I see where everyone is coming from in this thread.
It’s taking a “not my fight, not my monkeys” approach. US should not be the world police force and moral value upholder. We can all agree the actions are reprehensible.
Many united sates citizens take the very valid approach that we need to take care of our own people first. I hate seeing money go other places that could be used to improve conditions for many people here.
This is a very blind sided approach. First of all the war is ongoing on your biggest ally teritory. If your ally weakens due to the war you will get worse as well.
If Putin’s plan for making the ruble the official natural gas currency and equivalent to the petro dollar succeded, then US would have suffered major financial blow as well.
And lastly if humanity would not stand united against terorism, every dictator would start a war and war would come to US soil as well. Every democratic nation has the moral obligation to get involved in such a war, not only US. But US holds 1/3 of worlds GDP, so it is natural it gives the biggest support.
They really don’t.
The degree to which we have a moral obligation to defend Ukraine is arguable. The US did commit to defend Ukraine when Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons.
However, that aside, I think the US national interest is well served by helping Ukraine. We developed, built, and stockpiled weapons and ammunition for a purpose. And realistically, a large part of that purpose was counteracting Russian aggression. Now, all we are doing is giving that equipment to Ukraine to counter Russian aggression. You can argue that we shouldn’t have ever developed and built the weapons, but once we have it, it’s silly to argue that we shouldn’t be using it for its intended purpose.
And frankly, it’s working. There is definitely something Machiavellian about letting Ukrainians do the dying for us. But I don’t understand the objection on practical grounds of national interest.
I explained why we have all the moral obligation to do it. If we let every dictator to wage a war, then WWIII happens and we are returning to medievil ages. If we let Putin take Ukraine, then Belarus joins them and next they are attacking Poland. Then China desides to take whats “theirs”. North Korea starts nuking, Iran and other Muslim countries attacks Israel, Saudies go for Yemmen and nearby countries. Turkey goes to Sirya, Greece and Cyprus.
.
That’s a bit of a far fetched unlikely to happen. Wars are driven by greed. No one would go that far because there would be no treasure left in the dragon’s lair.
Even at the heart of supposed “ideological” wars, the true reason is greed.
Very few dictators will act like the Joker just wanting to watch the world burn.
But actually you are not explaining the moral obligation, you are explaining the practicality. A moral obligation would mean that it’s the right thing to do even if it doesn’t benefit us.
How is the moral obligation arguable if we committed to defending them when they gave up the nukes? Seems pretty cut and dry.
Does that come close to fitting the definition of an invasion?
The moral obligation is arguable because the commitment language is a bit arguable. The US (and Russia and the UK) committed to
–“respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine,”
–“refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine,” and
– “seek immediate” UN Security Council action “to provide assistance to Ukraine … if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression.”
That doesn’t necessarily obligate us to commit troops if they are invaded. It’s pretty clear that Russia has violated it, though.
Yes.
There’s just no way one can support Ukraine and not the Confederate States’ rights to self-determination.
Yeah moral indignation aside - and we’re talking some hair raising stuff which understandably makes people emotional - helping Ukraine would be the perfect nexus of political and economic interests, a no-brainer.
Hell, I’ll just take one super specific example - in @ins Bulgaria US companies - GE or Westinghouse - can recoup around 10% of current total US investment in arming Ukraine (and that’s includes the bookkeeping value of old military equipment) on one single project, the completion of Belene nuclear power plant, which was, in more Russia-friendly times, being performed by a Russian government owned entity. Again, that’s one small Eastern European country… Now repeat that in many other countries that are more or less positively predisposed towards the Americans.
From what I know in my field of expertise, and we’re talking about construction of various major infrastructure projects being offered in a rush to American companies in Europe already exceeds even these nominal costs incurred by the US taxpayer.
And that’s because Uncle Sam has relatively timidly sent a tiny fraction of its weapons to a country in need and shown the American Empire (still) exists. And we’re not getting into the weapons orders which aren’t my specialty - I understand for example from the media that the Poles went to DC with a blank check to buy literally anything Biden was willing to sell.
I’m not going to discuss geopolitical considerations as far more knowledgable people have done this (benefits of a rules based order, India’s delusions, reining in China…) but I will stress that if anything, this was has shattered the belief of transatlantic elites that building physical things is somehow icky and that’s it better left to China.
Honestly, I believe we wouldn’t be having this conversation had in the most recent culture war in the US, a fictitious version of Russia (which has almost nothing to do with actual Russia mind you) became a framing device for rhetorical back and forths.
This was partiallly done by the Russians themselves through direct financial incentives and a formidable army of Prigozhin’s trolls boosted fringe far left and far right media personalities.
For example, most of the geopolitical stuff “independent thinkers”, from former musicians/actors, far left and far right activits to Silicon Valley VCs put out on their youtube channels and discuss on their podcasts is originally written and compiled by a seventy something former communist party official from Bulgaria who runs a bi-monthly antisemitic magazine.
I don’t know. Compare the two Koreas and it looks like one is a clear winner.
Unless they know they are going to lose.
You don’t think the Kerch bridge has a military impact? I thought the ignorance couldn’t get dumber, but you continue to exceed expectations.
It was a stalemate, which is why they say no winner
and was it worth all of the american lives for a stalemate
South Korea might think so.
And all lives lost in war are wasted.
Of course south Korea would
imho, WWII was worth the loss of life in order to get rid of Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese Emporer
Supplies go by the bridge. It’s a railroad as well as road bridge. Disrupting supply lines is a huge part of this war. On that same note, I don’t have a specific problem with Russia targeting ports or grain infrastructure. I don’t think Russia should be there at all, but disrupting the grain industry isn’t any type of particularly heinous offense.
Personally, I’m not particularly moved by the discussion about terrorism, war crimes, civilian casualties, genocide, etc. The problem with these concepts is that their existence implies that there is such thing as a civilized war, that there are people that it is okay to kill.
I agree.
The only rule in war is to win.
Everything else is irrelevant in my opinion.