Originally Posted by chunkstyle
The Perpetually Irrational Ukraine Debate


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Moral outrage is not a policy, however, and anger at Putin and Russia does not tell us what approach is best for Ukraine or the world. It’s possible that the hawks are right and that giving Ukraine whatever it thinks it needs to achieve victory is the best course of action. But this approach is hardly guaranteed to succeed; it might just prolong the war to no good purpose, increase Ukrainian suffering, and eventually lead Russia to escalate or even use a nuclear weapon. None of us can be 100 percent certain that the policies we favor will turn out as we expect and hope.

Oh dear, oh dear, searching for perfection again, searching for 100% guarantees again.
Did anyone ever tell these handwringers that nothing in the universe is 100 percent guaranteed?
How about did anyone ever ask if Russian guarantees could be counted upon?
I wouldn't count on Russia to ever do anything except that which promotes their expansion into the rest of Europe.
Know why? Because I listen to Russian state owned media, which these days is pretty much the ONLY media allowed to operate.

My grasp of the language is tenuous at best these days, what with my exit from American-Russian Television in West Hollywood being almost thirty years ago but ever since your buddy Trump cozied up to Putin (your other buddy) I've been trying my best to resurrect a bit more of my memory of the language beyond "Yob tvoyu mat" and other epithets which tend to stick in one's memory if one has ever ridden the streets of Moscow with a Russian driver.

Hawks? Ukraine will cease to exist except as a Russian vassal state if they don't win.
How hawkish is it to want your country's continued existence and your national identity preserved?
I'd say that's basic survival instinct, not hawkishness.

Russians using a nuclear weapon? That's what state owned media keeps pushing, and funny thing about that, every time Tucker Carlson speaks, his majority audience listens with rapt attention.
No, his majority audience isn't here anymore, it's the 144 million Russians who are treated to direct satellite feeds of his show now, because his show is piped into Russia now.
They love him even more than Fox viewers in the US do now.

But Russia's own state media started pushing nuke talk right around the time your buddy Trump did.
Yes, your buddy...after all, you're much more concerned about the welfare of the Russian people and their sainted president than you are about anything else.
That makes them both your buddies, sorry.

Just put the red hat on already.

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Putin clearly bears enormous personal responsibility for this illegal and destructive war, but if prior Western actions made his decision more likely, then Western policymakers are not blameless. To assert otherwise is to reject both history and common sense (i.e., that no major power would be indifferent to a powerful alliance moving steadily closer to its borders) as well as the mountain of evidence over many years showing that Russian elites (and not just Putin) were deeply troubled by what NATO and the European Union were doing and they were actively looking for ways to stop it.

NATO was formed as a response to Russian encroachment into Europe.
Russia has steadily been encroaching on Europe all along, it didn't stop when the Berlin Wall fell.
Oh right, that doesn't count because again, US is to blame for the Iron Curtain, right Chunks?
I'm sure you harbor that view.

"Bla bla bla mumble mumble something about if US hadn't done thus and so, the Russians never would have built the wall to begin with", right?

Why should the free world give two shits about what Russian "elites" think?
Have Russian elites ever given two shits about the free world?

"and they were actively looking for ways to stop it."

Yeah, by installing a Russian puppet government, canceling European agreements and basically imprisoning the opposition.

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