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> Negotiation is unlikely to change this analysis if the rotting corpses of its own dead isn't sufficiently persuasive. So the only solution you leave us with

> Negotiation is unlikely to change this analysis if the rotting corpses of its own dead isn't sufficiently persuasive. So the only solution you leave us with is open war with a nuclear power. > There is no communique that could have resolved this because Russia believed that it would quickly roll into Kiev and end it. There is a common strain of thought that WWII was a "just war" and that nothing could have prevented war with Nazi Germany. This is correct if one starts history in 1938, or even 1933, but ignores the fifteen years between 1933 and the end of World War I, and still the years of WWI and the decades prior. You are wrong in the same way that folks err that WWII was unavoidable. History exists and we didn't arrive at this moment simply because of the evil of one man. If we want to avoid an open war with a nuclear power, we have to be willing to negotiate. Putin is rational and has negotiated in the past. How many corpses do you want?

EGreg 4y ago
I am not sure what Russian presidents (not just Putin) could have done to stop NATO expansion. They have complained, they have offered to join NATO, they were rebuffed. But Russia's neighbors were PUSHED to join, even if their own citizens didn't want to. Why? Here is a chronology since the 90s: Boris Yeltsin officially complained and ask NATO not to expand. What was wrong with Boris Yeltsin? https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/02/world/yeltsin-opposes-expansion-of-nato-in-eastern-europe.html https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/02/world/yeltsin-opposes-exp... https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2021-11-24/nato-expansion-budapest-blow-1994 https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2021... He was literally on the cover of Time magazine with an American flag, after USA meddled in Russian elections to prop up the guy who implemented privatization, "shock therapy", and continued to do it even when the Parliament made a vote of no confidence, during the Russian constitutional crisis he actually fired at the Parliament and arrested the Parliament (same as the Peru guy who was ousted recently): https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.html https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.htm... Boris Yeltsin did everything USA wanted to be done to Russia and even so, his complaints about NATO expansion fell on deaf ears. Then NATO bombed Yugoslavia, showing it's not just a "defensive alliance": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia and then Yugoslavia fell apart and Kosovo declared independence unilaterally (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_independence_precedent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_independence_precedent) Putin wanted to join NATO since 2001: the answer was no. Why? https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2001/08/putin-is-right-russia-belongs-in-nato/377557/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2001/08/putin-i... In 2008, George W Bush pushed for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO, but not Russia. Never Russia. Why? A solid majority of Ukrainians didn't want to join NATO, but that didn't stop NATO from constantly trying, and even working with Yuschenko to start the process. I thought NATO was "only if you want to join": https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-no-to-nato/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-n... Then Yanukovich came in and stopped the NATO membership process (stopping is what polls showed matched what the majority wanted). So NATO then helped Ukraine destroy their own defensive weapon stockpiles, and then offered themselves as the solution... here is their own site admitting it: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_79035.htm?selectedLocale=en https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_79035.htm?selectedLo... This isn't just "Putin's war", either. Whether it's Yeltsin, Putin, Medvedev or any other Russian president, the USA told them "sorry, but NATO is expanding"... and we're adding all your neighbors, whether you (and their citizens) want to, or not. It's not just Ukraine. Obama was pushed to intervene in SYRIA, because "Putin is challenging your leadership" by bombing ISIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GaMf1luwKg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GaMf1luwKg Hillary Clinton gained notoriety for pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria... because Putin. And her pushing for this goes back to 2012... so it's not just Ukraine: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/25/hillary-clinton-syria-no-fly-zones-russia-us-war https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/25/hillary-clinto...
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  If you are a warlike people with a history of violence against your neighbors you don't have any right to demand that your neighbors don't join in a defensive alliance for protection against you nor right to join such an alliance. Why would an alliance that virtually exists for defense against Russia give Russia a vote on whether said alliance should react to an attack by Russia. If Russia wasn't so inclined to invade its neighbors lands, rape their women, and murder their children it wouldn't matter who joined NATO. Nothing about the mere existence of NATO obligates them to commit atrocities. They are murdering their neighbors now because it would be harder to do after they join NATO which is literally what Putin said in more polite terms. He said they must take it now lest they have to fight all of NATO for it tomorrow. Left by the wayside is admitting that they lost the right to it in the 90s and will never regain their former empire. You can stop apologizing for a monster any time.
  - EGreg 4y ago
    You are a statist who seems to justify war and killing by anthropomorphosizing countries and speaking about entire populations of civilians as “warlike”. You can stop apologizing for governments and war machines anytime. My side is the regular people, regardless of their nationality — the vast vast majority do not want to kill each other. They are conscripted by their governments to fight, while the politicians and media speak about how “we” must, but neither they or their families actually experience the conditions they send others to. And sitting 3000 miles away it’s even easier to find justifications for a war to continue. You have no skin in the game, after all — but most armchair patriots would have a very different attitude about peace agreements if the war was in your city and putting your family in danger. But let’s apply your own statist logic. The USA has been quite warlike, ever since the colonists fought the natives for land. The entire western third of the USA is former Mexico, which they simply won in a war of aggression. USA even tried to invade Canada but was rebuffed. USA has already taken all the land from ocean to ocean and subdued all its neighbors, so now it goes around the world in order to “lead” in every conflict. It spends more on its armed forces than the next 20 countries combined. It has 800 military bases around the world while the rest of the world combined has 30. Just in the last 25 years, the USA has destroyed more countries than Russia by far (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc) and if we go further back, USA used chemical weapons and bombs indiscriminately in multiple countries in south asia etc etc etc. And NATO is not a “purely defensive” alliance since it bombed Yugoslavia without UN authorization and declared Kosovo independent (much like Russia has done with breakaway republics), invaded Libya and left it a failed state etc. But now let’s take an exact analogue. So USA sponsored the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba (a neighbor) which failed. Cuba asked USSR for protection and help. USA according to you had no right to interfere, when USSR put missiles on Cuba. And yet, Kennedy wouldn’t allow it. He blockaded Cuba and threatened violence and war unless this was undone. I actually support Kennedy in doing that to protect his country from USSR putting nukes in a neighboring country. (Nevermind that USA had secretly already done the same in Turkey against USSR, which they declassified later.) The point is that although Kennedy technically violated international law, the important part is that USSR and USA acted like grownups and deescalated, and even began cooperating and cutting nuclear stockpiles together. That’s what dialogue and respect looks like. It’s possible. Instead, you’re justifying escalating war and killing based on the most childish argument: “but he started it!” This isn’t how conflict resolution should be done by human adults, let alone adults responsible for the fate of entire populations!

