No, you truly don't seem to understand it:

Putin will stop the war, when continuing the war is possibly a worse outcome than having a peace.

That's it.

Putin could stop the war when he wants! If Putin now says that "OK, we'll have a cease-fire", you think Ukraine would say no? Of course not! Ukraine is OK for a cease-fire. They have shown their willing to accept a cease-fire. It's their call, Ukrainians have to decide that. — ssu

Putin has no reason to stop because he is winning. A cease-fire is tactically not advantageous for the party that is winning, because it gives the losing party the time to regroup and/or rearm, and thus level the playing field. What could persuade him to consider a deal is pressure from the US and to a lesser extend from Europe. That is why I would push for a peace-deal now while the US is still involved.

If the US goes, you lose a lot of the possible pressure you can put on them, which means you will have to turn the war around without help from the US, to maybe get a peacedeal. I haven't seen anything that gives me reason to think we can do that. There seems to be no plan at all for how to achieve that.

Russia is winning as it stands. They also produce more military equipement than we do at the moment, and can still rely on the help of China, North-Korea and Iran. To me that sounds like a losing proposition. And if you eventually lose the war anyway, if Ukraine gets overrun, then you really don't have any deterrence left anymore.

If you start with your the attitude: "We have to appease now Russia", then you haven't any credible deterrence whatsoever. Never, in anything. Because Russia isn't even pushing your country much. If you appease them now, you will appease them anytime. — ssu

You keep repeating this, but I don't see how this follows. Why would appeasing them now mean we will never have any credible deterrence? Deterrence is a function of military strenght in the first place. We are weak now without the US, but if we build up military strenght as we plan to do, we could have credible deterrence in a few years. Why not?

At worst, it's like if your country would be attacked, then you "allies" would say to you: "Do not fight! Do not defend yourself, but listen to the attacker what they want and accept that, because that would be better for us."

That's what you are proposing. — ssu

No it's not the same because Urkraine is not an ally, we have no alliance with them.

I think your problem is that for you these conflicts are just forever-wars, something that you can choose to participate and if you participate in something, there's no negative issues. And you can later just withdraw. That might be the problem here. — ssu

I said many times why I think continuing the war would be a bad idea if the US leaves the war, i'm not going to repeat myself again and again.

Yes yes, we should allways keep the war going no matter what the chances of winning are, no matter how many people will die, no matter what the strenght of the alliance is, no matter if it could escalate into nuclear war, no matter what economic price we pay... there can be no appeasement ever!

Jesus* man, can't you see how extreme your position is? What is it that makes you so imperivious to all reason on this topic, do you hate them so much?

(*still the root of all evil!)

Yes our involvement has been half-hearted from the start. They probably didn't really want to get involved all that much, but then they had to virtue-signal a bunch to the public that they would support Ukraine because that's what was perceived to be the right thing to do.

In many ways that half-hearted approach was probably the worst thing that could happen to Ukraine, because it encouraged them to fight on thinking they had more support then they actually were going to get.

It's this callous political calculus of our leaders, without much regard for the very real consequences, that is so infuriating.

Once the U.S. realizes that pressure on Ukraine isn’t working, they’ll either start pressuring Russia — or walk away and dump the problem on Europe. — Валерій Пекар via Roman Sheremeta · Mar 23, 2025

And if the problem gets dumped on Europe, you'll probably see the same thing happening again. Now European leaders are stumbling over eachothers feet to shout vacuous slogans like "We stand by Ukraine" and the like. But then when the time comes to actually step up, when it dawns on them what it will actually cost to help Ukraine win the war, the backpedalling usually begins... and Ukraine will probably be the victim of our halfheartedness once again.

The support is never unconditional in reality, we should be explicit and clear about that.

So when it's your country who will need assistance, will you be then happy with allies that decide that what they can do to answer your call for article 5 assistance is to send your country bodybags, because you need those and anything else would be too "escalatory" for their own safety? After all, they have to think about their own security and not put that on line with you and your decision... — ssu

Of course I wouldn't be happy with it. And I think Ukraine has every right to be unhappy with it too. They are fighting for their survival, I don't blame them for anything. But we are not Ukraine, and we do have other things to consider then only Ukraines security.

