I hate how “anti-war” has been hijacked by these people to mean, let imperialist countries invade whoever they want with no consequences. (in the case of tankies, any imperialist country that isn’t in NATO).
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perfectly agree with the meme, that said I've tried to make the same argument to people IRL and their response usually is "well Ukraine provoked them by trying to join NATO" and being the absolute dumbass that I am, I can never come up with a decent answer on the spot.
does anyone have a cool one liner to use or am I stuck with having to explain the various geopolitical issues
It basically comes down to this: being a sovereign nation means being allowed to choose your own alliances.
Calling it a "provocation" is denying Ukraine sovereignty over their own country.
Which is fundamental misunderstanding of international politics according to Political Realism. Hegemonic powers never care about these de jure arguments anyway and will practicality always act in accordance to int's own intressets, leaving weaker nations to navigate it.
You can just say Russia you know. And yes, we know Russia doesn't care about de jure arguments, they only understand power and violence. De-jure arguments are just a tool to them to give talking points to useful idiots in the West, in order to sow division and weaken us.
The question really is: do we accept a world where a third-rate regional power gets to trample all over its neighbors, using unimaginable violence and cruelty if those neighbors refuse to act as submissive client states?
From a moral and legal point of view, it's a no-brainer to argue that we should not accept this, but even from your a-moral "real politik" point of view we should not accept it either because it goes squarely against our own interests to let a rogue state Russia regain its former superpower status by conquering major client states. Europe and the US are much stronger than Russia, so even your Political Realism dictates that we should help Ukraine defeat Russian aggression.
So yeah, there is no world in which "bUt UkRaInE pRoVoKeD RuSsIa" is a valid argument. If you think there is, you can burn in hell with Kissinger for all I care.
Alright. Consider it done and now your response is some sort of recognition that that what i said is the case but this well established, hundreds of years old field of political theory is devilish trick by our enemies to devise us. Which does nothing to strengthen your shallow view on national sovereignty.
As already hinted at: Political Realism is a fucking theory of international relations. It's used to explain things in reality. So you have to understand that it's true for every hegemonic power. It's not unique to Russia. Do you think that the US lead invasion of Afghanistan was respecting their sovereignty? They had no obligation to extradite Bin Laden and we got to see what it meant to not dance to their pipe. The list can go on ad nauseam, we have a couple of thousand years of 'whatabouts' here. There is no need to pretend that this is some weird trick of our enemies to divide and fool you, it's an observable fact about international politics. And it absolutely does you no favors to have this self-sealing mind in the face of it. Weaker nations have always, and will continue, to curtail their own sovereign choices in favor of navigating the interests of greater powers and kept as much sovereignty as they can. Sure they have the radical free will to do anything, but in reality things happens as a result... even if you don't like it. And hence a field of science to understand this process, that looks a-moral due to a lack of having it observed.
Heck, I see that you sort of get the principles of the political theory. As you said, it's in the west interest to not have Russia attack her neighbors. So it manages to describe both Russias actions and the West response to it. It will even describe the limits of our support.
So a better counter to “bUt UkRaInE pRoVoKeD RuSsIa” is to say yes, but I want a want a weak Russia.
"So a nation is not allowed to make its own decision about defense or else Russia just gets to have it?"
"Nations beg to join NATO which is very reluctant and has a long drawn out entry process"
The idea of Ukraine joining NATO was literally unimaginable before Russian aggression. After the fall of the soviet union there were multiple agreements like the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine and Budapest Memorandum that basically established Ukraine as a sovereign and neutral nation under the protection of the west and east. Even after Russian interventions in Ukraine and finally the taking of Crimea, NATO members like Germany were still vocal about never letting Ukraine in.
Also if Russia truly cared about NATO expansion, how come we barely hear anything about Finland and Sweeden? I occasionally even forget they're a part of it now.
In the case of Finland, it's because they kicked Russia's ass last time and they would do it again.
They just have to announce that they've cloned Simo Häyhä and Russia won't even look at them sideways.
