Russia Invades Ukraine 2022

[Ken]

In my mind, the best outcome of this war and best outcome for future world peace is if Russia is completely defeated in Ukraine. Not because Ukraine is necessarily a shining beacon of democracy or something. But because countries and leaders need to finally learn that offensive war is not the answer. But it seems we need to keep learning that lesson again and again ever couple of decades. But the historical fact is that offensive wars of choice rarely end well for the aggressor.

• In 1860 the Confederate south launched a war of choice against the United States for the purpose of defending and expanding slavery. Four years later after over a million deaths the south lay in ruins and in some ways still suffers today from their choice to go to war in 1860.
• In 1865 Paraguay insanely launched a simultaneous war against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. It became the deadliest war in Latin American history and did not end well for Paraguay, which has still not completely recovered 150 years later.
• In 1914 Germany and its allies plunged the world into war, claiming (just like Russia in 2022) that they were acting "defensively" by invading Belgium and the low countries in route to France. That war of choice did not end well for anyone, but most certainly not Germany and its allies the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Ottoman Empire.
• In 1939 Germany again chose to go to war in Poland and then later France, the UK, the USSR, and the US. That war of choice did not end well for Germany.
• In 1931 Japan launched a war of conquest against China which eventually expanded in 1941 when Japan attacked the UK and US. That war of choice did not end well for Japan.
• In 1948 Palestinian Arabs together with their Arab allies chose to go to war with Israel rather than negotiate a peaceful co-existence with their Jewish neighbors. That choice has not ended well for the Palestinians who have suffered for over 60 years for that choice.
• In the 1950s France went to war in Vietnam in an attempt to retake its former colony after Vietnam had declared its independence in the wake of Japanese withdrawal at the end of WW2. That war did not end well for France. And when the US chose to pick up the baton from France and wage another 10 years worth of war in Vietnam it did not end well for the US either.
• In 1979 the USSR chose to invade Afghanistan. That war did not end well for the USSR.
• In the 2000s the US chose to wage war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither of those wars ended well for the US and in the grand scheme of things accomplished nothing. Afghanistan is back where it started. And Iraq? What did we gain there other than destabilize the region, strengthen Iran, and probably help plunge Syria into civil war?

And here we are in 2023. Russia has somehow convinced itself that this time it will be different. We can only hope that they are wrong. Because if we live in a new world in which offensive wars of choice are rewarded we will most certainly see many many more of them. But if Russia serves as an object lesson for others, perhaps not. At least for a while anyway, until the next leader in 20 or 30 years convinces themselves that "this time it will be different"

[Soloist]

You know, we can do the exact same thing with wars fought and won despite it being aggressive and unprovoked.

[temporal1]

The RESPONSE to Russia is what inflamed the situation.
It will never be known what would have unfolded if not for immediate military response.
There may have been no shots fired.

Right....
That is the mentality of the abusive spouse: "She MADE me beat her and the kids"
"no shots fired?"

Russia has been firing shots and using cluster munitions against civilians in Ukraine since 2014. You have had 9 years to protest the use of cluster munitions in Ukraine. This war did not start in 2022. It started in 2014. Russia simply chose to ESCALATE and EXPAND their ongoing war in 2022.

Before this thread, on MD and MN, i understood Christian COs to take the stance of Jesus Christ, to return hate with love.
Love is a high bar. In the least, not to return fire for fire, “eye for an eye,” etc. Not Just War.

Understanding, secular governments do not operate according to Jesus Christ.

So, no. Don’t throw out pathetic arguments of spousal abuse while smugly patting yourself on the back.
You are not there. Not close.

[Josh]

But because countries and leaders need to finally learn that offensive war is not the answer. But it seems we need to keep learning that lesson again and again ever couple of decades.

Do you really think losing one war is somehow going to reverse the history of the last 6,000 years of human beings choosing violence instead of choosing God's path of peace?

But the historical fact is that offensive wars of choice rarely end well for the aggressor.

Unless you're the biggest and toughest on the block, like the USA and its allies.

[*]In 1948 Palestinian Arabs together with their Arab allies chose to go to war with Israel rather than negotiate a peaceful co-existence with their Jewish neighbors. That choice has not ended well for the Palestinians who have suffered for over 60 years for that choice.

