This is the only reasonable argument, but I know rabid liberals frothing at the mouth over more dead Russians don’t want to see it.
Still, for those who are still reasonable in their goals and ends, and the outcome they actually want to see, there’s only one solution.
The argument on the pro-UA side is that Putin has the “choice” to just up and leave Ukraine at any time. I’ve written before about why he doesn’t – not after all the sanctions, not after all the resources and troops committed. NATO/Europe will not say “alright you’re a good sport mate, we’ll drop the sanctions and pretend this whole thing never happened, deal?”. There’s a “warrant” out for Putin at the ICC, what makes anyone sincerely believe things can go back to where they were before for Russia?
It should hopefully be clear that the people calling for Putin to just “leave Ukraine” know they’re not being reasonable. These are some of the same people who also cheer when Ukraine gets new weapons to kill more Russians with. The goal for this segment is not peace, it’s actually to prolong the war.
I’m addressing the reasonable side, however, who might have been inadvertently taken in by this psyop. I mean, isn’t it weird how NAFO suddenly popped up everywhere and got media coverage? After they’re doing the exact same thing as the Lithuanian elves (because elves fight against orcs) did back in 2014, and it turned out the “elves” were NATO?
Saying Putin can just leave Ukraine is impotent rage. Yeah, sure, I’m just gonna give him a quick call. He really cares what some westerners think about his war, especially now that he has to contend against NATO intervention. I’m sure we can totally convince him he’s being a total nerd if we just yell about it on Twitter.
So if you actually want peace, what’s the reasonable solution?
Organise locally, petition your government to stop sending money and weapons to Ukraine. Organise and protest for a peace deal. I know it’s probably not what you want to hear.
But these weapons prolong the war. Just earlier today I saw a video of an APC full of 8+ Ukrainians get obliterated by a missile strike. Where did they get that APC do you think?
Do you want Ukrainians to stop dying? Me too. The most pragmatic way, the only one towards which we can actually do something, is to protest against our governments sending equipment that prolong this war.
Otherwise you have to realise this war is going to be fought to the last Ukrainian. Do you really think it’s weakening Russia in any lasting capacity? The fighting is happening in Ukraine. Ukraine has been losing population consistently since 1990 (a whole fifth of it lost, mostly, to emigration). What exactly is weakening in Russia? It’s Ukraine that’s being destroyed and will need to be rebuilt. It’s Ukraine that’s losing their population by the thousands. It’s Ukraine that’s shooting depleted uranium bullets on their own soil.
What you’re advocating for, when you advocate to prolong this war, is to kill every last Ukrainian and turn their country into a wasteland. The UA army is even using depleted uranium bullets now (courtesy of US and UK), which have polluted the land when they were used in Iraq. This is backed up by data, right? Depleted uranium has data behind it, it’s not speculation.
The reason the war is being prolonged is because it makes a lot of money to the military-industrial complex. It makes a lot of money to corporations due to the inflation. A blackrock affiliate said on hidden camera recently that when Russia blows up a grain silo, the price of wheat goes up. War is a great business opportunity, always has been. And then when Ukraine will need to be rebuilt, it’ll make Blackrock a lot more money.
But I’m not sure who they will rebuild the country for if there’s no one else left to live in Ukraine.
My solution is the only one that makes sense. Any other is purely impotent and just venting frustrations, not effecting any actual change.
I agree with your material analysis of the situation, but not of the solution.
Petitioning and protesting against western governments have been shown to be ineffective time and time again. It’s a waste of time and effort. The realistic conclusion to the dragged out war comes after a decade or so when a power broker (probably China) gets them to agree to a ceasefire as it was the case in Yemen.
I’m not trying to be defeatist, but there is nothing that comrades can do to affect the outcome of the situation in my assessment.
Petitions are useless, but widespread strikes demanding an end to the weapon shipments would surely be effective as long as they refuse to compromise. Unfortunately, long and principled strikes seem to be very rare in the imperial core (e.g. the ultimately disappointing railroad worker strike earlier this year in Amerika)
I imagine this has something to do with some like 60, 70% of us are in such ‘paycheck-to-paycheck’ straits that we can only really sustain a couple weeks of striking at any given time. Mix in right-to-work status, the corporates’ ease-of-access to scabs, and mass atomization, and it’s really no wonder.
Also pretty much nobody grows and sells any of their own food anymore. There really aren’t many “cottage industry” food providers that can be bartered with.
Every house having a couple chickens, or a little vegetable patch, or a side business in something barterable could effectively support a strike.
It’s just not possible here and now, though.
It would be really surprising if there were some kind of glabal strike at all, even more so to stop sending weapons to Ukraine specifically.
Petitioning and protests without broader organisation will almost always fail to secure any meaningful change. The curious thing is why anyone thinks such a basic and unorganised strategy would ever work after so many decades of it failing. That’s why we must stand for the organisation of the workers. Then we can petition and protest.