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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, sure. But the US chooses who it integrates with militarily. An alternative approach would have been to say "hey, yeah we can see why you'd want to join - but this will foment tensions with Russia, so you can't".

That is the kind of diplomacy would have prevented Russia from invading its neighbours. It would have been difficult to get worse outcomes with that approach than what the powers that be managed to get us to - we could be staring at the start of a major pattern of wars here and the US's deterrence has been spectacular in not quite succeeding. The Russian border is still closer to Moscow right now than it was in the 80s, but it has gotten a lot bloodier than the 90s.

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> That is the kind of diplomacy would have prevented Russia from invading its neighbours.

Only if you subscribe to the argument that Russia has no intention to gobble up countries west of it at least to the furthest extent of USSR and its satellites.

No European neighbors of Russia subscribe to that anymore. Finland and Sweden were the last holdouts who thought that having a "responsible" diplomacy would prevent war with Russia, but the absurd and fabricated excuses Russia uses to justify the invasion of Ukraine have destroyed almost overnight all credibility of that line of thought.

Assuming imperialistic intentions, staying neutral and out of alliances only lowers the cost of invasion for Russia. If Russia decides to invade a country like Poland, then at the moment they risk a large multinational response that can go far-far beyond Poland's own means, up to a nuclear war. If Poland didn't have solid allies, the potential cost associated with the invasion would be considerably smaller for Russia.

> Only if you subscribe to the argument that Russia has no intention to gobble up countries west of it at least to the furthest extent of USSR and its satellites.

Russia doesn't have any intention of doing that. Putin is currently 71 and we've seen no particular interest in grand campaigns to reconstitute the USSR so far in his lifetime, it isn't going to start. It turns out they weren't even militarily prepared to take Ukraine! They thought they could just launch a quick decapitation strike and be done. The USSR leadership disbanded the USSR in the 90s, so if they've culturally reversed position on that completely in 30 years it shows a stunning failure of western diplomacy to support them in doing the right thing.

> No European neighbors of Russia subscribe to that anymore.

Things like this is why letting them in to NATO would worry Russia. They are paranoid and panicking. I can understand why; I would be if I were a small country with a Russian border or close to one. But, nevertheless, their attitudes are one risk factor for escalating the situation from bad to catastrophic.

> Russia doesn't have any intention of doing that.

That's a strange thing to say while Russia is in the middle of of gobbling up Ukraine (a country west of it within the extent of the USSR)

So what was first, Russia invading neighbors, or neighbors wanting to join NATO?

I'll give you the answer: Chechnya.

Thinking that Russia would never invade an independent Georgia or Ukraine is very naive, to say the least.

If you want a "neutral" country, take a look at Belarus. A neutral country in Russia's eyes only has connections with Russia, not with the West. They make it very clear which countries they want "under the influence sphere of Russia".

Ukrainians want a sovereign democratic country, and they are willing to pay a very high price for that.

Ukraine will no longer be democratic come May 21st, unfortunately.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/05/16/volodymyr-zelen...

This is a nonsense statement.

Every poll performed on Ukrainians shows that a clear majority doesn't want elections right now, and Ukrainian law permits this during wartime. The logistical challenges are insurmountable particularly when one things about local elections. People are displaced all across the country and to other countries, soldiers that are fighting on the front lines cannot just rotate simply to be able to cast their votes without creating unnecessary chaos and risks, there's the legitimate threat of bomb attacks on polling places.

The UK didn't hold elections during WWII despite being vastly more secure on their island than Ukrainians are.

Some of us don’t believe in fair-weather democracy. If they can run a poll, they can run an election. Ukrainians have the right to decide their own future, don’t you think? Or perhaps some are afraid that they might vote “wrong”?

A 30 second conversation with any Ukrainian living in Ukraine right now would clear this confusion up for you. Not getting people needlessly killed is awfully high up on the priority list. If you think Russia is above bombing polling places, you'd be wrong.

