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Comment by mantas | Hacker News Reader

How close the war has to get to not „just stay away“?

Such approach just feeds aggressors to give it a shot. Because why not.

Look, sorry to be so bold on this comment, but if you want to fight, involve yourself, you can enlist yourself and go there, no matter the side you choose. Some of us do not want to be in risk because of the decisions of others.

I think it is a very reasonable approach. By that measure we have to go to all wars where there is some cause to fight for wherever they happen. That just feeds violence and strengthens states and reduces freedom (bc there are excuses to put all kind of restrictions depending on how bad the situation they created gets), something I am not very keen on.

I know I will get negatives for saying this, but it is just my honest opinion. You want something, you work for it. Want war? Go to war, want peace? Be peaceful and diplomatic in the first place unless 100% self-defense is the only option. It is not fair to involve everyone else, less when the consequences can be seen already in the energy side. I hope it does not get worse with any nuclear stuff (I really think it will not happen) but this is unnecessary.

Had Ukraine fell in spring, my country was a likely next candidate. By helping Ukraine, we’re defending ourselves.

The question is if you as a society want to be seen as a legitimate partner. After the war, Eastern Europe will have many questions to certain West countries. If you want to stick to no-war-above-all, then many countries won’t be able to trust you. What is an ally worth if you know he will bail at first sign of trouble?

Personally I hope West societies will take a very good long look in the mirror. Or here in the East we will need a new Union.

Let's be honest here. Nobody is gonna put hundreds of millions of western European & American lives at risk to save 10 million of Eastern Europeans. The combined population of the three Baltic states is even less than 10mil. The idea of an Eastern Europe Union is laughable. Life in the post soviet countries has been getting better thanks to the EU. Had they not joined the EU they would still be poor countries like Moldova or Albania.

10 million? Ex-warsaw pact sans Russia is closer to 100 million depending on definition. This notion that West doesn't care about us is exactly why Eastern European Union is not laughable. It's pretty hard stick with „allies“ that you know will backstab you at first opportunity. Well, already backstabbed with Nordstream I/II. Energy „liberalisation“ with fancy pricing scheme is a good one too. But at least here West stabbed themselves as well.

Life improvements is not thanks to EU. It was already improving fast before EU membership. It's just returning to normal state before soviet era. Moldova have other issues (Padniestre/Transnistria). Albania was much worse in pre-1990 too, so naturally it will take longer to catch up.

A I'd even say that EU membership slowed it down. We're curbed by same regulations that is forcing West industry to Asia. Local businesses are acquired by West companies before they develop R&D to compete with West. And we can't safeguard our markets to give breathing space to local companies. On top of that, a lot of EU money were pocketed.

After membership fees, money syphoned away by corrupt politicians, EU money flowing back to West because we can't guard local companies etc, I don't think EU is beneficial to East. IMO we'd be better off had whole ex-Warsaw-pact stayed away from EU for couple decades. NATO is damn nice though.

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