[Discussion] Ukraine - Russian Invasion and Discussion

A place for aggregated discussions of a possible conflict, it’s implications and effects, news updates and personal accounts if any. If the expected conflict kicks off, I will change the title but the function will stay the same.

Paleocon wrote:

How about we let the actual victims of this act of horrific violence decide when it is appropriate to negotiate with this psychopath instead of undermining the work they are doing protecting humanity from him? You think we might be able to manage that? Until then, the appropriate thing to do is to fully support the Ukrainians until the Putinites f*ck off back to Russia.

I don't think Ukraine would object to anyone negotiating with Putin, as long as two things happen: First, nobody tries to impose any positions on them ("Hey, you guys need to agree to a cease-fire while we talk this out" should be met with "Go eff yourself"), and second, absolutely no deal is agreed to (or even offered) without their express approval before the fact (any "deal" that involves Russia keeping the parts of Ukraine that it recently conquered would be a non-starter, for example).

Ukraine has to have some position that it would find acceptable - an end-point to this conflict. Maybe Ukraine decides that the only terms that are acceptable are that Russia gives back all the land they stole (including Crimea), completely disbands its armed forces, and turns Putin over for trial for war crimes, and in return Ukraine offers not to wipe them off the map. Now, good luck trying to get Russia to agree to those terms, but if you want to try to negotiate that with them, feel free.

Paleocon wrote:

How about we let the actual victims of this act of horrific violence decide when it is appropriate to negotiate with this psychopath instead of undermining the work they are doing protecting humanity from him? You think we might be able to manage that? Until then, the appropriate thing to do is to fully support the Ukrainians until the Putinites f*ck off back to Russia.

You realize that's what Chomsky has been advocating for, don't you? To support Ukraine both in its fight for survival and if/when it decides to try negotiations again. To at least stop undermining them because we'd rather prolong the war because it'd further weaken Russia.

Chomsky wrote:

If we can escape cynicism and irrationality, the humane choice for the U.S. and the West is straightforward: seek to facilitate a diplomatic settlement, or at least don’t undermine the option.
...
I’ve said nothing about what Ukrainians should do, for the simple and sufficient reason that it’s not our business. If they opt for the ghastly experiment, that’s their right. It’s also their right to request weapons to defend themselves from murderous aggression.
...
My own view, to repeat, is that the Ukrainian request for weapons should be honored, with caution to bar shipments that will escalate the criminal assault, punishing Ukrainians even more, with potential cataclysmic effects beyond.

Chomsky wrote:

If they opt for the ghastly experiment, that’s their right.

That characterization is beneath contempt. If the Ukrainians had the choice they would still be at peace.

And he gets there by wishing for a "diplomatic settlement" that 1. Is acceptable to Putin and 2. Preserves any kind of future for Ukraine. He doesn't describe this settlement because the idea is incoherent. Putin wishes to obliterate Ukraine, if not this year then in some future year. He still sees this as a possibility. The Ukrainians still must prove that goal is impossible, by fighting.

Agathos wrote:
Chomsky wrote:

If they opt for the ghastly experiment, that’s their right.

That characterization is beneath contempt. If the Ukrainians had the choice they would still be at peace.

And he gets there by wishing for a "diplomatic settlement" that 1. Is acceptable to Putin and 2. Preserves any kind of future for Ukraine. He doesn't describe this settlement because the idea is incoherent. Putin wishes to obliterate Ukraine, if not this year then in some future year. He still sees this as a possibility. The Ukrainians still must prove that goal is impossible, by fighting.

Yup. Chomsky has historically been so obsessed with the idea that the West is the source of all evil that he is incapable of fairly judging the atrocities of states not in the West. The perfect example of this is how willingly he has shilled for actual genocidal asshats like Slobodan Milosovic and Radko Mladic. He still, to this day, insists that the ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Croats was the normal conduct of a civil war.

DSGamer wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:

I just want to return to this theme of the Left not helping enough on UKR.

I may regret this, but what are you talking about? Not posting enough? We can’t go fight the war.

Sorry, didn't get around to responding to this.

I should be more clear: I'm not calling out anyone on GWJ. My reference to "the Left" is to what I am observing in the discourse here in the West.

Example: I subscribe to Jacobin and watch their YouTubes and I think I've seen two (!) videos about Ukraine come up in the last four months and both of those were about how the realllllll problem is how the US/NATO provoked Putin (we're to blame) and that this is NOT about Putin wanting to be a tsar but that the West had a nefarious plot finally come to fruition to humiliate and destroy RUS power.

