# Russia has invaded Ukraine. How will the West respond? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Tags:** ukraine-invasion\ **Created:** [February 28, 2014, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513 "2014-02-28T15:06:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 98
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1941 "2014-03-26T19:31:29Z")
Obama at his European press conference: Russia is a regional power … A power that has the ability to rain down nuclear warheads on the US is not a regional power, however comforting it might be to think so. Dissing the Russians isn’t going to help things at all. ---
**Author:** ![Falesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Falesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falesh)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1942 "2014-03-26T21:08:32Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > The transfer was about as orderly and legal as you can expect in today’s world. I was rather impressed, really. It was certainly orderly due to the overwhelming presence of Russian troops. But legal? Do you seriously believe that to make an annexation legal all you need to do is hold a spontaneous referendum and get the right result, which you are certain to get since you are currently occupying said country? ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1943 "2014-03-26T21:59:53Z")
> [@Falesh](#): > > It was certainly orderly due to the overwhelming presence of Russian troops. But legal? Do you seriously believe that to make an annexation legal all you need to do is hold a spontaneous referendum and get the right result, which you are certain to get since you are currently occupying said country? Well, that’s one possible way to describe it, but if one takes the history and context into account, I really can’t see that any crime is being committed in this case. In a lot of the debate, I’m detecting an undertone of “well, maybe it should be part of Russia… but Putin better not think about trying anything else.” There’s no perfect course of action, and it may be sneaky, but that doesn’t make it wrong - it’s certainly better than civil war or some interminable drawn-out nonsense coordinated from Belgium. And one could just as easily question the legality of the new Ukrainian government. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1944 "2014-03-26T22:10:37Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Some did, yes, but it’s dwarfed by Russia’s wrongdoing. What did some Crimeans do wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Falesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Falesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falesh)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1945 "2014-03-26T22:42:56Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > Well, that’s one possible way to describe it, but if one takes the history and context into account, I really can’t see that any crime is being committed in this case. In a lot of the debate, I’m detecting an undertone of “well, maybe it should be part of Russia… but Putin better not think about trying anything else.” > > There’s no perfect course of action, and it may be sneaky, but that doesn’t make it wrong - it’s certainly better than civil war or some interminable drawn-out nonsense coordinated from Belgium. And one could just as easily question the legality of the new Ukrainian government. If you want history then what do you say about the [polls prior to the invasion](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/many-signs-pointed-to-crimea-independence-vote-but-polls-didnt/) showing that Crimea didn’t particularly want to leave Ukraine? Besides what has history got to do with depriving the people of a country a free and fair say about their future? Should any country gain the right to invade another if they can point to borders being different in the past? And why do you think there would have been be civil war if Russia didn’t annex Crimea? There are certainly fair questions to ask about the legality of the new Ukrainian government, however they are holding elections in May where the populous as a whole will be able to elect who this wish. Is Crimea going to rejoin Ukraine then have a few months of campaigning followed by a free and properly monitored referendum? ---
**Author:** ![Batistuta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58956e/32.png) [@Batistuta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batistuta)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1946 "2014-03-26T22:47:44Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Obama at his European press conference: Russia is a regional power … > > A power that has the ability to rain down nuclear warheads on the US is not a regional power, however comforting it might be to think so. Dissing the Russians isn’t going to help things at all. However, I think the general point is correct. Russia is a regional power, in that it can only really affect what happens near its borders. Of course, Russia is also a huge country which means that its ‘area of influence’ stretches from eastern Europe to the Middle East to eastern Asia. But ask in sub-Saharan Africa, or Western Europe, or South America, or South-East Asia, and I’m pretty sure that people care more about the USA than about Russia. The way I see it, there is only one global power today and that is the USA. China is slowly rising to that level, while the USA is simultaneously falling. Russia might be able to send nuclear warheads on the USA, but arguably so could 3 or 4 other countries on the planet, and that doesn’t make them global superpowers. ---
**Author:** ![Batistuta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58956e/32.png) [@Batistuta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batistuta)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1947 "2014-03-26T22:50:25Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > And one could just as easily question the legality of the new Ukrainian government. Sure. Which is why there will be a free and fair election in two months’ time, to give Ukraine a legal and legitimate government. The way things go in Russia, there are a few generations of Crimeans who might not see another free and fair election. