Vietnam turned a majority of Americans against the military for a number of years and gave black radicals enough room to create the Black Panther Party and end legally sanctioned segregation.
Was that worth the lives of all the Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians who were killed, or the generations afterwards who died from unexploded ordinance or birth defects? I don’t think that’s such a clear cut “yes”.
Point being that non-interventionism would have been preferable, which is the position I’ve been taking all along.
Revolutionary defeatism includes undermining your own nation’s war effort, I don’t understand the difference in your position. If you can’t prevent the war, you undermine the capacity to continue it.
Since the left isn’t in any position to stop the war the better outcome would still be that the smaller bloc of capital survives as a counterweight to hegemonic capital. Better if the Russian federation remains friendly to China, and remains available to anti-colonial movements as a counterbalance to colonial forces in Africa and the Middle East (regardless of how effective they are, it seems these anti-colonial governments still want them). It’s better when capital is divided and limited than unified and able to exercise unlimited exploitation.
It seems like the Ukrainians wanted a peace deal almost immediately after the threat to Kiev, it wasn’t Russia or the Ukrainian government that blew up those peace talks.
Realistically, there’s no way this war doesn’t end with Russia gaining Donetsk and Luhansk and not much else (because they don’t really want anything beyond that, short of regime change in Kiev, which is definitely not happening). Both Russia and the US seemingly have the resources to indefinitely drag out this war just sitting on the same battle lines. Continuing the stalemate only results in more needless death.
Also realistically, my capacity to “undermine” anything is 0, so let’s have this conversation with that in mind. Continuing: as already established, I don’t support the US’s efforts to continue this war. Similarly, I don’t support Russia’s efforts to do the same. I don’t think they realistically have the ethnic Russian support base to hold western Ukraine without serious loss of life for everyone involved. Because I feel the evolving multipolarity would have been occurring anyway, I don’t think the geopolitical implications of a western “defeat” here are worth the continuing loss of life.
Because I feel the evolving multipolarity would have been occurring anyway, I don’t think the geopolitical implications of a western “defeat” here are worth the continuing loss of life.
Western leftists often historically have “felt” that progress happens on its own, imagining a hypothetical idealist universe where everything good happens without anything bad. It’s ahistorical and just silly. There’s one country actually defeating and damaging the US empire in reality, but instead you want a parallel reality where America damages itself
I don’t think this is the case. I think China’s economic gains are causing it to happen without any senseless loss of life.
America damages itself
This happens all the time. There’s about to be a government shutdown again. We’re continuing to provoke this unwinnable trade war with China for no clear purpose.
And how will this war be any different in that respect? Russia’s not aiming to annex all of Ukraine. The remaining rump state will be even more vassalized than before, win or lose.
Vassalized yet the billions of investments poured in left in smoke, and hopefully a landlocked rump state with half the territory will forever be unable to create a large economic powerhouse for NATO
America’s been losing wars for a long time and no socialist project has ever erupted from it.
Revolutionary defeatism doesn’t seem to work very well.
Vietnam turned a majority of Americans against the military for a number of years and gave black radicals enough room to create the Black Panther Party and end legally sanctioned segregation.
Was that worth the lives of all the Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians who were killed, or the generations afterwards who died from unexploded ordinance or birth defects? I don’t think that’s such a clear cut “yes”.
Point being that non-interventionism would have been preferable, which is the position I’ve been taking all along.
Revolutionary defeatism includes undermining your own nation’s war effort, I don’t understand the difference in your position. If you can’t prevent the war, you undermine the capacity to continue it.
Since the left isn’t in any position to stop the war the better outcome would still be that the smaller bloc of capital survives as a counterweight to hegemonic capital. Better if the Russian federation remains friendly to China, and remains available to anti-colonial movements as a counterbalance to colonial forces in Africa and the Middle East (regardless of how effective they are, it seems these anti-colonial governments still want them). It’s better when capital is divided and limited than unified and able to exercise unlimited exploitation.
It seems like the Ukrainians wanted a peace deal almost immediately after the threat to Kiev, it wasn’t Russia or the Ukrainian government that blew up those peace talks.
Realistically, there’s no way this war doesn’t end with Russia gaining Donetsk and Luhansk and not much else (because they don’t really want anything beyond that, short of regime change in Kiev, which is definitely not happening). Both Russia and the US seemingly have the resources to indefinitely drag out this war just sitting on the same battle lines. Continuing the stalemate only results in more needless death.
Also realistically, my capacity to “undermine” anything is 0, so let’s have this conversation with that in mind. Continuing: as already established, I don’t support the US’s efforts to continue this war. Similarly, I don’t support Russia’s efforts to do the same. I don’t think they realistically have the ethnic Russian support base to hold western Ukraine without serious loss of life for everyone involved. Because I feel the evolving multipolarity would have been occurring anyway, I don’t think the geopolitical implications of a western “defeat” here are worth the continuing loss of life.
Western leftists often historically have “felt” that progress happens on its own, imagining a hypothetical idealist universe where everything good happens without anything bad. It’s ahistorical and just silly. There’s one country actually defeating and damaging the US empire in reality, but instead you want a parallel reality where America damages itself
I don’t think this is the case. I think China’s economic gains are causing it to happen without any senseless loss of life.
This happens all the time. There’s about to be a government shutdown again. We’re continuing to provoke this unwinnable trade war with China for no clear purpose.
Losing wars how? Sure they’re technical defeats but they get the job done and create regions ripe for hyper exploitation.
And how will this war be any different in that respect? Russia’s not aiming to annex all of Ukraine. The remaining rump state will be even more vassalized than before, win or lose.
Vassalized yet the billions of investments poured in left in smoke, and hopefully a landlocked rump state with half the territory will forever be unable to create a large economic powerhouse for NATO
Here it is, the chauvinism I knew you had exposed by your own hand