4 ms·

Does that really matter? Saudi Arabia is an ally.

reducesuffering 2y ago
Saudi Arabia is an unfortunate alliance as a pawn in the larger game against the more severe problems that China, Russia, and Iran pose, along with ensuring energy stability until we have better options. In a better world, we would never be friends with a dictatorship like that and their ideals. It's the less bad option, unfortunately. Snubbing all countries with problematic governments like Turkey, Saudi, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, etc. will quickly land you in a tougher situation to accomplish better ideals.
- woooooo 2y ago
  So what's the specific difference between Saudi/Turkey and Russia/China then? Sounds like all the moralizing is just chaff and it's pure power politics.
  - reducesuffering 2y ago
    Saudi/Turkey are not invading a neighboring democracy to annex. Russia is and China is very much preparing to. There are 150k - 400k people dead because of what Russia did.
    - woooooo 2y ago
      I want to clarify that I'm not "pro russia" here. I'm "anti bullshit". Every nation has propaganda, don't get high on your own supply. That said, if you think for 5 seconds there are some blatant recent and ongoing examples of USA and allies invading and killing a lot.
      - reducesuffering 2y ago
        Of course, ostensibly. However, for starters, US hasn't been about real annexation since Hawaii 125 years ago, which is not the case for Russia/China that this thread has been about. Iraq was a very major fuckup, even though Saddam was an awful dictator and House Democrats voted against it. Afghanistan was a massive waste, but after the initial Bin Laden operation, was for the naive cause of actually making a functional democracy for the people there, without which women are currently uneducated property. Israel has the double sided problem of their far right wing wanting to annex West Bank while violence escalated 100x by the Oct. 7th assault. Not exactly a peaceful neighbor gets invaded to upend a stable status quo for decades...
        woooooo 2y ago
        You're aware that other nations also have narratives where their mistakes had good intentions, yet their opponents are dastardly? Russia has a story of the west systematically stripping their influence from Eastern Europe, overtly and covertly. Despite being warned we were pushing it too far. Clausewitz is the only one who's objectively right in the end.
        reducesuffering 2y ago
        While realpolitik and unfortunate compromises always have to be made in the arena of current geopolitics towards greater prosperity and lesser violence, you'd be mistaken to assume everyone has equally cynical goals. Despite everyone wanting to boast about their good deeds and demonize enemies for PR points, some actors genuinely do a better job towards prosperity than others, and you fall prey to the worse evil by equating everyone just being selfishly bad. No one is even close to 100% good, but that means we need to highlight what amounts each actor does good and what they do bad; all of them. > Russia has a story of the west systematically stripping their influence from Eastern Europe, overtly and covertly. Ultimately, this is bogus and not the real story. It just takes one look at Poland's GDP per capita chart: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=PL https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... Poland broke off the old soviet chains and successfully integrated economic reforms to prosperity and trade with other successful western economies. Ukrainians are Polish neighbors and looked over there wondering "why tf are we so poor when the Poles are flourishing? Oh ya we still have these old soviet apparatchiks gouging our economy, let's instead make the western economic reforms a la Poland." Russia, being an 85% vote dictatorship and also a soviet apparatchik economy, realizes that just like Polish neighbors, having economically successful Ukrainian neighbors will cause average Russians to resent the exact same thing about their old stodgy economic oligarchs and ruin their golden tickets..." There's a special place in hell for people who espouse "don't help Ukrainians, their government and economy is corrupt" when all they need is some support to take off the corrupt shackles, which they're trying to do, instead of abandoning them to remain strangled by the corruption.
        2y ago

Saudi Arabia is an unfortunate alliance as a pawn in the larger game against the more severe problems that China, Russia, and Iran pose, along with ensuring energy stability until we have better options. In a better world, we would never be friends with a dictatorship like that and their ideals. It's the less bad option, unfortunately. Snubbing all countries with problematic governments like Turkey, Saudi, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, etc. will quickly land you in a tougher situation to accomplish better ideals.

woooooo 2y ago
So what's the specific difference between Saudi/Turkey and Russia/China then? Sounds like all the moralizing is just chaff and it's pure power politics.
- reducesuffering 2y ago
  Saudi/Turkey are not invading a neighboring democracy to annex. Russia is and China is very much preparing to. There are 150k - 400k people dead because of what Russia did.
  - woooooo 2y ago
    I want to clarify that I'm not "pro russia" here. I'm "anti bullshit". Every nation has propaganda, don't get high on your own supply. That said, if you think for 5 seconds there are some blatant recent and ongoing examples of USA and allies invading and killing a lot.
    - reducesuffering 2y ago
      Of course, ostensibly. However, for starters, US hasn't been about real annexation since Hawaii 125 years ago, which is not the case for Russia/China that this thread has been about. Iraq was a very major fuckup, even though Saddam was an awful dictator and House Democrats voted against it. Afghanistan was a massive waste, but after the initial Bin Laden operation, was for the naive cause of actually making a functional democracy for the people there, without which women are currently uneducated property. Israel has the double sided problem of their far right wing wanting to annex West Bank while violence escalated 100x by the Oct. 7th assault. Not exactly a peaceful neighbor gets invaded to upend a stable status quo for decades...
      - woooooo 2y ago
        You're aware that other nations also have narratives where their mistakes had good intentions, yet their opponents are dastardly? Russia has a story of the west systematically stripping their influence from Eastern Europe, overtly and covertly. Despite being warned we were pushing it too far. Clausewitz is the only one who's objectively right in the end.
        reducesuffering 2y ago
        While realpolitik and unfortunate compromises always have to be made in the arena of current geopolitics towards greater prosperity and lesser violence, you'd be mistaken to assume everyone has equally cynical goals. Despite everyone wanting to boast about their good deeds and demonize enemies for PR points, some actors genuinely do a better job towards prosperity than others, and you fall prey to the worse evil by equating everyone just being selfishly bad. No one is even close to 100% good, but that means we need to highlight what amounts each actor does good and what they do bad; all of them. > Russia has a story of the west systematically stripping their influence from Eastern Europe, overtly and covertly. Ultimately, this is bogus and not the real story. It just takes one look at Poland's GDP per capita chart: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=PL https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... Poland broke off the old soviet chains and successfully integrated economic reforms to prosperity and trade with other successful western economies. Ukrainians are Polish neighbors and looked over there wondering "why tf are we so poor when the Poles are flourishing? Oh ya we still have these old soviet apparatchiks gouging our economy, let's instead make the western economic reforms a la Poland." Russia, being an 85% vote dictatorship and also a soviet apparatchik economy, realizes that just like Polish neighbors, having economically successful Ukrainian neighbors will cause average Russians to resent the exact same thing about their old stodgy economic oligarchs and ruin their golden tickets..." There's a special place in hell for people who espouse "don't help Ukrainians, their government and economy is corrupt" when all they need is some support to take off the corrupt shackles, which they're trying to do, instead of abandoning them to remain strangled by the corruption.
        2y ago