Posted on 01/12/2023 6:11:34 PM PST by frithguild
I have never taken a position on anything being "more determinative" than another thing.
You seem to put the cart before the in how you use my term "calculation". A soverign should first consider the ramifications for the execution of a foreign policy and their capability to meet the worst case response - their calculation. Calculation, as you incorrectly apply it ("miscalculation"), should not include a moralistic or value judgment regarding the conduct of another sovereign. For example, North Korea treats its citizens inhumanely, so the US should invade. Why don't we?
The value judgment is secondary and it serves to justify a foreign policy and to gain support from within the acting soverign or from potential Allies. Putting the value judgment first is foolish and may lead to unnecessary war, as it has done here. Real Politik
Nonsense.
The U.S. does not think it should invade North Korea BECAUSE of the inhumane way it treats its own citizens. North Korea since its inception (and continues to) reprsents a security threat to South Korea, and THAT is why we help South Korea. While we do not some moral differences between the governments pf the two countries, it is North Korean threats and actions against South Korea that garners our aid for them.
If there is any moral opinions vis-a-vis Putin it is that he is a dictator running a mobobacracy of oligarchs. Is THAT cause to help defend Ukraine? No. We help defend Ukraine BECAUSE Putin chose to invade Ukraine.
In both cases, any “moral calculations” aside, we are defending a country against an agreesor.
Is there any room for “moral calculations”? Yes. The nature of the regimes that are agreesors tells us there is.
We are probably closer on this set of issues than you might think. However, my suspicion and distrust is always piqued whenever the proponent of a fact or argument anthropomorphisizes their object ("Putin chose ... "). So I guess there are 1,000,000 Putins in active service supported by the public opinion of 75% plus of all Russians, with only the 25% disapproving being "not Putins." That's a lot of Putins!
Russia is a superhighway for invasions, because if it's geography. Tens of millions, soldiers and citizens alike, died in the Great Patriotic War. So should the West expect no response to the most obvious coup in the history of coups (Nuland), installation of more than questionable elements into power, deliberate prevarication underlying Minsk I and II and amassing of Western financed troops in the Donbas?
My primary point here focuses the foolhardy US misguaging of what the Russian response would be and, more importantly, whether a deliberately provoked Russian mitary response will end well for Ukraine or the West. Rather, a Twitter popularity contest featuring magical thinking (Propaganda) is the substitute for the kind of calculation that avoids unnecessary slaughter.
“Pro-Putin trolls share his nostalgia for the Soviet Union. That is why they like to rename streets and plazas in their occupied areas of Ukraine after Lenin, Rosa Luxembourg, and other communists.”
Heck, they’ve named their “breakaway” provinces “Peoples’ Republics”. They are not even trying to disguise the fact that they are neo-communists.
“So I guess there are 1,000,000 Putins ...”
Someone doesn’t understand how a dictatorship works.
“...they’ve named their “breakaway” provinces “Peoples’ Republics”...”
And they took pride in those little Soviet states being officially recognized by NORTH KOREA!
Clearly you would know.
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