Nukemin Herttua

Good riddance ❤️

Sure. One thing is pretty certain though: thing won’t be getting better under the current regime.

I think you seriously underestimate Russia. They have a helluva lot of manpower, natural resources and money. They are also able to import western sanctioned materials via China and Central Asian countries.

Russian society is being organized to resemble a war economy. There are new laws that make drafting more difficult to avoid and with more severe punishments. Also they have just raised the age for conscription. They are playing the long game and preparing for future eg. mobilizing the whole society under one delirious cause. Late 20s, early 30s it is totally possible that Russia has a better military capacity than it currently has. Sure, the life of average Russian will suck way more than it does now, but there’s not really an option if you want to keep your job in a tank factory and avoid going to prison. You have no choice but to participate.

Putin has made his mind and the struggle in Ukraine only makes him more determined that He is fighting an existential battle with the west, especially since he believes that democracies and western liberal lifestyle are on a path of inevitable decline.

Sure, if he is stupid enough He might start a conflict with NATO, believing that the alliance will break when under pressure. He might think that He is prepared and the west is weak. And while there’s 95% change that he is mistaken, it doesn’t matter if he himself believes the crap the yesmen around him and He himself are feeding him. That’s the real risk and to me, a defeat in Ukraine makes this scenario less likely to happen.

If beaten in Ukraine, there is a chance that the trajectory of the Russian Federation changes. Currently they are trying to fulfill a senseless imperial project which is doomed to eventually fail.

With defeat in Ukraine, there’s a chance that the growing destabilization within Russia leads to abandonment of the imperial dream. It might also force a change in the leadership albeit not necessarily for the better. What it would do however, is to show that the Putinist system is not the only option and that the actions it has taken, are in fact harmful for Russia and Russians. In a way, it opens up a way to politicize the apolitical Russian public.

In the semi long/long term this would benefit the population as it would not only challenge the idea of Russia as an Empire, but also allow for a less authoritarian model of governance.

Well, this is one possible outcome, although not necessary. For example Finland was able to patch it’s relations with Russia after 2 brutal wars with tens of thousands of casualties and a huge chunk of lost land. Of course the friendly relations were somewhat forced and a survival mechanism for a small country in Cold War era (Russia had a hold on Finland while Finland navigated in it’s position to gain as much political freedoms it could) but it genuinely got rid of open hostilities between the countries.

Even after the cold war ended and up to today, majority of the population in Finland has not had a revanchist opinion towards Russians, albeit they were not fully trusted either. Finns learned to live as neighbors and in peace while preparing just in case.

So while it is probably likely that loosing land would cause a negative nationalistic turn in Ukraine and grievances towards Russia, it’s not set in stone. Actually I am way more concerned that if Russia can claim a victory, they expand their delirious imperial/quasifascist project and escalate the conflict with the west further.

It’s difficult to build lasting peace when the aggressor does not want it. Sure the Russians are open to peace in their terms, but imo that is just escalate things again in few years to come.

Don’t get me wrong, EU is in big part a peace project. That however shouldn’t happen at just any cost. Free, independent and territorially whole Ukraine is important for the future peace, Ukraine, Europe and even good for Russia.

there is a completely different islam being followed in americia.

Yes, in fact there are many different types of Islam followed in different countries. America is not unique in that way. Even within many Muslim countries there are different sects of worshippers. Not everyone follows the mainstream interpretation.

you guys think of islam as a completely peaceful religion.

I certainly don’t think that, nor does anyone with any common sense. As well as no one should consider Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or even Buddishm as completely peaceful. Every religion has built within it a framework that can be used to promote and justify violence.

I don’t understand how rest of your post relates to what was said before, but I than you for the info you provided.

Here’s a more detailed info about polygamy in different countries: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/12/07/polygamy-is-rare-around-the-world-and-mostly-confined-to-a-few-regions/

I think there is a widely shared misconcpetion in the West that the models and values of a society and governance are universal. This is a very colonial mindset, even when the intent is benevolent.