Example: I'm watching members of the EU equivocate, even after Bucha, and seem to think, after all the lessons of the last century, including the ethnic cleansing of the 90's in Europe (!!!), that we can talk Putin down. When has that ever worked?

Counterpoint 1 to (this particular) Leftist narrative: The Eastern European countries, all of whom have more experience with RUS as a neighbor than the western European countries, all believe this fight is an existential fight for UKR and for their futures. They believe that if UKR falls, they are next on Putin's menu.

Counterpoint 2 to (this particular) Leftist narrative: This idea that UKR is just a pawn for greedy capitalists to enrich themselves is bonkers. The economic volatility caused by Putin himself is anathema to what capitalists want (see: all the center-left parties doing their damndest to equivocate and pine for 'normality' with RUS so they can get cheap gas and keep the status quo). Many companies decided to lose money and leave the RUS market...and many FRA companies want to stick around so they can get back to worshipping their Money God.

Finally, I really appreciate this community and am finding the discourse in this thread very helpful for my own processing of this world event. I hope others feel the same way.

I feel like from the comment, DS, that you think I was upset with other GWJers and wanted folks to "do more"? I don't expect anyone on here to be "doing" something. I'm just glad we've got a spot to talk about this stuff. I find all of this Putin stuff to be really frustrating, disheartening, sad, and disturbing for what it will mean for the people directly impacted and for humanity over the coming years (including my kids). My view is we humans need to be uniting to solve long-term problems like climate change and backsliding on our progress in individual rights over the last few hundred years. And instead we've got a guy with access to tens of thousands of nukes literally thinking he's Peter the Great.

That particular super leftist narrative also overlaps with the "all war is bad, no matter what, and we should end it as soon as possible and deal with the consequences some other way" crowd. Which, I have a little sympathy for, but that kind of thinking just let's bullies be bullies.

Mixolyde wrote:

That particular super leftist narrative also overlaps with the "all war is bad, no matter what, and we should end it as soon as possible and deal with the consequences some other way" crowd. Which, I have a little sympathy for, but that kind of thinking just let's bullies be bullies.

The broad hard left in America (not the editorial board of Jacobin or Chomsky) spent the last 7 years in literal street fights with Nazis. Some people even lost their lives literally pushing back against Nazis. So nothing could be further from the truth than saying they “let bullies be bullies”.

What complicates things is that America is also an imperial power that doesn’t have a spotless record, so there is a critique out there about what America, the empire, wants out of this. But please be more careful about what you say. I promise you the American hard left has more experience standing up to bullies in real life in physical space than keyboard generals on a message board.

The next time a Putinite brings up the “denazification” nonsense, remind them tha Dmitry Utkin (close personal friend of Putin, lt. Colonel in the GRU, and founder of the Wagner Group) is an avowed neo nazi with SS tattoos all over his body.

"Neonazi" doesn't have the same definition to Putin&co. as to the rest of the world. To them it means "anyone who doesn't want to be part of Russia in lands we believe we should control."

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FOcKzCjWQAMLcEJ?format=jpg&name=medium)

Top_Shelf wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:

I just want to return to this theme of the Left not helping enough on UKR.

I may regret this, but what are you talking about? Not posting enough? We can’t go fight the war.

Sorry, didn't get around to responding to this.

I should be more clear: I'm not calling out anyone on GWJ. My reference to "the Left" is to what I am observing in the discourse here in the West.

I appreciate the clarification and hope in the future folks can be more specific. There’s a lot of time spent in these forums blaming “the left” for not being sufficiently enthusiastic about the Democratic Party or for posting any criticism. So much so that I have largely given up on the D&D forums being useful for anything or than complaining about how hopeless things are or punching left. That’s why I thought that’s what you were saying.

I feel like from the comment, DS, that you think I was upset with other GWJers and wanted folks to "do more"? I don't expect anyone on here to be "doing" something. I'm just glad we've got a spot to talk about this stuff. I find all of this Putin stuff to be really frustrating, disheartening, sad, and disturbing for what it will mean for the people directly impacted and for humanity over the coming years (including my kids). My view is we humans need to be uniting to solve long-term problems like climate change and backsliding on our progress in individual rights over the last few hundred years. And instead we've got a guy with access to tens of thousands of nukes literally thinking he's Peter the Great.

It’s undoubtedly disturbing and deeply immoral what Putin is doing and has been doing to the world broadly for some time. It would be better for the world if he was out of power. How we find ourselves there safely is another story, but this is obviously true.

