What if Ukraine surrendered and resisted nonviolently?

[Integrityrespec]

And Russia has told the “international peace process” to go **** themselves.

So how do you think Ukraine should respond to a violent militarist invasion by Russia? Should they just surrender immediately without a fight?

I guess we know what some people on this thread would want our government to do if we were invaded, give up straight away to save lives. Come under the total domination of an oppressive dictator and accept it.

 

[Lursa]

As per usual, #115/116 thinks that their loaded question needs to be addressed, after failing at trolling. "Just answer my question."

Your post indicates a level of moral cowardice even lower than the hole you've dug for yourself.

Wouldnt it have been easier to either answer or be honest (or both!) from the start? You only perceive them as "loaded" because you made statements you cant support.

 

[Lursa]

We are way past the response time. Let's go back to the start. Russia spent almost a year building up it's forces along the Ukraine border and had announced it's intention. It's not as if it was a sneak attack in the middle of the night with no warning. Biden, knew, NATO knew what Putin had claimed he wanted and want he still wants today, rebuild the USSR. Take control of all those former Soviet States.

Source the bold please.

Yet, they refused to respond rapidly and appropriately to the threat.

Biden is the supposed leader of the free world but he failed to act decisively and in time to perhaps prevent the attack from the beginning.

What should they have done to stop the invasion, to change Putin's mind, in those months before? Let's see your ideas, your tactics.

Not until after the attack did they really step u and begin to provide weapons and humanitarian aid. Not until after the attack did they impose sanctions and those dribbled out slowly.

How could they impose sanctions before Russia invaded? That would have been 'us' escalating a conflict that we were not involved in, since Ukraine isnt even a NATO country. Please explain.

 

[Antiwar]

#127

Chuckle.

 

[Lursa]

#127

Chuckle.

 

[TypicalRussian]

Because he wasn't quite the madman he now is?

Because when he was testing the waters he decided taking Crimea was enough?

Taking Crimea accomplished what he needed at the time?

Because he was letting the dust clear before he decided what to do next?

He was waiting to study U.S. political landscape, and starting his Hillary-undermining project?


You do realize, don't you, that it takes time to work up to the scale of war crimes that Putin is now committing. There's a lot of groundwork to lay down if you hope to get away with it.



He started the project when Obama was in office.

He didn't need to do any more when Trump was in office. Trump was doing all Putin's dirty work with no cost to Putin.

But we axed Trump, western relationships with Ukraine were improving, and Putin decided he had to return to his assault on Ukraine.

he could have very well taken it. Better then than now

 

[Mithrae]

World War 2 happened because most European nations were similarly afraid of making any moves they considered escalation. The UK and France together could have stopped Hitler early in his conquest before it was too late. I am not suggesting that Europe or the US should send troops into Ukraine. There must be a balance, however at the moment everyone is playing into Putin's hands. We need to stop worrying that every move we make will escalate the conflict. Putin is already escalating all over the place. We need get the MIG fighter jets Poland offered to Ukraine, and hold back the no fly zone in reserve as a last resort. If we continue to let Putin make the calls as to what is or is not escalation we may soon get drawn directly into the fight as Putin may move on Estonia or Poland.

Apologies for taking so long to reply to this, but it basically looks like you're saying "We need to stop worrying that every move we make will escalate the conflict, and start worrying that every move we don't make will escalate it!" Fact is that they're both legitimate concerns, a needle to be threaded as someone else put it: But the risk of Russia invading a NATO country any time soon is incredibly small and AFAIK not suggested by any of their messaging so far, while the risk of following through on pretty clearly implied threats of nuclear force is hopefully still small but devastating enough to be a major concern.

I'd be inclined to agree that since Ukraine has chosen to resist violently, meaningfully supporting them would imply offering basically any and all conventional arms and equipment they'll find useful, which shouldn't constitute a risk of nuclear escalation, at least against other countries. (Then again, what do I know?) But if it comes to foreign nations eventually engaging directly against Russian forces - even defensively in Ukraine's territory such as a no-fly zone - it really should be a coalition of only non-nuclear European countries.

 

[Mithrae]

What if Ukraine surrendered and resisted nonviolently?

They would have seen treasure and artifacts and art works absconded with and shipped to Russia as plunder and to eliminate any culturally identifiable icons. They would have seen their assets and territory used purely to generate benefit to Putin and his cronies. They would have been relegated to a life as modern day serfs. Isn't it obvious?

