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Comment by amiga386 | Hacker News Reader

Every single ship in/out of St Petersburg goes via the Gulf of Finland. All those ships will be "Russian" (have stopped in Russia). It doesn't mean they're "Russian". Owner, charterer, flag, crew can all have very different nationalities.

Which part or combination makes them "Russian", in the sense of "the Russian state asked asked the ship to harm Finnish infrastructure, and they actually did it"?

You can lazily speculate about the aggressive, warmaking nation (that illegally annexed Crimea, is currently at war with Ukraine, is regularly sending submarines, ships, drones, jets into the territories of its neighbours) all you like... but if you want to be able to prosecute them, you need to be able to show evidence of the Russian state ordering this action, and that the cable damage was actually caused by that ship. Where is your evidence?

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The crew on these ships are usually all Russians, the ship is often registered in Cayman, Panama or somewhere else. These ships often sail under a third nationality, but when the ships are seized, only complaints are filed from Russian lawyers. Take from that what you will.

Is every American carrying out American government policy? It's a big stretch.

Every American destroying submarine cables might be, yes.

The crew of the ship? Do they even know what the captain is doing? Does the captain even know, or are they just following instructions (which still seems culpable if you are the officer in charge).

This is the court of public opinion, not a court or law. For better or worse, evidentiary standards are much lower.

The court of public opinion is a really shitty court to apply to potentially criminal damage that occurred well outside the area of interest and knowledge for 99.99% of said public. The standards are shit, the outcomes are shit (bad idea when the ramifications are huge).

It clearly worked very poorly in the case of the recent "Russian drone interference" panic, many of which turned out to not even be drones, never mind Russian ones. https://www.dronewatch.eu/61-european-drone-sightings-analys...

Or the "UFOs" over Pennsylvania.

Sorry but in times of war, the regular "proof beyond reasonable doubt" cannot apply anymore, or you lose said war.

If you're at war then declare war. You get sweeping powers to deal with existential threats. Go ahead and declare your country is at war. Is it?

If you declare war without there being a bona fide casus belli, you'll be whisked out of power so fast your head will spin. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_South_Korean_martial_law_...

If you don't declare war, you don't get those emergency powers. You only get peacetime powers.

Russia loves to go right up to the line, and then cross it a little bit, just to antagonise you. But unless you're willing to be the instigator of WW3, you'll stick to peacetime powers and peacetime courts with peacetime standards of evidence

>But unless you're willing to be the instigator of WW3, you'll stick to peacetime powers and peacetime courts with peacetime standards of evidence

Clearly this will need to change somewhat, if the other side wants to engage in hybrid war tactics. Nothing new, Cold War was a thing.

But what if the other side - Russia - does wartime tactics without having formally declared war with NATO? Why do they get to keep this privilege?

Because they're an authoritarian shithole with a strongman leader who openly murders dissenters, personally controls all branches of government, controls the military and has people arrested just for holding up blank sheets of paper. He can pretend the country is not at war when it clearly is, and suffer no consequence, because nobody can replace him or even censure him without the country completely collapsing. When he eventually dies, the ensuing power vacuum will make the entire country a basket case. It's a dead country walking.

Do you want to make your country such a nightmare country, so you can also cheat like they do?

No, I want my country to have democratic rule of law on the inside (including when dealing with normal criminals of any kind, including murderers).

But when dealing with an outside state-level aggressor, I want my country to be be a cunning, hypocritical, powerful strongman.

The distinction under what mode a certain event should be treated should be pretty straightforward and can be determined using democratic means, e.g. a normal judge ruling "I rule this cable cutting incident to be an act of state-sponsored aggression against our democracy" (which would allow the alphabet agencies, special ops etc to "do their thing" with no repercussions whatsoever.)

for example:

1) a murder happens between a husband and wife, two normies, after lengthy, normal court proceedings the proof who did it is not 100% conclusive, accused person goes free

2) a murder of an anti-russian political dissident happens, a russian ex speznas officer is caught in relation to the event -> he "disappears" one day and the case is closed

I believe this is the only way to "win" this cold war.

People in other places don't have rights, and lives, and deserve freedom? If they don't, you don't. If they can be ruled out, so can you. Freedom and rights only exist if they are fundamentally universal.

Which powerful countries abide by this?

Sadly, it seems a fiction.

The list is very long - fair trials are universal in the democratic world.

You'd better start advocating for freedom and democracy rather than using cynicism. If you don't, who will? Democracy is you; nobody is going to fix what you destroy.

Cynicism is a tool for peacetime, a way of keeping things honest (maybe not the most effective way, but it has an effect). But when there is serious threat - when your platoon is facing the enemy - cynicism is a failure of duty to your team.

I agree with the sentiment, but what stops the government designating annoying people or companies as russian (also see "foreign agent" and "matter of national security")?

Also, am I on the hook because my wife's great-grandfather was russian?

Because my idea is that it wouldn't be the government designating them, but judges. Just like a judge already today has the power to lock you up for life, but only after a lenghty rule of law process.

But the trouble is judges are human, and if the boss of your boss who could shut down your court and turf you out is loudly proclaiming "will nobody rid me of this troublesome Russian"... what lawful ruling will the judge find to appease their master?

The other thing that sprang to mind was the US interning their own citizens in camps. Would you be in favour of internment camps across Europe for all citizens with any Russian heritage, preemptively locking them up in case they might provide succor to The Enemy?

You are making an argument against any kind of rule of law in general. If somebody powerful can say to a judge "will you please sentence this competitor of mine to life in prison" and he complies, that's the same problem. But judges in Western countries are very rarely that corrupt, and thus rule of law functions.

Yes Trump was right about everything and Make America Great Again! I also want what Russia has! The biggest ball(room)!

No declarations of War has been needed for decades, internationally you only get disadvantages from doing that. Russia hasn't declared war to Ukraine, neither has Ukraine to Russia, so what.

People love this 'expediency' for what they want, but once you destroy the rule of law and reason generally, nothing protects you.

You're standing in a forest, lighting a forest fire to kill the other guy. There is lots of history about this most fundamental error.

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