Then I return to being completely at a loss as to your argument. It seems to be little more than "Putin is the biggest threat to civilisation because I reckon he is" — Isaac
they seem completely unrelated to the point at hand. I'm disputing your claim the the Western world ought to help Ukraine best Russia by military force. — Isaac
How likely is that Western citizens members of ethnic minorities (say Ukrainians, Iranians, Taiwanese) will see regional conflicts (like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Iranian revolts against the Iranian regime, the China's claims over Taiwan) as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in? — neomac
Moderately likely. — Isaac
How likely is that Western military and/or geopolitical experts (like Mearsheimer or Kissinger) will see regional conflicts as something the Western governments shouldn’t meddle in, especially when allies, strategic partners and Great Powers hostile to the West are involved? — neomac
Moderately likely, there's a range of opinion from isolationists to full on hawks. — Isaac
How likely is that historians would find historically plausible to expect that Western countries “mount a multi-billion dollar campaign” to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts? — neomac
Pretty likely. — Isaac
Nothing about the progress of the invasion suggests it is going as planned for Russia. If it is a practice round, it is a very expensive one. — Paine
The Ukraine war is a domino, a symbol against Western Hegemony that has exposed a myriad dormant resentments between the Western World and the Aspirational majority. — yebiga
Oh, you see “Putin is the biggest threat to civilisation because I reckon he is” as equivalent to "no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin"?! Coz I don’t: in my claim I didn't talk about "biggest threat to civilisation". So far just more strawman arguments. — neomac
[There are] no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin" — neomac
Aside from how one wants to analyse it, my conviction is that a rational “ought” (as in “X ought to do Y”) must fall within what a subject “can”. Therefore rational expectations about what individuals, collectives and states likely can do are key to formulate rational oughts. — neomac
I take “ought”-claims grounded on very “unlikely” expectations about individuals, collectives and states to be implausible and irrational. — neomac
my answers would be “unlikely” for all — neomac
that may depend on the issue — neomac
At best you could say that Russia is not perceived as a serious threat to the American national interest by some American military and/or geopolitical experts. But evidently they aren’t very influential... — neomac
There are no historical periods in which the West didn’t meddle in regional conflicts while at the same time mounting a multi-billion dollar campaign to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world — neomac
In conclusion, as long as your “oughts” are grounded on unlikely expectations about how individuals, collectives and states behave, your “oughts” are irrational. And since a world where Western countries “mount a multi-billion dollar campaign” to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts, is grounded more on your wild imagination than on what one can see as likely from history or geopolitics, then neither your expectation nor your prescription is plausible. Period. — neomac
Are you saying that Russia is the vanguard for this 'Aspirational majority'?
Is the Chechen society, as it exists now, a part of this group after decades of genocide?
Is Assad a paying subscriber to this majority?
Are the ultranationalists in Europe and the U.S., who have celebrated Putin as a champion of their cause, a member of this majority?
I am having trouble bringing your idea into view. — Paine
Umm...just who is saying that the Russian army is competent and very effective? :roll: — ssu
This was not the issue under contention.
— boethius
OK, at least with this you agree. Yet you continue... — ssu
apokrisis's hypothesis is that no analysis and no expert is credible, other than the Russian military is incompetent.
Incompetence is a pretty high threshold and you can of course be competent and still fail, especially in a negative sum game such as war.
Even higher threshold is claiming "all credible analysis" agrees with your position.
— boethius
Umm...just who is saying that the Russian army is competent and very effective? :roll: — ssu
The Rest of the World - from China, India, Euro-Asia, most of Africa and South America - is naturally not only enjoying this rare moment of schadenfreude as Russia's ongoing impudence threatens to humiliate NATO, but if the leaders of these countries are at all cognisant of their own best interests, they cannot help but speculate whether there is here a rare opportunity to not only humiliate the oppressor but perhaps even force the hegemon's shackles to be permanently loosened. — yebiga
Ukrainians also have plenty of evidence of committing war crimes, dipping bullets in lard and all — boethius
Really? That's all you could come up with in terms of Ukrainian war crimes??? — Olivier5
We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war
Really? That's all you could come up with in terms of Ukrainian war crimes??? No torture, no rapping, no murder of civilians, but the purely symbolic act of greasing a bullet... — Olivier5
Fixed. Morality and geopolitics don't mix well. — Olivier5
I deny that greasing a bullet is a war crime. — Olivier5
[There are] no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin" — neomac
...doesn't make grammatical sense. I've had to do some charitable reading. Why don't you try again to formulate what you're saying. — Isaac
The latter doesn't follow from the former. First you talk about the rational constraint on formulating what one ought to do (that it must fall within the bounds of what one can do), then you proceed to talk about likelihoods. Neither Kant, nor any rational argument prescribes that what one ought to do is connected to what is likely to succeed. — Isaac
So if I consider supplying arms to Ukraine is very unlikely to yield any humanitarian improvement, then we ought not do it? — Isaac
my answers would be “unlikely” for all — neomac
Except that...
