> performing military exercises on Russia's border
The primary purpose of those exercises was to signal a strong commitment to NATO defense for the Baltics and Eastern Europe.
That seems to have been successful as Russia has not touched Poland and so the overall scope of conflict of this war was reduced to Ukraine.
> arming Ukraine with lethal weapons
This seems to also have been successful. Without those weapons, Ukraine would have been overrun and we would have seen Bucha 2.0 in Kiev.
I find it hard to believe that giving Ukraine fewer weapons would have resulted in no invasion, especially given the fact that Russia only invaded because they believed Ukraine was weak.
I do agree that this one was risky, which is why we made sure to get consent from Ukraine's democratically elected government for this policy.
> withdrawing from peace treaties
I assume this is referring to "Withdraw from the INF Treaty", which is an arms control treaty, not a peace treaty? Or is there some other treaty you are referring to? I highly doubt this has had any real effect, given that nuclear escalation is so far off the table anyways and any missiles of this variety would have been stationed in the Baltics / Poland anyways.
The US openly supported a coup in Ukraine (note the language, I did not say we executed the coup) which replaced the democratically elected pro-Russian government with a pro-Western one.
The paper explicitly calls out providing lethal aid to Ukraine as one of the highest risk actions and most directly tied to Russia feeling pressure to go further into Ukraine. It's a chicken and egg situation. Yes, the lethal aid was helpful, but would the lethal aid have been necessary if we weren't interfering so much there?
Let's not forget Operation Timber Sycamore where we did execute a coup attempt in Syria, one of Russia's biggest allies. And our dealings with Iran, another Russian ally.
We signed the Charter on Strategic Partnership signaling our intent to let Ukraine into NATO, which would obviously be a red line for Russia. The weird thing about this one is that after the invasion Zelensky revealed that publicly the US was saying Ukraine would be joining NATO but privately the US was telling Zelensky it would never happen. So it was a psyop specifically to provoke Russia.
We also pulled out of the Open Skies Treaty.
One clarification here. None of this is to say that Russia is justified in doing anything. Putin is an evil dictator. End of story. Also, the US repeatedly escalated tensions with Russia knowing that the Ukraine invasion was a likely response Russia would take.
Agreed. It’s surprising how hard it is for people to hold two corresponding ideas - Russias invasion is unjustified, and we have done little to deescalate tensions with Russia. Both can be true, and doesn’t mean we agree with either approach.
People need a simple good guy vs bad guy story. Putin is the bad guy so the US/West must be the good guy. If you start talking about how the good guy is also a bad guy who illegally invades countries and commits coups with impunity then that breaks the narrative.
>Atrocity propaganda is the spreading of information about the crimes committed by an enemy, which can be factual, but often includes or features deliberate fabrications or exaggerations.
>"So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations", wrote Harold Lasswell, "that every war must appear to be a war of defense against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about who the public is to hate."
I see a lot of people parroting Russian propaganda about democratically elected Yanukovitch. Yes, he was democratically elected, but so what? Hitler was also democratically elected. Ukrainians elected Yanukovitch and Ukrainians overthrew him. That's also democracy, literally. You can call that a coup or whatever you like it.
Also, what you call a coup did not install a new government. The parliament was still the same. All MPs who didn't flee remained MPs. Including from Yanukovitch's party and including openly pro-Russian ones.
Finally, a new president was _elected_ very shortly (given the circumstances).
No. NSDAP did not win once in free elections. He got into power only after subverting the election system in a couple of ways.
> That's also democracy, literally.
Pogroms are also democracy, literally. The majority decided that Jews ate Christian babies, and acted to end the great evil.
When we, in the so-called West that I also feel a part of, say "democracy" - we mean also the "rule of law". The idea that you can do anything as long as 50% + 1 person agrees to it is not democracy in the Western sense.
> Also, what you call a coup did not install a new government.
That only means the coup failed, not that it didn't take place.
> The parliament was still the same. All MPs who didn't flee remained MPs.
If enough MPs flee to make it impossible to govern, the Parliament should dissolve itself. Instead, it chose to remove the President using unconstitutional means. I don't know what else that Parliament did, but whatever it was, it could have waited until the elections, which would happen quickly after dissolution.
> Finally, a new president was _elected_ very shortly (given the circumstances).
Sure. Nobody says otherwise. The problem is the time between the riots and new elections. The riots that cost more than a hundred dead are also a problem. In democracy that upholds the rule of law, fighting and killing 18 police officers is a crime, no matter how morally justified it was.
Like the GP, I believe Putin is bad and Russia is an aggressor, and all of that. This war is wrong and Ukrainians are brave people. However, the Euromaidan was not a win for democracy. It was not the right thing to do in a democratic country. Here in Poland we managed to peacefully replace the communists in '89-'91. Nobody died back then. No riots happened. No violence broke out. Precisely because we aspired for democracy, even if the other side had blood of workers on their hands. If we could do that peacefully, then Ukrainians could have ousted Yanukovych without 100 people dying, and more than a thousand people getting seriously wounded. Instead, they chose to resort to violence.
I'm not pro-Russia. It would be suicidal for me to be pro-Russia. I'm not saying the current or previous governments of Ukraine are illegitimate. All I'm saying is that Euromaidan is not something anyone should be proud of. The goals do not justify the means. Killing is a crime. Violence is bad. Just because the violence was done in the name of anti-Russia sentiment does not make it less bad.
The primary purpose of those exercises was to signal a strong commitment to NATO defense for the Baltics and Eastern Europe.
That seems to have been successful as Russia has not touched Poland and so the overall scope of conflict of this war was reduced to Ukraine.
> arming Ukraine with lethal weapons
This seems to also have been successful. Without those weapons, Ukraine would have been overrun and we would have seen Bucha 2.0 in Kiev.
I find it hard to believe that giving Ukraine fewer weapons would have resulted in no invasion, especially given the fact that Russia only invaded because they believed Ukraine was weak.
I do agree that this one was risky, which is why we made sure to get consent from Ukraine's democratically elected government for this policy.
> withdrawing from peace treaties
I assume this is referring to "Withdraw from the INF Treaty", which is an arms control treaty, not a peace treaty? Or is there some other treaty you are referring to? I highly doubt this has had any real effect, given that nuclear escalation is so far off the table anyways and any missiles of this variety would have been stationed in the Baltics / Poland anyways.