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Comment by qeternity | Hacker News Reader

> "we can do it, you can't"

Yes, exactly. The US knows full well how powerful that sort of control and access is, and other countries are (apparently) ok with that. The implicit social contract in the West is that the US maintains global peace anyway.

Obviously the US (and other countries) do not have similar levels of trust and cooperation with China, hence these sort of responses.

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> Obviously the US (and other countries) do not have similar levels of trust and cooperation with China, hence these sort of responses.

So now the US gets to decide who is worthy of becoming your friend?

What's next?

Now? That’s been the policy for probably longer than you’ve been alive. (Assuming you’re under the age of 70 or so)

The US can decide who its allies are, other countries can do the same for themselves. What are you even objecting to here?

Have you been sleeping for the past 20 years?

https://www.euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/news/the-impac...

> Have you been sleeping for the past 20 years?

Only about a third of them.

> https://www.euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/news/the-impac...

Sorry, I'm not following how that relates to really anything in the current conversation.

the US promotes liberalism for others, but internally they promote their very own interests

double face

after blocking you from doing commerce with their enemies through multitudes of sanctions and lobbies, they'll start to punish you if you try to protect your interests

To quote the article: "Washington announced on Wednesday (2 October) that it would hit European products with punitive tariffs worth $7.5 billion after receiving the green light from the World Trade Organization (WTO), following a 15-year legal battle between aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus."

I still don't get the specific objection here. The USA argues for its own interests, and is inconsistent, at best, on persuing principles in the rest of the world. Yes this is selfish and annoying. But what does that have to do with the decision at hand?

There are a lot of people on HN arguing against sanctioning Russia for invading a sovereign state, they believe that the west should just turn a blind eye to it.

It's quite interesting, it's pretty much the only place on the internet I encounter such posts.

That's a common stance in right-leaning circles, unfortunately.

Letting Europeans deal with Europe was the stance for all of American history until WWII.

It was a very common stance until the world changed and we learned better, yeah.

A lot of Americans are American because their European ancestors got sick of European affairs and wanted a clean break from it.

Nonetheless, a lot of the anti-interventionist rhetoric seen on the net today feels very astroturfed. Anybody accusing NATO of warmongering is safe to write off as a Russian-aligned troll, considering Russia is the one who actually invaded a foreign country. NATO's "war mongering" amounts to offering sanctuary to the countries with a rational fear of being invaded by Russia.

In other words, one is not allowed to speculate about a different outcome if NATO hadn't pushed forward so aggressively.

The realism school of Mearsheimer is forbidden. Freedom of thought is one of the first casualties of the war.

All those nations decided to join NATO freely and sent an application. NATO then approved those applications. Those nations are also free to leave NATO again if they want to.

The other side annexes territories of a neighbouring souvereign nation and bombs the infrastructure to rubble with the goal of making the freezing population surrender.

Russia, like many former colonial empires, hangs onto its dreams of Greatness and Restoration. It is up to Russia to find a new befitting place and way for its nation in the international community and history. Many other former empires were forced to do the same.

I'm not European descended and could care less about what those people think of their home countries. My parents and family gave up ours when they came to this country and became citizens. I recommend those of European ancestry do so too.

It’s actually much worse. People in western countries saying that Russia is in the right and that Putin’s government is to be trusted more.

>It's quite interesting, it's pretty much the only place on the internet I encounter such posts.

You can find similar or even wierder ideas on reddit. Like one dude that said is from USA was telling me that Russia is the victim, was provoked by USA and on top of that he was on the opinion that countries in Easter Europe belong to Russia sphere of influence, that we the Easter Europeans have no rights, only USA and Russia have the rights to split the world and if Ukraine or Mopldvoa wants in EU is USA fault and is against the rights of Russia to "influence" countries East of Berlin.

I am curious, is this something many USA people think, that the "sphere of influences" crap is still relevant today and that we the small countries should not have a choice in it?

No it is not common. Most people I know are pro democracy and very nervous about Russian/Putin’s attempted expansion.

They may be arguing against sanctions because they are ineffective and hurt the West. I haven't seen the stance to ignore the Ukraine invasion altogether.

I wonder why you would single out HN for these posts. They appear in every comment section even of the mainstream press, on YouTube and other places.

Ineffectiveness of sanctions is an old and legitimate topic. Certainly the topic is discussed behind closed doors everywhere. There is a difference between hardliner isolationism and realism. Ultimately, the Western economies have to function if $billions in weapons are to be provided in the future.

> They may be arguing against sanctions because they are ineffective and hurt the West. I haven't seen the stance to ignore the Ukraine invasion altogether.

There's a certain large part of the Republican party that goes way beyond that and are openly hostile to helping Ukraine in any way.

> They may be arguing against sanctions because they are ineffective and hurt the West.

Russians say otherwise. Sanctions applied since 2014 are one of the reasons for the Russian military's ineffectiveness in Ukraine:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/sources-ru...

To quote the article: "The Russian military industry was heavily dependent on Western-made components and products. It used U.S. and European tools to service drone engines and motors. It relied on Western producers to build gear for radiation-proof electronics, which are critical for the satellites Russian officials use to gather intelligence, communicate, and carry out precision strikes. Russian manufacturers worked with French companies to get the sensors needed for our airplanes. Even some of the cloth used in light aircraft, such as weather balloons, was made by Western businesses. The sanctions suddenly cut off our access to these products and left our military weaker than the West understood. But although it was clear to my team how these losses undermined Russia’s strength, the foreign ministry’s propaganda helped keep the Kremlin from finding out. The consequences of this ignorance are now on full display in Ukraine: the sanctions are one reason Russia has had so much trouble with its invasion."

Sanctions can be effective but they work best in the long term, less so in the short term.

Maybe because technical oriented minds better understand the subtleties of the conflict? and are able to methodically read articles like they able able to read through a documentation?

And i don't think people over here advocate against sanctioning Russia, you hear about people against sanctions from the politics, usually from the opposition camp

I think it's pretty clear that everyone here is sanctioning the actors of the war, both actors, the ones who participate in the conflict, and the ones who feed the conflict since 2014

The US complaining about Russia's influence over their elections

And the US meddling with Ukranian ones to promote Zelensky [1]

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-ukraine-tape-idUSBREA...

This is an article about the US deciding who the US is friends with. So I’m not really sure where your apparent outrage is originating.

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