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What should we do? Nothing, because it most likely won't help.
OK, I'm confused. Are you saying:
- The people of Ukraine want to resist an invasion by Russia, but they're wrong, you know better, and they should in fact just give in and become a puppet state of Putin's authoritarian Russian regime; or
- The people of Ukraine should resist an invasion by Russia, but we shouldn't help them, because we haven't helped other oppressed people and consistency in doing the wrong thing is more important than doing the right thing in this case.
If there's a third option, do tell.
- The people of Ukraine want to resist an invasion by Russia, but they're wrong, you know better, and they should in fact just give in and become a puppet state of Putin's authoritarian Russian regime; or
Brommers-
OK, I'm confused
Thanks for the offer of words in my mouth but I'm not saying either of your straw-man arguments.
I see two big flaws in what you are saying.
Firstly, what the UK or any third country does in a war is a decision for us that we have to make ourselves, mainly based on our own interests and taking into account international law regarding supplying arms to combatants. That is what we always have done and - like it or not - it is what we will do now. The decision is ours to make, not Ukraine's.
Then you implicitly assume that Ukraine will get a better outcome by fighting longer, harder and more dirtily.
You might be right - maybe the Russians will say, hmmm, this one is proving a bit harder than we thought. Perhaps we'll pull out now, hope the Ukranians forgive us, although they'll probably join NATO and we'll have American bases that bit closer to us.
I don't believe the Russians will do that, not any time soon. Based on what I've heard and read, I believe they have decided this is the point at which they stand and fight for their interests which, rightly or wrongly, revolve around preventing Ukraine being part of a hostile alliance. If the resistance is stiffer they will hit harder, fire more missiles and bombs, flatten more cities, kill more people over a longer period, and we'll end up with Chechnya on a larger scale.
If I thought that sending some arms to Ukraine could prevent that outcome I would support it. I just don't think it would work. I'm fine with others having a different view and I would love to hear the explanation why / how it could work.
frank9755
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.