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Only wars to impose a way of life/ideology? It's incredibly arbitrary. If Russia said 'oh no we're not conquering anything we're just conducting a regime-change operation to get rid of the Zelensky govt and install a puppet state' or would that be OK with the left? Obviously not. If you wage war to overthrow a govt and then integrate the new occupation govt into your economic/political institutions, exercising informal veto power over their activities then it's not significantly different to annexing. The Soviet Union didn't annex Poland in 1945 but that didn't make too much difference in the real world. We all know who was in charge.
Anyway, we have an easy test for this theory. Is the US (leftists or otherwise) leaping out of the bushes to shower democratic Armenia in arms, so they can defend Nagorno-Karabakh against authoritarian Azerbaijan? War of conquest - check. Grand battle between democracy and authoritarianism - check. In reality they do nothing, since it is not in US interests. Azerbaijan has close connections to Israel and Turkey plus they are an enemy of Iran. Azerbaijan has oil/gas and Armenia does not. Most importantly, the upper echelons of the left are not angry with Azerbaijan, they do not mobilize the media against Azerbaijan, they're happy to work with Azerbaijan to achieve shared goals.
This case is far more complex. For start Nagorno-Karabakh is part of internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan, Armenia controlling it is result of war of conquest they won some time ago and entire region has multisided ethic-based wars and pogroms for quite long time.
And there are many additional complexities.
This is another abstraction that is again, pretty arbitrary. International recognized borders are basically what was reached by 1945, plus whatever random border adjustments Soviet leaders decided to make in SSRs, plus some odds and ends. What are the 'internationally recognized' borders of Israel? Who knows! Annexing land (the Golan Heights for example) is absolutely fine since it's beneficial to US interests. The US certainly isn't going to complain about it in a meaningful way, like withholding some of the billions in aid they send over annually.
If China says 'oh only six or seven countries recognize Taiwan as an independent country, that means it's not internationally recognized and we can invade this rebellious province' that's not going to work. 'Internationally recognized borders' is another fig leaf.
Yes, nevertheless quite useful.
For better or worse, it is useful demarcation for various things.
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Sure, there's some incoherence when one is reacting practically to the world instead of having a fleshed-out theory of war. But I suspect most people on the left would agree that a war is only acceptable if it met Just Case.
Are we talking about left-wingers in power or left-wingers in general? Go and talk to left-wingers and tell me how many even know that those two countries are fighting in the first place.
Surprisingly, people don't act on things until they are aware of them.
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Well, you said it yourself, Armenia is a close ally of Iran and Russia. They made their bed and are now upset that Russia inevitably screwed them over. Also, Nagorno-Karabakh wasn’t within Armenia’s recognized borders, it was an occupied territory.
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