And I’ve also thought frequently about how even his destabilizing political acts against Western nations has setback our ability to tackle things like climate change by decades. He’s a malign influence who will cause possibly millions of deaths. I just don’t think posting and lashing out at your allies is helpful.

Paleocon wrote:

The next time a Putinite brings up the “denazification” nonsense

There are a lot of reasons deKGBification wasn't in the cards in the 90s, but boy are we paying for it now.

Thanks for the thoughtful response DS.

I know what you mean about "punching left" and how sometimes there is infighting on the D/D boards and what looks like (to me) like purity fights.

I say that as an ex-conservative who grew up in evangelical communities with very similar fights (not godly enough!).

I love these boards because we all do have so much in common. And I do think our side (the Left) will win in the long run. The arc of the moral universe is long but it does bend toward justice.

Agathos wrote:
Chomsky wrote:

If they opt for the ghastly experiment, that’s their right.

That characterization is beneath contempt. If the Ukrainians had the choice they would still be at peace.

And he gets there by wishing for a "diplomatic settlement" that 1. Is acceptable to Putin and 2. Preserves any kind of future for Ukraine. He doesn't describe this settlement because the idea is incoherent. Putin wishes to obliterate Ukraine, if not this year then in some future year. He still sees this as a possibility. The Ukrainians still must prove that goal is impossible, by fighting.

If you read the full thing I posted earlier, you'd see he's saying is that if Ukraine does not want to try to negotiate again (they did back in March, and the US did not support it), then that is their right. As he also says we should continue to support Ukraine with weapons, it means he thinks we should continue to support them if they don't want to try to negotiate again, even if he personally thinks they should. "The ghastly experiment" is just what he calls Ukraine being in a permanent war against Russia until either Ukraine is completely destroyed, Putin gives up (which he doesn't think is likely), or Putin escalates it into a global nuclear war.

What then can we do to facilitate ending the tragedy? Let’s begin with virtual truism. The war can end in one of two ways: Either there will be a diplomatic settlement, or one side will capitulate. The horror will go on unless it ends with a diplomatic settlement or capitulation.

That at least should be beyond discussion.

A diplomatic settlement differs from capitulation in one crucial respect: Each side accepts it as tolerable. That’s true by definition, so it is beyond discussion.

Proceeding, a diplomatic settlement must offer Putin some kind of escape hatch — what is now disdainfully called an “off-ramp” or “appeasement” by those who prefer to prolong the war.

That much is understood even by the most dedicated Russia-haters, at least those who can entertain some thought in their minds beyond punishing the reviled enemy. One prominent example is the distinguished foreign policy scholar Graham Allison of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, who also has long direct experience in military affairs. Five years ago, he instructed us that it was then clear that Russia as a whole is a “demonic” society and “deserves to be strangled.” Today he adds that few can doubt that Putin is a “demon,” radically unlike any U.S. leader, who at worst only make mistakes, in his view.

Yet even Allison argues that we must contain our righteous anger and bring the war to a quick end by diplomatic means. The reason is that if the mad demon “is forced to choose between losing and escalating the level of violence and destruction, then, if he’s a rational actor, he’s going to choose the latter” — and we may all be dead, not just Ukrainians.

Putin is a rational actor, Allison argues. And if he is not, all discussion is useless because he can destroy Ukraine and maybe even blow up the world at any moment — an eventuality we cannot prevent by any means that won’t destroy us all.

Proceeding with truism, to oppose or even act to delay a diplomatic settlement is to call for prolonging the war with its grim consequences for Ukraine and beyond. This stand constitutes a ghastly experiment: Let’s see whether Putin will slink away quietly in total defeat, or whether he will prolong the war with all its horrors, or even use the weapons that he indisputably has to devastate Ukraine and to set the stage for terminal war.

Appeasing a megalomaniac is a different kind of ghastly experiment. And Bucha informs us if the short term consequences.

Considering that Chomsky consistently underplays the significance of the Serbian death camps, his position here is unsurprising

Top_Shelf wrote:

And I do think our side (the Left) will win in the long run. The arc of the moral universe is long but it does bend toward justice.

Be careful with this line of thinking, there are a lot of problems with it.
1. The universe is an unfeeling chaotic shooting gallery, and shouldn't be anthropomorphized. It is under no obligation to bend toward anything.
2. It's really inconsiderate to people who are being harmed now, or will be under the current authoritarian trends around the world, or will never see that justice because of where they were born and the color of their skin.
3. If everyone thought, "things will get better on their own, someone else will fix it," nothing gets done. The "arc of the moral universe" only bends as much as we all work together to bend it.
4. It is extremely easy to go from "things will work out eventually" to "things will never work out and will always be awful." It's also very easy for bad actors to push people in that direction (Putin, Fox News, etc.). Not letting that first way of thinking set in can innoculate you against the second.