As I've said, appeasement is not only historically, but in this situation logically it is the worst thing to do. — ssu

This only follows if we were in the same situation as with Nazi-Germany, which we aren't. Hybrid attacks are not the same as a conventional invasion.

And I'm also not saying we should keep appeasing Russia as a general strategy going forward, just that at this particular moment that makes the most sense, because our main ally who we relied on for some key military functions, isn't willing to help anymore.

This is actually confusing. On one hand you argue that the promises are empty, on the other hand it seems that we should not give the promises. — ssu

I don't see what's confusing about it. Empty promises are worse than no promises, right?

What's your point Jorndoe? That it would be bad for Urkrainians? I never claimed otherwise.

We have been supporting them unconditionally in rhetoric only yes, and probably never really had the intention to go all the way. I wish we would stop the empty promisses, so as to not give Ukraine false hope, and not to hinder peace negotiations. I think it's disgusting the way we are handling it, with so much at stake either we do as we say, or we shut up.

And I don't disagree with your comment. I didn't mean to imply that we are in the exact same situation as Weimar Germany... just that these kind of things do tend to cause serious problems.

On its own it's not necessarily the end of the world, that's right. My point is that we won't be experiencing the consequences of it in isolation, but together with all the other challenges we can expect to face in the near future, which will compound on eachother.

Re-re-repetition indeed.

Let's all sing in choir, "It doesn't matter that you are right if you can't enforce your demands on the battlefield".

The decision to support them or not, and under what conditions, is ours. The idea that we should just follow them, wherever that may lead us, is insane considering what is at stake.

Yes and the US is threatening to withdraw their support if we don't coöperate to get a peacedeal. That is the situation we are in. We can either coöperate, or try to go on without them with no other plan than to just keep Ukraine afloat... which in all likelyhood means we have to accept a similar or worse peacedeal a couple of years, and thousands of lifes, later.

We can quibble over who is the cause of what, and who is in the right. You say it's all Russia's fault, I say its the result of the two reacting to eachother... whatever. I don't think it matters nearly as much as what the actual situation is on the battlefield. We are not in a position to enforce the demands we want, there's really not much more to it.

And we used the "nuclear bomb" of financial measures against them. Of course they will use what they have against us... we are trying to break them, they are trying to break us.

We are at war, what do you expect? That Russia would just say, go ahead Europe, you can freeze all our foreign assets, throw us out of the global banking system, give financial and military support to our enemy we are at war with?

Yes, there would be turmoil, but not catastrophic and assets in the form of gold or property will retain their value. — Punshhh

Yes, as per usual it will be the bottom and lower middle classes who will bear the brunt of it... and cost of living is already becoming a problem for them as we speak.

Add to that climate change related issues like mass migration out of Afrika or crop-failures all over the world, an ageing demographic that needs more and more care, increasing geo-political instability, technological disruptions like the AI-revolution, fossil energy-depletion etc etc... and you have a recipe for something really special!

The younger generations will have nothing to look forward to, and if history is any lesson they will not go quietly in the night. We need to give them some perspective for a future Punshhh, getting stuck in an endless war is the opposite of that.

You know what I meant.

Trump is not going to side with Russia in attacking Europe. They only real care about China, which is the only one who can compete. If they have an interest in Russia it's to drive a wedge between Russia and China who are helping eachother in this war.

And Russia isn't going to attack Europe on its own, because they can't.

Non of this is real.

I think sooner or later the paper money system will collapse. But it's not the end of the World. Debts are then either defaulted or repaid by inflation and those that do have their savings in bonds and cash will lose that wealth. But then life goes on. — ssu

There would be massive social and political upheaval the likes we haven't seen in our lifes... but sure life would eventually go on I guess, after all the dust has settled.

It's really something, how blinded most Europeans are by imagined threats so they can't see the real danger right in front of them.

