Is someone claiming that we got involved in Ukraine in order to clean up its corruption? The corruption is usually cited as a reason why we should stay out.
3 hours ago, Jon C said:
Boydstun - can you direct me to which post of yours he’s responding to? I looked on the previous page and it was not clear to me.
And thanks for the welcome. I’ve been a lurker for some years and this thread in particular has long been a source of irritation due to all the Russian apologists and propagandists.
Today’s round-up, where things stand, from BBC
Ah okay Boydstun I understand, thank you. Though his response appears to be a total non sequitur anyway.
7 hours ago, Boydstun said:
Tony, “defeat the Russians” has never meant conquering Russia, only stopping Putin making war on Ukraine and withdrawal of Russian military from Ukraine. The present US Administration is trying to impose a settlement on Ukraine in which there will eventuate a dictatorship like in Belarus, which is in excellent “peace” with Russia. Or in which Putin is simply allowed to conquer Ukraine and annex it as in the eastern part of Ukraine at present. The most important steps right now for derailing those outcomes is in what Europe and Britain do. They need a defense pact excluding the US for now and with nukes for deterrence against Russia. The US nuclear umbrella for Europe is evidently at an end. For now Europe has only France and Britain for avoiding domination of Europe through Russian nuclear threats and attacks.
The most inexpensive way for Putin to defeat Ukraine now is to redo the tank lineup in Belarus, but with the Russian tactical nukes in Belarus. Drop one on Ukraine and demand surrender. Repeat. But even cheaper is to have the US President serve up Ukraine chanting Russian woe-is-me propaganda, supposing US support for Ukraine is not replaced by European support.
Stephen, this is much premised on expecting the worst of the worst from Russia:
i.e. 1. Putin wants to take all of Ukraine 2. Russia wants its former empire back.
By these propagandized - Undesired and and IMpossible - premises, the West obviously *must* defend Ukraine to the utmost, whatever the likely outcomes to the world, no matter how much to the (continuing) detriment of Ukraine and Ukrainians – in its, the USA’s and Europe’s, “self-interest”.
Therefore, any attempted peace deals are corrupt and appeasing of evil: the war must go on.
I ask why a geopolitical “principle”* can ever override ending such blood-shed? That’s the first task of the rational-minded, if they can be and one has the power, stop the hostilities.
Especially when it is known how far from innocent, indeed, corrupted is Ukraine’s government.
What high standards are “we” protecting? In our supposed self-interest? I maintained it’s psychologically all about making sure the bully Putin doesn’t come away with First Prize. Along with this, the West’s primary strategic goal was the overthrowing of Putin following his presumed “defeat”, severe sanctions and political pressure from within-- for another leader who would be more “suitable” to the West. I read and heard that stated.
That overthrow and replacement was earlier successfully accomplished in Ukraine when an elected President fled, with soft support and financing from the State Department and “NED”, remember?
Second time around, their experiment in regime change has been plainly a disastrous failure by the West.
The first “conquest” would have been the eviction of Russia from Ukraine, the higher level “conquest” - a more malleable, even subservient, Russia.
I understand those who simply asked: what is Ukraine to the US and Americans? I’m with those who would have urged a peace summit -at the start - not - at the end of a war. Presently, more significant than ever.
{The subject of principles. “Philosophical principles are no substitute for thinking. Yet many Objectvists act as if they were”. N Branden}
It strikes me that IF agreeing to a Peace Summit preceding the war, after accepting (it wasn’t) Putin’s “Draft Proposal” to the White House a month earlier - such media-publicized talks would have sabotaged the western schemes. All of the Russian gripes would have come out, been announced in the course of such talks. Among those, that Russia had no intentions of “conquering” Europe. And the mostly overlooked ongoing civil war in Ukraine.
Along with security guarantees, non NATO, “demilitarization” and the rest, the Donbass would be discussed - pre-war, here - and its Minsk-negotiated partial autonomy from Kyiv likely revitalized as one condition for peace.
