The absolute arrogance of this. Talking about consequences of war on the people who did the killing but not on the people who were actually killed and had their country destroyed.
Geopolitics
- Thread starter Mciahel Goodman
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Why would that bother Russia if they didn't still harbour thoughts about the Soviet?
Do NATO see the expansion as provocative? Evidently not, otherwise they wouldn't have got NM to join.
I mean did we not just see a video from 1997 where the current US President said that NATO expansion would be seen as a hostile act?
In 1997 yeah.
Forgive me, as I do have a tendency to forget dates, but I was under the impression we are now in 2022?
The world has moved on, plenty has happened since, but Russia are stuck in the past still and can't let go.
Yea we're in 2022 but the US was still invading countries and influencing politics around the world like it was still the cold war.
if it was hostile in 1997 why wouldn’t it be hostile today? They are moving missles closer and closer to Moscow. How else are they supposed to view it?
Yes there was, but that wasn't the topic, was it?
Ask yourself, are NATO provoking, or reacting to provocation?
Why would Russia see NATO as a threat, unless they had ideas on creating a new Soviet?
The world is a completely different place now than in 97,
Quite a lot has changed since 97, whilst some things will always remain constant.
Pray for the soldiers who killed the iraqi people because they have mental issue now.
It’s not completely different is it?
Quite a lot has changed since 97, whilst some things will always remain constant.
Things like moving a hostile military alliance closer to the borders of a country will always be seen as hostile.
Be careful as calling out western hypocrisy makes you a despicable person.Pray for the soldiers who killed the iraqi people because they have mental issue now.
How many of those guys are actual civilian killers? The few who did it on purpose have served time in jail while the vast majority of soldiers were only witnesses to their own pals getting blown to bits. Putting everyone in the same basket while the vast majority never killed anyone is wrong.Pray for the soldiers who killed the iraqi people because they have mental issue now.
fecking toxic thread. Please close it, mods.
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What are you talking about? This is such a weird line of argument.
I'm assuming most Russian soldiers (and conscripts) also didn't sign up to the army (or get forced into it) with the dreams of killing Ukrainians.
Regardless, the original post was not talking about consequences for individual members of the army (which are the same/ worse for Russia's, considering they're dying in far higher numbers than Americans were) but the consequences for the country. Russia is (rightly) being cut off from the global economic system (though pushed mainly by the West) whilst the USA/UK etc received no consequence as countries whatsoever for their actions in 2003.
It shows a real disconnect imo when someone is talking about consequences for a country where they're being banned from the global economic network, having business pulled out etc and you reply with the consequences of individual Western soldiers (who, in America's case, know they're likely to get called up at least once in their careers to fight a war somewhere going by past history).
I can't remember who posted it earlier but someone posted a pretty good explanation about the difference between explanation and justification.
I'll put as a disclaimer that if I were an Eastern European country, I would 100% want to join NATO and make every effort to do so. The ones who got in in the 90s were incredibly smart.
Its also clear (to all but a few genuine nutters anyway) that Putin is an idiot and there is no justification for this war. That it would be great to see him crushed.
That however doesn't mean that you can't also understand that Russia, especially in its current state, will see this as a threat. No middle or great power would like troops and missiles from a different bloc on its borders
The two thoughts are not mutually exclusive.
I understand though that during an actual war, there are often no nuances.
I'm not saying the USA got involved in the 1st Gulf war for altruistic reasons. I'm saying its silly to call it an 'Arab' war (when it was basically Saddam Hussein, 'supported' by Libya and Sudan vs the others), to imply it was as ridiculous to get involved as it was in the 2nd Gulf War or that the breadth of involvement from around the world was even slightly similar.
I'm married to a woman, half of who's family is from there, we go at least once a year, I speak Arabic and have also lived there before. None of that makes me an expert or authority on the politics of the region, just as it doesn't make you one either. Its funny to pull this card. Some of the absolute worst takes on the region I've ever heard have come from the Arab portion of my in-laws.
Come on Dwayne, you know exactly what I mean. I don't mean its literally impossible, I'm saying its utterly futile to do so in a global system built and controlled by the West after WW2, with its main institutions dominated by it.