I think it's a bit more complicated... but I don't have the time now, have to go.

I mean it's difficult isn't it, because already I'm hesitating to say what I think because of all the taboos surrounding it.

If it is purely racism in the narrow sense, based on skin-colour, then I would say sure forbid it, but if it's about ethnicity and culture, then I think we should be able to discuss that.

The problem is the definition of what is racism has become so wide, that it typically also has come to include restricting speech about culture and the like.

And I think that is the point, that these things tend to shift and expand further than the original goal that may have been perfectly benign initially.

But here's a real life example. In a lot of western countries a lot of these restrictions to free speech have been set in place after the horrors of world war II. Very understandably so, and I'm sure they had all the best intentions. But what has happened after a couple of decennia is that some political parties have weaponised these restrictions to make otherwise perhaps legitimate concerns of other political parties undiscussable.

I just think, like T Clark, that there are worse things than allowing speech that may hurt feelings.

It can... I don't think we should suspect Jamal in this instance, but it won't always be Jamal in charge.

The point is that it is an argument to not have restrictions on free speech, because it can and will be used by those in power to consolidate their power.

Bit of a non sequitur. The fact that it can be applied to anything doesn't make it any less true.

This draw down happened only after the Cold War ended. That is 30 years ago, not 80 years. And naturally the threat that Putin's Russia poses is far smaller than what the Soviet Union did. — ssu

Yes I was overstating the case a bit, it is 30 years of no threat... the result is the same though, the military hasn't been taken seriously.

That would be the European objective, not Trump's objective, who is basically doing the bidding of Russia here. — ssu

But then we should take some initiative towards realising that objective, instead of merely antagonising like we are doing now and for the past 3 years. And I don't think Trump is doing Putin's bidding, he just wants out because he thinks that is in US interests... and for that he needs to find some common ground with Putin. Just repeating over and over how evil Putin is, isn't going to get us closer to a peace deal.

Which has been supported by the largest alliance in history, up until Trump. But cut off that aid, and Russia can take Ukraine. And once there's a cease-fire, then Russia can build up in few years the armament that it has lost. Also it drafts hundreds of thousands of conscripts annually.

When Russia says it's at war with NATO and the West, we should understand that he means it. — ssu

I think he says that because we keep pretending like we are not in the war, i.e. that we're only providing help "to protect Ukraines soevereignity".

But yes we need to find a workable security arrangement for Ukraine, I do agree with that because otherwise you have the same problem in a few years. That is the single most important thing we should be aiming for, and to achieve that we will probably need to make some other concessions. And it will take a lot of time and effort to get there, so we better get started to move the conversation in that direction.

Yes, it's not going to end well.

The system is just going to default in some way or another. That simple.
You can default or then you can pay it with inflation. — ssu

And then what, we end up in a Weimar Germany kind of situation? You don't think that is something we should be trying to avoid at all cost?

This is what I don't understand, rhetorically we have our mouth full of warnings about the looming dangers of fascism, but then in practice we are doing exactly the things we know leads to extremism.

We need to borrow more money because COVID, because Russia, because climate change, because an aging demographic, because there is allways a reason!

https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/GG_DEBT_GDP@GDD/CAN/FRA/DEU/ITA/JPN/GBR/USA

It's not going to end well.

Why do you think so?

There's far enough resources, technological ability and I would say unity to defend the union. Going on in out of the area peace enforcing or other stuff isn't going to be popular, but the simple fact of defending the member states from outside aggression is an reachable goal.

Look, my country wasn't part of NATO, was left totally to the sphere of Stalin and yet we had enough deterrence to stay independent. Why now would we have less deterrence when we are in an alliance and when Europe is pouring 800 billion into defense procurement? — ssu

Assuming the US bows out of the war, we are weak at this particular moment because they did a lot of the coördination, the intelligence, logistics, tactical support etc... I think we need some time to get those things in order.

We also lack the battle experience. Russia is already fighting the war for 3 years now, they have a military economy going, and probably would want to keep it going because they are allready geared for it now. We're only just getting started.

