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> the US military's "gray area" is invading countries and killing a whole lot of innocent people in the process Or, you know, being by far the largest reason (

> the US military's "gray area" is invading countries and killing a whole lot of innocent people in the process Or, you know, being by far the largest reason (outside of the Ukrainians themselves) that Ukraine is able to protect itself from an evil war of aggression and not face Holodomor v2...https://www.statista.com/chart/27278/military-aid-to-ukraine-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/chart/27278/military-aid-to-ukraine... The Ukrainian "Saint Javelin" even has one of these training modes being discussed (I don't actually know if it was made using Unity, but it sure looked like it) Gray area.

blub 4y ago
Russia and Ukraine had many disagreements since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The moment that relations really took a turn for the worse was after Ukraine started flirting with NATO and to a lesser extent EU, at which point Russia took Crimea and tensions started in the East. Ukraine then continued to align and train with NATO, the Minsk accords failed and Russia invaded. At this point, our best understanding is that they wanted to enact quick regime change and re-align the country’s position to Russia. As to your reference to Holodomor 2, there’s no indication that they wanted to commit genocide or force a large scale famine. Russia’s actions in Georgia, Belarus or Crimea itself indicate the more likely fate of Ukraine. Of course the problem with an escalation spiral is that there’s no telling where it will end up. Still, considering that Ukraine’s allowing gas exports to transit their country and Russia’s allowing grain exports, the relation is not as hopeless as you make it seem. As for the US’s contribution to the Ukraine war effort, paradoxically, the US support and NATO courting them were likely an important trigger of the invasion. And the US support which enabled Ukraine’s resistance means that it’s now trapped in a spiral of violence with Russia that is tearing both countries apart. We can’t know what could have been, but looking at other neighbors of Russia’s an alternative reality where Ukraine remains corrupt, poor, in Russia’s sphere of influence but whole is not unlikely.
8note 4y ago
Holodomor is some propaganda though. Everyone involved thought is was going do great things, and it failed because modernism wasn't as great as expected
7speter 4y ago
The soldiers have no say what missions or assignments they are put on. They do, however, have families and lives and dreams they would like to return to. Isn’t it ethical to allow these individuals to increase their chances to return home, regardless they f what command assigns them to do and whether those plans in and of themselves are ethical?
donkeyd 4y ago
As a European, I feel very thankful that the US has given up many of the luxuries (health care, social security, paid time off by law) we have here to fund a military to protect the world. My country has 2 fighter jets and a tank with a flat tire (hyperbole) and really depends on this. I've been vocally critical of the US defense spending, but through the Ukraine war have come to a realization we've all been spoiled and naive and feel like Europe really needs to pick up defense spending and not just in the short term.
- nightski 4y ago
  The reality is our debt servicing (interest) will outpace our military spending soon.
- adventured 4y ago
  The US has the world's largest entitlement and social welfare programs, including its vast Social Security program (which is not actually paid for in full by its recipients, it's heavily subsidized, ie a welfare transfer) or eg its $120 billion EBT food program. And that's just at the federal level, the US has another gigantic government complex at the state level. Most US government spending, $10 trillion (federal + state + local), goes to social welfare programs and entitlements. That $10 trillion is larger than the entire economies of Japan + Germany combined. The US spends more on healthcare than any other nation, by far. It hasn't given up anything. The poorest 1/4 of the US population gets entirely free healthcare, and it's the most expensive free