• usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    they have that standing because they have the guns. They still have the guns so they still have the standing

    those rules don't just exist for no reason they are to prevent war between the powers in Europe break those rules and you risk war. It doesn't matter what the Balkans and Poland think they don't have nuclear weapons

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Oh yes Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine not being in NATO totally prevented war. How could I forget.

      It doesn’t matter what the Balkans and Poland think

      You're a hexbear, so presumably self-identify as being on the left. Which then leads me to the question of WTF are you pushing talking points of geopolitical realists, "there are players and there are chess pieces".

      It very much matters what those states think because, as sovereign states, they enjoy freedom of alliance. To deny that means that you think it is all nice and proper for Russia to still treat them as colonies.

      • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        It very much matters what those states think because, as sovereign states, they enjoy freedom of alliance

        I don't want to be allied with them because they bring nothing to an alliance except liability.

        Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine not being in NATO prevented war between Russia and America, Britain, and France. And that is the big war that can't be allowed to happen

        this isn't a new phenomenon we are talking about the great game of empire and there are very good reasons why it was always the conventional wisdom to not mess with Russia over eastern Europe. If they are sovereign states then let them be sovereign states and deal with problems on their own

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
          ·
          1 year ago

          the great game of empire and there are very good reasons why it was always the conventional wisdom

          That wisdom is called appeasement and has failed again and again. Empires will empire, if you give them a finger they'll wait for a bit and then take an arm.

          You seem to be completely realism-pilled. I have my issues with Kraut but watch this, it's good stuff.

          If they are sovereign states then let them be sovereign states and deal with problems on their own

          If they are unemployed and homeless then let them be independent and deal with problems on their own. The fuck. And you call yourself a leftist.

          • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            That wisdom is called appeasement and has failed again and again. Empires will empire, if you give them a finger they'll wait for a bit and then take an arm.

            I agree, the US should be forcibly disbanded by an international peacekeeping force after the last two centuries of imperialism and genocide. No point in waiting for us to get worse, we need to be stopped now.

            • GivingEuropeASpook [they/them, comrade/them]
              ·
              1 year ago

              You joke (I think) but you actually illustrate why so many people are supporting Ukraine. The reaction of a lot of people to "the US should be forcibly disbanded by an international peacekeeping force" would be one of indignation and fury at the suggestion that foreign powers should violate one's home and put their loved ones in danger in order to satisfy global political objectives.

              • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
                ·
                1 year ago

                Uhh given the last eight years of ethnic cleansing in the Donbas region by our coup regime in Ukraine, it's really a better example of why so mamy countries around the world are supporting the russian federation here.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
              ·
              1 year ago

              I appreciate the sentiment but I don't want to see what certain states will be up to if they don't have the federal level to keep them in check.

          • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
            ·
            1 year ago

            That wisdom is called appeasement and has failed again and again. Empires will empire, if you give them a finger they'll wait for a bit and then take an arm.

            No it's called a sphere of influence and it's just playing by the old cold war rules.

            If they are unemployed and homeless then let them be independent and deal with problems on their own. The fuck.

            countries are not people.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
              ·
              1 year ago

              No it’s called a sphere of influence

              You say that as if geopolitical realism was the truth to end all inquiry, the insight to end all history.

              • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
                ·
                1 year ago

                your approach seems to be just deciding you want the world to be a certain way and ignoring all evidence to the contrary. You have to live in reality

                  • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    that video is an hour and a half long. You've watched it and everything you said so far hasn't been anything I haven't heard before or consider worth hearing

                    • barsoap@lemm.ee
                      ·
                      1 year ago

                      Why should we still play the old war game? How do realists decide which country is a poker chip and which is a player (one area where US and European realists differ btw: In the European view, Russia is not a player)? What do you do if a country doesn't want to be a poker chip? Can you really ignore internal forces, can it all be boiled down to power politics? Why stick to a theory that was completely blind-sided by the end of the cold war and after that argued to subsidise the east so that it can continue?

                      That's just the tip of the iceberg.

                      • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
                        ·
                        1 year ago

                        we play the old game for the same reason we started in the first place because the major powers have the ability to demand concessions because of the power of their militaries and economies.

                        Russia is a player because it has a vast army and nuclear weapons

                        if Ukraine wants to not do as they are told by Russia they are more than welcome to fight them. America and the other powers involving themselves in that fight risks major war however also it has proved ruinously expensive to the actual populations of those countries.

                        Internal politics only matter if they are backed up by something

                        this theory wasn't blindsided by the end of the cold war. At the end of the cold war Russia was weak from crisis (incidentally largely because the Ukrainian local government so badly fucked up running a power plant and the early stages of a disaster that all the money in the soviet union was required to clean up the mess) anyway when Russia was weak and eating itself they couldn't enforce the rights they had because of their strength now they are strong again they can

          • PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocksB
            ·
            1 year ago

            Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=XXmwyyKcBLk

            Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

            I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Because there's people living in those countries.

          Go on, write a letter to an imaginary 6yold niece of yours in Mariopol explaining why it's better that she lives in a mafia-run police state, than for Ukraine to decide its own fate.

          Also, states generally refuse to be poker chips, and they have all right to do so. Thus, by insisting that they be, you invariably create conflict.

          • ThereRisesARedStar [she/her, they/them]
            ·
            1 year ago

            Lmao you think there are major differences in qol between two neoliberal hellscapes. Actually that's not fair. Ukraine has faired even worse since the undemocratic dissolution of the USSR.