This is a bit of revisionist history. Before 1948, there wasn't even a state of Israel; a bunch of people simply moved in and stole land from the Palestinians who had lived there for generations. I would consider that war to be a war of self-defence. What do you expect people to do when they are suddenly kicked out of their land and homes, which has still not been rectified to the present day and plenty of neutral independent international observers have called for this?

[temporal1]

HAIR TRIGGER

hair trig·ger
/ˈher ˌtriɡər/
noun
noun: hair trigger; plural noun: hair triggers; noun: hairtrigger; plural noun: hairtriggers

*a trigger of a firearm set for release at the slightest pressure.*

*liable to change suddenly and violently*.

modifier noun: hair-trigger
"a hair-trigger temper"

i don’t recall in my lifetime, or in U.S. history, when violent+immediate response compares with Ukraine. i don’t presume this is a conflict with any innocents involved (regarding leadership). innocents on both sides pay the highest prices. (i admired) my mother’s empathy for Russian ordinary people in The Cold War, when most were hating everything-USSR.

the lack of any talk of resolution is unnerving.

i can’t shake my unwillingness to see this in black+white. doing so strikes me as coldly simplistic.
i have a poor view of military profiteers, who may have felt they suffered a costly setback, 2016-2020. now trying to make up for lost time? (not just in Ukraine!) the world now has a number of violent hot-spots, domestic U.S. is peppered with violent crime.

war is wanted. peace: a hard NO.

[mike]

In my mind, the best outcome of this war and best outcome for future world peace is if Russia is completely defeated in Ukraine.

Some questions in my mind.

If there is a negotiated settlement and Russia retains some or all of the Ukrainian territory it already holds, what would be the future of Ukraine-Russia relations and the likelihood of future conflicts?

If the war ends with the Ukraine regaining all its lost territory and Russia agreeing to a peace settlement, what would be the future of Ukraine-Russia relations and the likelihood of future conflicts?

If the war ends with the Ukraine militarily destroying Russia and exacting territorial, financial, or other concessions, what would be the future of Ukraine-Russia relations and the likelihood of future conflicts?

[Szdfan]

In my mind, the best outcome of this war and best outcome for future world peace is if Russia is completely defeated in Ukraine.

Some questions in my mind.

If there is a negotiated settlement and Russia retains some or all of the Ukrainian territory it already holds, what would be the future of Ukraine-Russia relations and the likelihood of future conflicts?

If the war ends with the Ukraine regaining all its lost territory and Russia agreeing to a peace settlement, what would be the future of Ukraine-Russia relations and the likelihood of future conflicts?

If the war ends with the Ukraine militarily destroying Russia and exacting territorial, financial, or other concessions, what would be the future of Ukraine-Russia relations and the likelihood of future conflicts?

These are really good questions. I’m not sure I know the answer to that. I suspect that Russian-Ukrainian relations will be tense for the next generation or two.

Germany has good relationships today with its neighbors because it accepted responsibility for its actions during WWII.

[Ken]

In my mind, the best outcome of this war and best outcome for future world peace is if Russia is completely defeated in Ukraine.

Some questions in my mind.

If there is a negotiated settlement and Russia retains some or all of the Ukrainian territory it already holds, what would be the future of Ukraine-Russia relations and the likelihood of future conflicts?

If the war ends with the Ukraine regaining all its lost territory and Russia agreeing to a peace settlement, what would be the future of Ukraine-Russia relations and the likelihood of future conflicts?

If the war ends with the Ukraine militarily destroying Russia and exacting territorial, financial, or other concessions, what would be the future of Ukraine-Russia relations and the likelihood of future conflicts?

Since WW2 there have been exceedingly few wars of territorial conquest.

Iraq's attempted conquest of Kuwait in 1990
Israel's settlements in the occupied territories in recent decades
And now Russia's attempted conquest and annexation of Ukraine

Most other wars have been civil wars of some sort (Korea and Vietnam and most African wars) or political interventions of some sort (Afghanistan for both the US and USSR, Iraq war, all the Central American wars, etc.). Plus most of the other Russian interventions around its periphery such as in Georgia and Armenia.

I think the question to ask with respect to Ukraine is not what sort of territorial settlement is ultimately attained. Whether Ukraine recovers all of its pre-2014 territory or something less than that is not really the important question.

