Carefully read your replies to my comments. My interpretation of your replies is made in good faith that you want to argue constructively against my position. Simply stating “no” to any of my questions just does not cut it without any evidence to support your opinion. I therefore must assume that you are arguing in favor of Russia, when you pull out whataboutisms and false balances about

your own [Western] imperialistic goals

without properly engaging and refuting my realist observations about Russia. You should learn debate discipline or to properly express your opinion to avoid such misinterpretarions, as your very open and underequipped replies leave just as much room to attack your position as Ukraine’s open and underequppied situation before the war sparked Russian aggression.

Your argument is flawed in so many places I don’t even know where to begin. So I’ll start by assuming you are from India. You won your independence from the British due to many reasons, but the big one being that Britain itself lost interest in controlling your country after the Second World War and democratically voted on it in 1947. I don’t see Russia ever losing interest in fully invading Ukraine anytime in the near future (or even entertain the notion to have a democratic vote on the matter), as their stated war goal is full control over Ukraine. Hence a peacful Ukrainian protest against Russian aggression would only result in Russian dominiance over Ukraine. And somehow Ukraine having less weapons in this situation would prompt Russia to scrap their invasion and go home to pre-2014 borders?

I didn’t bring it up, NeoNachtwaechter did. I simply continued to use the term to point out their hipocrisy.

However, there certainly is such a thing as democratic imperialism. What else would you call Nixon giving the order to overthrow the newly elected socialist Chilean president Allende in 1970 and then condoning the fascist Pinochet’s coup to power in 1973? Or the USA’s “war on terror” post-9/11 by invading inter alia Iraq and Afghanistan? I could go on.

Your first paragraph ist simply paraphrasing my entire comment, so you agree with me. Regarding your second paragraph: Then why did they attack and invade Ukraine, if it is neither a threat nor a rivaling power? Kind of looks like Ukraine having not enough arms to defend itself was one of the prime motives for Russia.

I think I am understanding you very well. You say democratic imperialism is just as bad as autocratic imperialism, creating a false balance when you agree that autocracies are inherently worse for humanity than democracies. Furthermore, Ukraine was attacked by a far more capable force than their own. They, by the very definition of imperialism, cannot be imperialistic by simply fighting for its own survival against an autocratic and clearly imperialist Russia.

In a perfectly peaceful world where autocracies can live side by side with democracies you may have a point. But autocratic Russia’s war of aggression on democratic Ukraine certainly paints a different picture to your wishful thinking. The lesson for democratic countries is therefore clear: If you don’t want to be invaded by uncooperative and irrational autocracies, you have to build up as much military capacity as your unpredictable systemic rivals. Remind me again, who had the military advantage by sheer numbers in the war on Ukraine?

Addendum: The entirety of the Cold War arms race without any major escalation between the US and the USSR is disproving your claim regarding increasing the risk of war btw.

So you prefer autocracies over democracies? Am I understanding you correctly?

I agree with you in theory, but the current reality just does not give a fuck about wishful thinking. As long as there are despots like Putin, Xi Jinping, et al., who see our democratic values as a threat to their own autocratic views we simply have to live with the fact that we have to build weapons to deter their imperialistic goals.

Counterpoint: what about all the weapons used by Ukraine to defend itself and western democracy against Russian aggression and imperialism? Should those not have been made?

Edit: Editing my most top level comment to point out possible subsequent vote brigading. When this post was only half a day old I received way more upvotes than the people I debated. Now that this post has gotten older the ratio is closer to neutral without any new comments pointing to any flaws in my argument. Hence, I think my debate partners felt the need to involve their equally misled friends to downvote my arguments and upvote their previously negatively voted comments back into the positives. Seems very inorganic to me.

Edit 2: The above edit is mostly meant for my discussion thread with NeoNachtwaechter.

I should have replied to your comment instead of creating a new thread. You touched on so many points I also wrote about in my wall of text, it’s not even funny :D

Finished my BA in “regular study time” (3 yrs) and then decided to also do the MA degree within the regular study time (2 yrs), due to the gvmt student loan scheme telling you to fuck off if you take only a day longer than the alloted time (which is way to short for the extend of all required courses). Burnt out right before writing my thesis and had to look for a job to keep myself from becoming homeless. Got royally exploited by the company I worked at but was able to save a lot of money due to my still very frugal lifestyle that I had to pick up during my studies (the monthly student loan being below the officially recognized poverty threshold). Handed in my resignation after 2.5 yrs without having anything lined up because the exploitation and pressure for new tasks without any bump in pay were too much to take. Took it slow and used up 2 years to finish the odd unfinished course and my MA thesis in East Asian Politics while living completely off my savings meant for retirement. The way I figured, this is just preponed retirement, living a frugal but satisfying life and investing my time in my political studies and philosophy. Came out a way better man than the broken and bitter husk I’ve been when quitting my job. During this time I had to pay back my student loan (10k EUR) with my savings I was also relying on to not become homeless, had a child, finished my MA degree, and, most importantly, joined a progressive political party, as I couldn’t take the broken state of our society anymore. This may have been the best decision of my life (next to having a child), as it provided me with an alternative source of self-worth, next to my professional career which had now been in shambles. I engage in local politics and partake in most of the regular meetings and projects the local branch of my party undertakes. There I met intelligent and interesting people who I became friends with, that also share my passion to make the world a fairer and better place for us and our children. I (mid-30s) am currently on the job hunt after recently finishing my degree and am extremely relaxed towards finding a job, seeing as I can always job hop away from a bad one whilst retaining my dignity and self-worth through my political engagement. Life is finally good.