> outside of something like what's currently happening in Ukraine.
Typical slippery slope. "The problem comes in because military force is never the complete solution in and of itself outside of something like <insert any use of army>"
Point of order . . . "the Ukraine" is what Putin and his ilk call it. Ukraine is the name of the country. Its etymology does come from the Slavic word for "march" or "borderland," but that's the point. Ukraine is its own sovereign nation since 1991. Calling it "the Ukraine" or "the borderlands" subtly legitimizes the Russian claim that it's nothing more than "Novorossiya" or "New Russia."
The Ukraine literally means The Borderlands and refers to the areas fought over repeatedly by all various European countries from Sweden to Poland to Austria to Hungary.
Novorossiya is the name for the southern mainland of The Ukraine. The name dates back to the late 18th century, there’s nothing really “new” about it. Do you consider the name America to be old? Novorossiya is as old.
I suggest you find out how these lands were merged into The Ukraine during the Soviet era.
Seems pretty simple unless you are secretly stanning for the orcs. Ownership of the land should revert to the status quo ante before Putin's initial incursion into Crimea. Those whose property has been destroyed or mined should be compensated with seized Russian assets. Kidnapped Ukrainian children should be returned to what's left of their families.
What alternatives would be more fair, from your perspective?
I read this as a logistical question rather than a moral one. What happens when two farmers can't agree on where their property boundaries sat prior to the war, the fences got ripped out after one side used the area as a staging ground, and any records have been blown up by glide bombs? What happens to the real, physical land that's covered in mines and needs to be either cleared or fenced? Where can Maria and her family stay tonight, next week, and where will they end up? These aren't (necessarily) problems for the military to solve.
Good points all. Like the other poster said, though, first the war must end. It's to our shame (meaning the West's) that Ukraine isn't well into the suing-Russia-for-reparations phase.
> Those whose property has been destroyed or mined should be compensated with seized Russian assets.
Unless you think the resources of the clearly guilty are limitless, this sounds like Versailles-type collective punishment that may be satisfying, and maybe even moral, but is counter-productive long-term.
Putin is no Hitler, though. I suspect that turning Russia into a failed state that the rest of the world will have to support is exactly his plan. He looks at Kim Jong Un with envy, not contempt.
You're being downvoted because that's not a slippery slope argument familiar to the mostly US-based readership and it's hard to tell if you're crazy or not.
Ie, the US identifies very strongly with three wars (revolutionary, civil, and ww2) where military force was a necessary but not sufficient condition. Ie, the US lost in Vietnam and Afghanistan despite having a far more favorable balance of military forces because they could never find a political solution. If you were taught that wars are won by force alone, you were miseducated.
Typical slippery slope. "The problem comes in because military force is never the complete solution in and of itself outside of something like <insert any use of army>"