Note that I am not an expert on Afghan society so if someone knows better, please correct me.

My perspective is, and like others here have pointed out, that Afghanistan has never been a state in the sense we understand states being. Concepts such as central government, civil society, national army were brought in by the English in the 19th century. Small parts of the society were organized based on western ideals (in supervision of the Brits) but most of the country remained decentralized, traditionalist and tribal. This is not to say that this is somehow worse, it is an ancient way of life with very rich traditions and it is something that has kept people in there are alive for centuries. For big part of the country things like nationalism, democracy, institutions, politics etc. are just indifferent.

With background like this it’s no wonder Afghans were not able to build a society that mimicis western ideals. 20 years (or even 50) is a relatively short time when compared to traditions and interpretations of religion that have existed for hundreds of years. Sure, some people benefitted from the British, Soviet and the US presence, but i’d guess those that genuinely wanted to turn Afghanistan into a modern state, were in a great minority. In a society based on family and tribal ties, things like politics or civil society don’t mean much if anything. Ethics are very different from the European traditions too.

Unfortunately Taleban is the only group there with power and organization that can form anything resembling a centralized nation state. The problem is that they are fundamentalist lunatics. While there are people who oppose them, it is very difficult to get enough people organized and overcome the fear of brutal punishments by the regime.

Because the civil society is small and disorganized, most of the people are apolitical and couldn’t care less how the society is organized. I’d wager that most men in any position care about making a living and being left alone. Those who don’t, try to leave the country. There just isn’t a structure that allows for a major rebellion.

Sorry, I’m bad at math (even though it was a rhetorical question) 😃

I’d like to point out however, that while having 4 wives might be allowed in some branches of Islam, there are others where this is not the case. So while Taliban might allow it (and I don’t know whether they do as I am not an expert, but I’m currently too lazy to check it out), not everyone in the Muslim world does.

I say this because us living in the west have a very limited view of Islam and generally it is bad to enforce stereotypes. So this was not aimed against you, just pointing out something that bothers me in general 🙂

Uh, they’ve been in war like state most of the time since 1970s. Wars caused by outsiders. I’m pretty sure that at this point, most people just want to live in peace, no matter how shitty that peace is.

This is in part where the Taliban’s strength stems from: at least they are domestic oppressors, not troops from abroad.

Depends who you are, I guess. For women, leaving alone is very difficult if not impossible as you would need a male guardian to escort you.

As a man it it’s easier but comes down to the money. Most people there are very poor and in a country where family an tribal ties are really important, it is very difficult to pack up your things and leave.

Also, poor Afgan refugees are not received very well by other countries. They are also afraid of the lunacy of the fundamentalist religious movement spreading.

Like any country Afganistan has wealthy people too and for them leaving is probably the easiest.

On general note, Afganistan is a prime example of what a fundamentalist leadership and religion can lead to. Can happen in other countries and outside of Islam too. We should be aware of this.

Well it does and it doesn’t. Turkey’s trajectory was very different when it joined the alliance. It was one of the most democracy leaning Muslim countries. Also, having a common adversary (Russia) also helped to make them a member.

With big military and startegic position they are one of the most important countries for the alliance. Therefore they also have the cabability to start a circus like they did with Finland and especially with Sweden.

Yes, but that is a different conversation. Now we are talking about Meloni and her ties to the far right 🙂

I am sorry. That was not my intention.

Yet my points remain the same 🙂

What strawman did i craft?

See your own post above😀

No it isn’t. As you will see when this ends with both a Ukraine and a Russia existing afterwards. This nonsense is just devoid of any realistic understanding of the circumstances that created this war or any general understanding of how wars end.

For Ukraine it is first and foremost a defensive war to survive as a sovereign state. It is not a matter of an opinion. Second aim is to cement their country as part of “the West” via EU and Nato. If you wish, I’d be to happy to hear what you think Ukraine is fighting for.