that may depend on the issue — neomac — Isaac
Seriously? "If it hasn't happened in the past it can't happen". — Isaac
This just confuses 'ought' with 'is'. You're describing the way the world is, not the way it ought to be. Following your principles no progress would ever be made — Isaac
broad geopolitical considerations and historical evidences (which, notice, change over time: before the nuclear bombing of Japan there was no previous case to compare to) would offer clearer and affordable guidance under uncertainty, in addition to experts feedback and daily news of course. — neomac
I agree that the war crimes debate doesn't have all that much relevance. — boethius
I deny that greasing a bullet is a war crime.
— Olivier5
Oh! Really? You're saying there would need to be an impartial investigation and trial to really have some solid sense of what is and is not a crime and who's guilty of it? Interesting. — boethius
Thus we witness just yesterday, a joint announcement by Erdogan and Putin to build a another pipeline thru Turkey — yebiga
This is one of the things Westerners are for the most part oblivious to, but genuinely seem to be incapable of understanding it even when it's explained. — boethius
Dear Russian people! The global American empire strives to bring all countries of the world together under its control. They intervene where they want, asking no one's permission. They come in through the fifth column, which they think will allow them to take over natural resources and rule over countries, people, and continents. They have invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. Syria and Iran are on the agenda. But their goal is Russia. We are the last obstacle on their way to building a global evil empire. Their agents at Bolotnaya Square and within the government are doing everything to weaken Russia and allow them to bring us under total external control. To resist this most serious threat, we must be united and mobilized! We must remember that we are Russian! That for thousands of years we protected our freedom and independence. We have spilled seas of blood, our own and other people's, to make Russia great. And Russia will be great! Otherwise it will not exist at all. Russia is everything! All else is nothing! — Alexandr Dugin
Western Rationality is relentlessly undermined by all forms of media determined to condemn all things Russia and all things Putin into Dante's 9th circle of hell. The myriad articles, opinion pieces, dramatic images, accompanied by stirring music is all a powerful psychedelic that warps otherwise normal people, who care nothing about geopolitics nor have any real interest in the matter, now spontaneously tell you how Putin is literally evil. — yebiga
Dear Russian people! [...]
— Alexandr Dugin — Paine
Is Russia bullying Ukraine ... or has NATO been trying to bully Russia these past decades?
Is Ukraine standing up to Russia ... or is Russia standing up to NATO?
Is Russia humiliated because they didn't win in 3 days against a military waging continuous war in Donbas, supplied and trained and advised by NATO with US intelligence? Or is Russia humiliating NATO by taking Crimea and then taking the land bridge to Crimea and surviving sanctions and building an alternative payment system? — boethius
The central geo-political question of this war is the challenge to Western moral leadership. — boethius
the European support for the war in Ukraine is entirely moral condemnation based and in contradiction to any realpolitik view of the situation by most European countries. — boethius
Unfortunately there was a typo: "no 'local warlords, oppressive police, environmental pollution, poverty' are causing the level of economic, infrastructural, human, political damage that is causing one single subject, Putin”. — neomac
there are salient empirical regularities also in human & social sciences: psychology, sociology, economy, anthropology, history and geopolitics, according to which we can assess what individuals, collectives, States can do. So by “likelihood” I was referring to such assessments. — neomac
how about the claim “Western countries can ‘mount a multi-billion dollar campaign’ to counter the risk of famine, pollution and diseases around the world without meddling in regional conflicts”, what are the historical evidences or geopolitical actual dynamics that would support it? I really see none — neomac
I’m not concerned with “humanitarian improvement” in such generic terms. — neomac
I addressed the rest of your objection when talking about human creativity in history. — neomac
Better but not fair. That's better and more fair:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine — neomac
I asked you for clarifications: the idea of being "forced" suggests me the idea that you can not free yourself from something which you find undesirable. So if you live in the West and you do not like it, what is preventing you from leaving it?Being free to flee from political malpractice somehow means one was never forced to undergo it? Interesting logic. — Tzeentch
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