Russian invasion of Ukraine

War is shit. Fighting one isn't necessarily the worst thing though.

List of things that are worse than fighting a war thread >>>>>>>

1. drop bar MTBs
   

John Tomac will fight you over that.

I don't agree with @frank9755, but he's not shit-stirring, it's useful opinion to see.

I completely agree that it's a useful perspective and I'm glad that it's being presented. Of course it's not something to take lightly or to make assumptions on others' behalf (in either direction). I guess my rebuttal boils down to "if you're not in favour of fighting now, then when?" Pacifism is a reasonable viewpoint, but if you think that fighting has any valid applications, then surely this is what it is for (assuming that our views align to some degree on the impossibility of an acceptable diplomatic resolution to this).

Yes, they are part of a narrative, and you clearly recognise the importance of narrative as part of any conflict.

However your blanket statement that "We don't know what the Ukrainians want" seems to be ignore what seems to be widely reported. 1) many don't want to live in a conflict zone and are leaving for their own safety and 2) many don't want to fight but, since they don't seem to be given a choice, are fighting because the alternative outcome leads to a life that they don't want.

They show that there is some basis for it but don't prove that it is true.

What is your interpretation on what the Ukrainians want?

It would take more than these kind of press reports to convince me Ukraine was different from elsewhere.

I think all observers would clearly differentiate between the nature of the Ukrainian war and the situation in Syria. Just as there will be huge differences in attitudes towards conflict from different national perspectives. You seem to be seeing false equivalence where none exists. It is not strengthening the points you are trying to make.

What would you do?

I honestly don't know but I am very grateful that I don't have to make that decision today. I have former colleagues in Kyiv who have had to make that decision. Those who can fight are staying, those who cannot are fleeing.

A mate of mine's employer has an office in Kyiv. They arranged to get their staff and their immediate families out to Germany before the war started. About 20% of the staff had their families leave but stayed "just in case". Apparently all but one of those 20% are armed for the fight now.

What would you do?

I was also thinking about this. I'm thinking of signing up for a paramilitary organisation here in Lithuania so I could at least know how to use a gun if a time comes.

But at the same time I think I'd flee to west Europe. I wonder if we, people in the EU, have been spoiled too much with this free movement thing and consider the whole Europe our home and are not too tied to our homeland.

There's also some fear mongering (which is spread by pro Russian media as well) that if the Russians were to invade Lithuania, they would capture it in a couple of hours.

But also - according to the minister of defence of Ukraine around 140 thousand of people, mostly men, returned to Ukraine when the War started.

I was also thinking about this. I'm thinking of signing up for a paramilitary organisation here in Lithuania so I could at least know how to use a gun if a time comes.

In this sense, I suppose the mandatory military service makes it seem more realistic as an option, if most men already know the basics of what to do. They have that in Ukraine.

The numbers in Dau's graph are surprising, but are they credible? How do you carry out an opinion poll in Putin's Russia? If you were a Russian citizen and some one claiming to be a journalist doing a vox pop came up to you and asked for your opinion of the current leadership, how would you answer?

Without direct personal knowledge it's difficult to guess what ordinary Russians think, but I find it hard to believe that, with the Soviet Union only just over thirty years ago, there can be many citizens who have any faith in their own mainstream media. 'Pravda' means 'truth' in Russian and even if they haven't read 1984 I'm pretty sure most of the readers have a fair understanding of the sort of 'truth' they are getting.

One thing that the graph does show is that aggressive action by the leader gives at least a short term boost to his popularity.

By way of light relief I offer this soviet era joke - it refers to the hopeless unreliability of soviet consumer products:

'We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.'

I was also thinking about this. I'm thinking of signing up for a paramilitary organisation here in Lithuania so I could at least know how to use a gun if a time comes.

It's hard not to think about this, even here in England. I'm well past normal military age and I have no military experience, but the thought has come into my mind: would I, could I, fight? I hope the answer would be yes.

Even if Dau's first language is English I would notice his highly literate style; if it is Lithuanian, well, Chapeau!

In the context of my post above, I can't resist offering you this:

https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/naming-of-parts/

You could argue for the My Lai massacre from Vietnam. US may not have 'won' but they did prosecute the court martial themselves.

