Nobody interested in the Russia-Ukraine conflict?

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A short version of our circular argument:

Me: The war in Ukraine is a war between Russian imperialism and Ukrainian freedom-valuing culture.
Mikah: No, it's an elaborate USA plot.
Me: I've personally encountered both imperialism in Russia and love for freedom among Ukrainians.
Mikah: They were manipulated by USA propaganda.
Me: It's been like that for centuries, even before USA started to exist (a couple of Wikipedia links on history of the region)
Mikah: You are wrong because you are manipulated by Western media.
Kraftie: USA would be perfectly happy without this war.
Mikah: Kraftie is also wrong.

It is pretty simple in this one respect.

If the US wanted (and was the concerned, moralising third party observer that kraftie likes to envision), they could force both sides to the table and hammer out a peace agreement that involved Ukraine remaining a neutral buffer state. They could guarantee that neutral status with the threat of their own military intervention. Conflict ends, Ukrainians and Russians stop dying. Done deal. Ukraine could probably even get back all of its territory, even Crimea, if there were a clause that guaranteed Russian access to Sevastopol forever. Ukraine might even apply for Swiss-style treaty-by-treaty membership in the EU, everything prior to 2014 points to the Russians barely caring about the economic set up of Ukraine as long as there were no military clauses in the agreement.

But the US doesn't want to do that. They are willing to grind every Ukrainian man, woman and child into the ground just to stick it to Russia. Much like someone else I know.

And then deal with really bad protests in the NATO eastern flank, possibly a collapse of NATO.
Forcing Ukraine to withdraw from democracy.
Russians keep trying to make Ukraine their puppet, Ukrainians keep rebelling and dying.
That's completely Sweet Dreams, dear. What would actually happen: Russians keep trying to make Ukraine a puppet without an identity, Ukrainians keep rebelling and dying.
USA won't do that because on-the-ground realities make it impossible without conquering Russia first.

Sort of. I certainly believe: No USA meddling = no war in this case.



Not directly against your acquaintances.



I believe I said it had been subsumed into this larger conflict, as it has been before.



Yes, well. Kraftie, nice as he is, is usually wrong.

^correct. It was expedient, in general, at the time, for the US to back off.

I see it's your dogma.

Then why can't you believe a lot of people simply are like that?

"Before"?
Anyway, how in your opinion this larger conflict would look like today if USA did not exist?

Just as you are always right, I guess? Especially on topics that are far away enough from you and people and places you've never seen?

Ukraine would have a de-facto defensive pact from the US or even better a three way defensive pact with Russia promising to also defend Ukraine from a third party - its only fair if they want a buffer state. It would however be a pact that didn't allow foreign troops or weapons placed in Ukraine. There is no reason why this would cause a collapse of NATO, nor protests, being a sort of NATO-lite agreement for the borderlands.



They would have no reason to - their concerns would be satisfied. This is the true circular argument we keep having, magz:

Mikah: says anything.
magz: Russians are not reasonable humans with real interests, they are demented orcs who act only like the most absurd comic book villains.



It's in line with Russian demands pre-2014 and actions post Soviet collapse. The only way it doesn't happen is if the domestic situation in Russia is out of control. It would normally be an easy win to sell though.

Why would Russia have a right to dictate what Ukraine is?
No foreign troops or weapons can be agreed within NATO membership.

No. They are nationalist imperialists (not all of course but many enough) living in a system of dictatorship and systematic corruption - for some reason unable to sustain anything different for the last 500 years. Independent Ukraine spoils them a beloved narrative of Great Russia, an important part of their culture.

The reason you're asking for: Ukrainians don't accept living in a Russian-style dictatorship.

If domestic situation in Russia was different, there might have not been that war - that I can accept.

I'm perfectly prepared to believe it I just don't think it matters much. Most Americans are perfectly nice like kraftie, but it has very little bearing on how the American government acts abroad and at home, even though it is supposed to be a democracy.



I'd need more info to guess at that. What does the world look like without a USA? A singular world power or is it multipolar? Did the USA disappear just now or did it never exist? If it was the latter, I think Ukraine would be an unwilling German (not necessarily Nazi German) colony.



I'm a pessimist and I usually am, much to my despair.

So you admit it might be true that we have two neighbouring nations with fundamentally incompatibile political cultures, one of them trying to dictate the other how to live - and still believe war between them would be impossible without a particular distant third party making an elaborate plot?

USA disappeared 15 years ago, without any big bang. Just went for holidays or started a perfectly isolationist policy.

