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PaperclipPerfector  22d ago (text post)   32021 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 10, 2025

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Ukraine is not a member of NATO and is not entitled to the protection of the US nor is Europe entitled to dollars to do so. If an actual ally is attacked, article 5 it. If Europe wants to defend Ukraine and poke the most nuclear armed bear in the world, have at it. If Russia uses tactical nukes or glasses Kiev, let’s not pretend that at France or Germany would respond in kind, either. It would be suicide.

This is the most important point. You can't appeal to a "Rules-based order" by handwaving the rules, which explicitly do not guarantee Ukraine's territory against Russian perfidy.

To be fair, when people say "Rules Based International Order", they usually don't mean military alliances, but rather the idea that it's forbidden to change borders through war unless you get the UN's permission first.

Of course we have seen that this doesn't seem to apply to the US, so it's ultimately just finger wagging by the Western Bloc, but you can't really go for "it's legal for me to invade this country because you didn't formally ally with it" since within the framework you're not supposed to invade people in the first place.

Of course we have seen that this doesn't seem to apply to the US

When did the US ever try to change borders through war? The US engaged in a lot of regime change, but it wasn't the only one doing so (look at Russian interventions in Georgia and elsewhere).

Yugoslavia, clearly. Where the borders were changed so much that the country doesn't exist anymore and were imposed by a regional military alliance in the name of ideological principles. Claims that "human rights" override national sovereignty and international law don't seem to work when Russia makes them despite similar claims of trying to stop sectarian violence.

But there's been so many unsanctioned US offensive wars you can take your pick. I find Lybia to be one of the most egregious, but Irak is probably the most famous example of the US bucking the "rules based order" and going instead with the "coalition of the willing".

I am however going to point out that your argument here amounts to "it's okay when we do it".

Well yes, it is, because you got the bigger stick. And for no other reason.

Yugoslavia was an example of an intervention in a civil war, the ground troops involved were those of not-yet-a-NATO-member Croatia and Yugoslavia was already breaking up.

No word of this doesn't apply to Ukraine.

You can maybe squint and see Russia's Crimea adventure in 2014 as being somewhat similar to Yugoslavia, with having a simmering civil war and all. But their 2022 invasion was in no way similar since they went after the entire country, not just the parts that were in a civil conflict.

Plus there's the big difference that Russia was seeking to annex the land directly to itself in both cases. This might seem like goalpost-moving from my previous response, but it was more an issue of me not properly articulating in the first place.

When people talk about changing borders through war they are almost always talking about a country expanding its territory through war. Yugoslavia is not that. The rest of your examples don't even involve border changes of any kind.

When people talk about changing borders through war they are almost always talking about a country expanding its territory through war.

That is not what international law defines it as. Which is what we're talking about here. I invoked the phrase in a particular context.

I'm quite ready to talk about the real world and its spheres of influence. But that requires giving up the idea of a "rules based international order".

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