“Yes, they are part of a narrative, and you clearly recognise the importance of narrative as part of any conflict.”

something i took from a sky news piece on youtube with an analyst was that a no fly zone changes the narrative away from Putins error in invading Ukraine to one of ‘Nato the aggressor’ which is playing straight into his hands.
aside from the fact that enforcing that over an area nearly as big as Poland and Germany combined is a significant undertaking.

Yes they did prosecute, but only one man was convicted - William Calley.

In typical US style he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released after serving three and a half years. This sort of thing is pretty much standard practice for white policemen convicted of killing suspects: have a show trial with a heavy sentence, then when the dust has settled release the scapegoat.

There were plenty of other horrible war crimes in Vietnam - I seem to remember demonstrators chanting 'LBJ, LBJ, How many kids you kill today?'

a no fly zone changes the narrative away from Putins error in invading Ukraine to one of ‘Nato the aggressor’ which is playing straight into his hands.

I think that is recognised which is why there is a large scale "Marshall Plan" type approach to helping Ukraine.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/06/politics/mark-milley-ukraine-military-assistance/index.html

I tell you what, the nutter in the Kremlin making war and threatening with nukes makes the monthly nuclear sirens a little more startling... They're for the power plant over the border, but even knowing that, I had a second of "WTF" just now

There is no grand principal of helping the opressed to fight back against a bully and there never has been.

Maybe now's a good time to start then.

You are assuming that since you don’t know anything about Ukraine nobody else does either.
People who talk to relatives living there right now know a lot more than you.

https://twitter.com/shaunwalker7/status/1500762001072705539

In the grand tradition of changing signposts during an invasion.

I'm not sure he was saying he doesn't know anything, I think he was saying that we don't have good data, just lots of individual data points, and that decisions about war and alliances and military deployment are made by a few in charge rather than the public at large.

The UK practically used the freedom to choose how to respond based on pure self-interest without any discernible principle as the main plank of its foreign policy for a hundred years up to the start of the first world war. 'Perfidious Albion', etc - because the French in particular, whenever they did anything to try to contain the threat they saw from Germany, never knew whether we were going to support them or oppose them.

I'm aware of the term Perfidious Albion and the reasons why it exists, but thanks for the history lesson.

On a practical front, what do you think the UK should do when the democratically-elected and, at present, apparently wildly popular government of Ukraine asks for military assistance?

'Negotiations and an end to the war' is not an answer. It's the equivalent of 'thoughts and prayers'. Negotiations are already unway. The end of the war is an objective. If you want to reach that objective, you have to have a plan on how to get there. And I hope we'd agree that asking the Russians nicely if they'll just go home isn't going to work.

So, do you think we should refuse requests for military aid from the democratically elected government of Ukraine because we haven't helped other oppressed people in the past, and we'd like to keep a level playing field?

Do you think we should refuse, because we're Perfidious Albion and that's a track record we're proud of?

Or do you think we should refuse because we're in the happy position of not being invaded ourselves, so we can just sit on the sidelines and bask in our own moral superiority while doing nothing except spouting warm words about negotiations and peace?

I guess it's whataboutery but speaking of narratives, Biden flying over to Saudi to ask for ally help with producing more oil. Seems strange that oil from one authoritarian waging an indiscriminate war with catastrophic impact on civilians is better than oil from another.

I guess it's whataboutery but speaking of narratives, Biden flying over to Saudi to ask for ally help with producing more oil. Seems strange that oil from one authoritarian waging an indiscriminate war is better than oil from another.

I suppose it boils down to which authoritarian regime is causing you the most headaches right now.

I thought the US moving to establish lnks with Venezuela last week was similarly odd. The democrats kind of rely on being tough on Venezuela to have any hope of winning various heavily Latin states.

lnks with Venezuela

This might be playing on US State Department minds.

What should we do? Nothing, because it most likely won't help.

I'm not saying that we didn't help other opressed people in the past we shouldn't now. I'm saying that we are not helping other opressed people with similar needs today so how do we choose?

On what basis do Ukranians deserve help but Palestianans and Yemanis do not? Or Somalis?

What is happening is that we, the public, are being played. Because in one war the aggressor is our adversary and we have no interest in their success as they don't buy much from us. And in the others the aggressor is our ally who does buy loads of stuff from us.

There is no principle at work here, it's pure economic interest. I would love there to be a principled foreign policy - I cheered loudly when New Labour came in with that in 1997 - but it didn't last five minutes, certainly not five years to Iraq or to Saudi arms deals. And I don't believe it is going to start any time soon.