How do you draw that conclusion from the Minsk agreements? In those, Ukraine committed to pass laws for Decentralisation of power, including through the adoption of the Ukrainian law “On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts”. Instead of Decentralization they passed laws forbidding those districts from teaching children in the languages that those districts wants to teach them.
Ukraines unwillingness to follow the agreements was a key reason why the invasion in 2022 happened and was very popular with the Russian population. Being in denial about that is not helpful is you want to help prevent wars from breaking out.
Having maximalist foreign policy goals is not the way you get peace.
This creates a new global equilibrium where the US is no longer powerful enough to disincentivize all authoritarians regime from grabbing more land etc.
The latest illegal land grab was done by Israel without any opposition by the US. If you are truly worried about land grabs being a problem why not speak against that US position of being okay with some land grabs instead of just speaking for buying more weapons?
In those, Ukraine committed to pass laws for Decentralisation of power, including through the adoption of the Ukrainian law “On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts”. Instead of Decentralization they passed laws forbidding those districts from teaching children in the languages that those districts wants to teach them.
Ukraines unwillingness to follow the agreements was a key reason why the invasion in 2022 happened and was very popular with the Russian population
I ignored that, that’s useful, thank you.
My (simple) reasoning is that I pattern matched hard to the Anschluss (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss) as a prelude to WW2 where democracies accepted a first conquest hoping that it would stop there (spoiler: it didn’t).
Minsk really much feels the same way. From the perspetive of democracies it seems kinda reasonable to try one time a peaceful resolution accepting a conquest and see if Putin stops (although in hindsight it’s unreasonable to not prepare to the possibility he doesn’t). Now that he started invading Ukraine as a whole, it seems really hard for me to believe “once he’ll get Ukraine, he’ll really stop”. I expect many reasons to invade other adjacent countries to come up aswell.
The latest illegal land grab was done by Israel without any opposition by the US. If you are truly worried about land grabs being a problem why not speak against that US position of being okay with some land grabs instead of just speaking for buying more weapons?
Two things on this.
Object-level: I’m not ok with this.
At a meta-level, there’s a repugnant moral dilemma fundamental to this:
The American hegemonic power was abused, e.g. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike or a number of wars that the US created for dubious reasons (i.e. usually some economic or geostrategic interests). (same for France, I’m just focusing on the US here for simplicity)
Still, despite those deep injustice, the 2000s have been the least lethal in interstate conflicts because hegemony with threat of being crushed by the great power disincentivizes heavily anyone to fight.
It seems to me that hegemony of some power or coalition of powers is the most stable state for that reason. So I find this state quite desirable.
Then the other question is, who should be in that position?
I have the chance to be able to write this about my country without ending up in jail for. And if I do end up in jail, I have higher odds than in most other countries to be able to contest it.
So, although western democracies are quite bad and repugnant in a bunch of ways, I find them the least worse and most beneficial existing form of political power to currently defend and preserve the hegemony of.
The key aspect of Minsk was that it was not put into practice. The annexation of Austria by Germany was fully put into practice and accepted by other states.
From the perspetive of democracies it seems kinda reasonable to try one time a peaceful resolution accepting a conquest and see if Putin stops
Ukraine didn’t try. They didn’t pass the laws that Minsk called for. They did pass laws to discriminate against the Russian-speaking population. They said that they wanted to retake Crimea sooner or later. Ukraine never accepted losing any territory to Russia.
I expect many reasons to invade other adjacent countries to come up aswell.
I don’t see why we should ignore reasons. Georgia seems to be willing to produce reasons to be invaded. Maybe, Georgia shouldn’t pass such laws? If you are worried about being invaded under the pretext of removing civil rights, maybe not remove civil rights?
I don’t think any of the EU countries that border Russia have a situation that’s remotely similar in either reasons to invade or in ability to launch a promising invasion against them by Russia.
I am sure that Putin had something like the Anschluss in mind when he started his invasion.
Luckily for the west, he was wrong about that.