I'm talking about the Ukraine war specifically... because to turn arround that war you essentially need to take back territory. Deterring Russia in the future is another matter, I think we could do that if we can prepare for it. Defence is generally a lot easier than offence.

Nonsense. We are talking of military strength and deterrence. Just look at what a basket case is Russia itself. And look how poor actually the Chinese are compared per capita to us. One has to understand that the NATO countries (minus US) spend more than China and Russia COMBINED in defense. It's really a simply an issue of having will here to really to put serious investment into defense. — ssu

I think you maybe don't fully appreciate how much a lot of European countries are in debt allready, because you live in a country that is doing really well compared to the rest. You also probably have a military that was taken seriously because of the Russia threat that was allways there for Finland... in Western Europe there hasn't been a serious threat for 80 years, and as a consequence the military has suffered. Large investements are needed, with money that isn't really there.

Russia is maybe a basket case in the overall, but they probably can keep a war economy going pretty easily because of the abundant natural resources they can allways export.

Russia isn't winning. Ukrainians can decide if they want to fight for their country or not. It is up to us if we want to give them support. For example: over 70 F-16 fighters have been pledged to be given to Ukraine. Now only 18 have been sent, I guess. We in Europe have to understand that Trump is hostile to us, he isn't our friend. — ssu

They are winning because they have conquered territory from Ukraine. Since they already occupy the territories they are asking for, they don't really need a peace deal... why would they settle for less if we can't get them out anytime soon?

How?
By giving into Putin's demands? By sidelining the Ukrainians here, just as Trump does? — ssu

Zelenski will have to listen to us because without our support he's losing the war anyway. We support him to get the realistically best possible peace deal, not to fight on indefinately. And yes that will mostly be giving into Putin's demands, i.e. no Nato, giving up the occupied territories for the most part, new elections in Ukraine... the one thing I would push for is a good enough security arrangement for Ukraine so Russia can't just start over. That is called cutting your losses.

And Chamberlain was praised at the time as “the benefactor of the world” while Chamberlain’s critics were “‘war-mongers“. That people "felt a very proper reluctance of sending young men of this country” to war, especially as there were no personal feelings of “ill-will” between British men and “their German and Italian contemporaries.” — ssu

Russia is in no way in a similar position as Nazi-germany. They have trouble conquering a small part of a neighbouring country. The fear that Russia will invade the rest of Europe is irrational from a practical point of view, and also contradictory with the idea that we should keep the Ukraine war going because we think we can just conquer back the territory.... you can't have it both ways.

Human nature isn't the explanation for who we are and what we do. It's part of the answer. We aren't blank slates. — T Clark

Fair enough, and I do agree with this.

I don't disagree, but I think Lao Tzu sends a much more extreme message than that. — T Clark

Could you elaborate on this, I'm curious what you mean with it. Is it something along the lines of the Chuang Tzu quote?

What I call good is not humankindness and responsible conduct, but just being good at what is done by your own intrinsic virtuosities. Goodness, as I understand it, certainly does not mean humankindness and responsible conduct! It is just fully allowing the uncontrived condition of the inborn nature and allotment of life to play itself out. What I call sharp hearing is not hearkening to others, but rather hearkening to oneself, nothing more.
— Chuang Tzu — Chuang Tzu

This seems remarkably similar to what Nietzsche is getting at. Goodness as springing from the body, from the particular physiology of an individual... as opposed to Goodness coming from the holy spirit or the logos, imposed from the outside via the 'word', universal and abstract, and therefor not geared to the individual.

While I certainly would agree that the former is better for the individual, this still seems like a bit of a problem for society, because what society needs is not necessarily allways congruent with what is best for the individual.

I was just trying to figure out what is going on with the recent cultural, ideological and political devellopements in the US, as these usually spill over into Europe the years thereafter.

But sure let's play, suppose we agree on the goal that we should do something about the enormous public debt. Don't you think you will get wildly different policy answers depending on which side one is on, or what position one has in society? People do have different interests.

