Comment by paulus_magnus2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by paulus_magnus2 | Hacker News Reader

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We in the The West have some serious soul searching to do.

A nuclear power has attacked a sovereign state and told us to stay away or something very bad will happen.

They've been sabre rattling for weeks and weeks and we have frozen unable (or unwilling) to act. No good deed goes unpunished, every sanction has a cost etc etc but we're not ready to pay even a smallest price in order to save lives protect world peace. Or to save "western values" our leaders are wording at each opportunity.

If we really wanted to stop the invasion we'd send half a million soldiers to "hang around" in Ukraine weeks ago. Or at least we'd send them thousands of anti helicopter and antitank missiles. We cannot prevent Russia's bombing and destruction of Ukraine but the missiles would easily stop an invasion.

Russia is a country with extremely concentrated wealth and therefore power - the oligarchs are one of the few leverage points we have. If we temporarily froze (right now confisction would be more appropriate) assets owned by oligarchs in the west, deplatform them from payment systems, credit cards, universities, golden visas. Capture their yahts, jets they'd take care of Putin rather quickly. We know who they are, they're on the Forbes list posing for pictures.

Somehow we in the west eagerly go after the weak (Ottawa protesters) but cannot seam to do the same towards rich (with power and means to corrupt).

The rules based Western world has gone out of the window and we're quickly heading towards a world with two sets of rules (or rather two standards of rule enforcement).

I'm from the balkans, and generally (and also due to being from the balkans), i'm against any kind of war...

but!

> We in the The West have some serious soul searching to do. > A nuclear power has attacked a sovereign state and told us to stay away or something very bad will happen.

"The west" really does need some soul searching... and a mirror... because the west has done this same thing many, many, many times, and are now bothered when Putin does it. From korea and vietnam, to more modern wars, iraq twice, afghanistan, syria, libya, serbia/kosovo, etc. And the reasons were even worse... A few saudis bomb a couple of US buildings... attack afghanistan! Remember the weapons of mass destructions in iraq? Neither does iraq. And not forget the "not-real-war" actions, such as random drone bombings in random countries where there is no "official" war (eg. pakistan).

Yes, most of the world in many countries can point a finger at putin and cry out angry cries and demand many things (sanctions, help for ukraine,...), but america and most of "the west" is not on that list, considering all those countries still have soldiers occupying quite a few sovereign countries around the world.

I agree our nations have done less than everything that could be done. I do think we've done quite better than could have been hoped around 2016.

I believe your moral certainty is quite flawed:

1. It rests entirely on hindsight.

These events only started seeming inevitable about 24 hours ago.

Now we've found them to be true, we trust and are even impressed by the Americans' warnings. But these last weeks I little doubt the Bundestag's halls, and European couches everywhere, heard many recollections of Iraq's supposed WMD program.

2. You advocate a purely moral policy.

There's a quiet part in every happy Westerner's mind that believes, without examination, in the ultimate and inevitable triumph of good over evil. To be fair, the past few generations experienced reassuring evidence for this assumption - and Hollywood keeps the reassurance alive.

Unfortunately, the good guys do not always win; moral will cannot overcome geopolitical reality. Neither Realpolitik nor MAD were made defunct by 20 years of Pax Americana. History may have had a near-death experience, but she's apparently now quite recovered.

Ukraine is Russia's neighbor. Ukraine is very much Russia's family: brothers who long cohabited. Ukraine's attitude towards Russia is legitimately a vital interest of Russia. Russia has, by right of force (Realpolitik!), complete dominance to act in Ukraine. Deterrence was always the only realistic option.

500,000 Western soldiers <500m from Moscow would be both target for, and, perhaps, sufficient justification in Russians citizens' eyes for the use of, tactical nukes.

3. It is unrealistic about how democracies work. Only the aggression your proposed policy is meant to prevent would be sufficient to convince democracies to implement it: an unfortunate catch-22.

Democracies are extremely reluctant to go to war, which is good. The price paid is inevitably foolishness in global power politics. Roosevelt could not have started a pre-emptive war with Japan, though perhaps this would have been the optimal move.

Similarly, there is no chance that, in the context of 20 years of unbroken peace, any Nato member would be interested in such a massive deployment directly next to Moscow. No scenario would have allowed this risk.

If it did somehow happen, Russia's aggressive response could easily divide the alliance in recrimination for implementing such a reckless policy.

> Or at least we'd send them thousands of anti helicopter and antitank missiles

That happened - the UK sent 2000 NLAW anti-tank missiles and the US sent Javelins.

Go send your own children to die first.

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