The Ukraine War

A survey of issues:

• Buffers/the threat of proximity in age of ICBMs and MAD
• Soft power effectiveness
• Escalation/bluffing/appeasement
• Means-end reasoning at collective/state scale; Putin’s aims
• Just wars; consistency of principles, rhetoric and realpolitik
• Third-party intervention
• Secession

• Biased news. “Hear the other side”, eg Early on, western media neglected to explain Ukraine’s alleged Nazi associations.
• Is the West’s banning of RT Orwellian?

• Racism of white Europhile homophilia; co-opted anti-Brexit animus

Some controversial positions one might entertain for discussion:

• Ukraine should stop prolonging suffering and just surrender
• Putin’s creation of a neutral buffer state may have prevented WW3
• Almost anyone could commit war crimes given the right situation