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I would continue to provide intelligence sharing, weapons, economic aid. I would not involve our own military. Continue to strike as many deals as possible to economically isolate Russia as well.
Slowly and annoyingly bleed out Russian resources until they get exhausted and go home. No grand last stand. No obvious red lines crossed. Just endless quagmire for Russia, enormous cost for no lasting progress. Make it crystal clear that there's a rules based order and if you just cross boundaries in a war of conquest we will not make it easy.
A world where we didn't defend Ukraine is a lot more volatile. I contend that our willingness to simply surrender Afghanistan to the Taliban because we got bored is likely what contributed to the Ukraine invasion. I'm sure Putin thought he's nowhere near as fucked up as the Taliban, surely the US won't mind if he retakes Ukraine.
Oops.
If this causes WW3 and we all die in nuclear armageddon I would say it was a bad idea. But to some degree it would be unavoidable if Russia is that suicidal and that expansionist.
Presumably you don't want to involve our own military because of escalation concerns, correct?
What happens if Ukraine starts losing, either because the intel, weapons and economic aid were insufficient, or because Russia starts getting their shit together, or because Ukraine's forces are bled white? Do you accept their loss and call it a day, or do you escalate? If you escalate, what with?
This strategy seems likely to maximize Ukrainian casualties, and it seems at least possible that Ukraine simply runs out of soldiers before Russia becomes exhausted enough to have to go home. If that happens, the choice becomes whether to accept a Russian victory, or to escalate. From your description, it seems to me that you are inclined to escalate. What with?
In 1991, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. We deployed our military to destroy his, forced the survivors back over the border into Iraq, and fomented an uprising against him. The uprising failed. We put in place ruinous sanctions and a no-fly zone, and leaned on him with all the pressure we could bring to bear. He stubbornly clung to power, and continued existing as a thorn in our side. So after 9/11 we invaded, toppled his government, hunted him down and hung him, kicked everyone associated with him and his Ba'ath party out of power, and tried to rebuild the country as a democracy. We tried for eight years, and the results were fairly disastrous. It does not seem to me that the "rules based order" was enhanced by this chain of events. In fact, it seems to me that the Iraq war and its knock-on effects did serious damage to America's internal cohesion and to international order as a whole. Ditto for our interventions in Libya and Syria.
You speak as though we are in control in some meaningful sense, that we have the capacity to impose our will on other nations. When I look at our history over the last few decades, I see little reason to believe that we actually possess such a capacity, and many examples of how a belief in such a capacity lead directly to disaster.
We spent twenty years and trillions of dollars occupying Afghanistan. We now know that the people running the occupation were systematically lying to the public about the occupation's prospects and achievements for most and perhaps all of those twenty years, because in fact the occupation was achieving nothing of identifiable value. You describe withdrawing after twenty years of occupation as "growing bored". How long, in your view, should we have stayed? Another twenty years? Another forty? What goal would staying longer have achieved?
I am opposed to supporting Ukraine because I do not want to go to war with Russia, and because I am extremely skeptical that "limited" aid will in fact stay limited. I think what will happen with Ukraine is what happened with Afghanistan and Iraq: the next six months will always be crucial, the next surge will always be the one to win it all, the next escalation will always be the one that's going to turn things around. This does in fact appear to me to be how Ukraine is going already, and I think conducting war in this fashion is obscene.
We didn't defend Armenia from Azerbaijan. We didn't defend Georgia from Russia. We didn't defend Ukraine when all this kicked off a decade ago. Did that make the world more volatile than a steadily-escalating European land war?
You are arguing for a limited war. What I am looking for is some indication that the war you are advocating does, in fact, have meaningful limits. What I suspect is that your support for Ukraine is "limited" in the sense that "just one more step forward" is "limited"; after all, it could be two steps, or five, or a hundred. But in fact no matter how close to the precipice we are, I suspect you will always be in favor of "just one more step forward". Your flippant disdain for ending the Afghanistan occupation certainly lends weight to this impression.
Not dr_analog, but an obvious answer - not necessarily mine, but obvious - would be "the same goal as keeping a dangerous terrorist in prison even if the rehab program he's supposedly signed up for has a snowball's chance in hell of reforming him". The people in charge lying about how well the turn-it-into-an-enlightened-democracy project was going looks like a grievous blow to the entire enterprise if you think westernizing Aghanistan was actually the point, but not if you think that "we're just staying as long as it takes to turn them into a peaceful democracy" was always just a fig leaf to make the bitter pill of "we're indefinitely occupying this colonized territory to keep the barbarians suppressed" go down.
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Are you sure about this? The US' current policy is that if you cross boundaries in a war of conquest, invade other nations, bomb their hospitals and murder their children the US won't just go out of their way to make it easy for you, they'll make boycotting you illegal and declare criticism of your actions a public health crisis while supplying you with vast quantities of money and advanced weaponry. If you actually want to send that message, would you be fine with declaring Israel a rogue state and applying the same sanctions on them until they return to the 1948 borders?
I think if we're all being honest there is an actual difference between wars of aggression by a major world power and in Europe than elsewhere in the world. Wars of aggression by smaller players is one thing but major players is another. I think it's in everyone's benefit that the major powers stop it, right?
And yes, before you say it, I wish other countries had thrown more of a fit about Iraq, though still more defensible: forcibly exporting democracy was a loser idea, WMDs were a lie, but Hussein was also legitimately an evil psychopath guy in a way Ukrainian presidents just... weren't, and the US didn't even get all that much out of it. Before anyone goes "it was about oil" Iraq actually exported less oil even after the invasion and has only gone down since. It doesn't fit the expansionist mold, and expansionist wars by major powers are the most dangerous kind, the kind we want to discourage. Comparatively, who cares about minor wars in far-flung underdeveloped countries?
