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How is that? https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/chechnya-war https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/chechnya-war

by cheriot 4y ago

btilly 4y ago
Chechnya was inside of Russia's national boundaries. And therefore was not a violation of international law.
- cheriot 4y ago
  The question is whether it was ever reasonable to see Putin as a reliable partner. The first thing he did in office was launch a brutal invasion, stifle the press, and ignore war crimes committed by the Russian army. Is that someone a peaceful democracy can trust?
  - btilly 4y ago
    I am in complete agreement with you on Putin's character. I am also in complete agreement on what he did to the press, and the war crimes he committed. However what he did in Chechnya was fight a civil war in a particularly brutal way. This is different than invading another country. Admittedly the distinction doesn't matter to the people who were living there. But it DOES matter to other countries. The US position, in particular, was that we wanted Russia to remain territorially stable. Our top priority was to see Russian nukes secured. Our nightmare was a breakup of Russia resulting in loose nukes going to bad actors. Which gave us a big incentive to not complain about the horrible ways in which Russia was maintaining said stability. When Putin moved from suppressing civil war to international conquest, the situation changed. But the USA was also in the embarrassing position of having no moral high ground to stand on. For example estimates of excess mortality in Syria are in the same range as estimates of excess mortality in Iraq. And across much the world, our invasion of Iraq is seen as less legitimate than Russia's invasion of Georgia, and support of the existing government of Syria...
    - cheriot 4y ago
      We're talking about whether Putin's character was something a country like Germany could bank its energy policy on starting in the 2010s. That's not a question of international law, of US policy in 1999, or US actions in Iraq. Chechnya was evidence of what he's willing to do for political gain. Georgia was evidence of territorial ambition. Assassinations in UK and Europe showed us he saw those countries as no different than any other. Yet western leaders spent years trying to convince themselves and their people that Russia could be trusted as a partner. I agree that there was little to nothing anyone could do about Chechnya, but that doesn't mean we couldn't learn from it.
      - btilly 4y ago
        You make a good point. And we can add a long list of other things to this list, such as his 2007 speech in Berlin, or 2008 law that the Holodomor was not genocide. That German leaders refused to act on the evidence is definitely to the shame of Germany.

How is that? https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/chechnya-war https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/chechnya-war

btilly 4y ago

Chechnya was inside of Russia's national boundaries. And therefore was not a violation of international law.

cheriot 4y ago
The question is whether it was ever reasonable to see Putin as a reliable partner. The first thing he did in office was launch a brutal invasion, stifle the press, and ignore war crimes committed by the Russian army. Is that someone a peaceful democracy can trust?
- btilly 4y ago
  I am in complete agreement with you on Putin's character. I am also in complete agreement on what he did to the press, and the war crimes he committed. However what he did in Chechnya was fight a civil war in a particularly brutal way. This is different than invading another country. Admittedly the distinction doesn't matter to the people who were living there. But it DOES matter to other countries. The US position, in particular, was that we wanted Russia to remain territorially stable. Our top priority was to see Russian nukes secured. Our nightmare was a breakup of Russia resulting in loose nukes going to bad actors. Which gave us a big incentive to not complain about the horrible ways in which Russia was maintaining said stability. When Putin moved from suppressing civil war to international conquest, the situation changed. But the USA was also in the embarrassing position of having no moral high ground to stand on. For example estimates of excess mortality in Syria are in the same range as estimates of excess mortality in Iraq. And across much the world, our invasion of Iraq is seen as less legitimate than Russia's invasion of Georgia, and support of the existing government of Syria...
  - cheriot 4y ago
    We're talking about whether Putin's character was something a country like Germany could bank its energy policy on starting in the 2010s. That's not a question of international law, of US policy in 1999, or US actions in Iraq. Chechnya was evidence of what he's willing to do for political gain. Georgia was evidence of territorial ambition. Assassinations in UK and Europe showed us he saw those countries as no different than any other. Yet western leaders spent years trying to convince themselves and their people that Russia could be trusted as a partner. I agree that there was little to nothing anyone could do about Chechnya, but that doesn't mean we couldn't learn from it.
    - btilly 4y ago
      You make a good point. And we can add a long list of other things to this list, such as his 2007 speech in Berlin, or 2008 law that the Holodomor was not genocide. That German leaders refused to act on the evidence is definitely to the shame of Germany.