But not only will the sanctions have no impact on Western countries, it is likely to have a significantly more pronounced impact on your own country. Bangladesh sanctioning the West/UK will have no impact on those countries. It will however likely elicit a response from those countries, which is going to impact on their citizens and their country's own economy. Heck, even abstaining in the UN vote recently got Bangladesh this (Normal response).
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind that. I personally would prefer to live in a world dominated by the USA/West rather than China/Russia/India (in a realistic one where there are going to be dominant parties, I'd of course prefer to have a world that isn't dominated at all).
Those posts are of course a bit silly because the West mostly does the sanctioning and they're obviously not going to sanction themselves (though of course, not all Western countries got involved in 2003 and France/Germany could have sanctioned the USA/UK if they'd liked). It is peoples' attempt though to point out the ridiculously different responses this war has elicited compared to that war, in a slightly clunky way.
The sheer lack of empathy for the victims as opposed to the perpetrators is shocking.
It is really nauseating. I can not believe there are people can lack so much empathy.
A despicable person whose 'whataboutery' is just symbolic of unequivocal support for Putin. As if it's simply not possible for someone to strongly oppose the current invasion of Ukraine and point out not too dissimilar heinous crimes that the US/UK have gotten away with unpunished.
That's a fair and balanced post, and I can definitely understand how Russia can see it as a threat.
But that is kind of my point, I very much doubt NATO see expansion as a hostile move as the thought process and the way NATO conduct themselves seems to be very different from 97 (the lack of a no fly zone for example, that's different from the Bosnia situation), whereas Russia are stuck in the past, they still view NATO through Soviet/cold war eyes.
The fact that NATO are primarily a defensive alliance should speak volumes in today's society.
The explosion in whataboutism accusations is both interesting and weird. Whataboutism is a conscious tactic where you attempt to deflect criticism without dealing with it. Comparisons are not inherently whataboutist.
It's not whataboutism to compare the Russian invasion of Ukriane with the Coalition invasion of Iraq. It's not whataboutism to compare European countries's attitude towards Ukranian refugees with their attitudes to non-European refugees. It's not whataboutism to compare the swiftness, severity and magnitude of both sanctions against Russia and military help to Ukraine with the lack of response to other conflicts. There is a lot of actual whataboutism going around as well, of course, and the topics I mentioned can be utilized as such ("we shouldn't help Ukranians because we're not helping Yemenites", "sanctioning Russia is wrong because we invaded Iraq", "why do you care about this when Vietnam happened?", these could be construed as examples of whataboutism).
What's going on? Do people not know what whataboutism is, just using the term because everyone else is, or is it inself a tactic to avoid criticism?
It's not whataboutism to compare the Russian invasion of Ukriane with the Coalition invasion of Iraq. It's not whataboutism to compare European countries's attitude towards Ukranian refugees with their attitudes to non-European refugees. It's not whataboutism to compare the swiftness, severity and magnitude of both sanctions against Russia and military help to Ukraine with the lack of response to other conflicts. There is a lot of actual whataboutism going around as well, of course, and the topics I mentioned can be utilized as such ("we shouldn't help Ukranians because we're not helping Yemenites", "sanctioning Russia is wrong because we invaded Iraq", "why do you care about this when Vietnam happened?", these could be construed as examples of whataboutism).
What's going on? Do people not know what whataboutism is, just using the term because everyone else is, or is it inself a tactic to avoid criticism?
But everybody's free to discuss those things in this thread. I think the issue was that the Russia/Ukraine thread was derailing too far in these side discussions.
But correct me if I'm wrong.
You're oddly omitting key information from your Kremlin talking points.
1. Free nations can do as they please, and as such, eastern European countries coming out of Soviet/Russian subjugation would obviously be greatly incentivized to seek collective security should it or something comparably despotic (such as Putin's Russia of the present) ever threaten them in the future. I'd say most, if not all rational people would conclude every nation that has joined NATO since the 90s have been proven right in their desire to do so, as would Ukraine, Finland, and Sweden be right in pursuing it in the future given the vicious monster Putin has become.