EGreg 4y ago

I am not sure what Russian presidents (not just Putin) could have done to stop NATO expansion. They have complained, they have offered to join NATO, they were rebuffed. But Russia's neighbors were PUSHED to join, even if their own citizens didn't want to. Why? Here is a chronology since the 90s: Boris Yeltsin officially complained and ask NATO not to expand. What was wrong with Boris Yeltsin? https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/02/world/yeltsin-opposes-expansion-of-nato-in-eastern-europe.html https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/02/world/yeltsin-opposes-exp... https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2021-11-24/nato-expansion-budapest-blow-1994 https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2021... He was literally on the cover of Time magazine with an American flag, after USA meddled in Russian elections to prop up the guy who implemented privatization, "shock therapy", and continued to do it even when the Parliament made a vote of no confidence, during the Russian constitutional crisis he actually fired at the Parliament and arrested the Parliament (same as the Peru guy who was ousted recently): https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.html https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.htm... Boris Yeltsin did everything USA wanted to be done to Russia and even so, his complaints about NATO expansion fell on deaf ears. Then NATO bombed Yugoslavia, showing it's not just a "defensive alliance": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia and then Yugoslavia fell apart and Kosovo declared independence unilaterally (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_independence_precedent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_independence_precedent) Putin wanted to join NATO since 2001: the answer was no. Why? https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2001/08/putin-is-right-russia-belongs-in-nato/377557/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2001/08/putin-i... In 2008, George W Bush pushed for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO, but not Russia. Never Russia. Why? A solid majority of Ukrainians didn't want to join NATO, but that didn't stop NATO from constantly trying, and even working with Yuschenko to start the process. I thought NATO was "only if you want to join": https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-no-to-nato/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-n... Then Yanukovich came in and stopped the NATO membership process (stopping is what polls showed matched what the majority wanted). So NATO then helped Ukraine destroy their own defensive weapon stockpiles, and then offered themselves as the solution... here is their own site admitting it: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_79035.htm?selectedLocale=en https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_79035.htm?selectedLo... This isn't just "Putin's war", either. Whether it's Yeltsin, Putin, Medvedev or any other Russian president, the USA told them "sorry, but NATO is expanding"... and we're adding all your neighbors, whether you (and their citizens) want to, or not. It's not just Ukraine. Obama was pushed to intervene in SYRIA, because "Putin is challenging your leadership" by bombing ISIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GaMf1luwKg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GaMf1luwKg Hillary Clinton gained notoriety for pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria... because Putin. And her pushing for this goes back to 2012... so it's not just Ukraine: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/25/hillary-clinton-syria-no-fly-zones-russia-us-war https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/25/hillary-clinto...