I don't think that. What, exactly, makes the lives of people outside of Europe worth less than those of Europeans? Why would it be more acceptable for China to invade my nation than it would be for Russia to invade Poland?
Ok, so what about Israel? They are explicitly waging expansionist wars with the backing of the US, a major power. Why didn't you address the core point of my comment and instead go onto a tangent about Iraq? I mean, I agree that the Iraq war was a terrible idea, but what does that actually have to do with the west's full-throated and enthusiastic support of expansionist wars by heavily militarised ethnostates?
First of all I didn't take your comment seriously because Israel was attacked both times it took territory, in response, and also because Israel comments often feel more like bait than legitimate attempts at discussion. Sure, they took a little more land from Syria recently, but that's whatever, they didn't even fight over it. Lest you think I'm an Israel stan however, I really dislike their provocative settlement stuff. I think they're borderline apartheid, certainly guilty of the lesser sin of racially-delineated callousness at least. But their behavior falls far short of "expansionist wars" by most measures (I guess they've invaded Lebanon a time and a half? Is that what you're referring to?). If they bomb Iran or something (I want us to strongly discourage this) then we can talk and maybe re-assess. Overall though if you think the US is constantly making a habit of funding expansionist wars I guess we just disagree on the facts.
Anyways, this has nothing to do with the value of lives and everything to do with the balance of world power + avoiding mega-wars. Honestly, I consider war a semi-normal state of affairs, especially for those between smaller states. It sucks, but is also human nature. We can do things to discourage it, sometimes respond on a case to case basis, but we can't solve everything. I care more about big state actions because they tend to domino around the globe more than localized conflicts. Even if I were to say "oh Israel is bloodthirsty invader" that's still not something that has a major knock-on effect elsewhere. China invades Taiwan? That affects not only chips, but global shipping routes, and more. Not the same.
I don't think we have some kind of moral duty to police everyone, though I do think we can do some smaller things to help keep stuff stable. You're free to take another tack, and I don't think on that philosophical stance there is one objective superior truth. So do I hold big states to a different standard than small states? You bet I do. I think most people who claim they don't often end up twisting themselves into pretzels trying to have some kind of defining all-applicable global principles. I don't think such a world-view is possible, not with total consistency.
Bait? I'm being completely earnest here, and it seemed to me like you just ignored the Israel question and went on a tangent because it completely destroys your main argument.
See, you don't actually care about these norms at all. "Yeah we come down really harshly on gaining new territory via conquest but Israel doesn't have to abide by those rules because... umm, they just don't, okay!" is not a norm that anyone will give a single shit about. Why should Russia or China care in the slightest about this supposed norm against wars of conquest when your moral condemnation passes silently over Israel and gives them a pass to exterminate an unwelcome ethnicity because of their stated desire for more lebensraum? Why can't Russia, China or 1930s Germany simply claim the same "that's whatever" exemption Israel does? And if you want to say that Israel didn't even fight over it, do you want me to go get some evidence of Israel's frequent military interventions in Syria before the fall of the Assad regime?
Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. If you don't think that what happened to Palestine counts, then Russia and China can simply adopt the same strategy and conquer new territory in the same fashion.
Asia's population is almost 7 times larger than Europe's - a total war that impacted the entirety of Europe would barely even be a regional conflict by Asian standards. China alone is a far larger player in the real global economy than Europe is - the TSMC fabrication plants getting destroyed and Japanese shipping getting interdicted due to conflict seems to me like it would have a far larger knock-on effect than anything Russia or the US would do to Europe. It seems like you agree with that, but I got the opposite impression when you claimed(seemingly, my apologies if I misunderstood) earlier that "in Europe" rendered a conflict more serious than elsewhere in the world.
The US is currently aiding and abetting Israel's aggression, and actively working to prevent peace in the region. You're right that there's no moral duty to police everyone, but there is a moral duty to police those who you shower with mountains of blood and treasure. As for keeping stuff stable, I have good news - with Trump and Elon Musk demolishing both USAID and the NED, a lot of places around the world are going to be substantially more stable (especially Latin America).
So it's fine to be an aggressive, expansionist power, you just can't get too big. Would you be fine with Russia's invasion of Ukraine if they instead simply loaned all their troops and equipment to the Donbass Republic? After all, you can't hold small states to the same standard as large ones like Russia.
I oppose wars of aggression and conquest no matter the size of the states in question - I am an advocate for peace and believe that peaceful co-existence is not just possible but an ideal worth striving for. Total consistency with no pretzels needed! Of course, actually adjudicating whether or not a given war is a war of aggression can be tough in some circumstances, but you get that issue with just about any world-view.
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Kosovo?
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If you had cut out the last bit you could have squeezed Saudi Arabia and maybe Turkey in there (Turkey invaded Syria, as I recall, although perhaps they managed to avoid blowing up hospitals and killing children? I hope so.)
But notice that Turkey and Saudi Arabia are also both US allies. One is a NATO member state. So nothing that they do is ever a violation of the “rules based international order”
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Those are some nice additions. I think there are a few other US supported wars of conquest as well, but I just stuck with the most belligerent violator of said norms I know of.
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If Ukraine had invaded, murdered, raped, and kidnapped Russians first, then I wouldn’t call Russia’s current military deployment in Ukraine a war of conquest, even if they annexed territory. It matters who started it and why.
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