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devlin's avatar

I think the most moronic thing and the great tragedy about this conflict that with a high probability it was a purely emotional and badly thought out action from Kremlins in which they just lashed out at the world and Kremlins really wanted to put a Medvechuk-style figure after some small purges and it was the entire idea, but almost everyone else thinks that they are insane nationalist maniacs, greatly because they are just these incomprehensive retarded boomers who slide more and more into incoherent conspiratorial rants and there is just nothing outside of it.

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Scipion8's avatar

1) You overlook the fact that Putin's aggression against Russia's neighbors - whether NATO members or not - has been ongoing for years - obviously in aggravated forms for non-NATO members: disruptions in the electoral process, attacks against IT infrastructures, distributions of Russian passports to Russian-speaking minorities, support to secessionist movements, violations of airspace and maritime territory etc. The mere fact that 2 countries with well-entrenched neutrality traditions - Finland and Sweden - are desperate to join NATO as quickly as possible is a rebuttal to your view that Putin would stop his aggression with Ukraine.

2) It is precisely the West's past tolerance with Putin's aggressions, e.g. in Georgia, Moldova, Crimea, and Syria, that have encouraged him to decide a full-blown invasion of Ukraine. Still, you propose that the West should tolerate and facilitate further those aggressions? Regardless of indifference for the fate of the Ukrainian people, that would not bode well for Putin's other potential victims.

3) You argue in favor of a quick conventional military defeat of Ukraine and a shift to insurgency. That is by far the most destructive form of warfare for the civilian population, as already experienced precisely by Ukraine in World War 2. And with some exceptions in very specific terrains (e.g., Afghanistan), partisan warfare / insurgency generally does not work.

4) You argue in favor of economic sanctions, while they have been so far (unfortunately) much less effective at deterring Putin than military support for Ukraine.

5) You vastly exaggerate the difficulty for a modern country to obtain nuclear weapons. As reminder, North Korea succeeded in that enterprise. South Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine, Turkey, Vietnam - all potential targets for aggressive neighbors - have financial and technology capacities exceeding by (very) far North Korea's. They CHOOSE not to have nuclear weapons. But if there is no international order any longer, if anyone can invade their less powerful neighbors without fear of international retaliation, nuclear deterrence is the only rational choice for those countries.

6) One can argue that severely crippling the Russian army (about half of its military potential destroyed in one year) comes at a very modest cost for the West, through their military support for Ukraine. A similar result would have come at a much greater financial cost for the West if they had engaged directly in conflict with Russia, and obviously at a much greater risk.

7) There are many indirect benefits for the West in facilitating a Russian defeat in Ukraine. Besides the obvious benefits of deterring further aggressions by Putin or other would-be invaders, Russia's loss of credibility in the military domain is the best advertisement for technologically superior Western weapons. See for instance signs of an incipient shift in traditional Russian customers such as India and Algeria, which now seek to diversify their providers. Ultimately with positive long-term diplomatic consequences for the West.

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