It’s like he’s playing a computer game like Civilisation. It’s just all for his mental stimulation. He just doesn’t seem to exhibit any basic empathy for other humans. At least not ones who don’t live in ‘great powers’.
I find the argument that Ukraine joining NATO is/was a "red line" for Russia so entitled, your red line can't be in someone's else's country unless that's an agreement between those countries.
And even if it is red line, the way to prevent that from happening is through diplomacy and trade. The notion that Russia has any right to dictate what it’s neighbours do is imperialism and even more of a reason for them to join NATO.
@@zephyr8072 Yeah, it's always fascinating how people are doing "let's do diplomacy and not war" completely ignoring the point that Russia didn't choose diplomacy either before 2014, or after.
@@MyGraveDancer Apparently anything that isn’t 100% capitulation to Russia’s demands is “pro-war”. But hey people said the same about not capitulating to Nazi Germany too. These people don’t even realise thwt their narrative is and always has been on the wrong side of history.
@@MyGraveDancer they don’t understand the ways in which the Russian government openly operates. If you trust them and they lie, they blame you. There is no unethical way to gain a power advantage. There is no good such thing as good faith engagement with them.
N@zis adored "Might makes right" and Survival of the Fittest theories, that's why they loved Nietzsche, that's why they saw it as their right to conquer everything around them. And their theory worked for them until the Allies put it to work against them.
That's quite astonishing, because even the majority of tankies and other supporters of the Russia seem to have adapted to simply saying "Ukraine" since this war began (even though many of those types have outright accused Ukraine's supporters of being NATO agents for doing exactly that).
@@loomingkettle7833 It's kinda implying that Ukraine is a territory instead of a sovereign state, which I guess stems from the Soviet times, like how Russians use the preposition "на" instead of "в" for Ukraine, which is used for islands and territories, as opposed to sovereign states.
@@artemlyubchenko3022 Eh, I dunno about Russian, but we (CZ) also use both Na and V geographically, and there are exceptions to this rule. I mention this, because Na Ukrajine is also used here, but also for Ivory coast, New Zealand and I am sure there are others.
@@OumegiI mean, yeah, a lot of slav languages use в/на almost interchangeably, but it's undeniable that in russian "на украине" has become a dogwhistle. I've been mockingly thrown "на украине" before...
Arguably even Russia isn't an entity that decides stuff for itself, "The West" is the only moral agent that makes choices, Russia reacts like a bear, powerful but totally driven by instinct, and Ukraine gets hurt like a small weak creature.. but ultimately "The West" made a choice to knock over a domino in this guy's head so it's their fault.
@@scruffopone3989 You gotta love em. Multipolarity, to anyone who isn't spooked by their own ideology-wanking, just reads like the run-up to WWI. How about agitating to do away with a status quo where we either have one hegemon or a bunch of imperial powers competing to be it?
Being from a post soviet country, the question I'd ask these nutters is whether they think my country is controlled by America and we have no agency of our own (since they frame Nato expansion as America, rather than the population here choosing to join) or do they just think we are Russia's playground and they have the right to conduct genocides here.
It truly is telling that this would be used for a justification. As always with pro-Russian types and right-wingers in general, it's all projection. Russia feels like it has the right to invade anything it neighbors, so Russia says NATO will invade Russia because it's on Russia's border.
Thats not fascism, its "vanilla" Russian imperialism/colonialism just as it always has been. The idea this is some specific fascism that creeped into Russia with Putin is in a way Russian apologism itself...its has been a constant, in the Russian empire, USSR or Rus Federation...same shit different packaging. The fact Russia was part of the Allies in both world wars hugely skewed western pow on Russia an we ignored all of their crimes and "red flags" (pun not intended, lol).