2. Ukraine is also a free, democratic nation whose own people (not Vladimir Putin) can decide its own fate. If they choose to join a defensive, collective security alliance, they're free to do so. As it stands, Ukraine and a few other former Soviet republics signed the Budapest agreement in 1994, where they gave up their nukes in exchange for assurances Russia wouldn't attack them at a later date. As we've seen with the invasion of Crimea, the invasion and frozen conflict in Donbas, the creation of the Kerch straight, and the current invasion of Ukraine - Putin's Russia has no intention of honoring prior agreements, therefore the expansion of NATO is not only completely justified, its essential for collective security.
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I'm not just talking about on Redcafe, or in that particular thread, but in general. Though, I'm also not talking about what people are free or not free to discuss. Going off topic or derailing may be inappropiate for that thread, wanting to keep a narrow focus on the invasion is perfectly reasonable, but it's not whataboutism.
The US will always influence world politics because its the world's most powerful nation. China will also seek to do the same as it continues to gain global power. Its what powerful states (militarily and economically) do.
You're not wrong. Whataboutism, however tediously overused as a term, is a generally accurate description in that its little more than a contemporary application of a tu quoque fallacy; and appeal to hypocrisy as an attempt to obfuscate from the central topic of discussion. Its not necessarily wrong, but should have its own place for discussion. Like here.
It has also been a well known Kremlin strategy since the 60s to obfuscate and deflect Soviet behavior onto "the West" and continues to be used by Putin's regime in the present.
https://www.theatlantic.com/interna...ins-what-russia-is-doing-with-snowden/278314/
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The whole point is that we don't hold ourselves to the standard we insist others must conform to.
What is the ultimate goal of a liberal society? In a civic sense, it must surely be the attainment of the best possible balance for the greatest possible number of people. Insofar as such is the case, a liberal society will not shy away from critiquing its own hypocrisy (its own inconsistencies). You can not reach the first without confronting the second. The irony of "whataboutism" is that it is used to narrow the second and so must undermine the first. What is news? It is all whataboutism: the broadcast does not say "What about Russia's invasion of Ukraine" or "What about Putin's inherent evilness", but the effect is the same. You are being asked to respond to a question which is given in denotational form (and so the heuristic value is weakened so much that it doesn't even appear to be a "question"). "Russia invades Ukraine" = "[What about] Russia's invasion of Ukraine?" or "Russia has invaded Ukraine[,and what about it?]". So, what about it? The "whatabout" which exists in all media coverage can be understood rather simply.
Imagine a news-caster opening the segment with "Russia has invaded Ukraine, for more we are joined by X. So, X, why has this happened and what does it mean?" The entire premise is "what about Russia's invasion of Ukraine?". The extent to which other events are introduced then becomes a secondary narrative embedded within the primary frame. The event, as is made clear by the erasure of the question, is the Russain invasion of Ukraine. If anyone should stray too far from this event, it can easily be called "whataboutism" ("hang on, what does the expansion of NATO or the Maidan have to do with Russia's invasion of Ukraine?"). Well, for one, if your goal is to really understand why an event happens, you must try and understand the motive(s) of all relevant actors. But this conflates understanding with propaganda: the news, especially the corporate news, does not exist to give you an understanding if that understanding might expose inconsistencies in their overall narrative framework (the very real work they put into framing events from a certain perspective). The news rather exists to tell you things and elicit reactions favourable to the interests they wish to promote. Use Russia Today as an example. Their contributors are vetted well in advance so that the program can, with varying degrees of accuracy, be predicted in terms of its likely semantic value (journalists who lean left, right, or whatever direction, but whose sentiment will overlap with that of the editorial line in certian important particulars). That is manufacturing consent where consent is consistent with Russia's interests. The mistake is to assume that Western media does not do the same exact thing (dissenting voices are either a rarity, excluded, or when entertained are framed in such a way as to elicit ridicule).
The problem that is never addressed is, what is the media's overriding interest? Might be too broad a question to easily answer, except you can keep certain things in mind. For instance, just because a Western dissident's dislike of NATO corresponds to Russian state (or corporate) media's primary narrative framework does not mean that said dissident is an agent of the Kremlin. To draw that conclusion you have to suppose that these people have no "agency" (no agenda of their own which might overlap with another's in some respects but diverge in others). Ironically, you also have to maintain that notion while raising "agency" as the key issue in other contexts. Another example, to maintain that NATO expansionism has nothing to do with Russia's invasion of Ukraine is not to promote Ukrainian agency, but rather to diminish it.
