Biden Should Punish Saudi Arabia for Backing Russia | Hacker News Reader

Biden Should Punish Saudi Arabia for Backing Russia

foreignpolicy.com

Why is the terminology always that the US gets to "punish" everyone else? It reeks of American exceptionalism and misguided paternalism, not to mention dubiously claimed moral high ground.

Russia has clearly made a tragic error by violently and unjustly invading Ukraine. They've escalated the world into a new cold war and perhaps dealt a death blow to globalization in the process. But...

If the US wants to de-escalate towards peace and prosperity, maybe it's best to reframe foreign policy in terms of cooperation and negotiation rather than discipline. Or maybe Americans are just that much better and more right that it's their job to keep the kids in line.

Do people really think this "big stick" attitude doesn't breed widespread resentment?

The russian 'big stick' on Ukraine certainly seemed to breed widespread resentment. To the point the ROW is glad the US is there to coordinate the punitive response.

Row \= Europe.

Europe is happy when the u.s. bully beats up the Russian bully. The non western world sees another proxy war where bullies clash and another little guy takes the damage

The argument may sound weird because Saudi war in Yemen has been more destructive than war in Ukraine.

International relations and geopolitics is de facto 90% amoral self interest. The language used to justify actions is very moral. This creates huge cognitive dissonance unless you can acknowledge the situation.

Ukraine matters more to the West than Yemen and Saudis are less a threat to the West, so it's understandable that and Saudis are punished for backing Russia and not other way around.

The more I read and see the more I am starting to see the USA as less "world policeman", which I thought was a bad idea anyway, and more "world bully".

No one really cares what Saudi-Arabia has been doing in Yemen.

crazy, right? who cares that SA itself is running an ongoing war that so far left 100k+ people dead (wikipedia), or dismembers a journalist, if they can be useful to the agenda.

Though there may be more death in Yemen, the war in Ukraine is more important for many reasons. One is that you have the world's largest country, a nuclear superpower, attacking Europe's second largest country. This on a continent, the stability of which provides stability for much of the rest of the world. The action Putin has taken affects the whole world. What happens in Yemen does not. The fear of a world war does not grow from Yemen. Yemen's importance in the world is incomparable to Ukraine's. Ukraine grows a huge amount of food, supplies all kinds of processed materials, exports drugs, and even manufactures a substantial amount of important industrial things. Yemen does none of that. Yemen will have more people go into true poverty due to the rising cost of bread arising from the war in Ukraine than from its own war.

The question is who it is more important to. Ukraine is more important to someone in Poland, but not someone in Yemen. These things are relative.

Europe is not some unique bastion of peace, there are many other peaceful places on the planet.

You may have not read my entire comment. I'll repeat that the lack of exports of Ukrainian and Russian wheat because of the war will cause a lot more poverty, and maybe even death in Yemen, than its own war. Add the entire middle east that survives on Russian and Ukrainian wheat, and maybe you can understand how Ukraine may be more important to the middle east than Yemen, which is already there.

so potentially interrupting the wheat trade with the Yemenis is much more disruptive than just killing them?

Yes, it may affect a lot more people. And not only in Yemen. Remember: a hungry mob is an angry mob.

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