healthcare that you'll find anywhere on the planet. Another quarter of the US population receives directly subsidized healthcare. Over-spending on the US military is a $200-$250 billion problem. The US spends $4+ trillion on healthcare every year. Practically every full-time employee (32 hours or more per week) in the US gets paid time off. Your average retail store employee - working at CVS, Walgreens, Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc - earning ~$13-$17 / hour typically accrues 10-14 days of PTO per year (one can certainly argue it should be more; pretending it doesn't exist, or using "by law" to devalue its existence, is absurd).
  - jolly_jailtime 4y ago
    Don't forget them lucky 1/2 percenters who get free healthcare, food, residence, and leisure time! I'm talking about the incarcerated 1.7m in the Land of the Free.
buran77 4y ago
> Gray area. I'm sure you believe you set something straight but you did not. Two things can be true at the same time and still not be in any kind of gray area. Can you get out of a murder charge by saving someone else's life? Walk into a hospital and save one patient's life while stabbing the other to death? Rape someone but then give them a job that provides for everything? Pay for the preservation of an endangered animal only after you get the chance to kill some of the very same animals? You think Harvey Weinstein didn't pay the tuition or put a roof over one of his victim's heads? Yeah, think of him in the gray area. Can you give me your example above and proudly proclaim "grey area" without sounding like the kind of person who thinks any wrongdoing gets wiped with a gesture of good will? P.S. Gray should be the thin border where white and black touch and intermingle, not the whole damn thing except the white/black edges. That might ebb and flow and drift with generations and society but this moment is not it.
- brokenkebab2 4y ago
  Can we decide that saving a victim from violence by applying violence to an aggressor is net positive? Yes, absolutely
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    And then when in your 'aggressive defense' you end up hurting somebody else who now uses the exact same logic to start attacking you? This is how war (and terrorism) perpetuate endlessly. It only ends when one side or the other, and anybody who might have empathized with them, is completely annihilated or when somebody stops behaving, from their perspective, righteously. Neither option is probable, which is why society just keeps replaying history on an endless loop in history, with little more than technology offering a change of scenery. If you want to see what will happen tomorrow, simply learn about what happened yesterday. The only trick is realizing what role you're playing.
    - brokenkebab2 4y ago
      We have historical experience which pretty clearly shows that not increasing the price of aggression surely doesn't stop it. Contrary to what feel-good gurus say about "breaking the cycle of violence", in real life, it only breaks when the price of continuing is getting too high. And yes, when it comes to war it's definitely not a fairytale with all good men rewarded, and bad men punished. So if you wanted to say to that war is bad - I think almost nobody would oppose it. Not answering with weapons to weapons means there will be more of it, however.
roenxi 4y ago
We've been trying to avoid US soldiers fighting Russian soldiers for decades now; it'll look a lot worse than the Holodomor v2 if nukes start flying. Given that they aren't, I suspect we'll find that US soldiers aren't technically involved in the fight in Ukraine. It is ironic that even now, US soldiers are only deployed for aggressive purposes.
- adventured 4y ago
  US soldiers during the post WW2 era are overwhelmingly deployed for non-directly aggressive purposes in fact. They're deployed as a standing deterrent to regimes looking to conquer other nations. That includes in Japan, South Korea and various nations in Europe (Germany, Italy, Poland, et al.). By the hour, those locations have seen the largest and longest-term US military deployments in its history. They're not there to start wars, they're there to deter the aggressors (Russia, North Korea, China primarily) from attempting to conquer their neighbors and annex more territory.