There's been enough of "resets" and understanding of Putin's Russia. As long as Putin's Russia is as hostile as it is, we should treat it as a threat, just like the West treated Soviet Union. Appeasement now will just show that Europe is inherently weak and can be forced with the threat of violence to give everything up. — ssu

It think the problem with this line of thinking is that we are in fact weak. Instead of trying to hold up a facade of strenght by not giving into Russia, maybe we should try to actually be strong. And to be strong you need to have a good economy, and for that you need cheaper energy...

I think these psychological considerations matter a whole lot less that we might think, it's the facts on the ground that matter most, and there Russia is winning.

Please do understand that Putin's Russia wants to dissolve the European Union and hence is a genuine threat to it. Someone that is your adversary really isn't your friend and you won't improve your security by going along with it. China isn't such aggressive as Russia. — ssu

I don't deny this, they are our adversary now and we should treat them as such for the forseable future. That doesn't mean we can't try to de-escalate and work towards having a less destructive relation.

And as long as Russia sees itself as a Great Power that should have it's sphere of influence in Europe, that long it's an existential threat. It can have a revolution and understand that the time of it's Imperial greatness is over, just like the UK understood and even France was forced to understand. — ssu

It think it's going to be difficult to get them that far, the break up of the USSR is still etched in their minds as one of the most damaging things that has happened to them in history... they lost as much people as in World War II in that period. Putin was and is the one holding the oligarchs in check. I don't think you can just have a revolution and expect things to go swimmingly for them.

Maybe this is mostly just a definitional semantic thing. Nietzsche for instance saw (Christian) morality as just that, social control, and stifling to the individual because it does constrict the expression of their biological nature... that is why he considered himself an immoralist. So he's saying essentially something similar, but the terms and definitions used are the exact opposite.

The aspects of human nature I've proposed are not intended to be comprehensive - they're just examples. I think there's a lot more going on. Humans are story tellers so it seems plausible to me that there may be an inborn tendency and capacity for mythology. As for values, there are studies showing that children might be born with the fundamentals of a moral sense. Here's a link to a discussion.

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.yale.edu/dist/f/1145/files/2017/10/Wynn-Bloom-Moral-Handbook-Chapter-2013-14pwpor.pdf — T Clark

Yes, we have innate moral feelings, maybe even something like a directional moral sense, but I don't think its enough on its own to get fully functional morality. We have a long education period for a reason it would think, unlike other animals.

If there's a cultural component to how we get our values, if that is part of human nature, then it seem like pointing to human nature as an explanation misses something, or doesn't really answer the question, as there is a yet to be defined component to human nature.

I do think education, or moral systems, can go to far or go wrong if they veer to far from the basic moral feelings. This is how I see Taoism for instance, partly as a correction to an overbearing Confucianism. A lot of high Chinese officials were Confucian in public and Daoist in private.... But I don't think you could have had a functioning Chinese society with Taoism alone.

The formal systems of so-called morality you discuss are more about how someone thinks other people should behave. As I see it, that's not morality at all, it's social control - the rules and practices a society sets up to protect it's members and make sure things run smoothly. Murder is prohibited not because it's wrong, but because it hurts people that a community is obligated to protect. — T Clark

I think part of moralities function is social control. Murder derails societies as it tended to lead to bloodfeuds and the like... it was bad for social order. It seems weird to me that you would want to excluded that from morality, as a functioning society is a prerequisite for any kind of human flourishing it seems to me.

I don't think this is a fair, or reasonable thing to say, no matter what comes next. — AmadeusD

If you disagree with that statement, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.

But again, this absolutely ignores what I'm saying: Sure, to stop it. Start by having this discussion. It is not possible for ideology to get in the way of this. All it can do is leave someone bereft of answers, and egg on their face. Not that this works in all cases, but it has almost universally allowed me to find common ground and understanding with people who's chosen polices are in the negative column, for me. — AmadeusD

Look this was just not why I was posting in this thread. And furthermore I don't see why we would need to find common ground to begin with, I'm in Europe and you're in New Zealand, we are not the ones that need to see eye to eye.

