used in the claims with Mongolia or in claims to the arctic - make vague grandiose claims then walk them back once you secure your strategic advantage. What China is really after is to control the waters that allow its supply lines to be secured. They see themselves as vulnerable to a blockade and their main enemy is the dominant sea power. It has some risk, certainly. But that risk is bounded well below the risk of a confrontation between two superpowers, and importantly is not ideological or irrational but driven by simple calculus that the present situation leaves China to be too vulnerable. That's so insanely far from WW2 that isn't not even close. Any comparison to that effect is hyperbolic. It's much closer to the establishment of the Monroe doctrine both in maximum impact and in motivation. The same applies to Russia. None of them want to start invading a dozen other countries, rather they have a national interest they want to protect and act as far as is necessary to achieve that.

nickik 6y ago

Equating all 'appeasement' and point to WW2 is tiered old argument. Arguably the US the aggressor anyway. The US made a number of promises to first Soviet Union to end Cold War and then to Russia. Pretty much all of them have been broken by the US or not renewed after promises. The US took major advantage Russian weakness. The US extend the boarder of its nuclear weapon protect zone to a few 100 miles of one of the major Russian cities. And realistically had Russia not acted, Georgia might be part of NATO now. And almost certainty the US is constantly 'cyber-attacking' Russia as well. Not to mention that punishing the whole Russian population is immoral way of response. What the US has done to Iraq the last 70 years isbeyond inexcusable

mint2 6y ago
Russia invaded Ukraine and repeatedly commits major cyber espionage against the USA, to the point they arguably changed the result of our presidential election (and I don’t mean altering vote machines) to name but one instance but no!! The aggressor is USA. Yeah we do cyber attacks and many other fairly inexcusable things. But to claim USA is the aggressor in this cause is highly debatable. And I’m not saying appeasement will cause ww3, I’m saying it’s had a past history of not working in a spectacular fashion, so it’s weird to default to it.
- nickik 6y ago
  You should look up what the US did for Russian election. The US was deeply involved. > Russia invaded Ukraine The Crimea was part of Russian empire for 100s of years and even in the Soviet Union it was part of Russia, not Ukraine. It was a pure political move to increase his own power in the central comity by Khrushchev to move it into Ukraine. This was done without any asking the population. Then it defaulted to Ukraine because of the way the Soviet Union broke up. It should be part of Russia. Now the way it happened is certainty sub-optimal and warrants a political response and negotiation but the US should not exclude recognition of Crimea as a diplomatic option. > Yeah we do cyber attacks and many other fairly inexcusable things. But to claim USA is the aggressor in this cause is highly debatable. I was playing devils advocates. But seriously, if you are Russian its easy to construct a case. And from my Swiss perspective who the good guy is, very much depends on the situation, I don't just default to USA good, Russia bad. Both governments do a whole lot of evil stuff. > And I’m not saying appeasement will cause ww3, I’m saying it’s had a past history of not working in a spectacular fashion, so it’s weird to default to it. But that's the point. The US did not 'default' to it. The US took major actions that were directly against opposed to multiple signed treaties with Soviet Union and Russia. When Russia tried to argue the point, they were dismissed and ignored. Despite strong objections by Russia and multiple red lines, NATO still went ahead with expansion and would have continued if Russia had not responded. What would the US do if Russia attempted to put a nuclear cover over Cube, Mexico and Hawaii? I think we know.