blub 4y ago

Russia and Ukraine had many disagreements since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The moment that relations really took a turn for the worse was after Ukraine started flirting with NATO and to a lesser extent EU, at which point Russia took Crimea and tensions started in the East. Ukraine then continued to align and train with NATO, the Minsk accords failed and Russia invaded. At this point, our best understanding is that they wanted to enact quick regime change and re-align the country’s position to Russia. As to your reference to Holodomor 2, there’s no indication that they wanted to commit genocide or force a large scale famine. Russia’s actions in Georgia, Belarus or Crimea itself indicate the more likely fate of Ukraine. Of course the problem with an escalation spiral is that there’s no telling where it will end up. Still, considering that Ukraine’s allowing gas exports to transit their country and Russia’s allowing grain exports, the relation is not as hopeless as you make it seem. As for the US’s contribution to the Ukraine war effort, paradoxically, the US support and NATO courting them were likely an important trigger of the invasion. And the US support which enabled Ukraine’s resistance means that it’s now trapped in a spiral of violence with Russia that is tearing both countries apart. We can’t know what could have been, but looking at other neighbors of Russia’s an alternative reality where Ukraine remains corrupt, poor, in Russia’s sphere of influence but whole is not unlikely.

8note 4y ago

Holodomor is some propaganda though. Everyone involved thought is was going do great things, and it failed because modernism wasn't as great as expected

7speter 4y ago

The soldiers have no say what missions or assignments they are put on. They do, however, have families and lives and dreams they would like to return to. Isn’t it ethical to allow these individuals to increase their chances to return home, regardless they f what command assigns them to do and whether those plans in and of themselves are ethical?

donkeyd 4y ago

As a European, I feel very thankful that the US has given up many of the luxuries (health care, social security, paid time off by law) we have here to fund a military to protect the world. My country has 2 fighter jets and a tank with a flat tire (hyperbole) and really depends on this. I've been vocally critical of the US defense spending, but through the Ukraine war have come to a realization we've all been spoiled and naive and feel like Europe really needs to pick up defense spending and not just in the short term.

nightski 4y ago
The reality is our debt servicing (interest) will outpace our military spending soon.
adventured 4y ago
The US has the world's largest entitlement and social welfare programs, including its vast Social Security program (which is not actually paid for in full by its recipients, it's heavily subsidized, ie a welfare transfer) or eg its $120 billion EBT food program. And that's just at the federal level, the US has another gigantic government complex at the state level. Most US government spending, $10 trillion (federal + state + local), goes to social welfare programs and entitlements. That $10 trillion is larger than the entire economies of Japan + Germany combined. The US spends more on healthcare than any other nation, by far. It hasn't given up anything. The poorest 1/4 of the US population gets entirely free healthcare, and it's the most expensive free healthcare that you'll find anywhere on the planet. Another quarter of the US population receives directly subsidized healthcare. Over-spending on the US military is a $200-$250 billion problem. The US spends $4+ trillion on healthcare every year. Practically every full-time employee (32 hours or more per week) in the US gets paid time off. Your average retail store employee - working at CVS, Walgreens, Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc - earning ~$13-$17 / hour typically accrues 10-14 days of PTO per year (one can certainly argue it should be more; pretending it doesn't exist, or using "by law" to devalue its existence, is absurd).
- jolly_jailtime 4y ago
  Don't forget them lucky 1/2 percenters who get free healthcare, food, residence, and leisure time! I'm talking about the incarcerated 1.7m in the Land of the Free.

buran77 4y ago

> Gray area. I'm sure you believe you set something straight but you did not. Two things can be true at the same time and still not be in any kind of gray area. Can you get out of a murder charge by saving someone else's life? Walk into a hospital and save one patient's life while stabbing the other to death? Rape someone but then give them a job that provides for everything? Pay for the preservation of an endangered animal only after you get the chance to kill some of the very same animals? You think Harvey Weinstein didn't pay the tuition or put a roof over one of his victim's heads? Yeah, think of him in the gray area. Can you give me your example above and proudly proclaim "grey area" without sounding like the kind of person who thinks any wrongdoing gets wiped with a gesture of good will? P.S. Gray should be the thin border where white and black touch and intermingle, not the whole damn thing except the white/black edges. That might ebb and flow and drift with generations and society but this moment is not it.

brokenkebab2 4y ago
Can we decide that saving a victim from violence by applying violence to an aggressor is net positive? Yes, absolutely
- somenameforme 4y ago
  And then when in your 'aggressive defense' you end up hurting somebody else who now uses the exact same logic to start attacking you? This is how war (and terrorism) perpetuate endlessly. It only ends when one side or the other, and anybody who might have empathized with them, is completely annihilated or when somebody stops behaving, from their perspective, righteously. Neither option is probable, which is why society just keeps replaying history on an endless loop in history, with little more than technology offering a change of scenery. If you want to see what will happen tomorrow, simply learn about what happened yesterday. The only trick is realizing what role you're playing.
  - brokenkebab2 4y ago
    We have historical experience which pretty clearly shows that not increasing the price of aggression surely doesn't stop it. Contrary to what feel-good gurus say about "breaking the cycle of violence", in real life, it only breaks when the price of continuing is getting too high. And yes, when it comes to war it's definitely not a fairytale with all good men rewarded, and bad men punished. So if you wanted to say to that war is bad - I think almost nobody would oppose it. Not answering with weapons to weapons means there will be more of it, however.

roenxi 4y ago

We've been trying to avoid US soldiers fighting Russian soldiers for decades now; it'll look a lot worse than the Holodomor v2 if nukes start flying. Given that they aren't, I suspect we'll find that US soldiers aren't technically involved in the fight in Ukraine. It is ironic that even now, US soldiers are only deployed for aggressive purposes.

adventured 4y ago
US soldiers during the post WW2 era are overwhelmingly deployed for non-directly aggressive purposes in fact. They're deployed as a standing deterrent to regimes looking to conquer other nations. That includes in Japan, South Korea and various nations in Europe (Germany, Italy, Poland, et al.). By the hour, those locations have seen the largest and longest-term US military deployments in its history. They're not there to start wars, they're there to deter the aggressors (Russia, North Korea, China primarily) from attempting to conquer their neighbors and annex more territory.