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Comment by ramesh31 | Hacker News Reader

>I still side strongly with Ukraine but this is a complex issue and rolling the tanks against a country with less GDP than NY does not make the world inherently safer.

Putin takes Luhansk and Donestsk, consolidates the southern coast, and links to Transnistria. Ukraine is now a landlocked welfare case for Europe, with millions of refugees streaming out and a government in collapse. Just like that, Russia has a salient into Western europe, and the world order of national sovereignty comes to an end. There is no complexity to the issue. This is the clearest, most mortal threat to Western civilization since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Do not fall for "let's hear both sides" whataboutism.

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes in life there is simply right and wrong.

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That's why I left the "at this time" caveat in there. Yeah, if the Russian military actually gets its shit together and manages an offensive that achieves that we need to reevaluate but...I don't think they have any chance of pulling that off. Their troops have spent weeks retreating from a meat grinder with nonexistent morale and will be asked to do it all again, "but it'll work this time".

Further, would you take landlocked Ukraine and possible welfare state over a Sino-Russian axis? I think I would.

This isn't "let's hear both sides" it's "this will get really nasty if we pull the old so-i-started-blasting strategy."

>This isn't "let's hear both sides" it's "this will get really nasty if we pull the old so-i-started-blasting strategy."

It already is really nasty. Ask the people of Bucha. I think my overall point here is that the war has already begun, and we in the West are sticking our heads in the sand and praying for it to go away. History shows that evil men will stop at nothing short of a forced hand. And any talk of negotiation with Russia at this point sounds painfully like "peace in our time". There is no "choice" to avoid this conflict anymore. I wish to god that there was. But that choice was made 20 years ago when Ukraine was alienated from NATO. Our only option now is to accept the reality of our state of war with Russia, or to sit by and watch them win.

>we in the West are sticking our heads in the sand and praying for it to go away.

So you want boots on the ground? Whose? Yours? Your children's? Do you think that will lead to less bloodshed? Negotiation is the way out.

> Negotiation is the way out.

Negotiation isn't a way out against an aggressor who isn't convinced that you can and will use force otherwise.

What you have then is at best surrender to their current demands and hope they don't decide to see what they can take you for next after that. This isn’t novel territory.

>So you want boots on the ground? Whose? Yours? Your children's?

Boots are already on the ground. Ukrainians childrens boots. They are already fighting the largest land battle in european history since World War II at this very moment. Russia has already taken greater losses than Germany did with the invasion of Poland.

Ukraine's fate is our own. And the longer we pretend this is just another foreign conflict, the more danger we will be in.

> Negotiation is the way out.

Okay. How do you get the two sides to come to an agreement? Right now, one side wants the other side to not exist [1], the other side appears to be willing to concede status quo ante bellum.

[1] To be more precise, they have given several conflicting answers as to what they actually want. I personally find this answer to be the most likely to be true, especially given that the other side is willing to agree to the demands implied by several of the other answers, and yet this side is unwilling to accept such agreement.

> Negotiation is the way out.

How? Putin isn’t going to leave if you ask nicely, and hasn’t left with increased sanctions or when bloodied.

What is the negotiation? Give him half Ukraine?

I wouldn't because I don't believe that's the choice I have. You can sacrifice Ukranians, accept landlocked Ukraine, hope it will stop there and you are still unlikely to prevent Sino-Russian axis that has been building for years now and clearly has a more matching world view than other current combinations.

This was started in 2014 and thinking it will go away if only Putin gets a big enough chunk of Ukraine is, I think, wishful thinking.

> This was started in 2014 and thinking it will go away if only Putin gets a big enough chunk of Ukraine is, I think, wishful thinking.

I mean, it worked with Hitler and Czechoslovakia, right? “Peace for our time” and all that...

> Further, would you take landlocked Ukraine and possible welfare state over a Sino-Russian axis?

Those are not alternatives, they are a package deal; if you accept the first, the second comes along free for the ride. The Sino-Russian axis exists now, the only way to disrupt it is defeating one of the poles in a way which results in a realignment (and, more likely, that weakens rather than fully disrupts it.) Permitting it victory just makes it stronger.

Sino-Russian axis is here, so get used to it. It wasn't started by this war, and it won't be stopped by stopping it. Russia and China have larger aligning geopolitical interests and that is the driver.

The world order of national sovereignty ends because Ukraine loses eastern territory?

There have been much greater refugee crisis' (Syria, for example) that has not resulted in the entire fall of civilization.