I sometimes think that it was exactly because they expected things to go as they did. If they let Ukraine in, they would need to ~~weasel out of helping~~ help, after all
Shows how little u know. Ukraine literally put NATO into the constitution prior to 2022.
Then zelensky tried to get nuclear weapons.
Again - don't follow msm, they have an agenda.
Citation needed.
The Ukranian constitution has no amendments even mentioning NATO.
And Zelenky demanding nuclear weapons is a recent development. So not "tried" but "trying right now". Not even the Russians claimed such prior.
And I don't watch MSNBC or whatever else "msm" is supposed to be. Bold of you to assume I not only watch American news, but also a specific broadcaster. That's got to be like a less than 50% chance.
MSM is mainstream media rather than a broadcaster. I actually hear it a lot from conservatives who are somehow convinced that Fox News isn't mainstream media despite being the USA's most watched network.
And you surely don't have an agenda.
That's why you come here with lies lmao
I don't care about Ukraine. I don't want my money going into military to support a country that has universal health care while I still do t have universal health care.
Fund universal healthcare, not Ukraine or Israel.
UHC is cheaper than the current US healthcare system. You can literally have both.
Funding for Ukraine isn't holding up UHC. Bad politicians are.
Someone needs to force their hand, if you just give them what they want anyways, there is no reason for them to do anything for u
Not sure punishing Ukrainians who are being raped and murdered in their own homes forces their hand in any way whatsoever. Seems like the least efficient way to do it.
Ukraine is not my concern.
I'm so annoyed by all these European freeloaders.
See the problem is that Biden could have easily negotiated some deal on Ukraine. That then doesn't require any resources spent on it. But because he has some shady buseness interests there - they used state resources to fight for his fucking personal business interests.
That's the problem.
Don't for a second think america wants to help someone. We dont help. We don't even give healthcare to own citizens , what do u think we would do to others.
Republicans spent significant efforts trying to prove shady business interests of the Bidens in Ukraine and never managed to find jack shit that ever seemed improper.
The US acts in its own interests. Countering Russian imperialism is part of that. They're not helping Ukraine out of pure good will, sure, but in this case US interests do align with doing the right thing.
Fair, but it misses the trees for the forest. The US already pays WAY more for healthcare than any other country. The money is literally there, just mismanaged. While I feel your frustration, simply cutting aid to allied countries won't change anything domestically.
They are not allied countries for me.
Israel is a genocidal regime and Ukraine is just a shithole in eastern Europe.
I don't need these as allies.
I get absolutely nothing, 0 from funding them. Cut them
Really? You're going to complain about one country's genocide and justify another in the same sentence? At least be consistent
I think you need to learn how the Military-Industrial Complex works, because if weapons aren't going to Ukraine, and it sounds like they won't, you still won't get your socialized medicine. Especially not in an oligarchical fascist dictatorship.
We the people should get stubborn and refuse to support the goals of military industrial complex as long as they keep refusing us our goals.
I get absolutely nothing from Israel achieving it's goals of killing brown neighboring people and clearing space for themselves. Nothing.
Ukraine - u know what! I don't care about it. Just cut a deal for mutual management of Ukraine and equal economic access. I don't care about Ukraine winning or Ukraine being a strong country in eastern Europe. I do not care. It's outside of my interests as a private citizen, only military industrial complex wants that war.
What are you doing to get "we the people" to do that other than arguing on the internet?
nothing. im not going to do shit.
im just annoyed people buy into propaganda that goes against their best interests.
You one post ago:
You now:
Which is it?
Everyone knows that's how becoming a NATO member works!
The EU works that way too! You tell them you want to join, make it super official that you pretty please want to join, and then you're in!
The husband who beats his wife analogy might work. "She deserved it, she thought about going to the police" Another thing, even if it was predictable doesn't make it wrong to help Ukraine no matter what.
These are the same people who support Trump and putin soooo
And the annexation of crimea was not provoking and pressuring them to search for defense from NATO?