You might argue that they would be relegated to a few months or years as "modern day serfs." Obviously they can't realistically oppose Russia alone through either violent or non-violent resistance. Violently, probably the 'best' they could hope for is an Afghanistan type situation where the conquest and occupation simply takes too much time and cost for Russia to be worth it, which implies years to decades of fighting and devastation. Non-violently - with token resistance and surrender followed by mass protests, civil disobedience and non-cooperation - there perhaps would be a scenario where the country was occupied and essentially looted as you suggest, allowing Putin to then withdraw claiming military, economic and regime change victories after a few months when it's clear that the political costs of remaining all in aren't worth it, even knowing his puppet regime would soon be ousted... but that's probably a long shot too, with years to decades being a more realistic timeframe for potential success of non-violent resistance too. If Ukraine was alone.

But since they are not alone, I think the key questions which have cropped up are:
1- Which form of Ukrainian resistance would result in less death and destruction to their country while waiting for the pressure on Russia to take effect? (I'm guessing nonviolent resistance)
2- Which form of Ukrainian resistance better respects civilians' choice and autonomy in whether to risk their homes/freedom/lives?
3- How (if at all) should Ukraine's choice of one type of resistance or the other influence other countries' pace and approach to helping them and pressuring Russia?

 

[jnug]

You might argue that they would be relegated to a few months or years as "modern day serfs." Obviously they can't realistically oppose Russia alone through either violent or non-violent resistance. Violently, probably the 'best' they could hope for is an Afghanistan type situation where the conquest and occupation simply takes too much time and cost for Russia to be worth it, which implies years to decades of fighting and devastation. Non-violently - with token resistance and surrender followed by mass protests, civil disobedience and non-cooperation - there perhaps would be a scenario where the country was occupied and essentially looted as you suggest, allowing Putin to then withdraw claiming an economic and regime change victory after a few months when it's clear that the political costs of remaining all in aren't worth it, even knowing his puppet regime would soon be ousted... but that's probably a long shot too, with years to decades being a more realistic timeframe for potential success of non-violent resistance too. If Ukraine was alone.

But since they are not alone, I think the key questions which have cropped up are:
1- Which form of Ukrainian resistance would result in less death and destruction to their country while waiting for the pressure on Russia to take effect? (I'm guessing nonviolent resistance)
2- Which form of Ukrainian resistance better respects civilians' choice and autonomy in whether to risk their homes/freedom/lives?
3- How (if at all) should Ukraine's choice of one type of resistance or the other influence other countries' pace and approach to helping them and pressuring Russia?

"1- Which form of Ukrainian resistance would result in less death and destruction to their country while waiting for the pressure on Russia to take effect? (I'm guessing nonviolent resistance)"

The crux of your argument appears to be encompassed in item 1 which makes a massive assumption. The assumption being that if Ukraine chose to adopt non-violent resistance some part of the rest of the world would still have been compelled to come to their aid and pressure Russia at all. In all honesty, that seems an entirely naive assumption. The parts of the world that could offer assistance would have more likely considered Ukraine adopting non-violent resistance as a form of simply rolling over for Putin and would not have lifted a finger.

More likely you would have seen useless blather at the United Nations....rhetorical support (re. nonsense)....followed by a complete collapse of even rhetorical support as the rest of the world went back to its own problems of control of or mitigation of migration, Climate control v Climate control denial (as stuuuuupid an argument as there is), masks vs no masks in the face of a deadly pandemic (the second stuuupidest argument there is), in the US, the subjugation of women to such an extent that they no longer have control of their own bodies (as misogynistic an endeavor as there ever was even aided by women who don't even understand how far down the rathole some men are trying to stuff them), BANNING BOOKS which by the way none of the book banners even read any more IF EVER, the price of a gallon of gas and literally the price of tea in China.

I appreciate the fact that you read my earlier post and I thank you for that. As you will remember from my earlier post, I do not claim to fit in the 21st Century. I am entirely out of place in the 21st Century. I am firmly and pretty obviously a man of the 20th century which will likely go down as one of the cruelest centuries of violent conquest in all history. However life in the 21st Century is so meaningless and It is so bad that I find myself longing for my eternal rest. While this war in Ukraine is simply a straight up war of conquest, a 20th Century war of conquest, the morass we find ourselves in the 21st Century to date dominated by the issues expressed in the last most immediate paragraph of this post make it so far the stuuuupedist, most ignorant, most useless century of the past 5 centuries. It is literally stunning to me that we have so much information at our fingertips and so little use for it.

