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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35891 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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A commitment, like others, that the United States reneged upon.

A commitment the United States never made.

Russia's mistake was being weak and poor, and now all that's left is to decide whether they want to lose now or later.

They could have simply not picked the fight, and kept selling Germans oil and gas.

I think we both agree that Russia should not have gone to war in the first place. But again, that would just be choosing a slow death rather than a quicker one. Ukraine would have been integrated into NATO, and then Russia could have been destroyed at Washington's leisure.

The United States did not really make a commitment, because I don't believe that commitments or agreements between enemies are binding. Commitments that cannot be enforced don't exist, and Russia is demonstrating right now their inability to enforce anything even on their own doorstep. But they certainly let the Russians think they made such a commitment!

The United States did not really make a commitment, because I don't believe that commitments or agreements between enemies are binding.

Certainly agreements between enemies can be binding. One example would be a peace treaty. Penalty for breaking a peace treaty, ultimately, is resumption of hostilities. There was no treaty of any sort promising Russia that Poland or the Baltics or Finland would never be allowed to join NATO, and such a treaty is the only way the United States has to make such a commitment. So it's not some weird technicality; the United States plainly never made such a commitment.

Fairness Russia didn’t have the option to just keep selling oil and gas to Germany. Population collapse was slowly occurring and they had to do something or Russia disappears in a generation. Probably get internally conquored by high birth rate chechens.

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