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Cuba I have addressed. The US was invited into South Vietnam to help defend them against an invasion from North Vietnam. We can debate the morality of the resu

by _djo_ 11mo ago

Cuba I have addressed. The US was invited into South Vietnam to help defend them against an invasion from North Vietnam. We can debate the morality of the resulting war, which was questionable, but it was not a US invasion. The US invasion of Nicaragua was in 1912, long before the modern post-WWII era of stronger international law. Chile was not invaded by the US. If these are the examples you have, you don’t have a strong argument.

quotz 11mo ago
The argument is that these rules that you describe that any country can join any mutual defence pact without any repercussions is just plain wrong, mainly because the US would be immediately working against that even with military interventions. Its the same thing with how the US's stance for foreign policy is to push democracy where it suits them if they have big influence with one of the parties, and to push favourable dictatorships if not. There's double standards and twofacedness by the US foreign policy which really everyone else sees besides US citizens themselves, mostly because the average american barely even knows anything about domestic politics let alone foreign ones (except the few propaganda topics we get from the three letter tv channels). Just answer this question, would the US object to, possibly with military intervention, if Mexico or Canada would join a military defence pact with China or Russia, or India, or say really any other country besides the US, even Brazil. We both know the answer to this. Now lets do even easier. Would the US object to any South American countries joining a mutual defence pact with Russia / China? We already have the answer to this.
saalweachter 11mo ago
Pardon me, you have gotten yourself dragged into a tu quoque defense of Russia. It is best not to engage in these arguments, because they are almost never conducted in good faith. The goal is partially to make the claim that "the US is just as bad/worse, therefore, Russia is acting morally/logically/blamelessly", but primarily to simply turn the conversation into one where you are defending everything the US has ever done wrong, instead of discussing whatever Russia is currently doing, which is where the bad faith comes in. If you do feel compelled to engage, I recommend at most acknowledging whatever the US did previously, before pivoting back to discussing the actual current situation. Otherwise, you're playing into the strategy.
- quotz 11mo ago
  My argument is that Russia was compelled to attack both Georgia and Ukraine because of NATO expansion, or rather preventing NATO expansion, not because of "Putin is crazy, wants to be a Tsar". Your argument is that Russia wants to occupy territory just for the sake of expanding Russia, which is really not logical or reasonable. My argument is that if Mexico or Canada joined a military pact with Russia, the US would invade those countries immediately. Your argument is that any country can join a mutually defence pact without any consequences, as should be the case for Ukraine. Is this correct?
  - saalweachter 11mo ago
    Buddy, pal, even if it wasn't absolutely craven to attack a country for fear they'd join a defensive pact because they were afraid you'd attack them, you're already begging the question that Ukraine was about to join NATO, which has been shelved for two decades, and even more off the table for the last decade since joining NATO would have required relinquishing its claim on Crimea. There was a 0% chance of Ukraine joining NATO in the next N years prior to Russia's invasion of them in 2021. Even if by some twisted logic that were pretext for a quote-unquote "just war", it cannot be a justification for the land grab Russia is making in Ukraine today, killing civilians and committing various war crimes on the daily to do it.
    - dragonwriter 11mo ago
      > joining NATO would have required relinquishing its claim on Crimea. That’s...not at all clear (there is no such legal requirement, though there were some NATO members who publicly suggested that resolving the territorial disputes with Russia first was their then-current diplomatic position at various times in the discussion of the possibility. But diplomatic positions are sometimes prone to change in response to inducements from parties with different preferences.)
    - quotz 10mo ago
      The land grab is Russia's assurance that the crimean pipelines and access to the black sea and the sea of azov remain unchallenged. The pipelines are extremely important to Russia's economy, and they will of course make sure to secure them. Fortunately for Russia, the eastern part of Ukraine also leans pro-Russia, has the most ethnically russian population, votes for pro-russian politicians, and also speaks the most russian, unlike the western part.[1] Russia's strategy is to secure those areas only, since those areas would be the easiest to operate. Russia would never able to rule over the current western ukrainian territories, because of the ethnical and demographical divide. Russia wouldnt attack both Georgia and Ukraine, and spend billions of resources just for the 0% chance of Ukrainian and Georgian NATO admission. Both Montenegro and Macedonia joined NATO in a matter of months, in the latter case when the regime was toppled. Enabling any talks between NATO and Ukraine/Georgia would be considered extremely terrifying for the national security of Russia. [1]https://www.eurasian-research.org/publication/geography-of-the-presidential-elections-in-ukraine/ https://www.eurasian-research.org/publication/geography-of-t...

