this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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You mean when Clinton negotiated with Yeltsin (not super-relevant) to not target strategic missiles at one another (not verifiable, and reversible in moments)?
To grab resources, restore the Russian empires old borders on line with long-standing doctrine, and to distract from domestic issues that would threaten Putin's interests.
Credible allegations? This isn't super-hard to verify, and even if it were true, it's no reason to annex Ukraine.
I've considered multiple perspectives, and like a reasonable person, discarded the invalid ones rather than treating flagrantly dishonest propaganda and baseless speculation/fantasy as important considerations that need to be accommodated.
Russia has torn up every agreement it's been party to.
Russia's preconditions for a diplomatic negotiation is Ukraine's total surrender (in the context of an invasion).
Russia is in no way entitled to attempt to forcefully annex Ukrainian territory.
Russia is in no way entitled to dictate what explicitly defensive strategic alliances its neighbours enter into.
With those simple facts in mind...
If the Ukrainians wish to resist (and they clearly do), that's their prerogative. It's strategically and morally correct for the US to help them resist.
Correct - but that's an argument to continue to offer support not stop it.
By surrendering on Ukraine's behalf to get to the negotiation table to draw up another agreement that will inevitably be torn up? By stopping support and throwing to the bears? What would this look like to you?
By providing military support like an ally.
The US isn't sending Ukraine to war - it's giving Ukraine the means to defend itself from a war that's being waged on them - which it's doing.
2008? Wasn't that when Russia invaded Georgia? There's a pattern here... Refer to point 4 - what right does Russia have to invade a neighbor for entering an explicitly and historically defensive alliance? How did NATO start the war, exactly? They should have followed through, but that's beside the point.
...don't forget that Russia's aggression is driving more countries to join for obvious reasons. Intervention in this context isn't expected of/by NATO - it's a defensive alliance, and Ukraine isn't a member state - it's beyond their mandate. Such an intervention would be painted as reaching beyond a defensive posture, justifying a lot of Russia's nonsense, and arguably hostility, making it a questionable move that I'm not going to browbeat them for. In short, it would be diplomatically catastrophic.