There is certainly a strong "isolationist" component in the American psyche----unless their interests are threatened.

I don't feel there is much of a vested interest in the Ukrainian region which would induce the US (or NATO) to seek an active role in the region.

No, Russians certainly are not all "orcs." I've met a lot of nice Russians in my time. I enjoy Russian history and Russian novels. Putin is another matter. He has the notion that he wants to be the leader of a "Pan-Russia," and that the former "satellites" of the USSR are a threat to this ambition should they take a "western" stance on things. So Putin creates justifications for invading one of those "satellites," such as the "presence of Nazis" and the notion that should Ukraine join NATO, that Ukraine (and NATO) become an imminent threat to Russia. So here we are: the 2022 chapter of the Russian-Ukrainian War.

I feel, if Russia didn't invade Ukraine, that it would probably have realized most of its ambitions in Ukraine through less direct means---and, aside from a few diplomatic communiques and such, the US and NATO would have actually done very little in a substantive sense to oppose this.

When it comes to things like security guarantees and Russian minority rights - certainly.
But imperial ambitions - that's another matter. Rebuilding the past glory of Great Russia can't be achieved with peaceful means, not when former parts of this empire know what it means in practice.

Yep....you're probably right....Putin just might have found some other pretext....

Like a one hat alien race from a sci-fi show.



I had to think about it for a bit. I think Ukraine would be halfway in the EU, probably fully integrated economically, but not fully in other areas. They'd have special arrangements and treaties with Russia on military matters. I can also foresee a free(ish) trade arrangement between Russia and the EU too - mainly to facilitate trade across Ukraine and avoid too much of a trade border issue. I bring this up because Putin was once asked about Ukraine in the EU - he wasn't particularly hostile to the idea just a bit concerned about how it might affect Russia's trade with Ukraine. One such potential fix briefly explored was a pre-emptive trade agreement between the EU and Russia that allowed Ukraine to join the EU without too much disruption.

My thinking:

- USA gone 15 years ago so EU still exists pretty much in its current form (The EU we know is very much an American project - the whole thing started with the CIA). Although it is partly sustained by US diplomatic pressures (recall f.e. Obama's intervention in Brexit) - I think there is enough momentum for it inside Europe (though not the UK) that it would remain without the US.

- US foreign policy towards Europe/Eurasia is same one we had for centuries - make sure no one power dominates. Their greatest fear is a healthy German-Russian relationship. Without the US I assume that is exactly what happens.

- No USA then no North Atlantic Antagonism Organisation. One more Russian problem gone.

- Germany dominates Europe, America or no America - and they still do so reasonably peacefully through the EU. But now without the US hissing poison in their ears. Being Germans they are always looking to expand Eastwards, but modern Germans have no interest in doing so by military means. So yeah, they expand through the EU but without the American monkey on their back trying to antagonise or neutralise Russia by inserting military clauses into EU treaties and no concurrent NATO expansion.

This sounds particularly happy and soppy, I should add some gloom. I don't think the EU in our world or this alternate one will last forever and many that joined will eventually regret where it leads them. But it is certainly a happier scenario than Ukraine currently enjoys.

I understand the historical nazis also never existed because what they did was too cartoonishly evil?

How about all the countries between Germany and Russia who have very bad experiences with the two? Silenced and put into submission?
Is Russia in your scenario a reasonably functioning democracy, not a state founded on systematic corruption and poisoning opposition activists? Are there no imperialist sentiments there? No system of penal colonies rebuilt?
Does Wagner Group exist in your scenario?

You know, theories are worth as much as predictions they can give.

So, predict something based on your theory (USA to blame for this conflict) that wouldn't fit my theory (Russia trying to restore their empire to blame for this conflict). And let's look whose predictions turn out more accurate.

That's how we check who's right in Physics.

My prediction: when Ukraine secures their borders or when Putin dies, Russia collapses internally because of mass dissatisfaction. Either they become an extremely repressive regime or they plunge into chaos. I don't know what would be born from this chaos because that would depend on many external factors. Chances are - another secret-police-founded dictatorship full of alcoholism and corruption, because that's been the rule of thumb for the last 500 years. Other options would include splitting, i.e. Dagestan+Chechnya forming an islamist republic we won't like and China giving puppet independence for parts of Syberia. Maybe some part of Russia would become an emerging democracy, I would expect Petersburg to be the most likely center of it.
And Belarus would follow Ukraine with some 10 years' delay and without the war.