Who governs Ukraine was not the business of the United States either, especially given that Ukraine is thousands of miles away from the US.

And yet they still felt the need to do a coup in a country in which they had absolutely zero business involving themselves with, setting the stage for a civil war that killed thousands, and the Russian invasion that took place 8 years later.

Interesting, isn't it?

I'm not claiming it's the US' business. But you are claiming it's Russia's business. It's not.

/e maybe if you didn't have such a shitty government, they could have figured out their own coup?

This post was edited by Santara on Apr 7 2022 02:36pm

but-for causation is never as good as substantial factor causation, and at best makes sense when applied in a sense of concurrent events.
It is a reasonable conclusion that the Euromaidan coup was the proximate and most substantial causal event in the sequence of events that sparked the Ukraine War. Its probable that the coup wouldn't have reached critical mass without US backing and we know the aftermath was micromanaged by the US, at any rate. Heck without US backing, Russia might have stepped in directly to crush revolutionaries if they got out of hand. If not for Euromaidan, none of the 2014+ events would have occurred, no Crimean independence referendum, no annexation, no Donbass split, no 8 year long border conflict, no Russian war. The most likely outcome would be the boring status quo of the previous decade continuing for a decade. The Euromaidan coup goes beyond mere concurrent but-for causation, beyond the acceleration factor test. Its clearly the proximate cause and actual causation.

Now there's plenty of hairs to split over how much was the US's fault versus the Ukrainian people of their own initiative. That's a similar case to the Arab Spring, after all. But in both cases, America staked its foreign policy position quite publicly and got the revolution it supported, and thus bears responsibility for the chaos that ensued. As I said at the time in 2014, Ukrainians were given a choice between their Russian masters who held a greater stake in them and were willing to act, and their American masters who wouldn't lift a finger to protect them when push came to shove. It was short sighted idealism to embrace the west without the west's willingness to extend its sphere of influence over them. Obama staked out that uneasy position and completely failed to act against Russian aggression and refused to even arm the Ukrainians, and deserved his criticism. Criticism not for failing to arm them in a vacuum, criticism for supporting a coup and then failing to support the country. Either do both, or do neither, don't strike out the worst of both worlds. But it was small fries compared to Biden's truly schizophrenic position, staking out preemptively that he wouldn't act, but then providing enough remote support to make the war a bloody humanitarian disaster like Obama did in Syria (which I also pointed out was Obama's schizophrenic 180 degree flip as he armed Sunni militias and then armed Kurds to kill the Sunnis. Boy I hope that's not where this conflict is with the Nazis in 5+ years from now), dang this paragraph is off on a tangent I better reset


Point being, its like how I compared it to America overthrowing Saddam and thus creating ISIS as they filled the power vacuum. Nobody denies that ISIS was committing war crimes, but America holds responsibility because the reign of ISIS was a direct consequence of our moronic foreign policy decisions. We made the decision to support the overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government and institute a pro-western regime, our own handpicked oligarchy, one that we knew Russia would not tolerate in its sphere of influence and one we would not protect when Russia chose to act. Which they did, both immediately, and with an awkward 8 year delay. You can simultaneously acknowledge that the invading guys committing war crimes are baddies, but you have to accept that America created these reasonably foreseeable circumstances, the direct consequences of our policy choice, a proximate causation.

This post was edited by Goomshill on Apr 7 2022 02:41pm

I guess what it comes down to is, given what Ukraine has been doing, is what Russia is doing a proper act of self-defense?

In real life, no, we can't simply hit someone who's appearing aggressive and cite self-defense. However, what if he is brandishing a knife menacingly, and only inches away from you? Are you not allowed to do something about it to protect yourself?

This post was edited by JessiWan on Apr 7 2022 03:29pm

A NATO member Ukraine on Russia's border is simply not a real threat to a nuclear power, the Russian people are gonna be fine.

What is a problem for Russia is a free and democratic Ukraine with Russian speaking free citizens on Russia's border. That is a direct threat to the Russian regime's grasp on power. But I am unconcerned with a dictator's grasp on power. Fuck him.

I think there's too much debate over moral righteousness and sovereignty, and not enough about pragmatic interests and the geopolitical dynamics. Russia's interventions were generally predictable and to their interests, we knew Russia wouldn't tolerate the west expanding NATO to their borders, we could figure they'd respond to a pro-western coup in Ukraine. All debate over whether Russia's actions are proper, whether its aggression or self-defense, is ultimately irrelevant. If a madman is brandishing a knife menacingly towards you, and you start screaming at him like a howler monkey at running at him, you're going to get cut. In that moment, will it matter if he had a troubled upbringing, if he was on drugs, if his parents molested him, if he was just trying to rob you for money to feed his starving children? Action and reaction, without regard to morality. At trial after you're dead, they can deliberate on it.
A lot of moralizing lectures were made over how terrible a person Saddam was. 'Member the media talking about the evil Hussein brothers and their debauched reign of rape, torture and murder? Uday and Qusay were almost household names. And we made an entire caliphate of Udays and Qusays.

Trash analysis. You make it seem like Russia has no agency lol. What's next? WW2 isn't the fault of the Nazis and it's the fault of the enforcers of Versailles?

I believe there was a high-level person that witnessed the signing of the Versailles treaty, and resigned because he thought the treaty was so unreasonable that it would just force Germany to become belligerent again. I forgot his name.

There's no doubt that the Treaty of Versailles helped fuel German nationalism which helped facilitate the rise of the Nazis. However, Germany and the USSR were the ones who ultimately invaded Poland. What's next, every time a black man rapes someone, we blame the system? We blame the woman? Give me a break. You can acknowledge the factors that ultimately brought about the situation, but Russia is the one who pulled the trigger and no one forced them to.

Ok so you can menace someone as badly as you want, and when they inevitably respond to your threat, you blame them.

It's almost like when a husband abuses his wife badly, and then when she finally snaps and kills him, you say to her, you are the one who pulled the trigger and no one forced you to.