 

[VySky]

Z had blistering words yesterday that were like gas on a fire. I don’t see a surrender in the cards at the moment

 

[rickc]

resisted nonviolently?​

We are talking about Russia here. A place where the media is controlled by a brutal dictator. Where journalists are killed or imprisoned for not following the official propaganda message. Where political rivals disappear in the middle of the night. Where protestors are arrested and imprisoned.

If Ukraine surrenders there will be a political purge. In other words the present leaders of Ukraine will be executed. The iron curtain will fall and democracy will be lost.

 

[Cardinal]

Suppose an armed robber starts breaking down someone's door; they call the cops but obviously it'll take some time to get there, so the homeowner tries to fight the robber themselves, unarmed. Or a little more appropriately in light of Russia's nuclear threats, terrorists start taking hostages and the police are trying to resolve the situation, while the first hostage refuses to be tied down, fights back and starts getting beaten and bloodied for it. Do we blame the police for the injuries these people suffer at the hands of their aggressors?

I wouldn't headline this with 'should' Ukraine have surrendered; ultimately that's their decision, the decision of everyone confronted with aggression whether or not to fight back. We might even admire their bravery in doing so if the odds are obviously stacked in the aggressor's favour. But equally there's no shame in acknowledging the difficulty or impossibility of fighting back and choosing to avoid the heavy toll which violent resistance will incur.

My real question is should the visual and emotional impact of that violence - initiated by Russia and justifiably answered by Ukraine, the numbers dead and wounded, demolished infrastructure and so on - should it become or be used as a reason to draw third parties in and escalate the violence still further?

That seems to be the most common argument we're seeing from those who believe enough isn't being done, and especially those who want direct military involvement by third parties: Look at all this suffering in Ukraine, how can we stand by and let it happen! Some folk even express anger or blame against leaders in other countries for it. But while reasonable people know that the blame for the suffering belongs fully and exclusively with Russia's leaders, the fact remains that Zelensky and other Ukrainian leaders presumably knew that they would suffer more death and destruction by putting up a serious defense. When Iraq invaded Kuwait - a non-nuclear power which had similarly initiated full-scale aggression against Iran just a few years previously - despite instant and unanimous condemnation by the UN Security Council it was still five months before international military operations against Iraq commenced. Ukraine's leaders surely must have known that aggression by a country with a UN veto and vast nuclear arsenal would likely be as or more intractable.

I'd welcome any better-informed opinions, but it seems to me that their decision to fight was more or less a decision to fight alone for months at least; brave and even admirable, but does that make it acceptable to be used as a hook trying to drag everyone else into WW3 by rapid escalation?

Using your homeowner/break-in analogy, the burglar breaks in, you surrender, and he takes over your home. You call the police, and they tell you they’ll get around to it when they get around to it, but they never will because the burglar has planted explosives throughout the city and he’ll detonate them if the police try to extract him from the house. So the house is effectively the burglar’s now, because possession is 9/10ths of ownership…as you can see from the example of Crimea. Also, as the new owner, the burglar proceeds to murder your family or tie them up in the basement.

Or…the homeowner can fight off the burglar, knowing there’s a chance the home will still belong to him, damage from the fight notwithstanding.

 

[LetsGoBrandon]

But the risk of Russia invading a NATO country any time soon is incredibly small and AFAIK not suggested by any of their messaging so far, while the risk of following through on pretty clearly implied threats of nuclear force is hopefully still small but devastating enough to be a major concern.

Point is that appeasement is far more dangerous.

But if it comes to foreign nations eventually engaging directly against Russian forces - even defensively in Ukraine's territory such as a no-fly zone - it really should be a coalition of only non-nuclear European countries.

Hopefully it will not come to a no fly zone, however it it does, it would rotating coverage by NATO member nations with the modern fighter jets capable of evading Russia's air defenses.

 

[Razoo]

resisted nonviolently?​

We are talking about Russia here. A place where the media is controlled by a brutal dictator. Where journalists are killed or imprisoned for not following the official propaganda message. Where political rivals disappear in the middle of the night. Where protestors are arrested and imprisoned.

If Ukraine surrenders there will be a political purge. In other words the present leaders of Ukraine will be executed. The iron curtain will fall and democracy will be lost.

exactly ..........