I hear that Outer Manchuria is currently relatively undefended and that the current owner believes in “might makes right”.
That’s a good point. I read the op as asking why the US should intervene, and I’ve been struggling with that question (and, if I’m being honest, mostly just avoiding it, because it’s hard and i don’t think my opinion will have any influence anyway.)
But of course I CARE. And while i don’t think i know any Ukrainians, i know a lot of people who do have personal ties to Ukraine. This doesn’t feel at all distant.
What on earth leads to to think any of us didn’t? In fact, unlike this situation, where I’m mostly hiding my head in the sand, i took personal steps in several of those to attempt to alleviate some little piece of the pain.
SunSon was chatting online earlier this week with some gamers about the impending release of Elden Ring. One of them said in the chat “I won’t be able to play when it comes out Friday because I just got called up.” Yep, he’s Ukrainian. Hope and pray he’s OK.
Heck, the whole Russian Far East has an awful lot of elbow room, if you know what I mean… If Russia’s economy goes into the tank for a long time as a result of this invasion, you might have a sale to make Seward’s Folly look like a dollar-store bargain.
Outer Manchuria has not historically been part of the greater Chinese empire. Easy enough to fabricate though, and Putin has to be nervous about all the Chinese that have come to the Russian Far East in the past two decades.
China has a greater claim to Outer Mongolia. Not sure when Taiwan officially removed Mongolia from their maps of “China”. probably in the 2000’s? The official KMT map included Outer Mongolia, and IIRC some parts of the Himalayan regions that are more considered to be part of Nepal or India.
Some old maps of China, here:
I’ve started to post in this thread a few times, but I found I was too upset to be very coherent. I have two friends I’ve been worried about. One is an American who lived in Moscow before fleeing to Ukraine, where he’s lived for the last 10 years or so. I’ve heard from him. The other is Ukrainian and lives in Kyiv. I’m worried sick about her. So obviously for me, this is personal, and there are obvious reasons to care.
But I’m not the OP. I guess if we have to ask why we should care, there may be no reason sufficiently compelling. If we only care about whatever immediately affects our wallets or sits on our own doorstep, very little would convince us that the Ukraine crisis–or any crisis, no matter how intense the suffering, as long as it’s not our own–is worth caring about. We define ourselves equally by what we hold dear and what we don’t, what we’re willing to sacrifice and what we’re not.
That’s the way I see it, anyway.
Nice assumption. Try reading the OP please. Here, I’ll repeat the relevant part:
I am dubious about any conflicts that America gets into in the name of humanitarianism because our track record shows that is usually an excuse to pick a side while not caring about issues that arise when allies are involved.
When an ally such as Saudi Arabia or Israel kill people, how does the US react? Why do we respond differently?
I can care very much about all of them but also wonder why my country cares about some but not others.
So the answer is to not care about anything at all then.
I shouldn’t need to point it out, but the US position is that those people were / are still suffering under the repression of an authoritarian power. Volodomyr Zelensky ≠ Saddam Hussein, Qadaffi, Bashar Assad, the Taliban, etc.
My response to the OP that the UN Charter established the principle that national borders and political independence are inviolable by use of force:
That is a significant, major change in international law, and it has been remarkably successful, for example by the fact that this is the first major land war in Europe, designed to change boundaries by a major power, since the end of WWII. That principle has also helped to keep the peace in other parts of the world — not so much because of an “it’s the law” but because countries by and large accepted it.
There have been exceptions, of course — notably Gulf War II, and the Great Congo War. But by and large, that change in the way nations think about territorial integrity has been extremely important.
But if Putin succeeds, that principle is in major trouble, and the world becomes a much more dangerous place.
That sums it up, really.
I’ll grant the OP that the West often uses concern over human rights and atrocities selectively, as it serves their other vital interests. That’s not whataboutism; it is a lack of naivete.
“The game” between the major powers internationally, and in Europe in particular, has been one of global economic power and influence. Russia has not been winning at it (albeit before this Nord Stream was going to raise their game some). They do not have a powerful economy. They have been not only becoming the distant third superpower; they have been becoming a former superpower. But they do have a powerful land based army. If they can get a major win without offsetting major costs by saying to hell with economic tools, just take it by force, then exactly as above.
Problem is that the aftermath of this, even with some facesaving aspects, weakens their strength in the economic/diplomatic strength realm so much that they may be left as a virtual vassal state for China.
Exactly. It’s also going to redirect the US and the wests attention to Europe and Russia and away from China. That’s only natural and pretty much inevitable…but it’s going to help China and hurt Russia even more. And it’s going to make Russia more dependent on China than ever. Russia has been moving in this direction anyway, but with this…assuming Putin et al survives this…it’s going to seal the deal and make Russia fully in China’s orbit.
China and Russia are frenemies. No love lost between the two.
That’s true…to a degree. But it doesn’t really matter, to a degree. Both nations have their own goals, and both know their major goals aren’t supported by the US and its alliance system. Both see each other as a partner in this. That’s all fairly obvious, seeing how things have moved between the two countries in the last, oh, say 10-15 years, but especially in the past 5. China is also drawing Russia more tightly into its orbit, and Russia is willingly going there…mainly due to NATO, the EU, and the US. But also because Russia, in its current configuration and government, with its high levels of corruption and oligarchy structure, simply can’t compete economically. Its economy is a one-trick pony…energy exports. It needs China as a counterbalance to the west and needs China to buy its products and sell them the ones they can’t make. And, going forward, the ones they will no longer be able to buy from the west if all this sanction stuff starts to really bite.