I think the question to ask is what sort of post-war security arrangements will insure that we don't see a repeat of 2022. Ukraine clearly believes that this means joining NATO. And they are probably right. Russia didn't invade Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, or any other NATO country. They invaded a non-NATO country on their border. Long neutral Finland and Sweden took notice and quickly joined NATO so as not to be next.

So what kind of permanent security arrangement can be put into place such that Ukraine and its neighbors can live in peace? Most definitely not some sort of frozen conflict in which an armistice line is drawn and both sides continue to arm and fortify themselves for the next go-around. Ukraine clearly does not trust Russia which has violated the Budapest agreements of 1993 in which Ukraine agreed to give up nuclear weapons in exchange for security agreements from both Russia and NATO that its territorial integrity would not be violated.

What would a frozen conflict look like in which Ukraine is basically left on its own to defend against some future Russian invasion? Probably one in which Ukraine fast-tracks nuclear weapons development as the only means to deter future Russian invasion. Ukraine has a lot of former Soviet weapons scientists and lots of nuclear facilities. Plus lots of missile technology. It would probably not take them long to go nuclear. And no doubt other states in the region or around the world from Taiwan to Saudi Arabia and Iran will take notice. Will that produce a safer world? I expect not.

So I think the actual final borders are not really the real issue. The real issue is what kind of future alliance and security structure will be put into place to prevent a repeat. That is where the touch negotiations and decisions will be made. Ukraine clearly thinks that means joining NATO. If Russia doesn't want Ukraine in NATO then Russia will have to propose and alternative in which Ukraine feels equally secure without NATO and I frankly don't know what that would look like since Russia has proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted. Maybe some complete demilitarization of the region? I have no idea. But I suspect Russia is going to be utterly unwilling to come up with any sort of proposals that would provide Ukraine with the same security as joining NATO. And absent that, this war really isn't going to ever end. It may go cold for a period, but it won't end. Both sides will continue to rearm and prepare for the next round.

[Josh]

Helpful chart:



The West has lost its influence on the majority of the world.

[Ken]

The RESPONSE to Russia is what inflamed the situation.
It will never be known what would have unfolded if not for immediate military response.
There may have been no shots fired.

Right....
That is the mentality of the abusive spouse: "She MADE me beat her and the kids"
"no shots fired?"

Russia has been firing shots and using cluster munitions against civilians in Ukraine since 2014. You have had 9 years to protest the use of cluster munitions in Ukraine. This war did not start in 2022. It started in 2014. Russia simply chose to ESCALATE and EXPAND their ongoing war in 2022.

Before this thread, on MD and MN, i understood Christian COs to take the stance of Jesus Christ, to return hate with love.
Love is a high bar. In the least, not to return fire for fire, “eye for an eye,” etc. Not Just War.

Understanding, secular governments do not operate according to Jesus Christ.

So, no. Don’t throw out pathetic arguments of spousal abuse while smugly patting yourself on the back.
You are not there. Not close.

In the history of Christianity probably less than 1% of Christians ever truly took a path of non-resistance and pacifism. Certainly not since the time of Constantine. Even during WW2 when there were clear pathways for Christians to do alternative service, less than 1% actually did do. During WW2 only about 12,000 conscientious objectors from historic peace churches (Mennonites, Quakers, Brethren, Amish) did alternative service. I think it is the case that far more Mennonite men simply took agricultural exemptions from service. That is what my Grandfather and his brothers did. Because there were far more than 12,000 young men of draft age in peace churches from 1941 to 1945. Also many simply served in the military. I had great uncles on both sides of my family who served in the war. It was just sort of not talked about and brushed under the table.

Russia is the aggressor here and has been since 2014. The place for Christian pacifists to witness against this war is outside the walls of the Kremlin. That is where the decisions about war and peace are actually being made. I don't see anyone doing that.

And yes, we do know EXACTLY what would have happened if no one in Ukraine had resisted Russian invasion. Their war plans and objectives were all spelled out and have been made public. Their objective was nothing short of genocide:

Mass executions of Ukrainian dissidents
Mass deportations of Ukrainians to gulags inside Russia
Eradication of Ukrainian language and culture
Mass expropriation of Ukrainian property (farms, factories, properties) by Russian oligarchs and companies that they control
Annexation of Ukraine into a new Russian state of "Southern Rus"

All of this has since been revealed through captured documents and such. And Russian state-run media has been open about these objectives since the start of the war. And it is also what they have been doing in the lands that they have occupied. For example: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-fake-re ... 28617.html