I really don’t think the Crimean Tartars were happy about the annexation of Crimea by Russia.
During Stalin’s reign a key policy was the deportation of ethnic groups from their homeland to Siberia and their replacement with Russians. After he died, they were allowed to return, but suppressed. This happened in the Baltic states as well and it accounts for the Russian speaking populations that divide those countries.
Putin has said he plans to ‘de-Nazify’ Ukraine when he gets control of it. Presumably this means eliminating Ukrainian culture, language and national identity and replace it with Russian speaking loyalists. I imagine that dark prospect spurs on the Ukrainians to defend their country no end.
Yeah - that’s pretty much my thought. (NO - I acknowledge that equine is well deceased! :D)
There seem to be a great number of situations worldwide where an ethnic group desires a different national identity than the generally accepted regime. Compared to all such situations, this strikes me (as suggested in the sanctions thread) as not so much uniquely distinct, but instead, different in terms of “degrees.”
Gets even more complicated as we go back in time. Will we ever reach a point at which the international community unanimously agrees that annexation of territory by force is unacceptable? Or rendering an existing regime unstable?
For practical purposes, I guess all it would take is for the more powerful nations to agree, as they are the only ones able to impose their will worldwide.
Will be interesting to compare this as China extends the cow’s tongue into the S China Sea. Personally, I’m not sure I see the building up of atolls and installation of military bases as all that different than marching into a neighboring country.
I think we are already there, as by and large it really isn’t acceptable for a nation-state to annex territory from another through force of arms. Russia’s annexation of Crimea is a good case in point. It wasn’t just accepted. The US put sanctions on Russia over this and has upped them since the Obama administration, and we weren’t the only ones. The problem is…short of war, what can and should other nations do about it when it happens?
I think they mainly agree it’s not acceptable. They disagree on what can or should be done. I don’t see any way to get them to agree on a unified course. The situation going on in Ukraine is a great example. Many western nations are on board, finally, with harsh sanctions and other actions against Russia. Several countries are staying more or less neutral, not calling out the Russians, and not willing to enact any sanctions. Some countries are setting things up to help the Russians economically get around the sanctions. So, it’s a mixed bag.
It’s not, really, especially when several of their artificial islands are actually in the economic sphere or territorial waters of other nations. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to have been much if any push back on the Chinese on this. Even when the Philipines appealed to the Hague and were ruled to be in the right nothing substantial was done and China still occupies that region…and treats it like their home waters.
My impression is that as time passes, past incursions get increasingly accepted as the status quo. Those objecting get lumped with the groups stretching back to antiquity objecting to the occupation of their “homelands.”
Well, most countries still haven’t accepted Crimea as being part of Ukraine. And I seriously doubt they will accept whatever territorial gains Russia tries to annex when/if they finally ‘win’ this thing, for whatever definition of that one wants to try and make.
Yeah, me too. I honestly don’t know…there certainly is precedence for changing a UNSC member (the Republic of China booted for the Peoples’ Republic of China, for instance), but no idea if or how that relates to Russia today. I saw that there was a bipartisan congressional plan to request the Biden administration look into this as well, though to me that’s probably window dressing, as it wouldn’t be up to Biden or the US to make this decision.
Removing Russia from the UNSC because it’s not technically the USSR kinda reeks of the kind of desperation behind hopes that the 25th Amendment would get rid of Trump. Also, I don’t see much advantage in attacking Russia’s diplomatic corps. They’ve already lost the public relations battle and the West will always need Russians they can talk to in a setting that doesn’t involve a table the length of a football field.
A defeat of the Ukrainian government and occupation of the nation is inevitable. Soon enough, Putin will declare victory, and think he has it too.
The only way to beat the Russians will be to establish a government in exile, begin an insurgency and dispose the Russian government. There must be a revolution that forever ends Soviet nostalgia and revanchism.
Ukraine must become another Afghanistan or Vietnam.
I think the issue they are trying to solve here is that, if a UNSC member is involved they can simply use their vote to veto anything substantial that the UN is trying to level against them for something like this invasion. I don’t think removing Russia is the right course. What I’d say is that if a country on the UNSC is directly involved (i.e. they are the ones doing the invading), while they can vote, their single veto isn’t enough to stop the rest of the members.
I would also say that it’s time to increase the number of permanent members. And, yeah, put in some mechanism by which the members can add or remove a permanent member, and that, again, if a given country is the one under consideration, their vote doesn’t veto the combined votes of the rest.
If the Ukrainian resistance and international sanctions can make Russian victory in Ukraine costly enough, that in itself is insurance against him invading other countries.
I don’t know. The article I read says there are specific steps that are supposed to - and HAVE CONSISTENTLY been applied - when nations change. Such as Slovakia and Czech Republic being admitted as new countries - NOT successors to Czechoslovakia. And UN rejected claims by Serbia and Montenegro to be successors to Yugoslavia.
Russia informed the UN that it was taking over USSR’s obligations, debts, and privileges, and the UN simply acquiesced w/o debate. Other ex Soviet republics - like Armenia, had to apply and be accepted as new UN members. Ukraine was already a member.
Article also says China is problematic, as The Republic of China is listed as a permanent member - not the People’s Republic of China.
Just kinda interesting. Author claims that Russia is not listed as a permanent member on the UN Charter. I do note, however, that all on-line sites I checked simply list Russia and China.
And - as noted - on a practical basis, is it better to continue to engage them diplomatically, as opposed to completely isolating them.
Author Ian Hurd, Title Russia is not a member of the UN Security Council, in today’s Chicago Trib. I did not readily find a non-paywalled copy.