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Glad to let moralistic foreign policy drive the entire trade block down the shitter (it is moralistic FP because EU did not nut up and actually deploy to protec

• MauranKilom 4y ago
  Right, starting WW3 by entering the theater would not have been "insanity". Obviously.
• ceejayoz 4y ago
  "Let's not get nuked" isn't moralistic or insane, in my book. A hot war between EU/NATO and Russia is not something anyone should advocate for, nor is letting Russia just take countries it wants on the edges of Europe. The current situation is a direct result of ignoring a long pattern of Russian aggression and expansionism in Georgia, Moldova, and Crimea.
  • oxff 4y ago
    I'm not recommending to have a nuclear war over who gets to collect vodka taxes in some East European town. I am pointing out that these people let moral foreign policy run their entire trade block and foreign policy choices, and not a cold rational calculus of any kind. All the self-sanctions have come to nothing: they have not and will not materially affect the end result of the war. They've made me, as a citizen in an EU country, pay out of my nose for their moral betterness though, when we are not even a party to the war.
    • ceejayoz 4y ago
      The rational calculus here is "Russia will keep doing this as long as we let them". The time to start getting off Russian gas was 2014. The EU, and Germany in particular, let a gun be pointed at their head for far too long.
      • nathias 4y ago
        yes, like US and China, we can't stop them and it doesn't help to kill our economy for a strictly symbolic action
        • frostburg 4y ago
          Russia is failing, with its military reputation, one of its few assets, in tatters.
          • nathias 4y ago
            its weird how people who have nothing always have to take care of the bill
            • ceejayoz 4y ago
              The answer to that moral issue is not to do the immoral thing in the linked scenario. The answer to that is to do the moral thing in both aspects. The EU should provide payment assistance to low-income folks for their energy bills, or directly subsidize it.
            • frostburg 4y ago
              Those goalposts are moving quickly. "It's impossible" -> "It's too costly" -> "The wrong people are supposedly footing the cost (without considering the gigantic externalities)" -> "I just want Russia to win"
              • nathias 4y ago
                I never said it is impossible, it's 1. immoral (sanctions are only against civilians) 2. idiotic (destroy your economy for a symbolic gesture) 3. paid by the poorest It is possible to dislike all empires you know.
                • TheGigaChad 4y ago
    • Wowfunhappy 4y ago
      Who is to say Russia will stop at Ukraine? They clearly weren't satisfied with Crimea. Is Poland safe? Is Germany? I don't mean to be alarmist but we've seen similar scenarios play out in Europe before. This isn't merely about what's morally correct, it's also about self-interest.
      • oxff 4y ago
        The sanctions do nothing to stop this. They're not acting like they're a marketing firm that gets shocked because of some red in the GDP, they're on a war footing. That will only react to, you guessed it, equal force (war).
        • Wowfunhappy 4y ago
          I mean, are you suggesting we go to war with Russia directly? That's not going to help with the natural gas shortage. I hope it doesn't come to that, but it could some day, I don't know, obviously if Russia attacks... well, in the meantime, I don't think we should be giving Russia more money it can use to further develop its military.
          • oxff 4y ago
            > I mean, are you suggesting we go to war with Russia directly? That's not going to help with the natural gas shortage. I am stating that going to war with Russia is the only way to walk the walk and be provably morally good over the issue. The sanctions are just a particularly expensive form of virtue signaling that does not alter the outcome of the war, but makes EU leaders Feel Good. > Don't think we should be giving Russia money it can use to pay its soldiers and build more weapons. And I disagree, my extended family is already in troubles and the proper price increase doesn't even come until winter. It's not a "don't think" question either. Would I like to be energy independent? Of course. Can I currently? No, not without risking energy security for winter. So I would pay (but EU has decided it is a Moral Bad, and tells me to warm myself with Moral Good). Suffering ~10%+ inflation and having no guaranteed energy (all depends on Germany) for moral good boy points only helps nobody, and neither of the conditions alter the material facts on the frontline, nor does it make EU resilient either (economical turmoil has generally been a politically radicalizing agent in democracies). It is just stupid, hysterical politics.
    • blackhaz 4y ago
      Komintern was very, very active in Europe. You think Putin will stop on Ukraine, is that all he wants? He'll maybe pause on Brest when poor Europeans will be looking at golf-playing superyacht-sailing Russian mobsters robbing the EU. That's the dream. A bunch of power-hungry corrupt and immoral people who now have enough weapons to actually start doing this. They don't give a fuck about your Europe.
    • time_to_smile 4y ago
      > who gets to collect vodka taxes in some East European town. Is that what you think Russian expansion in those regions is about? It's not. Just like the current military expansion, those conflicts have been about acquiring and controlling natural gas and oil reserves in those regions. This entire conflict has been about energy and it's been going on for the past decade or so because of relatively recent discoveries of fossil fuel reserves in these areas coupled with control over pipelines transporting these resources. At the end of the day these struggles are about resources and fundamentally existential in nature. If Russia fails to acquire more reserves it will be on a sure path to absolute decline. This is why the nuclear threat should be taken seriously, if Russia where to lose this conflict entirely, they would be on the path to complete collapse. If pushed too far it makes absolute sense for Russia to take extreme options since they would be backed into a pretty severe corner.
