Nations are not households. Every nation has a right to its own military and to defend itself and its borders. Every nation has a right to associate with other nations in military pacts for joint defense.
This is hopelessly naive. It is also not something the U.S. has
ever adhered to. Lookup the Monroe Doctrine sometime. Named after president James Monroe. Who first articulated it in
1823. (The Cuban missile crisis would have been an easier example, but I wanted to make clear just how long America has officially held the
exact opposite position.)
Putin has no right or legitimate claim to "demilitarize" a neighboring state, no matter how much he may dislike it. Nor, does he have any right to tell a neighboring state that they cannot sign an agreement with other states.
How did that work out for Cuba in 1962? Or Iraq in 2003? How long would that work for a NATO state signing agreements with Russia that are detrimental to NATO and the U.S.? Would that work for Mexico if they made an agreement to host Chinese nuclear missiles on our border?
The world is what it is, not what you or anyone else would like it to be. The cold hard reality is that Russia explicitly warned, for years, that certain conditions would result in a war. And Russia was always a nation strong enough to make good on that threat. Rights, morals, principles, even international law don't really enter into it when a stronger adversary presents terms like that. You either live with the terms or you go to war. I am of the opinion that not one Ukrainian life is worth NATO membership for Ukraine. Likewise, not one Ukrainian or Russian life is worth forcing Russians in the Donbas to keep playing in the Ukrainian sandbox. There are things that would be worth war. There are things worth dying for.
These aren't even close. Poroshenko and Zelensky should have chosen peace on both points.
That's a fact and no amount of rationalizations by Putin apologists can change that.
It is your opinion on how the world should work. It is not how the world actually works. We can debate the pros and cons of the principle you articulated. Perhaps it is a principle the world should adhere to. But it would be an abstract conversation about things we might wish to be, rather than things as they are.
Rationalizing the invasion of one country by another by saying "well others countries have done something similar" takes one down a never ending road. How far back in history would you like to go? Perhaps it all is justified because Rome invaded Gaul?
This I agree with.
When the United Nations votes 141-5 to condemn a war, it's time to recognize that you are on the wrong side of history and no matter how much you try to rewrite history that cannot be changed. Russia is the aggressor. It's actions are not justified. It is committing war crimes in Ukraine and it must be condemned for this.
This is just more wishing for things that are not in place of those things which are. In terms of preventing this war the opinion of 141 nations do not matter at all (except to the extent that some of those nations lied to Poroshenko and Zelensky leading them to make foolish decisions). Only the opinion of one nation mattered, and that nation thinks Ukraine was the aggressor. (A charge not easily dismissed when Ukraine was shelling it's own people who were ethnic Russians.) Whether 'the aggressor' is right or wrong in the abstract doesn't stop a single bullet. Likewise, in terms of repelling this invasion, the opinion of 141 nations
who are unwilling to commit a single solider due to Russia's nuclear arsenal do not matter. At all. Only the opinions of two nations matter, and one is far bigger than the other.
This was so easily avoided. Don't cross a red line set by a nuclear super power in 1991. And either peacefully convince the Russians in Donbas to remain as part of Ukraine, or let them go. It was that simple. Not one of these points was worth a single human life. It is an absolute tragedy.