The same federal government that let abortion become illegal across half the country?
GivingEuropeASpook
joined 2 years ago
NATO is a defensive pact to protect nations from russian aggression
NATO is a legacy of the Cold War that was aimless until the Russian invasion lol. The Soviet Union even tried to join NATO when it was first talked about and was rebuffed (and you can't say it's because "muh democracy," as Greece, Turkey, and Portugal - a literal fascist state until 1974 - have all been or are authoritarian states at various points in their NATO memberships).
Plenty of geopolitical experts have discussed how financial support of Ukraine is the best investment when it comes to weakening the Russian military.
Plenty also argued from the collapse of the Soviet Union that NATO expansion into eastern Europe would antagonize Russia.
while losing majority of your combat capability
We're watching this conflict unfold from a million miles away, how could you possibly know that they've lost most of their combat capability? That wasn't mentioned in the article. If the article is paywalled for you, I was able to read it entirely with Firefx's easy-read button.
Do you believe that the people have Donbas have a right to self-determination and representation in government, and that that right would include having some possible roadmap to joining Russia
Of course. They just don't have a right to drag the rest of Ukraine into Russia at the same time. On principle, I support pretty much any separatist movement on the grounds of "why should I care if a country's capitalist class loses some of its economic base?"
should they be forced to either go along with whatever the new government wanted or abandon their homes and flee the country?
No, but if that's what was happening we could all then be criticizing a peacetime government for acting injustice upon segments of its population, instead of advocating for an end to a war. The idea that a country should intervene militarily in order to "save" a group of people isn't one based on honest, good-faith altruism on the part of the country that wants to intervene, if it were, then wouldn't we be in a constant state of war everywhere? (Since there's pretty much at least one oppressed group in every country worldwide at least one other country could claim a right to "protect" them based on shared heritage or language.)
Just because Russia (might) have the military capability to do so when all these other countries might not doesn't mean they should.
And your example is really weird and obscures what's actually at issue. The difference in meaning between the words "bros" and "sissies" goes way beyond just a difference in gender. One is a common and generally affectionate term that men call each other when being friendly. The other is most often used as a misogynistic term to insult men by disparaging their masculinity.
I wanted to give a couple of other examples too, but that's just what I thought of at the moment. "Hey guys" or "hey dudes" also works though.
That's not an excuse to use the version of that phrase which misgenders someone.
When did I say or insinuate that it was?
hmm okay. I mean, they are both OPEC members after all. It sounds like the war just isn't altering Saudi decision making the way the US would like.
It hasn't needed to
They've taken arms and supplies from Iran and are currently negotiating with the DPRK. Yes, Russia is bigger and can theoretically out-last Ukraine in a war of attrition on a 1:1 basis, but you shouldn't be hoping for something that prolongs the war.
It's a nonsensical comparison to make.
So is using a map of the countries supporting Ukraine to insinuate that the all the other countries must therefore be on Russia's side.
In what way? I think a lot of people are acting like anyone not actively sending arms or money to Ukraine must therefore be "supporting" Russia. Has the Saudi Arabian Kingdom given any weapons to Russia? Have they given any loans to plug the holes in the national budget while the country engages in open warfare? Or are they just viewing a European conflict as irrelevant to their own aims and goals?
the communists and PT libs (with opinions that are pretty close to ours: "war is bad, putin is shit, and we should stay away from the whole thing, but hopefully the end result of this one is a weaker, and not a stronger, american/nato empire")
All sounds very reasonable, tbh even the libs and middle-class positions make sense to me if they are plugged into the same media as US libs.
This whole time the Russians have been talking about wanting the east exclusively the early rush to Kiev was consistent with the stated aim of forcing Ukraine to surrender early into the war
The "special military operation" to Denazify Ukraine was not intended to be limited solely to the East. Russia tried to replicate the US operation in Iraq, and had they been successful, they'd be in a very similar position to the US after toppling both Iraqi and Afghan leadership relatively quickly, stuck propping up government with limited popular support. Also, what about everything about NATO's eastward expansion and Ukraine's prospective membership? That has nothing to do with injustices against Russian-speaking people.
The Ukrainians have thrown everything they had in a mad rush to break the Russian lines and only succeeded at retaking a dozen villages.
This is literally the opposite of what the article says: "Some [Western analysts] faulted Ukraine's strategy, including accusing it of concentrating its forces in the wrong places." Sounds to me like they emphatically NOT making a rush at the targets the West wants them to.
8 years so were more militarily experienced now Russia has been fighting for a while they will have worked out much of the issues of their organisation
Right, just like how that Ukrainian counteroffensive is gonna start any day now.... Its warfare. Neither side is honest about their operations, and neither side can afford to be honest about their battle plans, tactics, and strategies in order to actually make use of any of them. When Russia invaded the rest of the country, it was their modernized army that was gonna make quick work of the smaller weaker Ukrainian army. Even NATO was like "uh yeah we expect a protracted guerilla war after a quick Russian victory should Russia actually invade".
For the record, I wasn't sure if Russia would actually invade, despite all the classic rhetoric that came from the Kremlin the year beforehand.
Totally – but I think in the west, people were conditioned to expect breakneck speeds similar to the initial invasion and push towards Kyiv by Russian forces or the rapid advance last year of Ukrainian troops that pushed out Russians from Kyiv suburbs and northeastern Ukraine.
In my mind, a "failure" would mean that they gained nothing – not even a few small villages.
They're about different things. One is an opinion about bottom-up, community activism and the principle of self-determination, and is a belief that exists independently of the material conditions and reality of global politics. France only supported the Americans in order to "get back" at England. They later regretted it when the Americans supported the French Revolution. When I say I support separatism, I am thinking specifically about how Lenin released all of the Russian Empire's colonial nations, regardless of how it might adversely impact the Soviet states' security prerogatives.
Like I said with France and the 13 colonies – no country is actually saying that or has ever said that. France didn't go "yeah, we love what you're trying to do 13 colonies and support your beliefs wholeheartedly", they went "oh cool, this will help us regain New France one day and really piss off our archrivals." Likewise, Russia, having lost Ukraine (and the Eastern Bloc), is trying to regain its lost glory, and it just so happens that they can exploit Donbas separatism in order to do so.
My understanding of the Donbas is that it was largely populated by Russians from the Russian SFSR during the era of open borders within the Soviet States, which also makes things different than Catalans, Kurds, and Scots, for example.