So what is our human nature? I'll go out on a limb here. It is a bunch of inborn genetic, biological, neurological, mental, and psychological processes, structures, capacities, drives, and instincts which are modified during development and by experience and socialization. I'll try to be more specific. We are social animals. We like and want to be around each other. We care most for those closest to us - our families and especially our children. We are born with temperaments that express themselves from the very start. We are born with an instinctual drive and capability for language. We are born with an inborn drive to find a mate, usually, but not always of the opposite sex. This is from William James. I'm not sure whether it will seem relevant, but it does to me and I like it. — T Clark

What about culture? Could it also be human nature to devise myths and tables of values to pass onto the next generation?

The foundation of these norms is the metapysical question. Do we have them just to facilitate survival and therefore ingrained in our DNA? Or do they come from a higher source of wisdom directing us toward higher purpose? If you choose the latter, you have no way of asserting that than faith. The consequence of denying the higher power is to be a complex wolf or chicken though. That worldview is lesser i'd submit. — Hanover

Maybe it's just a convention, wouldn't that be the most obvious answer?

And if they are not truth apt they cannot participate in rationalising our actions. — Banno

They can be reasoned with if you take a conventional view of morality, i.e. it is true that we agreed (as a society) that stealing is wrong... you don't need the moral statements themselves to be truth apt.

I would say you have a shared understanding and values that is functionally similar to religion.

I'm European.

I get it, trust works... until it doesn't.

Yeah but the reality is that we are not self-sufficient on our own. We need a group cooperating to sustain ourselves.

If religion or any other common understanding of how to realise this is lacking, then the personal interest of the populace will not be served by default.

Nah fascism is a particular way of organising the state, there's plenty of ways faith doesn't lead to fascism.

The problem is universality, the idea that the values of a certain group should apply to everyone... and hence everyone can justifiably be held accountable for not adhering to these values, even if they don't believe in them.

Plato... Christianity.

I don't think nationalism is functionally all that different from religion.
— ChatteringMonkey

That was my point. — Banno

I don't think it is a bad thing to be clear.

Well at least now you are beginning to address what I actually argued rather than what folk expect or want to think I argued.

Faith, understood as belief without or even despite the evidence, is not a virtue.

Faith, understood as trust, might foster commitment or dedication and these are (perhaps) virtues.

The Binding of Isaac and the Trials of Job speak of acts of cruelty, where unjustified suffering is inflicted in the name of faith. Moreover these are held up as admirable, to be emulated.

I don't agree. I hope other also disagree. — Banno

I don't think you really understand what faith is if you believe that you should evaluate what faith asks you to do by yet another standard. Faith is the standard, there's nothing besides. That is I think precisely the point of the binding of Isaac, that you sacrifice what may be in your personal interest for the greater good.

Why is faith the greater good? Because it is what preserves the social order, and that is a prerequisite without which individuals can't attain their interests to begin with.

If you believe inflicting suffering is the standard to measure behaviours to, then that is your faith.

Ok then we agree... I haven't read all the posts in the thread, so my apologies if I'm saying something that has been said already.

I don't think nationalism is functionally all that different from religion.

The difference is that belief is the more encompassing term, also including empirical beliefs about what is. Faith is a type of belief, a subset... about values, about what should be... things that cannot simply be derived from what is.

Well religion is the institutionalisation of these values, how they get propagated in a given society, how and who can change them over time.

Faith is the belief in those values from the personal perspective.

There is no argument, it is description of what happens.

Religion, from the etymological root 'religare', means to unite. Its function is to unite a certain group of people so they move more together in a certain direction.

Faith then is the believe in a set of common values, without there necessarily being any justification other then the fact that a group of people have agreed to them.

It doesn't have anything to do with 'truth' in the empirical sense, it is future oriented, i.e. more about what society one wants to create... more about 'what should be', rather than about 'what is'.

It's a way to avoid prisoners dilemmas. It only works if people suspend there own short term self-interest for the longer term common good, which in the end is more beneficial for everybody than if people just all would pursue the own interest... a leap of faith.