God I do hate the way americans speak “free and transparent” christ. It’s like talking to a robot. The current state was created in a US backed far right revolution. Under no circumstances can you call its elections “free”. The left in particular was not allowed to participate in the 2019 election, candidacy being refused. You can not call an election “free” while banning the left from participation and only putting up a bunch of utterly shit candidates that nobody wants, the man had a 31% approval rating and every single poll since the war began excludes the regions that matter most - Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea.

Yeah, I don’t like the way most Americans speak either. That however, has nothing to do with our discussion here (another straw man, yay!).

The rest of your argument is just parroting what Russia has been saying at least since the beginning of their invasion. I suppose you are Ukrainian, since you know so much about how people there feel about Zelensky and the leadership? Because the stuff the rest of see from reliable, many times first hand sources, paints a very different picture from yours.

There is nothing I can ever say to get you to stop using this as an excuse. For you, calling anything “pro Russia” enables you to close your brain down and ignore reality.

Using what as an excuse? Calling a Russian supporter pro Russian? Blimey!

Absolutely nobody here has said that. You are now literally making shit up. Russia is a capitalist shithole and I want to see its end just as much as America.

Now we found a common ground of sorts. Although I am sure our view on how that can be achieved differ quite alot. Sorry that I assumed too much, but this is a common phenomenon that I see a lot on internet.

I have read more than you my “left leaning” (lmao “hello fellow socialists!”) friend. Good for you then! Go you!

Once again, you’re being a tit. You have invented a cartoon character in your head to imagine me as instead of actually listening to any of the words I say. I think this conversation is no longer worth wasting my time with.

To be honest, that comment was not directly aimed at you, but to anyone identifying as a leftist and siding with Russia and repeating their talking points. I honestly believe there is a huge contradiction in there. I could’ve been clearer, but I still stand by those words.

And just to make it clear, I did not wish to cause you any frustration or even win an argument. I just wanted to point out things in your arguments that I find peculiar or simply misreprestative of the situation with Ukraine and Russia. I am also genuinely interested in understanding where such opinions stem from. So no, I don’t see you as a cartoon character, just a fellow lemming 😘

You really seem to enjoy crafting strawman arguments.

• Ukraine is fighting an existential war. Boosting nationalism is a way to cope with that and survive. I hate that nationalistic shit myself, but in their situation Ukrainians are both allowed to express themselves in a nationalistic way as well as fight back. And from the viewpoint of opposing nationalism: the fact that Ukrainians are more nationalistic, was mostly caused by drum roll Russia.

• Ukrainian rulers appointed by the Ukrainians in free and increasingly transparent elections. In representative democracy, it’s the representatives job to decide on behalf of the pople. Also, Zelensky is hugely popular president with support from the opposition too. Most of Ukraine support their leaders and they have a mandate from the people (especially the president).

• You seem to confuse being leftist and a pro russian. The way I see it, they closed pro-Russian stations, some of which claimed themselves to be leftist. During a war, anti-war channels usually tend to go silent too (wonder why).

As a person many would call a left leaning socialist myself, I find it astonishing how some self-proclaimed leftists are hell bent on claiming that Russian Federation was somehow a champion of socialist values. In fact, it’s pretty much the exact opposite of those and has nothing to do with leftist or socialist values.

Also, if you identify as a leftist and support Russia to oppose the US or “the West”, you really need to:

1. Read more about socialism, history and contemporary russian state.
2. Look into the mirror and ask yourself: “Do I really want to side with Russia? Am I really a leftist?”. If you answer “yes” to both of these, return to point 1 and try again after some time.

Now we are getting somewhere. 🙂

It’s not about being “considerate” of the Russian law it’s about recognising what is and is not possible for the Russians to do, under their law. If the law disallows it they literally can’t do it.

Pray tell then, if the law is the main factor here, how it was possible for Russia to use Wagner forces in Ukraine? I sincerely wish to know, because independent militias are illegal in Russia, yet they were able to operate there for over a year. If they were able to do that despite it being against the law, howcome they are not able to return occupied territories, even if it was agains their law? You surely don’t mean they just choose to obey laws they deem beneficial at any given point in time, cause that would be shocking😮.

