5hout wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 5:58 am
quikky wrote: ↑Sun Aug 06, 2023 12:37 pm
I guess I would ask the opposite question of you and others with a similar mindset.
1: It is the largest conflict in Europe since WW2, and very many parallels to how WW2 started (autocrat grabbing land by force, and trying to destroy an ethnicity).
2: Its outcome has a direct impact on our future defense and conflicts, see: China and Taiwan.
3: It is a test of what the West really stands for. We've gotten into a lot of bullshit conflicts supposedly about "democracy", that never panned out. This one actually is about those values. Is this when we say "not our problem"?
4: We are ethically obligated to defend Ukraine. As has been posted here numerous times:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum. Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal (3rd largest at the time), and we were one of the countries that said "no problem, we got your back, bro". Is it acceptable to back out of this? What does doing so say about us?
I numbered your bullet points for succinct and targeted thoughts.
1. I strongly dispute this. Without getting into a book length essay, WW2 started b/c we (the winners) royally fucked up the ending of WW1. Look at the treatment of Germany and Japan in WW2 vs German and Turkey in WW1. We learned from the mistakes, and now Germany/Japan are functional first world countries not ruled by insane autocrats. This isn't to dismiss or diminish the role of evil in WW2, but I find it hard to imagine Hitler succeeding in his openly announced and discussed transformation of Germany into a totalitarian state with the Treaty of Versailles.
2. I would repudiate our defense commitments to Taiwan. To steal a paraphrase from von Neumann (idk if he was in Openheimer, but he is legend so if you're not familiar with him I highly rec'd reading funny/insane von Neumann stories) if you say tomorrow, I say why not today? If you sat at 5pm, I say why not a noon? Actually, I'd first do like 3 months of operation paperclip 2.0 and let all the semiconductor people come here.
3. Because I rate the chance of this turning in WW3 far more than the cost to letting a marginally corrupt, but improving, democracy lose some of its land to Russia. More generally, I do not see this as being in America's best interest and think long term it will be seen as a mistake.
4. It says we acknowledge it was a dumb idea to promise what we couldn't deliver. Why we thought we could promise controls on Russia's foreign policy in its immediate neighborhood long term, I do not know. I would note that we probably could taken steps as far back as 2013 to prevent this (by being much more aggressive, earlier, tied with less NATO expansion). This has been beaten to death in this thread, so I'll simply state we (America) have spent 70 years turbofucking Cuba b/c they provided a foothold for our enemies nearby. We would not (and have not) (see also: Monroe Doctrine) tolerated anything close to this level of interference in our backyard, while simultaneously expecting other nations to be dictated to on how they act in similar situations. This is not a monopolar world (anymore) and this policy is not in our best interest anymore (if it ever wars).
To more generally address the thrust of your post: This is not in America's interest. This is adventurous foreign policy straight out of the Balkan Powder keg/"lets cause WW1" playbook that everyone (well some at least) spends time in school wondering "why didn't they just fucking stop?". Let's just stop. As to your point on ethics, at a country level I believe axiomatically in nearly pure utilitarian (for the country) ethics, so I believe it is fully within in our ethical remit to go "Soz guys, it was really stupid of us to promise this and it is now not in our interest we're going to be back out".
Now, in reality we would implement the 4 stage strategy, but careful observers would know what went down. Exact reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb2xFvmKWRY Full scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hsNfNM0SvE
1. There are two things here in terms of WW2 parallels.
First, is the start of the war itself. In this case, the parallels are clear. Ultra-nationalist autocrat starts a land grab with the intent of subjugating his neighbors to the Mother(Deutch)land and doing ethnic cleansing. The mistake we made was waiting and hoping the land grabs would stop, not wanting to get involved because "it's over there".
Second, is what lead to the rise of the Reich, and what ultimately lead to WW2 starting. Russia's history has some parallels to Germany post-WW1, but the problem in this situation has actually been the opposite. Russia, being the main member and the ruling republic of the USSR, did face humiliation due to the collapse of the USSR, and its near economic and societal collapse that followed in the 90s. The difference, however, is that the West's response has not been to humiliate and shun Russia, like what happened with Germany, but rather to connect and open Russia to the world. The West has helped Russia massively during its economic calamities of the late 90s. In the following 2000s, Russia's economy took off massively and was included in the world. We even had the G7 turn into the G8 for a time, and there was talks of Russia being in NATO. While it would be fair to say the West still looked at Russia with some suspicion, Russia's treatment by the West following the collapse of the USSR does not mimic Germany's history post WW1 all that much. In fact, Russia's economic rise through Putin's first two terms in power has lead to more nationalist and repressive policies on behalf of Putin. The invasion of Georgia in 2008 was the first taste of Putin's ultimate vision. The West's mistake following 2008 has not been Russia's humiliation, but instead Russia's appeasement. The timid response from the West enabled Putin to perceive the West as a weak entity, and has lead us to Feb 24th, 2022.
If Russia will badly lose this war, it would be prudent of us to be mindful of Germany's path after WW1. However, what has lead to this WW2-like war, is quite different.
2. In terms of Taiwan, I am not sure how we would "let" the semiconductor people, i.e. TSMC, come here. Aside from the logistical nightmare of actually trying to move ultra-high tech fabs (the TSMC one in AZ is taking years to put up, with delays), why would Taiwan ever agree to such a thing? TSMC is the #1 asset of Taiwan in its defensive arsenal against China.
3. Ukraine losing some of its land to Russia is what happened
now, with massive US and Western help. Without our aid, Ukraine as a sovereign entity would no longer exist. If that were to happen, we would be even more-so along WW2's path. Putin's behavior has been to invade and observe. All his invasions prior to this point have been met with non-interference. He has kept invading, and now with full-scale war. I recall Putin talking about NATO leaving the Baltics a few months prior to the invasion. Wonder if he was just kidding about that had he succeeded in Ukraine...
4. The commitment has already been made. You are suggesting that at the moment when we are called upon to fulfill said commitment, we back out and say we shouldn't have made it to begin with? This seems like a disastrous foreign policy approach.
If we make a commitment, we should stick to it. If it turns out to be bad, we should learn from it and do our best to avoid such commitments in the future. Worst case, we back out of the commitment when it is least harmful to the parties involved, not when we are called upon to fulfill our promises.
In terms of the WW1 parallels again, in order to apply the lessons of WW1, we first need to get to the point where they can be applied, i.e. Russia is repelled. The situation now mimics 1939, not 1919.
In regards to NATO, I won't rehash what I've written about it before. If you're curious, look at Putin's essay that he wrote prior to the invasion as an example. The two second version is that NATO is not Putin's concern per se, it is rather lack of control over his ex-Soviet sphere of influence and a desire to get it back. Ukraine was never in NATO, and NATO did not want it. Putin just could not stand to have it leave Russia's orbit, even economically (see Maidan in 2014).
The problem with isolationism is it is naive. The equivalent of 'My mom says violence never solved anything.' philosophy of global politics. 