Having a prolonged conflict over Ukraine would be great for Northrup Grumman and Delloit. Finding a peaceful, quick diplomatic resolution will be better for the rest of the world.

> There have been much greater refugee crisis' (Syria, for example) that has not resulted in the entire fall of civilization.

Ukraine has, as of now, produced 4.7 million refugees, with another ~7 million internally-displaced people. That is over the course of 6 weeks.

The Syrian Civil War took 4 years to reach that refugee population, and currently stands at about 6-7 million refugees with roughly an equivalent number of IDP.

If the Ukrainian war persists for several months (which sadly seems likely), then the Ukrainian refugee count will eclipse the decade-long Syrian refugee count by the end of the year. Syria's refugee crisis--itself the biggest since WW2--isn't exactly "much greater" than Ukrainian's refugee crisis; if anything, it's the other way around.

Transnistria is the interesting one. If Russia eventually goes into Moldova to 'liberate the Russians there' then we know the narrative around Ukraine was total bullshit (it's absolutely true that Ukraine treated those in separatist areas poorly for years).

> (it's absolutely true that Ukraine treated those in separatist areas poorly for years).

The “separatist areas” are a product of the first wave of the current Russian invasion; they weren't pure homegrown movements, Russian troops, both regulars and the Wagner “private” military company that is Russian and appears to work exclusively for Russian state interests were involved in the fighting which established them, around the same time as the Russia also seized Crimea.

We’ve know the justifications of the wave of Russian invasions starting with Georgia in 2008 has been bullshit since the beginning, and people who haven't figured it out in the last 14 years aren't particularly like to click over with a new round in Moldova.

Given how Russia treats its own citizen and how the Russian state views human rights, I’m surprised anyone believe Russia’s claim that it’s defending its people.

Russia has to take Odessa to do what you have described, and at the moment it looks like it can't.

>Russia has to take Odessa to do what you have described, and at the moment it looks like it can't.

It seems like people have forgotten that wars last longer than a month. This will be a years long proccess of attrition if it isn't stopped.

This 'national sovereignty' and 'world order' degrade didn't start with this war. Russians are now just using our double standards. They don't recognise our sui generis. You can call it whataboutism or however you like. World order is a thing for powers to sort and national sovereignty is just an illusion for smaller and weaker countries.

Call me a cynic...

I would argue a greater threat is the attack upon democracy in the United States. One of the major political parties now rejects election results they do not win. A fall of the United States to a fascism that is allied to Putin would very likely be worse for Europe and "Western" society.

>Do not fall for "let's hear both sides" whataboutism.

Your comment is spot on, but this is strange. It is complex; there are two sides. The ideals of "Western civilization" aren't held by the globe, so it's important to understand why things work the way they do. It isn't "good" versus "evil".

Nah. There is one side. Two collectives competing over influence and sovereignty. The West, advocating for everyone has their lines and we're good, and Russia now going imperialist/expansionist.

NAP. Don't start nothing, won't be nothing.

Russia started something. There is now something. Failure to respond and restore the equilibrium is tacit acceptance of Russia setting terms, which sets a precedent.

It's pretty clear.

Though to be fair, the West 's position is everyone has their lines but plays by our rules. The western governments put huge pressure on the rest of the world to conform their laws and norms to be beneficial to the globalized world order they themselves invented. This world order includes good things like human rights and rule of law, but also questionable things like the deck being heavily stacked in favor of the incumbents and winner takes all hypercapitalism.

Watching the actions of the Russian and Chinese governments over the past few months I think the issue has gotten much more black and white than these things usually are. Not necessarily good vs evil, as that is too subjective, but definitely somewhat of an ideological standoff between truth and...not truth.

I am absolutely on the side of the Ukraine and the West, but that is too simple. We are also post-truth. I think we are much closer to the real truth than Russia state media, but the president calling Ukraine a genocide is inventing a new definition for the term.

>The president calling Ukraine a genocide is inventing a new definition for the term.

How many more bodies do the mass graves need to qualify as genocide?

Genocide: Noun. The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group "a campaign of genocide"

By that definition I would say quite a few more mass graves, along with a coordinated effort to stamp out Ukrainian language, customs, intelligentsia, and identity. I understand that Russian state media calls Ukraine "one people" with Russians, but it's a far way to go between a talking point and indiscriminately killing civilians as part of a brutal war and genocide. It's pretty obvious that word is being said for political reasons, not because the current situation obviously meets the definition.

I am absolutely horrified by Russia's war, but I reserve the right to be vastly more horrified if they begin an organized campaign to exterminate the Ukrainian people.

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