From a Machiavellian perspective, the war in Ukraine is good for the West: for a modest investment in resources, we can bind a belligerent Russia while someone else does all the dying. From a humanitarian perspective, war is hell and we should hope for a peace where Putin gets whatever he has managed to grab while the rest of Ukraine joins NATO and will be protected by NATO nukes from further aggression.
I am also not sure that a conventional arms race is the answer to Russia. I am very doubtful that a war between a NATO member and Russia would stay a regional or conventional conflict.
How do you draw that conclusion from the Minsk agreements? In those, Ukraine committed to pass laws for Decentralisation of power, including through the adoption of the Ukrainian law “On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts”. Instead of Decentralization they passed laws forbidding those districts from teaching children in the languages that those districts wants to teach them.
Ukraines unwillingness to follow the agreements was a key reason why the invasion in 2022 happened and was very popular with the Russian population. Being in denial about that is not helpful is you want to help prevent wars from breaking out.
Having maximalist foreign policy goals is not the way you get peace.
The latest illegal land grab was done by Israel without any opposition by the US. If you are truly worried about land grabs being a problem why not speak against that US position of being okay with some land grabs instead of just speaking for buying more weapons?
I ignored that, that’s useful, thank you.
My (simple) reasoning is that I pattern matched hard to the Anschluss (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss) as a prelude to WW2 where democracies accepted a first conquest hoping that it would stop there (spoiler: it didn’t).
Minsk really much feels the same way. From the perspetive of democracies it seems kinda reasonable to try one time a peaceful resolution accepting a conquest and see if Putin stops (although in hindsight it’s unreasonable to not prepare to the possibility he doesn’t). Now that he started invading Ukraine as a whole, it seems really hard for me to believe “once he’ll get Ukraine, he’ll really stop”. I expect many reasons to invade other adjacent countries to come up aswell.
Two things on this.
Object-level: I’m not ok with this.
At a meta-level, there’s a repugnant moral dilemma fundamental to this:
The American hegemonic power was abused, e.g. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike or a number of wars that the US created for dubious reasons (i.e. usually some economic or geostrategic interests). (same for France, I’m just focusing on the US here for simplicity)
Still, despite those deep injustice, the 2000s have been the least lethal in interstate conflicts because hegemony with threat of being crushed by the great power disincentivizes heavily anyone to fight.
It seems to me that hegemony of some power or coalition of powers is the most stable state for that reason. So I find this state quite desirable.
Then the other question is, who should be in that position?
I have the chance to be able to write this about my country without ending up in jail for. And if I do end up in jail, I have higher odds than in most other countries to be able to contest it.
So, although western democracies are quite bad and repugnant in a bunch of ways, I find them the least worse and most beneficial existing form of political power to currently defend and preserve the hegemony of.
The key aspect of Minsk was that it was not put into practice. The annexation of Austria by Germany was fully put into practice and accepted by other states.
Ukraine didn’t try. They didn’t pass the laws that Minsk called for. They did pass laws to discriminate against the Russian-speaking population. They said that they wanted to retake Crimea sooner or later. Ukraine never accepted losing any territory to Russia.
I don’t see why we should ignore reasons. Georgia seems to be willing to produce reasons to be invaded. Maybe, Georgia shouldn’t pass such laws? If you are worried about being invaded under the pretext of removing civil rights, maybe not remove civil rights?
I don’t think any of the EU countries that border Russia have a situation that’s remotely similar in either reasons to invade or in ability to launch a promising invasion against them by Russia.
I am sure that Putin had something like the Anschluss in mind when he started his invasion.
Luckily for the west, he was wrong about that.
From a Machiavellian perspective, the war in Ukraine is good for the West: for a modest investment in resources, we can bind a belligerent Russia while someone else does all the dying. From a humanitarian perspective, war is hell and we should hope for a peace where Putin gets whatever he has managed to grab while the rest of Ukraine joins NATO and will be protected by NATO nukes from further aggression.
I am also not sure that a conventional arms race is the answer to Russia. I am very doubtful that a war between a NATO member and Russia would stay a regional or conventional conflict.