The Ukrainian stamps in my passport suggest I’ve spent more than 30 seconds talking with them…

Your comment suggests this was some time ago, since traveling to Ukraine after the invasion doesn't seem to be something most people would do.

I have plenty of Ukrainian colleagues, both still in and outside of Ukraine. Opinions differ a lot. There is only this truth:

1. Ukraine is at war

2. Martial Law helps a country at war

It's logical that governments take decisions that some people don't like. Martial Law is there to take quick, hard and possibly unpopular decisions. Ukraine as a country is trying to survive right now. Their martial law doesn't even allow elections!

Call me crazy, but I believe the Ukrainians themselves should get to make the hard decisions involving their lives and future.

True, they are free to decide not to hold elections during martial law. Even the opposition doesn't want it.

Then I have "good" news for you: Ukraine is at war and so doesn't have to, and isn't even allowed to hold elections. Neither did UK during WW2, so it's not that uncommon.

"Scholars have stated that the Ukrainian constitution does not allow to hold national elections while martial law is in effect."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law_in_Ukraine

It’s also in the Russian constitution that Putin basically gets to be president for life. Guess that makes it okay…

A democratic institution making laws is very different than an undemocratic institution making laws.

Are you suggesting Ukraine wasn't democratic when that law was made?

And like stated somewhere else, UK did the same thing during WW2. So it's not that uncommon.

Do you believe that the current Ukrainian government is a democratic institution up to Western standards?

>Ukrainians want a sovereign democratic country, and they are willing to pay a very high price for that.

Doesn't seemed to be true, considering Ban for men's leaving country, forcefull conscription and cancelled elections

Any country at war does that. UK cancelled elections during WW2, look it up.

So what? This doesn't invalidate my argument.

The only thing that would have changed is that Russia now also could invade the baltic states. Why do you think Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if the NATO had not been expanded?

>Why do you think Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if the NATO had not been expanded? Because the main reason for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a miscalculation about resistance. With the expansion of NATO, the prospect of invasion would be assessed closer to reality and dismissed as counterproductive

Under what circumstances would Russia feel a need to invade Ukraine if they didn't fear NATO involvement? It is pretty clear in the current war that exactly what the Russian leadership feared was happening - a pushover country on their border was being militarised by the US. In hindsight they must feel naive for not being more paranoid and bulking up their military before going in. The NATO enlargement is a broad strategy of threatening Russia and building up force to use against them. And the political rhetoric out of the US on Russia has been unhinged since at least 2016. The Russians would be stupid not to be scared and this invasion of Ukraine looks like a desperation play through that lens.

Ukraine is a great example of what US support does - if the US had told them that they're on their own, Ukraine would have just gone with whatever Russia wanted diplomatically.

Instead, a lot of Ukrainian's are dead, they've lost a double-digit percentage of their country, the west is hell-bent on destabilising the leadership that controls the world's largest nuclear arsenal, it looks like we're escalating into a WWIII style situation because the US deterrence is failing and Ukraine is STILL likely to end up having to do what Russia wants. Technically not maybe because they've lost the territory that Russia was most interested in.

The US shouldn't be involved in militarily organising Eastern Europe. It has not helped, it seems to be making war a certainty.

are you saying that if US was kot involved then Ukrainy would have to do whatever Russia tell yhwm yo do and that would be better for Ukraine?

And yes sure, Russia is nust defending itself

Ukraine was faced with a choice - do what the US wanted, or do what Russia wanted. The US choice resulted in massive death, destruction and so far it looks like Russia is going to get what they wanted anyway.

What would the downside have been of just folding before the troops started moving?

> And yes sure, Russia is nust defending itself

Best defence is a good offence. They're flailing under strategic pressure from the US.

The Ukrainians made their own decision to fight.

They knew perfectly well it would involve massive death and possibly years of fighting. But they know their long history with their "brotherly" neighbors to the north, and hence, that even these costs would be preferable to perpetual subjugation.

