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this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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No Stupid Questions
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No such thing. Ask away!
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As soon as you are asking this seriously, the answer for you personally is: better don't.
You don't know the future, you can never know what will be done with the things you have built and who will be doing it.
If you are a young person, you are simply looking to make money (and maybe don't do much harm at the same time, but that's second priority), and I think that's quite OK for a while.
The older you get, the more weight you put on the question: what are you really doing there every day and for whose benefit?
Counterpoint: what about all the weapons used by Ukraine to defend itself and western democracy against Russian aggression and imperialism? Should those not have been made?
Edit: Editing my most top level comment to point out possible subsequent vote brigading. When this post was only half a day old I received way more upvotes than the people I debated. Now that this post has gotten older the ratio is closer to neutral without any new comments pointing to any flaws in my argument. Hence, I think my debate partners felt the need to involve their equally misled friends to downvote my arguments and upvote their previously negatively voted comments back into the positives. Seems very inorganic to me.
Edit 2: The above edit is mostly meant for my discussion thread with NeoNachtwaechter.
I wish I had a thorough answer for you, but I'm afraid it would be very, very complicated. This war came out of a complex situation and we (westerners) can understand only a fraction of it all.
But I give you just a simple idea to think about:
Imagine all these weapons would not have existed, on both sides, then maybe there would have been a war anyway, but probably much less killing and suffering.
I agree with you in theory, but the current reality just does not give a fuck about wishful thinking. As long as there are despots like Putin, Xi Jinping, et al., who see our democratic values as a threat to their own autocratic views we simply have to live with the fact that we have to build weapons to deter their imperialistic goals.
Now that is not only too simple thinking, but it is also not true. As far as your weapons are used there, it is for your own imperialistic goals.
So you prefer autocracies over democracies? Am I understanding you correctly?
Now you are mixing up things badly. The answer is No. You are not understanding.
I think I am understanding you very well. You say democratic imperialism is just as bad as autocratic imperialism, creating a false balance when you agree that autocracies are inherently worse for humanity than democracies. Furthermore, Ukraine was attacked by a far more capable force than their own. They, by the very definition of imperialism, cannot be imperialistic by simply fighting for its own survival against an autocratic and clearly imperialist Russia.
nonono, there's no democratic imperialism. that's not aligning with our values that we let Ukrainians die for. please mind the talking points and don't mention Turkey.
I didn't bring it up, NeoNachtwaechter did. I simply continued to use the term to point out their hipocrisy.
However, there certainly is such a thing as democratic imperialism. What else would you call Nixon giving the order to overthrow the newly elected socialist Chilean president Allende in 1970 and then condoning the fascist Pinochet's coup to power in 1973? Or the USA's "war on terror" post-9/11 by invading inter alia Iraq and Afghanistan? I could go on.
No, you still don't.
I said nothing like that.
I said that your imperialism exists and that your weapons are used for it. But I did not judge your imperialism as better or worse or equal.
I also did not say that. You are making up lots and lots of things :-/
I don't even know whether or not you are living in a democratic country (but I think I can deduct from your texts that you think you do).
Carefully read your replies to my comments. My interpretation of your replies is made in good faith that you want to argue constructively against my position. Simply stating "no" to any of my questions just does not cut it without any evidence to support your opinion. I therefore must assume that you are arguing in favor of Russia, when you pull out whataboutisms and false balances about
without properly engaging and refuting my realist observations about Russia. You should learn debate discipline or to properly express your opinion to avoid such misinterpretarions, as your very open and underequipped replies leave just as much room to attack your position as Ukraine's open and underequppied situation before the war sparked Russian aggression.
you make an interesting point and it reminds me of a counter point: that modern wars might have higher death tolls than historical wars, but modern wars - with modern weapons - end up costing less life overall compared to the populations of the time.
for tribal conflict of humans past, victory could mean wiping out the other tribe - 50% death toll or higher. as weapons advanced and more efficient and more destructive tactics emerged, wars can be more violent and more deadly but shorter and with fewer deaths compared to the overall population. wars became efficient.
all this is to say that if we didn’t have modern weapons there would be more killing - not less. “victory” would necessitate more deaths.
I'm not so sure about that - appears like a theoretical argument to me. Today's real wars are going much too long to let this look plausible.
You'd have to read historical facts if you really want to compare wars. I would simply think about some people fighting with bare hands, and they get exhausted after only a few minutes (and may decide to make peace then), while some people fighting with guns can do that easily for years.