michaelmrose 4y ago
If you are a warlike people with a history of violence against your neighbors you don't have any right to demand that your neighbors don't join in a defensive alliance for protection against you nor right to join such an alliance. Why would an alliance that virtually exists for defense against Russia give Russia a vote on whether said alliance should react to an attack by Russia. If Russia wasn't so inclined to invade its neighbors lands, rape their women, and murder their children it wouldn't matter who joined NATO. Nothing about the mere existence of NATO obligates them to commit atrocities. They are murdering their neighbors now because it would be harder to do after they join NATO which is literally what Putin said in more polite terms. He said they must take it now lest they have to fight all of NATO for it tomorrow. Left by the wayside is admitting that they lost the right to it in the 90s and will never regain their former empire. You can stop apologizing for a monster any time.
- EGreg 4y ago
  You are a statist who seems to justify war and killing by anthropomorphosizing countries and speaking about entire populations of civilians as “warlike”. You can stop apologizing for governments and war machines anytime. My side is the regular people, regardless of their nationality — the vast vast majority do not want to kill each other. They are conscripted by their governments to fight, while the politicians and media speak about how “we” must, but neither they or their families actually experience the conditions they send others to. And sitting 3000 miles away it’s even easier to find justifications for a war to continue. You have no skin in the game, after all — but most armchair patriots would have a very different attitude about peace agreements if the war was in your city and putting your family in danger. But let’s apply your own statist logic. The USA has been quite warlike, ever since the colonists fought the natives for land. The entire western third of the USA is former Mexico, which they simply won in a war of aggression. USA even tried to invade Canada but was rebuffed. USA has already taken all the land from ocean to ocean and subdued all its neighbors, so now it goes around the world in order to “lead” in every conflict. It spends more on its armed forces than the next 20 countries combined. It has 800 military bases around the world while the rest of the world combined has 30. Just in the last 25 years, the USA has destroyed more countries than Russia by far (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc) and if we go further back, USA used chemical weapons and bombs indiscriminately in multiple countries in south asia etc etc etc. And NATO is not a “purely defensive” alliance since it bombed Yugoslavia without UN authorization and declared Kosovo independent (much like Russia has done with breakaway republics), invaded Libya and left it a failed state etc. But now let’s take an exact analogue. So USA sponsored the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba (a neighbor) which failed. Cuba asked USSR for protection and help. USA according to you had no right to interfere, when USSR put missiles on Cuba. And yet, Kennedy wouldn’t allow it. He blockaded Cuba and threatened violence and war unless this was undone. I actually support Kennedy in doing that to protect his country from USSR putting nukes in a neighboring country. (Nevermind that USA had secretly already done the same in Turkey against USSR, which they declassified later.) The point is that although Kennedy technically violated international law, the important part is that USSR and USA acted like grownups and deescalated, and even began cooperating and cutting nuclear stockpiles together. That’s what dialogue and respect looks like. It’s possible. Instead, you’re justifying escalating war and killing based on the most childish argument: “but he started it!” This isn’t how conflict resolution should be done by human adults, let alone adults responsible for the fate of entire populations!