The well-prepared propaganda campaign to draw in all parties, countries and their publics on board, in fear and loathing of Russia would have - fizzled. The invasion/war may well have “fizzled” too. Was that really the desired goal of Western governments and officials of the time? Am I suspicious? 
I’m not sure what relevance the “impossibility” of restoring the Russian empire has, even if we accept that dubious assertion. Was Hitler not a threat because the dream of a thousand year Reich was not realistic? If Whynot believes that dictators only pursue achievable goals, I invite him to say so explicitly.
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3 hours ago, whYNOT said:
Stephen, this is much premised on expecting the worst of the worst from Russia:
i.e. 1. Putin wants to take all of Ukraine 2. Russia wants its former empire back.
. . .
What high standards are “we” protecting? In our supposed self-interest? . . .
{The subject of principles. “Philosophical principles are no substitute for thinking. Yet many Objectvists act as if they were”. N Branden}
Russia is an enemy of the US. That is a matter of our self-defense, nuke-to-nuke, satellite-to-satellite. Boomers, Sentinals,* B-52’s, anti-ICBM missiles in Europe (for ascent phase of Russian ICBMs).
Putin got all of Belarus under his heel, and our President and his circle are working to give Putin all of Ukraine in the same way of “peace.” Why this “peace at any price” is a mystery to me. It is not plausible that LEADER Trump has concern for human deaths and suffering, especially of people not useful for publicly propping up his self-legend in his own mind. And clearly he has no concern for justice or individual rights, terms he never even mentions (though his defense attorneys understood them in invoking for him all the rights of the criminally accused available to a rich American citizen).
It is not the US self-interest that is the principal reason for our assisting Israel or for entering WWI or WWII on the Brit, French, USSR side, notwithstanding the politicians throwing in such prattle for our money or blood. That circumstance of benevolence and generosity towards victim nations or peoples, as our moral prerogative, is too bad for ethical egoists who have falsely painted self-sacrifice as the only alternative to plotting every good act by perceived self-interest and written large that whole error as proper conduct for the US in its military foreign entries.
Lastly, Tony, the circumstance that some people here disagree with you is no valid reason for judging them to be not thinking.
We do need a policy based on long-range principles, i.e., an ideology. But a revision of our foreign policy, from its basic premises on up, is what today’s anti-ideologists dare not contemplate. The worse its results, the louder our public leaders proclaim that our foreign policy is bipartisan.
A proper solution would be to elect statesmen—if such appeared—with a radically different foreign policy, a policy explicitly and proudly dedicated to the defense of America’s rights and national self-interests, repudiating foreign aid and all forms of international self-immolation.
“The Wreckage of the Consensus,”
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10 hours ago, whYNOT said:
. . . “The Wreckage of the Consensus,”
At least she was right about the wreckage of the consensus that had produced the Johnson “landslide” (22.6% popular margin). Here’s hoping for the wreckage of the showy current President policies of personal vainglory (1.5% popular margin). Rand would have opposed candidate Trump 2024 for the same reasons she gave for opposing George Wallace in the 1968 Presidential election (anti-intellectuality, shallow nationalism, and resistance to civil rights of Black Americans).
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On 3/2/2025 at 1:34 PM, Boydstun said:
Ukraine Nuclear Warheads after USSR
. . .
France Considering Extending Its Nuclear Deterrence to All Europe
Well, after reading a bit of this I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment on this particular war any more.
On 3/5/2025 at 9:19 AM, Boydstun said:
Rand would have opposed candidate Trump 2024 for the same reasons she gave for opposing George Wallace in the 1968 Presidential election (anti-intellectuality, shallow nationalism, and resistance to civil rights of Black Americans).
She would not have voted for Kamala, either, and she might have voted for Trump in 2016 out of raw hatred for Hillary’s constant appeals to gender. One shudders to imagine her take on “White Dudes for Harris”. She’d probably say that we’ve all lost our minds, some a lot more than others, and that the only rational vote would be for Mickey Mouse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeKElwWPoAs
A quick take. Best turn off the backing music!
