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No, come on. He came to the UK a year or so ago and had a shopping list, he was going around pointing at our stuff that he wanted. His attitude is completely inappropriate for someone who is, ultimately, asking for us to willingly give him things that he is in no way entitled to by default. Respect, courtesy and self-restraint are not weird, oversensitive expectations at any time but especially not when you're demanding tens of millions of pounds worth of other people's military equipment. ESPECIALLY not when we've essentially destroyed our economic base in retaliation for Putin's attack.
As a side note @Dean, you're welcome to disagree with anyone you like on any basis you like but you've really started to slather on the contempt in your comments to people. Not only are you taking the least charitable possible view of what people write, but you're also clearly stating that the only reason that anyone could hold their perceived opinions is stupidity or ignorance. None of us are going to win or lose the Ukraine war from our keyboards, and I think that you would have more interesting and more worthwhile conversations if you took other people's views more seriously.
A european political culture where a response by the largest member of the community to an invasion is helmets is, by darwinian necessity, a political culture that cultivates its interactors to be willing to press beyond initial public offerings if they want to maximize their gains, particularly when their stakes are survival. Particularly when members of the political culture are prone to hyperbole as a way of deflecting requests- such as claiming they have destroyed their economic base in retaliation for Putin's attack.
(No, you have not. Particularly if you are speaking the language of pounds instead of euros.)
In international and thus cross-cultural affairs, being clear about your wants and needs, and especially when something is insufficient is a form of being respectful and courteous. People who want to help you can't effectively help unless they understand your position, playing coy 'you should know what I mean' is itself a form of passive-aggression against those not part of the same culture-set/communication-style. This is why one of the fundamentals of cross-cultural communication is to favor clarity over culturally-specific forms of communication (including slang, puns, humor, and so on). What is polite within a culture is not the same as what is polite between culltures, and in absence of shared understandings do not expect them.
Similarly, requesting ('demanding,' if you prefer) more than you will receive is also a form of accepted diplomatic request. A patron may always wish to be asked for less, but the request it provides political advantage to the government to still send 'insufficient' material while maintaining the political advantage/perception that their reasons are reasons of stewardship (husbanding resources with consideration), military responsibility (not giving out more than can be afforded), and sovereignty (not giving exactly what was requested), without exposing less polite realities (national inability to do much more due to decades of systemic underinvestment/mismanagement, internal political divisions that might have electoral consequences). It communicates that you recognize that you will not get everything you want, while approaching negotians with someone signalled to have both value (what they can offer) and agency (the right / position to say no and publicly assert their own interests).
Note that these merits can invert and be presented as flaws if pre-coordinations are done so that the beneficiary only asks for what the benefactor has already agreed to give- an appearance of 'giving them whatever they asked for,' 'not using our own best judgement,' 'not showing restraint when our economy is so bad,' and so on. It would be downright rude to put your benefactors in such an unflattering light... if we care about other people's frames of manners.
Now, these sort of considerations may not be your idea of diplomatic respect and courtesy, but this is where we get back into various forms of cultural chauvinism, such as projecting one's own social expectations to outside cultures and expecting them to align with yours. Particularly when someone is part of a subset of larger audiences who do not share the views, and for whom deference to one could be an offense to the others.
This also where we can get into the distinction between claimed standards and actual standards on various sides of the beseeching / beseeched relationship. Such as, for example, the interests of a patron state who wants to maximize the political value / public credit they receive for the minimal amount of actual investment- i.e. those who want to give token donations when they have considerable ability to give more. Or the reasonable expectations of donor and recipient states abroad- of which 'humility' is often as unassociated with patron states as 'respect,' 'courtesy,' and 'self-restraint' when dealing with their beneficiaries, even though respect, courtesy, and self-restraint are typically reciprocal virtues.
But none of this is the case for Lizzardspawn, whose position over the years has not reasonably simplified to simply wanting Ukraine to act with respect, courtesy, and self-restraint as understood in the general global international relations domain.
And when they provide more serious views with based less from positions of their own contempt of others, I do indeed find that interesting and engage accordingly. Hence why my interactions with even the people I disagree with vehemently on some issues is neutral to amicable on others.
When after years the latest round of yet another condemnation of [insert perjorative adjective][insert pejorative noun] is neither interesting or charitable, as with most posters the response is either ignored or countered based on interest in the topic and letting the bailey stand unchallenged in the public forum.
Objection! This is a least charitable possible representation of what I have written.
In no framing did I say that the only reason anyone could hold their perceived opinion is stupidity or ignorance- I attributed to Lizzardspawn specifically (by form of pronoun address) reasons of cultural chauvenism and/or fragility (which are not synonyms for stupidity or ignorance).
That Lizzardspawn is assessed to have a position for [reasons] does not claim or imply that other people can only reach the same position for the same [reasons].
This belies an assumption that taking certain people's views more seriously would lead to fewer, rather than more, unflattering critiques of their position or person.
This is The Motte. It is a war metaphor for a reason, and while it is a place that aims for light over heat, light is often unflattering, and can make the subject of it appear worse with more of it.
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The UK (well Boris) is in large part personally responsible for the war dragging out as long as it has so that he could get his little Churchill moment. There were contemporary rumblings that even the US was surprised at how gung-ho he was being and how vigorously he was dissuading Ukraine from any kind of non-maximalist deal in mid/late 22.
True. Another fine mess he left us. Boris had moved on by the time of Zelenskyy’s visit, I think, although I know that’s always complicated in international affairs.
I guess being British myself, I don’t consider Boris == UK as I am personal proof he’s not. Plus Zelenskyy is a big boy and responsible for his own decisions, I’m sure he knew the situation in the UK. We don’t have the military or economic strength to provide long-term large-scale assistance if we wanted to, and his behaviour frankly dissuaded me from wanting to. I’ve said it before but we don’t need allies who treat us worse than our enemies.
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