The Russians are violating an agreement. When a party leaves an agreement, there is no longer an agreement. It is impractical for one party to abide by this specific agreement when that party suffers death as a result.
No, that is not an excuse to do things like use poison gas, biological weapons or child soldiers. All that does is make things worse. It eventually leads to a nuclear weapon. I’m not sure why you don’t see where escalation leads.
I have not suggested any of those actions at all. Also, we are in disagreement about the threat of Putin’s ancient nuclear armament which has been maintained by notorious black-market scalpers for the past 50+ years.
You have not. You have suggested that war crimes are acceptable. All of those things are war crimes. Escalation to making war crimes acceptable make those things acceptable.
And it’s nice of you to be willing to sacrifice Kyiv because you don’t think any of Putin’s nukes work. I imagine Zelensky (and most of the rest of the Ukrainian population) don’t feel like that’s a risk that’s worth taking.
That’s a risk they are taking by fighting Putin at all. He’s drawn numerous lines in the sand using the threat of nuking Kyiv, all (or most) of which have been crossed. That’s why he’s escalated to threatening Europe and the West. Even he is not confident in his arsenal.
I concede that it is more wise to not push to the point of finding out if possible, but I do not believe bending to or negotiating with Putin would be useful in making Ukraine whole again. I also don’t think maintaining our current milquetoast approach to defending Ukraine is going to be effective either. I’m mostly in agreement with your positions, I’m just not in absolute agreement. I think a dramatic and swift action against Putin himself (a probable violation of Hague Conventions) would be an effective approach to ending the invasion.
I will hold my tongue on some other violations of international rules because they are vicious and I would (like most people) prefer we avoid them if possible. But, I think it would be an error to remove all such options dogmatically. I think Putin (and Russia at large) should be put on notice that when they refuse to play by the rules, the rules may be suspended in actions against them.
The allies were able to fight the Nazis without becoming the Nazis.
Agreed. I think that level of aggression is needed to solve this issue as well. We aren’t doing that, though. We are supporting Kyiv just enough to survive while the enemy ignores rule after rule against them.
“They’re committing war crimes, so we’re committing war crimes” is a bad strategy that only leads to escalation.
The Russians are violating an agreement. When a party leaves an agreement, there is no longer an agreement. It is impractical for one party to abide by this specific agreement when that party suffers death as a result.
No, that is not an excuse to do things like use poison gas, biological weapons or child soldiers. All that does is make things worse. It eventually leads to a nuclear weapon. I’m not sure why you don’t see where escalation leads.
I have not suggested any of those actions at all. Also, we are in disagreement about the threat of Putin’s ancient nuclear armament which has been maintained by notorious black-market scalpers for the past 50+ years.
You have not. You have suggested that war crimes are acceptable. All of those things are war crimes. Escalation to making war crimes acceptable make those things acceptable.
And it’s nice of you to be willing to sacrifice Kyiv because you don’t think any of Putin’s nukes work. I imagine Zelensky (and most of the rest of the Ukrainian population) don’t feel like that’s a risk that’s worth taking.
That’s a risk they are taking by fighting Putin at all. He’s drawn numerous lines in the sand using the threat of nuking Kyiv, all (or most) of which have been crossed. That’s why he’s escalated to threatening Europe and the West. Even he is not confident in his arsenal.
I concede that it is more wise to not push to the point of finding out if possible, but I do not believe bending to or negotiating with Putin would be useful in making Ukraine whole again. I also don’t think maintaining our current milquetoast approach to defending Ukraine is going to be effective either. I’m mostly in agreement with your positions, I’m just not in absolute agreement. I think a dramatic and swift action against Putin himself (a probable violation of Hague Conventions) would be an effective approach to ending the invasion.
I will hold my tongue on some other violations of international rules because they are vicious and I would (like most people) prefer we avoid them if possible. But, I think it would be an error to remove all such options dogmatically. I think Putin (and Russia at large) should be put on notice that when they refuse to play by the rules, the rules may be suspended in actions against them.
There is a massive gulf between not bending or negotiating and committing war crimes.
The allies were able to fight the Nazis without becoming the Nazis.
Agreed. I think that level of aggression is needed to solve this issue as well. We aren’t doing that, though. We are supporting Kyiv just enough to survive while the enemy ignores rule after rule against them.
Okay, but that’s a different subject. This started with the suggestion that if Russia is committing war crimes, Ukraine should as well.