The last paragraph summarizes today’s lingering and suspicious (determinist) “Cold War mentality” - on both sides. What ‘might have been’ with more boldly visionary people in power at one time: a different course of later history?
“Trust, but verify” Reagan said - to which could be added, and trust earns trust.
“The ongoing Ukraine fighting has important messages related to both NATO’s and Russia’s raison d’etre. While Putin’s Russia wants to claim its old influence across former USSR territories, NATO wants to counter Moscow, seeing it as the new emblem of the old Soviets”.
8 hours ago, whYNOT said:
Putin & Russia Wanted To Join NATO?! (Yes, It’s True…)
A quick take. Best turn off the backing music!
This is old news, even for you - see your own comment dated June 2022.
See also @Grames interesting comment that followed yours.
PS1: What was new for me in that video is that, long before Putin, USSR also expressed its interest in joining NATO, in a note by Molotov, Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was in March 1954, one year after Stalin’s death. The narrator suggests that this was a propagandistic Soviet ploy and also an attempt to explode NATO from inside, and that NATO understood this.
PS2: «Molotov tied the Soviet proposal to conditions like the “dissolution of the Western bloc’s military alignment,” that is of the unified military structure and strategy of NATO. He also asked NATO to open to other European countries, meaning its dozen or so satellites !
What Molotov and the Soviet leadership were essentially asking for was the dismantling or significant weakening of NATO’s cohesive military framework as a precondition for Soviet participation. This could have meant several things in practice: dissolving NATO’s integrated command structure (like the Supreme Allied Commander Europe role), ending the mutual defense pact (Article 5), or even disbanding the alliance altogether as a military entity. The USSR framed this as a way to turn NATO into a broader, less militarized “collective security” organization that wouldn’t threaten their interests - keeping and expanding its sphere of interests (=brutal domination).»
9 hours ago, AlexL said:
What Molotov and the Soviet leadership were essentially
And that 1954 Cold War attempt had pertinence to 2000 – how?
That Putin’s request was as nefarious as was (unquestionable) Molatov’s?
“Suggestibility” and “association” make for effective indoctrination.
"Did Putin want to join NATO in 2000? Wiki
On 5 March 2000 in response to a question about his attitude towards NATO, Mr Putin also said he could envisage a closer relationship between Russian and the alliance. “We believe we can talk about more profound integration with NATO, but only if Russia is regarded as an equal partner,” he said".
40 minutes ago, whYNOT said:
9 hours ago, AlexL said:
What Molotov and the Soviet leadership were essentially
And that 1954 Cold War attempt had pertinence to 2000 – how?
The subject of the USSR’s 1954 attempt to join NATO vas not raised by me but by the video “Putin & Russia Wanted To Join NATO?!” you posted here.
OTOH, I am still waiting for the justification of your claim that the promise the U.S. made to Russia to “not move one inch eastward” was referring to NATO’s expansion into former Communist countries and Soviet republics.
You claimed that you already proved it and that I conceded it was true. I am still waiting for a reference to this alleged episode (see this discussion).
But let me guess: you won’t do it. As usual.
D
- Dance
- Dark Ages
- Decorative Arts
- Deficit Financing
- Definitions
- Democracy
- Deontological Theory of Ethics: see “Duty”
- Determinism
- Dictator
- Dictatorship
- Director
- Distinguishing Characteristic: see Concept-Formation
- Dogma
- Draft
- “Duty”
A question for Harry Binswanger the Lexicon compiler.
Where did “Diplomacy” go?
With the Ayn Rand Lexicon as reference I recall a year or two ago linking Rand on Diplomacy in this present thread, (recommending diplomacy as a value in her succinct quote).
Wanting to reference it once more with US diplomacy a central subject to Ukraine, my search of the Index (above) now does not show it.