I know it's hard to imagine a scenario where nearly everyone on the planet is under authoritarian rule and only has the capacity to look out for themselves rather than help others and bend that overall arc toward improvement, but it's very possible. Especially given that climate disasters are only getting more frequent and stronger, leading to more people barely clinging on to life and more strongman leaders promising to fix things by punishing "them."

Be wary of phrases that remove the agency or urgency from people. People will make things better, or make them worse, (or through inaction allow them to get worse), not the universe.

(Sorry for the dump, personal pet peeve of mine.)

Believing things tend to get better in the long run isn't opposed to a sense of urgency in making things better now. I would argue that they're compatible and complementary philosophies.

I don't have access to the long run. On a long enough time scale, the universe outstrips my ability to make evidence-based predictions about it. Therefore, since it helps me sleep at night to assume that things will get better, I will choose to believe that.

I don't have access to the long run. I (and the people I care about) only exist in the now and the extremely short run. Therefore, if I want to personally enjoy the benefits of things getting better, it behooves me to work to make them better now instead of trusting in a long run that I will not live to personally experience.

Both things flow naturally from the same initial premise.

Paleocon wrote:

Appeasing a megalomaniac is a different kind of ghastly experiment. And Bucha informs us if the short term consequences.

Considering that Chomsky consistently underplays the significance of the Serbian death camps, his position here is unsurprising

He doesn't say that Putin getting some sort of way out is a good thing, just that it's the only realistic way a diplomatic settlement will be reached. Also, that as bad and distasteful as that is, there will come a point where the alternatives will be worse for Ukraine. Putin's shown no indication that he's close to giving up and slinking away.

And giving how poorly you understand Chomsky on this, I can only imagine your understanding of his stance on the Serbian death camps is similarly misinformed. As with now, most of his complaint is that the US only selectively cares about war crimes and genocide when it's politically convenient for them to do so, and pointing out that we have no problem ignoring similar atrocities carried out by ourselves or our allies.

Stengah wrote:

If you read the full thing I posted earlier, you'd see he's saying is that if Ukraine does not want to try to negotiate again (they did back in March, and the US did not support it), then that is their right. As he also says we should continue to support Ukraine with weapons, it means he thinks we should continue to support them if they don't want to try to negotiate again, even if he personally thinks they should. "The ghastly experiment" is just what he calls Ukraine being in a permanent war against Russia until either Ukraine is completely destroyed, Putin gives up (which he doesn't think is likely), or Putin escalates it into a global nuclear war.

I did read the whole thing, before writing that response.

Stengah wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Appeasing a megalomaniac is a different kind of ghastly experiment. And Bucha informs us if the short term consequences.

Considering that Chomsky consistently underplays the significance of the Serbian death camps, his position here is unsurprising

He doesn't say that Putin getting some sort of way out is a good thing, just that it's the only realistic way a diplomatic settlement will be reached. Also, that as bad and distasteful as that is, there will come a point where the alternatives will be worse for Ukraine. Putin's shown no indication that he's close to giving up and slinking away.

And giving how poorly you understand Chomsky on this, I can only imagine your understanding of his stance on the Serbian death camps is similarly misinformed. As with now, most of his complaint is that the US only selectively cares about war crimes and genocide when it's politically convenient for them to do so, and pointing out that we have no problem ignoring similar atrocities carried out by ourselves or our allies.

More false equivalence and similar intellectual dishonesty on the part of Chomsky. There is no equivalent to the rape factories and concentration camps of the Serbs.

I haven't read this much Chomsky since taking Poli Sci 450.

Honestly anyone who isn't Ukrainian shouldn't be saying sh*t about how to end the war or what to give to Putin.

Nevin73 wrote:

Honestly anyone who isn't Ukrainian shouldn't be saying sh*t about how to end the war or what to give to Putin.

That is certainly the position shared by Poland, the Balkans, the UK, and America. The French and Germans, however, appear to be a lot more generous with Ukrainian land and people.

hbi2k wrote:

Believing things tend to get better in the long run isn't opposed to a sense of urgency in making things better now. I would argue that they're compatible and complementary philosophies.