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1948 "2014-03-26T23:01:07Z")
> [@Falesh](#): > > If you want history then what do you say about the [polls prior to the invasion](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/many-signs-pointed-to-crimea-independence-vote-but-polls-didnt/) showing that Crimea didn’t particularly want to leave Ukraine? Polls conducted by the “Kiev International Institute of Sociology”? Forgive me but that’s not particularly compelling evidence. I think the Crimean voting patterns from the last election are a lot more telling. > [@Falesh](#): > > Besides what has history got to do with depriving the people of a country a free and fair say about their future? Should any country gain the right to invade another if they can point to borders being different in the past? And why do you think there would have been be civil war if Russia didn’t annex Crimea? By “history” I’m not talking about borders, I meant that the Crimeans are an ethnically and culturally Russian enclave. It’s not a big stretch to imagine that Crimeans would have better personal and professional prospects inside Russia than in this new version of Ukraine. > [@Falesh](#): > > There are certainly fair questions to ask about the legality of the new Ukrainian government, however they are holding elections in May where the populous as a whole will be able to elect who this wish. Is Crimea going to rejoin Ukraine then have a few months of campaigning followed by a free and properly monitored referendum? Sure, maybe history will prove me wrong and it will appear in retrospect to be an unfair land grab. But I try to judge each dispute individually and in this case I’m just not seeing it. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1949 "2014-03-26T23:01:56Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Indeed, you still haven’t answered the question; why does the U.S. doing bad things to weak countries justify, in any way, Russia doing bad things to weak countries? Russia did nothing bad to Crimea. It assisted Crimea in its bid to separate from Ukraine due to the violent removal of the elected head of state. The badness started when Crimea was deprived, by illegal and violence driven means, of a say in their future as and security as part of Ukraine. I can’t think of any reason Russia should have refused requests for military intervention when they were asked for it. Perhaps they should have told the Crimeans they can’t assist because it will upset some fella goes by the name Human Action who sits in that country that invaded Iraq 11 years ago but has never been sanctioned or penalized for that violation of international law and probably never will. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1950 "2014-03-26T23:10:14Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > It’s a scary thought, but maybe Ukraine \*needs \*to fight a war against Russia in order to define itself as a country. Most nation-states are born in war. I think that only helps if Ukraine wins. What do you think are the odds? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1951 "2014-03-26T23:14:05Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > The transfer was about as orderly and legal as you can expect in today’s world. I was rather impressed, really. No, it was about as orderly and legal as you can expect without international election-monitors in a disputed territory occupied by foreign troops and internally divided nearly to the point of civil war. Big difference. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1952 "2014-03-26T23:17:24Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Obama at his European press conference: Russia is a regional power … > > A power that has the ability to rain down nuclear warheads on the US is not a regional power, however comforting it might be to think so. Dissing the Russians isn’t going to help things at all. In military terms, global reach is not the ability to destroy distant territory but to plant a teenager with a rifle on it. Russia can’t do that to nearly the same extent the U.S. can. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1953 "2014-03-26T23:19:55Z")
> [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > What did some Crimeans do wrong? If it was Crimeans who armed themselves and took over the Parliament building, that was wrong. Ignoring the Constitutional process to secede in favor of a farcical referendum, if that choice was freely made by Crimeans, was wrong. Lastly, those Crimeans who engaged in fistfights and threw bottles were in the wrong. > [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > Perhaps they should have told the Crimeans they can’t assist because it will upset some fella goes by the name Human Action who sits in that country that invaded Iraq 11 years ago but has never been sanctioned or penalized for that violation of international law and probably never will. If it’s all the same to you, leave me out of these substance-free summary rants of yours. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1954 "2014-03-26T23:41:45Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I think that only helps if Ukraine wins. Does it? Why do you think the Australians celebrate their defeat at Gallipoli? Because that’s when they became a nation. Hell, losing to Israel basically created Arab nationalism from scratch. You don’t have to win a war for it to bring your country together, so long as your country survives at the end. It seems, though, that the Ukrainians aren’t interested in fighting. Shame - I ,mean, at least they could have scuttled that submarine. And it’s not as if any other country is going to fight for a country that won’t even fight for itself. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1955 "2014-03-27T00:04:12Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > Polls conducted by the “Kiev International Institute of Sociology”? Forgive me but that’s not particularly compelling evidence. . . . Just having “Kiev” in their name means they’re biased to the degree of academic corruption? ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1956 "2014-03-27T00:23:37Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Just having “Kiev” in their name means they’re biased to the degree of academic corruption? OK, it was a cheap shot. :o BUT - in the byzantine world of Eastern Europe, you’ll find that every faction has a small army of academics and intellectuals churning out propaganda, so one is probably better off taking these kinds of things with a grain of salt. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1957 "2014-03-27T00:55:43Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Does it? > > Why do you think the Australians celebrate their defeat at Gallipoli? My guess is, because they’re still a lot more like the Brits than we won’t-tolerate-a-loser Yanks are. From [_The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius,_](http://georgeorwellnovels.com/essays/the-lion-and-the-unicorn-socialism-and-the-english-genius/) by George Orwell (1941): > [@](#): > > The gentleness of the English civilization is perhaps its most marked characteristic. You notice it the instant you set foot on English soil. It is a land where the bus conductors are good-tempered and the policemen carry no revolvers. In no country inhabited by white men is it easier to shove people off the pavement. And with this goes something that is always written off by European observers as ‘decadence’ or hypocrisy, the English hatred of war and militarism. It is rooted deep in history, and it is strong in the lower-middle class as well as the working class. Successive wars have shaken it but not destroyed it. Well within living memory it was common for ‘the redcoats’ to be booed at in the streets and for the landlords of respectable public houses to refuse to allow soldiers on the premises. In peace time, even when there are two million unemployed, it is difficult to fill the ranks of the tiny standing army, which is officered by the country gentry and a specialized stratum of the middle class, and manned by farm labourers and slum proletarians. The mass of the people are without military knowledge or tradition, and their attitude towards war is invariably defensive. No politician could rise to power by promising them conquests or military ‘glory’, no Hymn of Hate has ever made any appeal to them. In the last war the songs which the soldiers made up and sang of their own accord were not vengeful but humorous and mock-defeatist\*. The only enemy they ever named was the sergeant-major. > > - For example: > ‘I don’t want to join the bloody Army, > I don’t want to go unto the war; > I want no more to roam, > I’d rather stay at home, > Living on the earnings of a whore. > > But it was not in that spirit that they fought. (Orwell’s footnote.) > > In England all the boasting and flag-wagging, the ‘Rule Britannia’ stuff, is done by small minorities. The patriotism of the common people is not vocal or even conscious. They do not retain among their historical memories the name of a single military victory. English literature, like other literatures, is full of battle-poems, but it is worth noticing that the ones that have won for themselves a kind of popularity are always a tale of disasters and retreats. There is no popular poem about Trafalgar or Waterloo, for instance. Sir John Moore’s army at Corunna, fighting a desperate rearguard action before escaping overseas (just like Dunkirk!) has more appeal than a brilliant victory. The most stirring battle-poem in English is about a brigade of cavalry which charged in the wrong direction. And of the last war, the four names which have really engraved themselves on the popular memory are Mons, Ypres, **Gallipoli** and Passchendaele, every time a disaster. The names of the great battles that finally broke the German armies are simply unknown to the general public. No one would say that about Americans – we tend to remember battles like Yorktown and San Juan Hill, the Bulge and Iwo Jima, American victories. (I’d have added “Gettysburg” but the Civil War is a bit trickier, every battle being both an American victory and an American defeat, as is the nature of civil wars.) > [@Alessan](#): > > Hell, losing to Israel basically created Arab nationalism from scratch. Did it? I thought Arab nationalism went back at least to the time of Lawrence of Arabia. ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1958 "2014-03-27T01:01:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That would be unwise of them, since each group is a numerical minority within Crimea, and if they join forces they’re still a minority. And…? If you are going to ethnically cleansed from your home (in the Tartars case, yet again) do you wait for it to happen? Or do you make the people involved think very hard before they start something which they may not win? Sorry, but I see Russia opening up yet another front in its on-going battle with Islam. And as we (the US) have learned in Afghanistan, you cannot beat a religion. You can, at best, call it a draw. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1959 "2014-03-27T01:04:46Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > OK, it was a cheap shot. :o BUT - in the byzantine world of Eastern Europe, you’ll find that every faction has a small army of academics and intellectuals churning out propaganda, so one is probably better off taking these kinds of things with a grain of salt. So, completely unlike the U.S. in that respect? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2014, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513/1960 "2014-03-27T01:06:36Z")
> [@nevadaexile](#): > > And…? > If you are going to ethnically cleansed from your home (in the Tartars case, yet again) do you wait for it to happen? What makes you think it’s going to happen? Putin is no Stalin, whatever else he might be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513.md?page=97) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-has-invaded-ukraine-how-will-the-west-respond/682513.md?page=99)