Put it another way, you could say that america should allow states to secede because that’s morally right if the people want to…

This is a false equivalence. Contemporary United States has not invaded those states and annexed them to the Union. Russia has.

You could argue that the US has annexed territories in the past and that the American civil war was fought to keep the Union togerther, but even then that was the matter of states attempting to cede from the Union they were part of, which in turn led to the war.

Ukraine’s relation to Russian Federation is not the same, as it is an independent country, not part of the federation. Ukraine ceded from Soviet Union in 1991 and was recognized by the international community as well as the contemporary Russian state. In 2014 Russia broke that recognition and in 2022 it openly attacked it’s sovereign neighbour.

You are mistaking my observance of the reality of the situation for a value judgement.

Maybe up to a point, but the fact is that current regime in Russia can do whatever it wants, including giving up the occupied areas. Law in Russia is subjugate to its rulers. Just like they were able to craft these particular laws in a few weeks, they are able to overturn them if need be or the situation forces them to. If a law is used as a talking point, then the law must also be able to bare scrutiny. Using Russian law to justify occupation does not do this, even if you and 99% of Russians believed it did.

The “international community” is just code that the anglo american empire uses to refer to the west and its interests. Africa, the Middle East and Asia are not included in it.

Maybe in your bubble, but for most of us it means sovereign countries conducting diplomacy, trade, co-operation and (up-to-a point) war/conflict, in commonly agreed framework of rules and practices. These include African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries too. Now you can argue wether the current international order is fair and benefits everyone equally, but it does not change the fact that we have commonly agreed upon international framework and organizations for conducting international affairs. Members of those organizations have agreed to commit to those rules. That system has kept the world relatively peaceful for around 80 years.

UN alone has over 193 member states that have agreed to shared rules for conducting foreign affairs. Another example is the Geneva Convention or the OSCE Helsinki Final Act of 1975, which by the way states, that there is a agreement on respect for territorial integrity, meaning that nation states should not attempt to promote secessionist movements or to promote border changes in other nation-states, nor impose a border change through the use of force. Russia has signed these and many more agreements and many more, yet here we are.

This is just the soft wording that the west uses for their own international hegemony.

See above.

I personally don’t give a shit that it doesn’t observe western hegemony or the “international community” (the west), but I agree that it needs to be stopped.

From your perspective the international community/law is just a synonym for western hegemony. You base you arguments on terms like “the West” and “western hegemony” as if they were some sort of monolithic actors in international affairs, set out to destroy or dominate the world. Usually this type of mindset stems from either ideological or conspiratorial background (or both). Judging by your name, I presume the the first hits the mark?

While I agree that the relations between the more developed countries (or “the West”) and the BRICS countries or the global south have their frictions and tensions, the global affairs is much more complicated and nuanced than what the type of explanation you are offering here, can explain.

I am amazed how some people still parrot the idea that the “Anglo-Americans” are pulling the strings and even forcibly keeping rest of the west in their sphere (suggesting that those countries are really not independent). Hate to break the news to you but, there is no such individual political actor as “the West”. What there is, is a set of countries that share enough common values and political capital that it makes sense for them to co-operate. Each of them have their own aims and concerns, in fact so much so that, quite often it is difficult for them to even makes common decisions. Just look at the EU for example and the ways that it is constantly at odds with itself and the United States on many topics. Yet everyone that is part of that co-operative network realizes that it is the best and the safest option currently available to them. And again, there are many changes I wished to happen within “the west”, but none of those would be achieved by tearing everything down and starting from scratch. Also, the other options (like Russia’s return to 19th and 20th century imperialism) or the totalitarian capitalism of China are even scarier options.

If you use terms like “the west”, please atleast try to define what you mean by them, otherwise it’s just going to sound like repeating talking points you’ve adopted somewhere along the way. I mean, this stuff originates in the early 2000s and has not really developed after that.