I am not saying they are incompatible, only that believing the first tends to give people an excuse to do nothing. And it's not necessary to believe the first to believe the second. And it's also a kind of recency bias. Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. I understand that it is a comforting thought, but it's dangerous if it's too pervasive in a comfortable society.

I just want people to be considered about how they use that kind of phrase, and how others may internalize it.

Paleocon wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

Honestly anyone who isn't Ukrainian shouldn't be saying sh*t about how to end the war or what to give to Putin.

That is certainly the position shared by Poland, the Balkans, the UK, and America. The French and Germans, however, appear to be a lot more generous with Ukrainian land and people.

It comes down to political capital and economics for every country.

Rampant price inflation is already present globally. By virtue of their economic strength, the two strongest individual economies in the EU have to shoulder the costs more so than the other nations, yet also have the luxury of using UKR, POL etc as buffer zones from RUS. Of course they'll be the first to seek to bring the conflict to an end regardless of how UKR feels about this.

Paleocon wrote:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FOcKzCjWQAMLcEJ?format=jpg&name=medium)

Is this a real guy? He looks like a shadowy figure from another X-Files/Fringe kind of show.

Doesn't he?

I always wondered why the premier, Kremlin backed mercenary group and tippy tip of Putin's foreign policy spear would be named after not only a 19th Century, antisemite German composer, but Hitler's absolute favorite. It isn't like Russia is lacking for famous composers. Sure, they couldn't pick Tchaikovsky on account of his homosexuality and Putin's pathological homophobia. And they probably couldn't pick Stravinsky on account of his bourgeois liberalism, but I am sure there was someone other than they guy who Hitler considered the theme musician of the Aryan race.

That was until I realized Dmitri Utkin (call sign "Wagner") is the founder of that band of merry neo nazi psychopaths.

Is that a selfie in the upper left?

Like, what is going on there?

Rat Boy wrote:

Is this a real guy? He looks like a shadowy figure from another X-Files/Fringe kind of show.

47 at 63.

Also: dress for the job you want, even if it's under your clothes.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

Is this a real guy? He looks like a shadowy figure from another X-Files/Fringe kind of show.

Also: dress for the job you want, even if it's under your clothes.

Got 'em.

On the topics of off-ramps. Here's Timothy Snyder, an expert on authoritarian regimes, pointing out how the idea of an off-ramp for a dictator like him is non-sensical:

Timothy Snyder wrote:

What happens if Putin decides that he is losing in Ukraine? He will act to protect himself by declaring victory and changing the subject. He does not need an off ramp in the real world, because that is not where his power rests. All he needs to do is change the story in Russia's virtual world, as he has been doing for decades. This is just a matter of setting the agenda in a meeting. In virtual reality there is always an escape route, and for this reason Putin cannot be "cornered." (Neither, for that matter, can the actual Russian army in actual Ukraine. When Russian units are defeated, they just cross back into Russia).

Putin's power is coterminous with his ability to change the subject on Russian television. He does this all the time. Think about how the war began. Until late February of this year, the entire Russian media was clamoring that an invasion of Ukraine was unthinkable and that all the evidence was just warmongering by the CIA. Russians believed that, or pretended to. Then, once Russia did in fact invade Ukraine, war was presented as inevitable and righteous. Now Russians believe this, or pretend to. In 2015, when Russia's last invasion of Ukraine failed to meet all of its objectives, the Russian media changed the subject from one day to the next from Ukraine to Syria. This is simply how Russia is ruled: invasions and storytelling about invasions. If the invasion doesn't work out, the story changes.

If defeated in reality, Putin will declare victory on television, and Russians will believe him, or pretend that they believe him. He will find a new subject on which to fasten their attention. This is the Kremlin's problem, not ours. These are internal Russian mechanisms in which outside actors are essentially irrelevant. It makes no sense to create an "off-ramp" in the real world, when all Putin needs is an "off-ramp" in his virtual world. It will be built by propagandists from pixels, and we are not needed for that. Indeed, there is something more than a little humiliating in Western leaders offering themselves as unpaid and unneeded interns for Russian television channels.

The odd thing is that Western leaders know all of this, or should. Given plenty of time to reflect after Russia's last invasion of Ukraine in 2014, we have become aware of the primary role that political fiction plays in Russian life. Everyone who matters in public discussions ought to be aware that Putin governs in media rather than reality. Just three months ago, we all just watched as Putin changed the story from "war unthinkable" to "war inevitable." And yet, for some reason, some Western leaders ignore this basic structural fact of Russian politics when they advocate appeasement.

Snyder's substack