If you can't recognize this fact -- if you think they're just passive puppets who do whatever the US tells them to; or that they aren't capable of evaluating the costs and risks and making a decision to side with their families and their future -- then not only have you not been following the chain of events since the start of the invasion (in which the US basically told them capitulate, after all); you really have no understanding of how human beings work when their families and communities are threatened.

Best defence is a good offence. They're flailing under strategic pressure from the US.

Nobody pressured them to do anything. Russia's actions are all offense, full stop.

> ...if you think they're just passive puppets who do whatever the US tells them to

They're obviously not passive puppets. They had a choice - they could do what the US wanted, or what Russia wanted. That is more agency than most countries get when facing an existential crisis.

However, given that they chose to align with the US and we now have people talking in uncontroversial statements about it being a "pre-war era" the unfortunate reality here is that the option the US gave them was/is a diplomatic disaster that is very much in line with the US's NATO expansion strategy that they've been executing for the last 30-something years. It is a bad strategy that is leading to war.

> Nobody pressured them to do anything. Russia's actions are all offense, full stop.

Avoiding war requires both sides to reach some sort of mutual understanding. The Russian's aren't going to buy that bullshit. A lot of their troops just died because of NATO arms, held by troops that were at least in part NATO-trained, using NATO intelligence and NATO-approved strategies in a war that is part of a broad strategic push, by NATO, into Eastern Europe. They've figured out the role that NATO is playing here; the plan is obviously to contain and militarily cripple Russia.

That style of rhetorical bullying is very prevalent amongst western leadership, but if we want to find a peaceful solution they should be more honest. They provoked this.

Avoiding war requires both sides to reach some sort of mutual understanding.

When the aggressor stations 200,000 troops at your border -- it isn't about "reaching a mutual understanding". The only "understanding" he is asking for by that point is that you lay back and let him have his way with you.

You're basically repeating standard propaganda lines here; I don't see this being a productive discussion.

> The only "understanding" he is asking for by that point is that you lay back and let him have his way with you.

Ukraine seems to have lost about 25% of their population, 10% of their land and their electricity network is being shelled. Who knows how long it will take for their economy to recover. There is a lot of room among those statistics for debate about whether just folding immediately would have been better or worse.

And Ukraine isn't really holding any cards here, any negotiations need to happen between there US and Russia. Getting good outcomes requires the US state department to get some actual statespersons involved instead of whoever has managed to push Europe to this pre-war mindset.

> You're basically repeating standard propaganda lines

If we're going to start slinging insults here, you're showing a dire lack of tactical empathy. You're not going to understand diplomacy unless you can get in to the headspace of people you don't agree with.

I wasn't seeing a great deal of tactical empathy in some of your own carefully chosen phrasing (e.g. "that bullshit").

So that, plus my sense that you were deeply mistaken about certain things, brought me to the view that the discussion had run its course.

> That is the kind of diplomacy would have prevented Russia from invading its neighbours.

Really? You believe the Russian claim that it attacks its neighbours because they're mumbling about NATO membership?

Russia attacks its neighbours because it regrets its loss of a "zone of influence" at the end of the Cold War. Like all former imperial powers (I'm a Brit!), loss of empire is hard to swallow.

What do you think the distinction is between Russia losing it's zone of influence and countries joining up with NATO? I agree with you and believe the Russians simultaneously.

Russia is losing its zone of influence because it didn't hold on to it tightly and the US took it. Pretty much the same thing happened to the British, although they got beaten down by the Germans first so they weren't in a position to do much more than pretend to resist.

Although in this case the US is much closer to the British analogue. They've got financial problems, they've got industrial problems, they've got a lot of upcoming challengers and their diplomatic mis-management could easily lead to a massive blow up that unseats them.

I don't think Russia invaded Ukraine because it threatened to join NATO. Russia invaded Ukraine because it threatened to have a color revolution leading to a viable democracy in a culture/society that was similar to Russia's. Putin, personally, could not allow that to succeed. It threatened him, personally, too greatly.

>it threatened to have a color revolution leading to a viable democracy

Threatened? They tried that two or three times but Ukraine never stopped being Ukraine. Always losing a couple million people between these attempts.

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