For example, to use "great power politics" as derogatory phrase which diminishes Ukrainian agency is to conclude that Ukrainians have no understanding of their position within great power politics (is to rid the Ukrainians of "agency"). That doesn't square with the fact. The Ukrainians know that they will almsot surely never be admitted to NATO (this comes from Zelensky's own statements). On the other hand, the Ukrainians want to accept NATO weaponry because, given the circumstances post-2014, why would they not? With more and more military aid being given to Ukraine by NATO countries, Ukraine was being "NATOfied" de facto in a way that would never happen by treaty, or de jure. If you're Ukrainian, and fighting a civil war/invasion, you will not say no to NATO weapons even if you know these weapons will not lead to NATO membership. If you're NATO, you will willingly supply them with weapons because it seems a strategic win/win (in one scenario, NATO secures a de facto sphere of influence; in another, NATO supplies Ukraine with the weapons needed to maintain a prolonged insurgency). Zelensky is well aware of Ukraine's role as proxy within a larger sphere of overlapping interests (he said it himself, after all, "You will not be able to pay us off with liters of fuel for the liters of our blood, shed for our common Europe", in his criticism of NATO, and has also conceded that Ukraine will not formally join NATO, as have NATO [must find link]) so to say that raising this issue as being somehow irrelevant (or whataboutism) is nonsensical if your goal is to understand an event rather than justify it according to any given actor's primary framework. Zelensky understands the dynamics of great power politics better than those who would dismiss it as irrelevant (he expertly raised the possibility of negotiating with Russia in the same speech where he criticised NATO's weakness, understanding that NATO would appear weak if it didn't respond while also signalling that he was ready to pursue a diplomatic track that NATO does not want to pursue; and nor does he, either, but in the absence of proper weaponry [unless NATO makes the requisite concessions] he is saying that he will be forced to go in a different direction). Basically, Zelensky absolutely has agency, and you can see it when he plays NATO by condemning their weakness whilst also saying that he not "afraid to talk to Russia", in effect, playing both sides to achieve what he wants.
The above is a geopolitical understanding which makes sense and it makes sense because of the "what about" mechanism not despite it (what about Israel's broader positions elsewhere).
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Times have changed, people have changed. Technology has changed and become more ubiquitous, allowing us to access differ perspectives. There were millions of dissenting voices during the second Iraq war that are being ignored by the whataboutists.
When we see posters saying "oh yeah Ukraine is terrible but" many of us tend to suspect their concern is less than genuine.
Agreed that there are a number who hide behind these silly arguments, including some who genuinely seem to have forgotten the strength of the anti-war movement across the world.
However, even if the Iraq war happened now, I am 100% sure that France, Germany and Japan would not sanction the USA, UK and Australia.
As usual, there are different levels. Yes, there was huge outpouring of anti-war sentiment across the world. However, there were no real consequences. Blair and Bush walk free (and both were re-elected). Blair is now a lord. There were no sanctions, either personal or national, of any kind. And the war carried on.
Probably the thing I've always found most annoying about 'whataboutism' is the argument that people care more about x conflict than y. I don't see any problem with this. There are so many ongoing conflicts around the world, so many people suffering. It is literally impossible for people to keep up to date with it all and to feel equally for all of them. Most people around the world are just about getting by on a day to day basis.
What I do think is totally fair game though is to think about the national and societal responses to different events.
this stuff is amazing
Hitler was apparently scared to use Sarin in WW2 because of his own experience with Mustard gas during WW1. Putin won't have any such fear.this stuff is amazing
Cool.
Everything that Hitler endured in the trenches has been the basis for changes in building his entire war strategy in WW2 versus the old ways. Putin is someone who never served at war (he never served in Afghanistan), and that is far scarier of a prospect.
Precisely. He had a 16 year KGB career that taught him the methods he's used as Russian dictator - corruption, disinformation, and using deceit to control populations. This is what incentivizes him to do things and then blame the victims as having done what he did, which will likely be the approach if/when he tries a chemical weapons attack in Ukraine.
Everyday I thank god Hitler experienced war first-hand. Otherwise he might have tried and succeeded in a genocide of multiple different peoples. Thankfully his war experience stopped all that.
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Wasn't Hitler not in the trenches?