If there is one thing life as a geek in highschool taught me is that the ONLY effective way of stopping the violence when facing a bully is to hurt the bully back, even if you don’t hurt them as much as they do you.
The bully strategy is: violence, followed by concessions from the other side to stop the violence, followed by a period of non-violence, then one of threats of violence to get concessions, then violence again if there are no concessions or the bully finds them insuficient or simply wants more than they demande and then it all repeats.
This is exactly the pattern of behaviour from Russia towards Ukraine, clearly visible since their invasion of Crimea and subsequent events.
The strategy for dealing with non-bullies was the one tried after the Crimean invasion and the result was a typical bully pattern of behaviour from Russia in response - keep the gains, rebuild military strength, make more and continued demands from Ukraine under thinly veiled threats of violence, eventually initiate more violence with a further invading of Ukraine - which is why any Thinking Pacifist has by now concluded that unfortunatelly a response of “concessions” to Russian agression will result in a temporary pause of Russian agression and even more Russian aggression at a later date, whilst a strategy of responding to Russian aggression with the most hurtfull possible response in all senses (including militarilly) to make it be a negative for Russia to act agressivelly will dissuade Russia from acting aggressivelly for a long, long time, possibly forever.
Unfortunately the most simplistic strategy of Pacifism, which is to find a way to balance the interests of both sides, doesn’t work with actors who purposefully and repeatadly use violence and the threat of violence to extract gains, because their “concerns” are not genuine fixed issues that need addressing, they’re goalposts which they move every time they’re addressed because they’re really a mechanism for extraction of gains from the other side.
they’re really a mechanism for extraction of gains from the other side
I have no problem applying that framework towards Russia. They did this for internal political and for geopolitical reasons. My problem is that people are no longer capable of applying that framework towards the US / Nato. That they too, only did this “hey join nato bro!” to get Russia into this trap and bleed them dry using Ukraine.
There is a sort of black and white / good vs evil thinking now that is uterly naive, dehumanizes the enemy and only allows people to see them as fully evil and absolutely untrustworthy and incapable of rational acts. While your own side is absolutely innocent and blameless.
The amount of double think going on is astonishing, it’s not just ahistoric it’s blatantly false seeing how the US is supplying the weapons for a genocide in Palestine right now. But people seem to be able to completely compartmentalize the role of the US in Palestine vs the role of the US in Ukraine.
And then everyone who doesn’t agree with the dogma and proscribed narrative is your enemy. And like you pointed out, there apparently is only one way to deal with an enemy: Violence.
If there is one thing life as a geek in highschool taught me is that the ONLY effective way of stopping the violence when facing a bully is to hurt the bully back, even if you don’t hurt them as much as they do you.
The bully strategy is: violence, followed by concessions from the other side to stop the violence, followed by a period of non-violence, then one of threats of violence to get concessions, then violence again if there are no concessions or the bully finds them insuficient or simply wants more than they demande and then it all repeats.
This is exactly the pattern of behaviour from Russia towards Ukraine, clearly visible since their invasion of Crimea and subsequent events.
The strategy for dealing with non-bullies was the one tried after the Crimean invasion and the result was a typical bully pattern of behaviour from Russia in response - keep the gains, rebuild military strength, make more and continued demands from Ukraine under thinly veiled threats of violence, eventually initiate more violence with a further invading of Ukraine - which is why any Thinking Pacifist has by now concluded that unfortunatelly a response of “concessions” to Russian agression will result in a temporary pause of Russian agression and even more Russian aggression at a later date, whilst a strategy of responding to Russian aggression with the most hurtfull possible response in all senses (including militarilly) to make it be a negative for Russia to act agressivelly will dissuade Russia from acting aggressivelly for a long, long time, possibly forever.
Unfortunately the most simplistic strategy of Pacifism, which is to find a way to balance the interests of both sides, doesn’t work with actors who purposefully and repeatadly use violence and the threat of violence to extract gains, because their “concerns” are not genuine fixed issues that need addressing, they’re goalposts which they move every time they’re addressed because they’re really a mechanism for extraction of gains from the other side.
I have no problem applying that framework towards Russia. They did this for internal political and for geopolitical reasons. My problem is that people are no longer capable of applying that framework towards the US / Nato. That they too, only did this “hey join nato bro!” to get Russia into this trap and bleed them dry using Ukraine.
There is a sort of black and white / good vs evil thinking now that is uterly naive, dehumanizes the enemy and only allows people to see them as fully evil and absolutely untrustworthy and incapable of rational acts. While your own side is absolutely innocent and blameless.
The amount of double think going on is astonishing, it’s not just ahistoric it’s blatantly false seeing how the US is supplying the weapons for a genocide in Palestine right now. But people seem to be able to completely compartmentalize the role of the US in Palestine vs the role of the US in Ukraine.
And then everyone who doesn’t agree with the dogma and proscribed narrative is your enemy. And like you pointed out, there apparently is only one way to deal with an enemy: Violence.