"Just give them some sort of security assurance". This guy knows so little about Ukriane its honestly gross that he thinks he has the right to an opinion on the subject. He said this literally while talking about the deal which had Ukraine sign away their nukes. That deal had both The US and Russia agree to respect Ukrainian territorial integrity. And look where that "some sort of security assurance" got us. Nothing short of a direct NATO -article 5 style defensive pact with the US, UK etc will suffice to prevent Russian bloodlust.
Are you saying Russians are a primitive, backward people that will likely always be authoritarians who regularly try to annex their neighbors (as their history has never been anything but) and civilized societies should sanction them forever ala the DPRK? If so, I'm totally here for it.
Right. Any guarantee from Russia isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Barring a huge shift in Russian political thinking, they'll only halt their expansionist ambitions if they're MADE to.
He starts with his conclusion that must be wrong, and works backwards from there. If his arguments are wrong CLEARLY it's because he's just not explaining himself correctly yet is still totally correct.
7:50 This can’t be understated. This argument that “but everyone that invades Russia from the west can get right on top of Moscow pretty easily because of the terrain therefore Russia needs buffers” misses a very key event that happened in 1949 that makes that argument so incredibly stupid that the proponent should be sent to a mental institute
@@Kropothead Not only that, but in 1949 they figured out how to weaponize a technology that can end the world. There is a reason why all the invasions people cope about are on the other side of 1949
Imagine having at best, a meme understanding of this conflict, and then having such loud opinions and implied demand of being taken seriously. Tankies coming hard for the Magas top clown crown.
This particular instance of it was special though. "Have you heard of [ONE OF THE MOST WELL KNOWN AND MOST RIGHT WING THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, JUSTIFYING ALL SORTS OF IMPERIALISM]?". It didn't come with a label though so the tankie here was like "oh yeah it's super cool, and it's exactly how I think of these things". Oh is it now. How curious. Fancy that.
He’s so keen to sound intellectual it’s almost embarrassing to listen to. I can understand that, we’re all a bit like that when we’re young. It’s the total lack of respect or empathy that he shows to a nation undergoing such an unimaginable trauma, that upsets me.
“Nato expansion” “What if China and Russia opened up military bases in Mexico” “Muh Azov battalion” Same handful of arguments still more than a year later. Do they never get tired of making the same argument over and over?
"I don't know about that..." "I'd have to look into that..." "I'm not really sure- I'm not a policy maker..." "Yeah but maybe X happened or something..." This guy has a pretty strong opinion and has a take when he admits he knows very little about the whole situation.
"Ukraine should have had some other security assurance other than NATO" Wouldnt have mattered. Russia would have reacted with hostile aggression toward any ukranian treaty negotiation with europe. They DID aggress against any treaty negotiation with europe. Russias problem with ukraine wasnt NATO. If that were the case then russia would have been satisfied with just taking crimea as any prospect of joining NATO became impossible at that point. Russias problem was ukraine existing at all. Putin wanted ukriane back in russian borders and was actively working to make ukraine a puppet state. There was nothing ukraine could have done to appease him. There was no option for ukraine to stay out of the tug-of-war game between Russia and the rest of europe. They were the rope.
Oh jesus it's that Omni dude, I watched that whole thing and I aged by like 30 years. He makes this point that Ukraine was 'effectively in NATO' and he states all these reasons...the thing is Russia also had a time where it fulfilled all these 'prerequisites', it did military drills with NATO, they did joint counter-terrorism operations, they even had a whole apparatus for Russia to communicate and facilitate cooperation with NATO. Additionally Finland and Sweden also had this relationship with NATO and I don't think anyone would argue that Finland, Sweden or Russia have never been 'effectively a part of NATO' (with the exception of Finland as it just joined NATO).
@@DissedRedEngie If you want the tankies to be able to read it, I strongly suggest you translate it to either German or Russian. You'll also need to whitewash it so that it doesn't "unfairly" portray the Russia as the aggressor in their "3-day military operation" to "de-Nazify" Ukraine with a neo-Nazi PMC on the frontline.