In peacetime, countries do not make as many weapons as they can. They make as many weapons as they think they need, based on how many weapons they think their rivals have. So when you make a weapon, you also make a lot of other countries make weapons. And this weapon buildup increases the risk of war.
In a perfectly peaceful world where autocracies can live side by side with democracies you may have a point. But autocratic Russia's war of aggression on democratic Ukraine certainly paints a different picture to your wishful thinking. The lesson for democratic countries is therefore clear: If you don't want to be invaded by uncooperative and irrational autocracies, you have to build up as much military capacity as your unpredictable systemic rivals. Remind me again, who had the military advantage by sheer numbers in the war on Ukraine?
Addendum: The entirety of the Cold War arms race without any major escalation between the US and the USSR is disproving your claim regarding increasing the risk of war btw.
Every resource spent on weapons is a resource not spent on infrastructure / education / what have you. Military expenditure is at best a necessary evil; a better option is to have just enough weapons to stop an enemy's initial attack, and to invest the rest of your resources into building industrial capacity that can be used for military production if the need arises.
Russia doesn't calculate how many weapons it needs to produce depending on how many Ukraine has. It's main threats are the other superpowers - the US and China. So of course in a conflict with Ukraine they will have a massive advantage.
Your first paragraph ist simply paraphrasing my entire comment, so you agree with me. Regarding your second paragraph: Then why did they attack and invade Ukraine, if it is neither a threat nor a rivaling power? Kind of looks like Ukraine having not enough arms to defend itself was one of the prime motives for Russia.
Right, I'm not saying countries should dismantle their armies, just that weapon manufacturing and stockpiling should be avoided as far as possible unless your country is under attack.
Ukraine was similarly lacking in arms from 1990 to 2014. Russia only felt the need to attack when it felt threatened that Ukraine might join NATO, because that could result in US troops on its doorstep.
Ah yea, Ukrainian does not want to follow orders for Russia or even considers joining NATO is for sure a very valid reason to attack, murder and rape Ukrainians! I totally forgot about this brilliant piece of Russian propaganda! But thanks for read from the Putin bible for us!!! I think the idea of all weapons are bad, is a idea born by people far far away from any dictators or aggressive neighbors etc. if you go to Ukraine, South Korea, Taiwan or Surinam, then you might realize this is a luxury stance. Not every redneck needs a AR, but there are people who only sink ships in the read sea, because fuck everyone else. I think working in defense is not bad, as long as you do not try to sell your tech to dictators or Mexican drug cartels. So it would be good if the company complies to certain values…
I don't think invading other people's countries is morally right. But the Russian decision to invade Ukraine was taken, in part, due to concern that Ukraine might join NATO.
My country won independence from the biggest empire in the history of the world through non-violent methods. This of course does not mean non-violent methods will always work. But going to war without trying peaceful methods first is a great way to commit suicide on a national level. And having more weapons does seem to encourage such behaviour.
Your argument is flawed in so many places I don't even know where to begin. So I'll start by assuming you are from India. You won your independence from the British due to many reasons, but the big one being that Britain itself lost interest in controlling your country after the Second World War and democratically voted on it in 1947. I don't see Russia ever losing interest in fully invading Ukraine anytime in the near future (or even entertain the notion to have a democratic vote on the matter), as their stated war goal is full control over Ukraine. Hence a peacful Ukrainian protest against Russian aggression would only result in Russian dominiance over Ukraine. And somehow Ukraine having less weapons in this situation would prompt Russia to scrap their invasion and go home to pre-2014 borders?
Countries do not have, or lose, interest in doing this or that on a whim. The British government agreed to Indian independence because continued large-scale protests were making it difficult to profitably exploit India's natural resources, and the home economy (and army) were in a state of rebuilding after WW2. Also, there was diplomatic pressure from the two superpowers to end colonialism.
Russia claims to be concerned with (1) Ukraine joining NATO, and (2) the treatment of the Russian minority in Ukraine. (In addition, Putin is probably using this war to rally domestic support, and weaken / arrest the opposition.) Would either of these concerns have been assuaged by a stronger Ukrainian military?
Again, I am not saying that violence should never be used. The Nazis, clearly, had to be defeated militarily. France had to be driven out of Vietnam. But violence should always be the last option. And the buildup of weapons encourages politicians to respond to any problem with force, which just makes things worse for everyone.