How about when the confederate states wanted to leave the USA? Should the North have let the South leave?
What is the parallel to the situation in Ukraine? I’ve actually seen this argument used as well, BTW.
Oh there’s the whole de-Nazification thing too.
My mind just autorejects this stuff but I’m assuming there’s someone it resonates with.
It definitely resonates with Putin’s intended audience. There is a strong number of folks for who de-Nazification is a huge ringing bell.
The Soviet Union was a union, so is the United States. Some groups and regions didn’t like being in the USSR, just as some groups and regions have not liked being in the USA at times.
Right. But the Soviet Union basically dissolved. It would be as if the US government dissolved. That’s not what happened during the Civil War…instead, the Confederate States tried to leave the Union even though the Union was still a viable and working government. Ukraine left the USSR when the USSR was no more. And they left it without issue of the new Russian Federation…at the time.
Native Americans would probably like more of their land back. Mexico would probably like the Southwestern USA back.
Certainly they would, but, again, what is the parallel to what is happening in Ukraine? This isn’t me attacking you or the argument, just trying to understand the context. That is what this thread is about, after all.
The Union is dissolved! https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1301337
If the residents of the confederate states had, by a democratic majority, wanted to leave, then yes I think they should have been allowed. I think any geographic region that’s able to govern itself has a moral right to do so.
Of course, we know in practice that a very large number of people who lived in the confederate states were not going to get the chance to have any opinion on the matter whatsoever, so a free and open democratic decision was never going to happen.
I know that a lot of people would disagree with me on this so I’ll also point out that “people living within your government’s territory want to all opt out” is quite different to “you barge your way into somewhere you haven’t been governing and demand the right to govern it”
Ukraine didn’t, by fiat announce that the USSR had dissolved, even though they hadn’t. The Confederates pretty obviously did, and the Union took umbrage to that assertion. The USSR of course couldn’t because, well, they actually did dissolve.
And if a frog had wings it wouldn’t bump its ass hopping. I’d like a lot of things that have no relevance to Ukraine/Russia, too, while we’re at it.
USSR was still a viable and working government when cold war ended. It just took Russia 30 years to reclaim it, whereas the North reclaimed the South much sooner.
Wait, what? You think the USSR is still a viable entity today? Or even that it was when Ukraine left it??
USSR was just as viable as USA was when South left it.
No, it wasn’t. Otherwise the cold war would not have ended as it did.
You know, you can say this, you can believe it, but that by no means makes it true.
Or anywhere near fucking relevant. The USSR let its satellite states go. The US did not.
Ah, you are splitting hairs. Because Ukraine left in something like August, and the USSR officially dissolved in December. Right?
Except that the USSR was not anywhere close to viable by that point…while, pretty obviously the Union still was. That’s why there was that whole Civil War thingy…while the USSR didn’t bat an eye when Ukraine declared independence, and the follow on Russian Federation didn’t have an issue either. Until 2014.
Russia has done its fair share of invading as well. Some counties more than once.
If you would like to make a list of which nations invaded which other, when and for how long. Or where nations exchanged territory or were bought. And which large states annexed or absorbed smaller states or incorporated them into an empire or federation by treaty…Your head will soon begin to hurt.
Look at countries like Germany and Italy. They did not exist before 1871, before that they were a large number of smaller loosely associated and sometime warring small and large states. The concept of Italy is, however, ancient, going back before the Roman empire. So too with Germany. Both of these young nations have had in the twentieth century a period of extreme nationalism that looked back on history and decided that their countries should lay claim to lots of other territory by means of military invasion. Germany under the Nazis tried to ‘Germanify’ large parts of Poland whose national identity it tried to destroy. Russia under Stalin did much the same with the territories it conquered. Often transporting substantial portions of the populations of countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poles and Crimean to camps in the the furthest reaches of the Siberia.
This sad history is a bitter memory in much of central and eastern Europe. It is also a recent history. Older people still have memories of the attrocities and genocides perpetrated by the Nazis and the Soviets.
Putin and his absurd territorial claims are that nightmare come back to life. His stated intention is to eliminate Ukraine as a national identity. Everyone in the states invaded and occupied by the Russia in the twentieth century have a very vivid idea of what that means - terror.
Now it may be that there are people in some parts of the world that do not understand this because they may be unfamiliar with European history and regard this as a subject for academic argument, taking seriously Putins claims. I am sure there are debating societies in India and China full of eager young minds trying to make sense of this commotion in a corner of Europe. But it is not difficult to understand. Read some history.
Putin is an old fashioned dictator who wants to bring back Russia’s power and influence on the world. Rather than developing the economy and potential of his vast country he has squandered the income from selling Oil and Gas on this cruel invasion on a neighbouring country. Ukraine is supported by every country in Europe, because its people are fighting for the homes and their country in the face of huge invasion army led by a tryant. If he is successful, who will be next? NATO is a mutual defense treaty to stop that from happening and has preserved the peace in Europe since the end of WW2. It is an insurance policy. The EU has provided a framework for trade and economic growth that has benefited all of its members. Countries can join or leave as they wish. These organisations are not a threat to Russia. Their members are the main customers of Russia exports.
People just want to live in a normal country and get on with their lives.
It is as simple as that.
A few days ago I read a rather long but interesting article about the history between NATO, Europe, the US, and Russia:
The short version is that while Putin/Russia had no business invading Ukraine, their concerns in recent years about what NATO might/mightn’t do and any guarantees the west might offer about its intent aren’t exactly unfounded. Russia and the USSR did receive assurances that NATO wouldn’t expand eastward after 1990, but then NATO did so anyway. NATO always promoted themselves as a defensive pact, but then went on the offensive in Yugoslavia despite the latter not having attacked the former - in particular, bombing Serbs, with whom Russians feel some kinship. NATO also got involved in Libya in 2011, again despite the former not having attacked the latter.