And more importantly: what would be a valid option for the contemporary rules based system? Seriously, the whole point the post WW2 international system was to avoid major conflicts and later on, to protect sovereignity of nation states despite their size. Sure, it has had a lot of problems, yet it kept us from the Cold War turning into WW3. How does Russia’s breach of those rules contribute in building anything better? How would you restructure this system to make it more fair while at the same time protecting nations from each other?

I am all-in for refroming UN and other international institutions, but tearing them down and disregarding agreed-upon rules is a certain way for more war and chaos. This is unfortunately exactly what is happening in Ukraine right now. And ofcourse other countries like the US have broken those rules, but what Russia has been doing since 2008 is directly and openly aimed towards tearing down that system.

What this entails is sitting around a negotiating table though and both sides giving something up to come away with narratives to look like winners to their people. This results in the political stability of both states afterwards. And is the only realistic way that you get both sides to agree to something. Otherwise this war will go on forever until either Ukraine runs out of men or nukes fly.

Yes, there has to be discussion at some point and probably both sides will have to give up on something. The real point though is to end the hostilities for good. And that’s the problem. All signs point to that Russia will just use peace to rearm itself and have another go at Ukraine or Nato in a few years time. The more Ukraine is able to get their land back (especially Crimea), the more unlikely another conflict will be. For Putin, losing Crimea would be a catastrophic outcome, but it would not be the end of Russia. In fact, it might be even better for them to suffer a defeat now and bury their imperialist dreams for good.

You are awfully considerate of the Russian law. I suppose it was okay for them to start the war because the law permitted it (did it?)? Annexation of Ukrainian land became okay too, because they made a law that permitted it, right? No matter what the Ukrainian or international law says, right? Please elaborate on how it’s the Russian law that we need to take into consideration and not the others.

This reminded me that, thank God Russia was able to use Wagner troops, because the Russian law recognizes independent military organis…wait a minute, it doesn’t. My point: Russia can and will interpret and implement it’s laws however the guy on the top wishes. Law there has nothing to do with regulated and supervised legislature most of the so called western countries have.

Trying to take Crimea by force is not optimal, but if it is the only way to do it, and the Ukraisinian’s decide to try it, it’s their decision because it is their territory. Might succeed, might fail, might escalate, might not…we don’t get to decide that, however terrifying the outcome might be. That’s the sad truth, but Ukraine has the right to decide.

The reason I care for “offenders demands” is that if you give into them, they start demanding more and more and more. Putin’s Russia is on a path of escalation and it has shown that it cannot be trusted to participate in the international community. The more they get out of Ukraine, the more they emboldened to makes demands and take aggressive steps towards their neighbors. This has been the trajectory since Russo-Georgian war in 2008 and it is not going to stop until they hit a brick wall. And currently the wall they are hitting is Ukraine. Also note that this is a historical phenomenon and the way Russia has operated at least since Soviet Union and a case could be made for even earlier than that.

If you must know, I’d probably be what most people call a socialist and a pacifist. I hate war and want nothing to do with weapons or the army. I don’t care for flags or national symbols and I despise imperialism ND colonialism. However, I do care for the letter of law and a rules based international system. Currently Russia is wiping it’s arse on these and that must be stopped, otherwise it’ll just continue and get worse.

There is an easy way to end the war: Russian withdrawal. It really is as simple as that.

At any point in history Russian Federation had no right or business to occupy any part of Ukraine. It was up to Ukraine to decide what to do with those areas.

While we all want the war to stop, it cannot be done at any price. Ukraine must be allowed to return the areas stolen from it and Russia must return to pre 2014 borders. Either they do it willingly or with force. No one likes it, but it’s Russia that chose to attack, not Ukraine.

I hope your friends are safe, but at the same time I hope they have the sense to leave Crimea until things settle.

And let’s hope for peace, but recognize that it cannot be achieved by giving into the offender’s demands.