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Imagine if China managed to convince Mexico to join a military alliance and then moved to deploy troops, military bases, and likely nuclear weapons right on the

Imagine if China managed to convince Mexico to join a military alliance and then moved to deploy troops, military bases, and likely nuclear weapons right on the border. I assume you obviously agree that even in this scenario China is not planning to literally invade the US, yet the US would obviously never in a million years allow this - and if China did not back down there would, with 100% certainty, be a war over it. Come to think of it, this isn't even much of a hypothetical as this is essentially exactly what the Cuban Missile Crisis [1] was about, but the US was freaking out about weapons that were not even on a shared border, merely 'too close', bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war over it. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

aguaviva 2y ago
Imagine if China managed to convince Mexico to join a military alliance and then moved to deploy troops, military bases, and likely nuclear weapons right on the border. You can imagine all you want, but that's not what happened in regard to Ukraine. What did happen is that Ukraine formally renounced its NATO aspirations in 2010, but Putin invaded anyway in 2014.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  In 2014 Ukraine overthrew their (democratically elected) pro-Russian president with extensive support from the US, leading numerous regions that are heavily ethnic Russian, including Crimea, to declare their independence. Western efforts to try to show the Crimean referendum was faked ended up doing the exact opposite [1] - and confirming that it was indeed reflective of the will of the overwhelming majority of people. In 2019 Ukraine added joining NATO as a goal to their constitution, and the US was obviously rapidly moving in that direction with them. It was widely predicted that doing this would lead to war, and well here we are! [1] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-after-russia-annexed-crimea-locals-prefer-moscow-to-kiev/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-a...
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    Leading numerous regions that are heavily ethnic Russian, including Crimea, to declare their independence. I have three questions for you: (1) Can you name one of the regions Putin is attempting to annex, aside from Crimea, that was "heavily ethnic Russian?" (2) Can you explain the circumstances which caused that particular region to have a majority Russian-identified population? (In just a sentence or two, please). (3) Something else happened in 2014, in between the two events that you claim happened. Why is this missing from your chronology?
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      (1) Donbas - though Russia was not initially attempting to annex this area. The negotiations scrapped by the West would have left these regions as something like special administrative regions under Ukraine, akin to what Russia had already been trying to relatively peacefully achieve for a decade with the Minsk accords. (2) Coal + industrialization + peasants seeking a better life. (3) Actually quite a lot happened, but I assume you're referencing the fact that a small number of Russian forces were deployed to Crimea. A practical issue when territory "peacefully" changes hands is deterring the former "owners" from simply coming in and trying to kill everybody to immediately reclaim it. The important issue is whether those forces drove coercion or otherwise manipulated the outcome of the referendum in a way outside the will of the people. This is what the West tried to prove, but they instead ended up proving the exact opposite! Incidentally, a comparable referendum held in Donbas was likely outside the will of the people, and consequently - Russia did not recognize it.
      - aguaviva 2y ago
        The answer to (1) is "None of them". In the most recent cenus before the war, the all identified as solidly (>70 percent) Ukrainian. (2) Coal + industrialization + peasants seeking a better life. The question referred to the Crimea, not the Donbas. If you wish, you can answer the question: "Can you explain the circumstances which caused the Crimea have a majority Russian-identified population?" I'd be genuinely curious as to your response.
int_19h 2y ago
If Mexico was constantly threatened with an invasion from US, I would expect them to try really hard to join some kind of military alliance that could counter that, and if US were to respond to that the way Russia did, it would absolutely have been in the wrong. But this hypothetical, while amusing to consider, is not what we're dealing with, and ignoring this whole part about historical occupation and forced assimilation that ended recently enough that many people alive in Ukraine today still remember it, is extremely misleading as analogies go. And yes, this whole bullshit about "they're not a real nation" etc was very much a thing in Russia before 2022, and before 2014 even. I should know; I grew up there. I remember reading "Эпоха мертворожденных" in 2008, and that's pretty much what Russia actually did in 2014 (except of course the whole "NATO occupation" of the non-separatist parts turned out to be imaginary). But I remember hearing similar sentiments in the 90s as a kid, as well. And since Ukrainians are well within the Russian cultural orbit, they were aware of those trends, too - and took appropriate precautions. This notion that invasion wouldn't have happened if they didn't seek NATO membership is wrong.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  Haha, you might want to look at the history of US-Mexico relations. If you're going to speak of historical things it's relevant that the relations there have an oddly large amount in common. Texas was a part of Mexico! A reasonable wiki page to start the crawl would probably be Mexican Texas. [1] You've got all the good stuff: ethnic conflict, weaponized migrations, separatist movements supported by a foreign government, brutal wars, annexation referendums, and so on. And Cuba indeed - one of the compromises at the end of the nuclear stand-off is that the US would stop trying to invade Cuba! Reading Plato and other great philosophers is interesting (The Republic in particular is an amazing read) because they can often sound like prophets - predicting the future with such extreme accuracy at a time that ostensibly had basically nothing in common with ours. But I think their 'secret' is simply that they were great objective observers of the behavior of humanity. Because history is not especially creative, it keeps repeating itself endlessly, because humanity doesn't change except as a product of technology changing. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Texas

aguaviva 2y ago

Imagine if China managed to convince Mexico to join a military alliance and then moved to deploy troops, military bases, and likely nuclear weapons right on the border. You can imagine all you want, but that's not what happened in regard to Ukraine. What did happen is that Ukraine formally renounced its NATO aspirations in 2010, but Putin invaded anyway in 2014.