      • frostburg 4y ago
        Those extreme measures would get all the leadership killed or hiding in bunkers forever (and I wouldn't bet on their lifespan in the bunker). There's plenty of graft still to be had in a weakened, declining Russia, on the other hand.
• polotics 4y ago
  moralistic foreign policy as in not paying a country that sent its goons rape children? also putin said, lavrov said: we won't invade...
  • iso1631 4y ago
    Yes. Western countries have dealt with and enriched nasty reigimes one way or another for centuries
    • intrasight 4y ago
      If you're timescale is centuries, then the reverse has also been true.
  • oxff 4y ago
    It is moralistic because moral hysteria ("goons raping children") is driving the fate of the entire trade block right now, your post was a perfect example. Poor, lights out EU with 10-20% inflation will not in fact be a 'strong against Russia' or whatever (and this is without EU being in a war of any kind, lmao)
    • polotics 4y ago
      pray tell what is about the quotes? do you claim that the very well documented exactions by russian troops are fabricated by the west? Lavrov also did, but then he refused the setup of any independent inquiry therefore in my humnle opinion admitting responsibility for these crimes.
• shafyy 4y ago
  Well, it's easy to sit on HN simplify super complex international situation to one dimension with the benefit of hindsight, isn't it?
  • oxff 4y ago
    I am not even using hindsight though. Even in Feb 1st you'd have to be ignorant to think the self-sanction regime will do anything.
• V__ 4y ago
  I think this argument is very short-term thinking. Letting Russia take Ukraine would have enormous security implications long term. I mean the lack of sanctions, hasn't stopped Russia after taking Crimea, so it's only fair to assume Ukraine wouldn't be the end to Russia's (Putin's) expansion either. They implied so many times. Their enormous investments in the destabilization of foreign politics, have made it a very real possibility that the U.S. might drop out of NATO, if Trump gets reelected. Orban and Erdogan are also wild cards. Such a development would put Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Poland at risk. In long, that isn't insanity at all.
  • oxff 4y ago
    > Letting Russia take Ukraine would have enormous security implications long term Yes, I am not disputing that. I stated that the actions of EU (self-sanctions) have not, and will not affect whether or no Russia takes Ukraine though, this was the entire point of my post. It is part of what makes them so absurd. An action that would affect would be to deploy there via strategic military action, but which our Moral Leaders are too scared (for right reasons, Russia has lots of nukes) to make. So they do this idiotic self-sanction regime to Feel Good (all paid by the tax payers and lower quality of life by people like me, who live in EU).
    • bamboozled 4y ago
      > I stated that the actions of EU (self-sanctions) have not, and will not affect whether or no Russia takes Ukraine though, this was the entire point of my post. It is part of what makes them so absurd. What credentials, intel do you have to back this up? I've heard a lot of evidence to support the contrary. The sanctions are working, Russia is just telling us they're not and that's what the rooble is so highly valued right now. The ruble is worthless because no one accepts it.
      • oxff 4y ago
        I am not credentialed, I am a Bad Person (I have my own Thoughts); as for "intel", I have none either. I find these given cause-and-effect chains in defense of the sanctions and other actions largely to be magical thinking and hysterical (they'd be less so if they were actually backed by the proof-of-work of deploying to protect Ukraine). Like, I don't care about the Ruble in itself. I was told that it would be flattened in two weeks. Well it wasn't, so we failed there. Okay, so next goal post is to pretend Ruble going up and down has helped Ukraine's strategic or operational capabilities or hurt Russia's, materially altered the course of the war. Well that's magical thinking, they were supposed to run out of missiles in two weeks somewhere around March, and it was like day or two ago they made their largest missile strike (which have been more or less continuous). A NATO deployment would alter the outcome of the war, and that single action is not coming.
• the_gipsy 4y ago
  We should have given up eastern Ukraine, negotiate peace. Better surrender a part than destroying the whole country. We get hyperinflation, giving money to USA's weapons industry, general destabilization, and a lot of dead Ukranians. All because it's politically weak to negotiate with Russia. Only Macron tried and he was sadly ridiculed. Does nobody remember how Sarkozy helped with Georgia's peace negotiations?
  • rlpb 4y ago
    Is that what you said about Crimea? Where does it stop?
    • oxff 4y ago
      It stops when NATO deploys there. NATO will not deploy there. So, more sanctions I guess. It is immoral if any EU citizen has heating this winter when that could be going to Ukraine.
    • the_gipsy 4y ago
      It stops at EU/NATO border. There is no way to know how Russia will behave exactly, but we DO know that they stopped invading Georgia when some territory was ceded. The USA and Europe behave very differently when invading (Iraq, Afghanistan). It does not help to reduce the conflict into a bad guys/good guys story. People are dying and a whole country might get flattened to rubble.