The number of times this guy would say, "Yeah i would have to read up/research that" whenever LonerBox got him with a counter-point, then he would go on to state another grossly incorrect or unfounded argument.
Omni starts off by claiming the chicken came before the egg, this is IMPOSSIBLE. NATO aid to Ukraine started AS A RESULT of the Russian invasion, not the other way around. @11:28 He's talking about the denuclearization treaty Ukraine, Russia and either the US or NATO signed, saying that Russia will respect Ukraine's borders, as long as Ukraine doesn't join a western aligned military treats. This pact was voided in 2014, when Russia breached the contract by invading Crimea. Russia voided this pact, Ukraine is under no obligation to any nation to sign any treaty. And also, the Baltic states are closer to Moscow and St Petersburg, so from a PURELY strategic perspective, Ukraine is less important than the Baltic states. Economic production only matters for imperialism; if they're more concerned with Ukraine because they have a larger economy, then he's admitting Russia is interested in natural resource acquisition via imperialism. Or did I misunderstand Omni's point? Because NATO isn't a threat via the Baltic states military alone, neither is Ukraine. Great power theory is pre-internet, and therefor no longer applicable directly. Almost all of the systems have changed in VERY major ways. This is the issue with rapid progress. How do we manage it? Nobody knows, it's all barely 20 years old. The USA is rapidly losing influence in South America to China via BRICS bank. @42:34 LMAO, GOTTEM
Great Power theory doesn't even make sense when nukes enter the picture. North Korea has effectively secured immunity from invasion despite being totally surrounded by American allies and military bases just by building a nuke.
It makes my blood boil as a ukrainian listening to this dude. He unironically thinks that russia is a great power and it can do what it wants just because
He seems hurt that Ukrainians don’t like him, whilst exhibiting a complete lack of respect for, or interest in, the people who are actually fighting this war. The number of times he talks about ‘us’ or ‘we’ or America is telling and when actually asked about the people at Maidan, he says that he doesn’t really care about numbers.
calling it a civil war when there was close to no support for it *--* far from a majority even from the supposed "separatist regions" *--* would be laughable if it weren't so fucking sick
Also NATO's military involvement in former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Serbia) and Libya were under the direct commission of the UN with full support of the whole security Council including China and Russia. this bit of context always gets left out of progressive and marxist reollecitons of NATO and they forget that NATO was literally conscripted by the world authority and all super powers to conduct these operations
@@mckenzie.latham91, also, weren't Russian mercenaries fighting in Yugoslavia in support of the Republika Srpska? Makes all the Kremlin's whining about "mercenaries" fighting for Ukraine rather ironic, doesn't it?
Its more than that, what happens INSIDE a nation state also doesnt matter. This is because individual agency isn't real. If individuals act they are manipulated by larger forces, whether that is people protesting outside the Russian embassy in Lisbon, or protesters in Iran.
@@comradefreedom8275 Its a very two-dimensional way of looking at the world, but it has a certain level of seductiveness around it because its always the same and isn't messy. Everything is predictable, apart form the fact nation states keep doing things they weren't supposed to do according to the theory its possible leaders weren't well versed in realist theory and didn't understand what they were supposed to do. It is the leaders that are wrong, not the theory, something like that
I need Nick Mullen doing a Homer impression for "Marge, have you heard of the Azov Battalion?" and "Marge, Lisa is wearing the Ukrainian flag and protesting in front of the Russian embassy again!".
I like how he's saying that if russia draws a line and we should respect it.. Russia everytime we ask them to respect a boundary: Yeahhhh surrrreeeee we totally will *secretly tries to overthrow a government*
This is the ABC of victim blaming Ukraine for being violently aggressed upon by Russia. "Höhöh, They shouldnt have done anything that Russia would be angry about", "Maybe they should have thought about that before" Like trying to be a free, democratic, independent sovereign country with their own foreign policy politics? This guy really thinks Russia is entitled to decide what other countries alliances, diplomatic relations should be/not be. Geez, i wonder if this guy even hears himself talking.
