Posted on 04/19/2022 10:07:51 AM PDT by Mariner
One of the silver linings of the very large dark cloud of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the clarity it provides. This is, broadly speaking a contest between good guys and bad guys.
A lot of people who fancy themselves foreign policy realists roll their eyes at talk about “good guys” versus “bad guys.” The world is made up of nation-states with interests and those states act rationally on their interests. Good and bad ain’t got nothing to do with it.
I’ve never bought this argument, on either analytical or moral terms.
Yes, nations have interests, but the way they define their interests is not always strictly rational. History is full of examples of nations committing vast resources to causes that are extra-rational. “The mistake of the ‘realists’ is not their interest in the struggle for power but their deliberate neglect of everything else, especially the non-scientific, contingent, very human feelings and beliefs that most powerfully move people,” the late, great Donald Kagan wrote in “Honor Among Nations: Intangible Interests and Foreign Policy.”
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
The mayor of Moscow today announced the loss of 200,000 jobs since the war started. Hard to see how the war is doing anything in the interests of actual Russian people when they’re losing their jobs.
The average citizen on both sides are the only good guys in this scenario and the only ones suffering.
The attack on its Black Sea flagship by Ukraine using an indigenous anti-ship missile system is proof that Russia was facing a serious national security threat from its neighbor.
Honest question...is there a solid bio on Zelensky?
Your information is filtered by the same ones who gave us orange man bad.
I didn’t say Russia was pure as the driven snow. Just that Ukraine is not automatically the good guy. Ukraine appears to be at the heart of some of the greatest corruption and illicit activities on the planet. It is certainly playing into the hands of globalists.
When you find yourself nodding in agreement with people who openly promote the murder of babies, force sexual perversion on society including children, and hate you, your family, and everything you believe in... perhaps you should check yourself. Maybe the wool is being pulled over your eyes. (And by “you” I mean the rhetorical “you” including myself and the author of this article.)
Biden, the Dems, and the right-wing warmongers all seem gung ho to get us entangled in yet another war we don’t need and cannot afford.
If this idiot actually read Kagan (neocon, btw), he’d appreciate the actual motives here on both sides of the Uke war: honor.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.