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Ukraine and the Russian invasion, 2022-24

So we can decry American imperialism despite it having a military which has a tendency to be slightly more left and isn't full of gun nuts?
 
Kevbad the Bad said:
Russia's ability to attack other countries has historically been limited by its geography, largely land locked, few ports which can be used all year round, vast distances internally, often crap weather.

Post WW2 it's main effort was to maintain the new status quo, i.e new boundaries, Warsaw Pact. Still shite regime, but not really expansionist.

Post USSR Putin's Russia wants to recreate that old status quo.
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not at all. who could forget the great northern war of 1700-1721? or russian troops marching through paris in 1814? and of course the 1945 campaign of the great patriotic war, and their campaign against the japanese in manchuria later that year? not to mention the successive campaigns in the caucausus and central asia, and catherine the great's wars in ukraine.

if you look at where the russian state stood before the first world war, it's much the same as where the soviet state stood after the second. so how you can say 'the ussr wasn't really expansionist' when a) it had expanded, taking such central asian polities as iirc bokhara shortly after the revolution, and b) had just grabbed er estonia, latvia, lithuania, part of finland, and much of pre-war poland, it's just bollocks - but their expansionist ambitions had been satisfied and they'd just gained a load of client states extending further west than munich
 
But why to people prioritise those motivations (of the US) over Poland's and all the other countries supporting the resistance to the invasion? It's also entirely possible that the US could be less than supportive of Ukraine, Trump would have deserted it for example, and there's a good part of the Republican party that would do the same if in power.

It's just a lazy touchstone for bits of the left just to say, "But look how bad the US is!" Lets them off actually having to politically deal with any complexities of the situation.

Will try to reply to your question about Russia and fascism The39thStep but bit short of time his week. Do you have an opinion on it, be interested to hear if so.
 
Spymaster said:
It's not about ignoring or questioning the history of the US, but the context in which you're doing it and the route you take, which manifests itself as support for Russia; which is dogshit, quite frankly.
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Yeah well we don’t agree. I think it’s worse than dogshit for people who posed as being left wing for years getting behind the US, NATO and the EU in this conflict.
 
Fez909 said:
And where does this lead? What kind of nuanced thinking do we gain from thinking about the USA's colonial history when deciding whether to 'support' Ukraine?
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the us's prehistory as british, french and spanish colonies or their actions as a colonial power like in the philippines and so on?
 
TopCat said:
Yeah well we don’t agree. I think it’s worse than dogshit for people who posed as being left wing for years getting behind the US, NATO and the EU in this conflict.
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Did that also go for you in Syria when the US and others supported the Kurdish/SDF forces against IS? You would never critically support or think any intervention by them in any way was justifiable?

Ah, he has me on ignore I think.
 
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TopCat said:
I haven’t got behind Russia. I don’t support or encourage this or any war.
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Very good for you, it's a nice and comfortable position to take. But one that's in complete denial of the reality and one that deserts people to a horrible fate while you sit back smug in your righteousness.

I mean a while ago you were saying we still owe a debt to Russia (USSR?) due to WW2, so it's hard to take your denials of being sympathetic to Russia without a raised eyebrow at the very least.
 
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LDC said:
But why to people prioritise those motivations (of the US) over Poland's and all the other countries supporting the resistance to the invasion? It's also entirely possible that the US could be less than supportive of Ukraine, Trump would have deserted it for example, and there's a good part of the Republican party that would do the same if in power.

It's just a lazy touchstone for bits of the left just to say, "But look how bad the US is!" Lets them off actually having to politically deal with any complexities of the situation.

Will try to reply to your question about Russia and fascism The39thStep but bit short of time his week. Do you have an opinion on it, be interested to hear if so.
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Ta. I do and will read and respond to your thoughts.
 
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Pickman's model said:
not at all. who could forget the great northern war of 1700-1721? or russian troops marching through paris in 1814? and of course the 1945 campaign of the great patriotic war, and their campaign against the japanese in manchuria later that year? not to mention the successive campaigns in the caucausus and central asia, and catherine the great's wars in ukraine.

if you look at where the russian state stood before the first world war, it's much the same as where the soviet state stood after the second. so how you can say 'the ussr wasn't really expansionist' when a) it had expanded, taking such central asian polities as iirc bokhara shortly after the revolution, and b) had just grabbed er estonia, latvia, lithuania, part of finland, and much of pre-war poland, it's just bollocks -
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If you choose to see Tsarist Russia and the USSR as different empires the I would see your point. I don't. The USSR for all its pretence was still the old Russian empire, just with new leadership. That's why they tried to stop the independence of the Baltic states and Finland, fought the Poles over their new borders, and refused to recognise the Romanian takeover of Bessarabia/Moldova. WW2 let them regain the Baltic states, much of Finland, Moldova. The post WW2 borders were very similar to pre WW1, a few exceptions but nothing major.
 
The39thStep said:
You can be against Russia and the invasion and still have criticism of NATO and the US without being a thinly veiled contrarian tankie though
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You can but when your only contribution to the discussion is “wow America is ramping up this war” or “god Zelensky is escalating this he should just negotiate” or “look at what the Ukrainians are up to” without any comment on the many many Russian crimes or antics it starts to look a bit iffy
 
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