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Personally, I've come to the conclusion that anyone who has the capacity and wisdom to know why wars are waged in the first place would never voluntarily fight in one.
It's reinforced my philosophical idea that wars are just a way for humanity to purge the worst of itself.
Eh. Overseas? Definitely not. If my home is invaded? You bet your ass I'm fighting the invaders.
Even though op's post history clearly points to the angle they're trying to get across, I'll answer for ya.
You educate the Russians. They're living in a closed room and are being force fed bullshit so Ukraine looks like the bad guys. Once they're educated and realize what the hell is going on, there will be some uproar to them being drafted and forced to fight Ukraine who has done nothing wrong. Maybe then, they'll stand up to Putin and take his fucking ass out and this shit can be over. At that point maybe Russia can turn it around and become a productive member of society.
perhaps should start by taking your own advice, stepping out of your echo chamber, and educating yourself on what's going on https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/who-caused-the-ukraine-war
edit: Worth noting how despite all the screeching and downvoting, radlibs can't actually make any counterpoints to what Mearsheimer says.
I've read the contents of your link and I can see how one would fall for these arguments. But I can already point to a couple flaws:
It doesn't matter who did what before, Russia had a choice. A choice of resolving their issue in a nonviolent manner through diplomacy, espionage, subterfuge and trade. Instead they chose violence. Thus it doesn't matter that they had no inkling of wanting to conquer Ukraine (or specifically Putin) or not.
Second, they absolutely did try to install puppets and Russia-friendly governments before. They succeeded sometimes, somewhat. And the last time those puppets had to flee to Russia of all places to escape the wrath of Ukrainian people.
Third, this didn't start on February 22, 2022, but in 2014, when Russia decided to occupy Crimea. So they didn't just do it once, but on two occasions. Except the West somehow glossed over the first time on the heels of the Winter Olympics.
I think it's more fruitful to look at who benefits from the Ukrainian war.
Life for the average Ukrainian will not be radically different under Russian rule. Most of them will get up, go to work the same job they always have and funnel as much money as possible to those who already have it.
It just so happens that under Russian rule, Russian rulers will be making profit instead of Ukrainian rulers. The people actually fighting the wars never benefit and the ones who benefit never fight.
It just so happens that under Russian rule, Russian rulers will be making profit instead of Ukrainian rulers.
I think we're missing a couple of nuances here, no? Although it's a stretch to call them nuance. The way Ukrainian rulers have been making money has been through privatization. And because there's so much privatization we need to look at who owns Ukraine's economy. It's only escalated since Russia invaded, with national assets being sold off to foreign private sectors so cheaply that one has to wonder why they did it when the gains are a drop in the bucket compared to the direct aid they've been getting from Western public sectors.
If Ukraine emerges from this conflict with its own sovereignty, it'll be sovereignty over a flag, a presidential palace and a state framework that protects foreign companies' investments from hungry Ukrainians.
That's only because Russia has already privatized and sold off all of its national assets to oligarchs after the fall of the USSR.
It's pretty obvious that the only country that benefits from the war is the US. Don't take my word for it though, RAND wrote a whole study explaining how in detail https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html
It's also absolutely phenomenal that people think Russia needs Ukraine to make profit when it's already the largest country in the world with plenty of undeveloped resources. If you think countries benefit from having to fight a war, then you might wan to learn a bit of history.
Then why would Russia attack Ukraine? Especially since they had already agreed to let go of their nukes and not join NATO. Just let them be then.
If you bother reading the paper I linked, it explains it in great detail. But if you don't believe RAND, then here's the head of NATO explaining it in black and white
The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that.
The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.
So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_218172.htm
The sheer intellectual dishonesty of pretending that this was about anything other than NATO expanding to Russia's border even when top NATO officials openly admit this to be the case is truly astonishing.
You draft them and order them to invade another country.
You start by giving up on making them understand.
Let's start with the second part of your question? How do you make someone understand that invading another country is not a good thing?
I'll take bad faith posts for $1000 Alex
Same reason you cant make them understand that making and holding onto billions in profits is also not a good thing
~~Draft them into playing chess with you. Then say "imagine if this was a real army".~~
I'm not part of the typical group that gets drafted (presumably young men) but my argument has always been that my country doesn't own me, I'm not its property. If I want to fight for/serve my country I will, but IMO it has no right to just use me at will like a resource.
This especially goes for times like these, when everything is unaffordable, nobody can get a house, you can barely see a doctor, the police don't even bother solving most low-level crime and the rich are lining their pockets with our money. The system is not upholding its end of the social contract at all, so why should it expect any extraordinary measures from us?
OP, nobody in that thread yesterday was saying it was a good thing. When a country gets invaded, your responses are always going to be a matter of lesser evils. Apologies for Godwin's-Law-ing this off the bat, but it wasn't great that the Allies drafted hundreds of thousands of people and invaded Nazi Germany. It was still better than every other option.
Godwin's law itself always confused me. Of course comparisons with nazi Germany are overused, but it's literally only 80 years ago. The fact that it could happen such a short time ago means that many of the same dangers, same lessons learned are very likely still completely applicable today. The human behaviors that led to Nazi Germany are still there, in/outgroup thinking, fear of foreigners/others, etc etc etc
So yeah I don't think "Godwin's law" existing as a concept should stop valid comparisons.
It doesn't! It's just a comment on how overused the comparisons are on the internet. To quote Godwin himself:
Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler to think a bit harder about the Holocaust.
Right, the point is whether a comparison is really valid and/or if something else would be more appropriate, not that they should never be used