somenameforme 2y ago
In 2014 Ukraine overthrew their (democratically elected) pro-Russian president with extensive support from the US, leading numerous regions that are heavily ethnic Russian, including Crimea, to declare their independence. Western efforts to try to show the Crimean referendum was faked ended up doing the exact opposite [1] - and confirming that it was indeed reflective of the will of the overwhelming majority of people. In 2019 Ukraine added joining NATO as a goal to their constitution, and the US was obviously rapidly moving in that direction with them. It was widely predicted that doing this would lead to war, and well here we are! [1] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-after-russia-annexed-crimea-locals-prefer-moscow-to-kiev/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-a...
- aguaviva 2y ago
  Leading numerous regions that are heavily ethnic Russian, including Crimea, to declare their independence. I have three questions for you: (1) Can you name one of the regions Putin is attempting to annex, aside from Crimea, that was "heavily ethnic Russian?" (2) Can you explain the circumstances which caused that particular region to have a majority Russian-identified population? (In just a sentence or two, please). (3) Something else happened in 2014, in between the two events that you claim happened. Why is this missing from your chronology?
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    (1) Donbas - though Russia was not initially attempting to annex this area. The negotiations scrapped by the West would have left these regions as something like special administrative regions under Ukraine, akin to what Russia had already been trying to relatively peacefully achieve for a decade with the Minsk accords. (2) Coal + industrialization + peasants seeking a better life. (3) Actually quite a lot happened, but I assume you're referencing the fact that a small number of Russian forces were deployed to Crimea. A practical issue when territory "peacefully" changes hands is deterring the former "owners" from simply coming in and trying to kill everybody to immediately reclaim it. The important issue is whether those forces drove coercion or otherwise manipulated the outcome of the referendum in a way outside the will of the people. This is what the West tried to prove, but they instead ended up proving the exact opposite! Incidentally, a comparable referendum held in Donbas was likely outside the will of the people, and consequently - Russia did not recognize it.
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      The answer to (1) is "None of them". In the most recent cenus before the war, the all identified as solidly (>70 percent) Ukrainian. (2) Coal + industrialization + peasants seeking a better life. The question referred to the Crimea, not the Donbas. If you wish, you can answer the question: "Can you explain the circumstances which caused the Crimea have a majority Russian-identified population?" I'd be genuinely curious as to your response.

int_19h 2y ago

If Mexico was constantly threatened with an invasion from US, I would expect them to try really hard to join some kind of military alliance that could counter that, and if US were to respond to that the way Russia did, it would absolutely have been in the wrong. But this hypothetical, while amusing to consider, is not what we're dealing with, and ignoring this whole part about historical occupation and forced assimilation that ended recently enough that many people alive in Ukraine today still remember it, is extremely misleading as analogies go. And yes, this whole bullshit about "they're not a real nation" etc was very much a thing in Russia before 2022, and before 2014 even. I should know; I grew up there. I remember reading "Эпоха мертворожденных" in 2008, and that's pretty much what Russia actually did in 2014 (except of course the whole "NATO occupation" of the non-separatist parts turned out to be imaginary). But I remember hearing similar sentiments in the 90s as a kid, as well. And since Ukrainians are well within the Russian cultural orbit, they were aware of those trends, too - and took appropriate precautions. This notion that invasion wouldn't have happened if they didn't seek NATO membership is wrong.

somenameforme 2y ago
Haha, you might want to look at the history of US-Mexico relations. If you're going to speak of historical things it's relevant that the relations there have an oddly large amount in common. Texas was a part of Mexico! A reasonable wiki page to start the crawl would probably be Mexican Texas. [1] You've got all the good stuff: ethnic conflict, weaponized migrations, separatist movements supported by a foreign government, brutal wars, annexation referendums, and so on. And Cuba indeed - one of the compromises at the end of the nuclear stand-off is that the US would stop trying to invade Cuba! Reading Plato and other great philosophers is interesting (The Republic in particular is an amazing read) because they can often sound like prophets - predicting the future with such extreme accuracy at a time that ostensibly had basically nothing in common with ours. But I think their 'secret' is simply that they were great objective observers of the behavior of humanity. Because history is not especially creative, it keeps repeating itself endlessly, because humanity doesn't change except as a product of technology changing. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Texas