by _djo_ 11mo ago

quotz 11mo ago

The argument is that these rules that you describe that any country can join any mutual defence pact without any repercussions is just plain wrong, mainly because the US would be immediately working against that even with military interventions. Its the same thing with how the US's stance for foreign policy is to push democracy where it suits them if they have big influence with one of the parties, and to push favourable dictatorships if not. There's double standards and twofacedness by the US foreign policy which really everyone else sees besides US citizens themselves, mostly because the average american barely even knows anything about domestic politics let alone foreign ones (except the few propaganda topics we get from the three letter tv channels). Just answer this question, would the US object to, possibly with military intervention, if Mexico or Canada would join a military defence pact with China or Russia, or India, or say really any other country besides the US, even Brazil. We both know the answer to this. Now lets do even easier. Would the US object to any South American countries joining a mutual defence pact with Russia / China? We already have the answer to this.

saalweachter 11mo ago

Pardon me, you have gotten yourself dragged into a tu quoque defense of Russia. It is best not to engage in these arguments, because they are almost never conducted in good faith. The goal is partially to make the claim that "the US is just as bad/worse, therefore, Russia is acting morally/logically/blamelessly", but primarily to simply turn the conversation into one where you are defending everything the US has ever done wrong, instead of discussing whatever Russia is currently doing, which is where the bad faith comes in. If you do feel compelled to engage, I recommend at most acknowledging whatever the US did previously, before pivoting back to discussing the actual current situation. Otherwise, you're playing into the strategy.

quotz 11mo ago
My argument is that Russia was compelled to attack both Georgia and Ukraine because of NATO expansion, or rather preventing NATO expansion, not because of "Putin is crazy, wants to be a Tsar". Your argument is that Russia wants to occupy territory just for the sake of expanding Russia, which is really not logical or reasonable. My argument is that if Mexico or Canada joined a military pact with Russia, the US would invade those countries immediately. Your argument is that any country can join a mutually defence pact without any consequences, as should be the case for Ukraine. Is this correct?
- saalweachter 11mo ago
  Buddy, pal, even if it wasn't absolutely craven to attack a country for fear they'd join a defensive pact because they were afraid you'd attack them, you're already begging the question that Ukraine was about to join NATO, which has been shelved for two decades, and even more off the table for the last decade since joining NATO would have required relinquishing its claim on Crimea. There was a 0% chance of Ukraine joining NATO in the next N years prior to Russia's invasion of them in 2021. Even if by some twisted logic that were pretext for a quote-unquote "just war", it cannot be a justification for the land grab Russia is making in Ukraine today, killing civilians and committing various war crimes on the daily to do it.
  - dragonwriter 11mo ago
    > joining NATO would have required relinquishing its claim on Crimea. That’s...not at all clear (there is no such legal requirement, though there were some NATO members who publicly suggested that resolving the territorial disputes with Russia first was their then-current diplomatic position at various times in the discussion of the possibility. But diplomatic positions are sometimes prone to change in response to inducements from parties with different preferences.)
  - quotz 10mo ago
    The land grab is Russia's assurance that the crimean pipelines and access to the black sea and the sea of azov remain unchallenged. The pipelines are extremely important to Russia's economy, and they will of course make sure to secure them. Fortunately for Russia, the eastern part of Ukraine also leans pro-Russia, has the most ethnically russian population, votes for pro-russian politicians, and also speaks the most russian, unlike the western part.[1] Russia's strategy is to secure those areas only, since those areas would be the easiest to operate. Russia would never able to rule over the current western ukrainian territories, because of the ethnical and demographical divide. Russia wouldnt attack both Georgia and Ukraine, and spend billions of resources just for the 0% chance of Ukrainian and Georgian NATO admission. Both Montenegro and Macedonia joined NATO in a matter of months, in the latter case when the regime was toppled. Enabling any talks between NATO and Ukraine/Georgia would be considered extremely terrifying for the national security of Russia. [1]https://www.eurasian-research.org/publication/geography-of-the-presidential-elections-in-ukraine/ https://www.eurasian-research.org/publication/geography-of-t...