Completely agree. And those people usually don’t acknowledge that the Soviets/ Russia had spies all over the West and messed with all kind Western government, supported revolutionary and terrorist organisations across many countries etc. So the Soviets/ Russia were incredibly ruthless as well… no angels at all…
15:50 "I have read articles NATO was doing military exercises with the Ukrainian military on Russia's borders." Can't find a source for this. The only NATO-Ukraine military exercises I can find were held after the Crimean annexation (gee I wonder why) and all were held near the Polish-Ukrainian border, most recent one being "Rapid-Trident 2021" in Yavoriv, about as far from the Russian border as you can be while still being in Ukraine. 20:00 "Russia is a great power." While there are no exact definitions, in general to be considered a great power a country needs to have a combination of a powerful economy, military and global influence. Russia has none of those things. Before the war you could've made a strong argument it was a middle power, but considering how sanctions screwed their economy, how terrible their military is, and how much standing they lost on the international stage, at the moment they are best described as a regional power. 42:50 "Ukraine should have kept the nukes." They weren't really in a position to even if they wanted. Maintaining a nuclear arsenal is expensive, Ukraine was (and still is) too poor to afford such a thing. They also didn't have the launch codes, those were in Moscow and Moscow wasn't sharing.
genuinely impressive the amount of command Loner had over this conversation, the amount of instant recall he had of every relevant fact, and the amount of patience he was able to display over this bumbling weasely flunkie. just like in the panel debate this guy is pure surface-level. Loner at least is so cordial that the dude was unable to start malding and acting like the manchild that he actually is...
how dose this guy have an opinion about Ukraine if he has not done any research on Ukraine, lonerbox can't even have a discussion because the other guy knows nothing outside of tanki talking points
"so like yeah is it fair that the countries that are being colonized don't get to get everything that they want in terms of their sovereignty? yes it sucks but it just kinda the way that it is"
It's kind of fun to see how massively different a person can be when to being charitable to one side compared to another and still try to sound like it's "both sides".
I think the problem with having these cats on isn't really what they think, its that its always the exact same conversation. I think if you're going to have them on you have to think of ways at avoid that,. Don't try and counter them (they love that), different questions and more open (and non-leading) questions, ones that they're less practiced in, that Meersheimer never gave them the answer to. Try make them think by going places they didn't expect The really big thing to avoid is talking about the past (the answers are too rehearsed), talk about the future, especially questions where you're not sure about the answers either
I know I can trust this guy’s socio-political acumen. Anyone who refers to Euromaidan or the Maidan Revolution as “the Euromaidan thing” definitely knows what they’re talking about
I love lonerbox videos because him looking around always makes me think he’s using a machine he doesn’t fully understand and it’s quickly escalating beyond his control.
It’s hilarious how excited LB would get when he knew he put the other guy in a corner 😂 btw this is one of the calmest debates about this topic I’ve ever seen. Even though the guy was really frustrating, it was an overall enjoyable discussion.
Sorry for the spate of comments. I will say, this guy is woefully uninformed, but minor props to him for not putting up much of a fight, lol. He's very easily refuted and he just says "I haven't studied enough of that" at the VERY LEAST. Most people I've 'discussed' this with are more interested in calling me names. Sadly I assume he'll keep repeating banal arguments that you refuted with more detailed familiarity with events.
I don't think being honest and upfront absolves him of much, he's still gleefully trafficking in outright misinformation and blatantly imperialistic assumptions are totally baked into the cake of his world view. I'm just trying to imagine this same behavior towards a guy defending Mussolini's invasion of Africa and being willing to admit he hasn't researched the topic fully while explicitly endorsing the idea that white exploitation of Africa is totally justified.
Whilst being non combative is a pro, I take away all that based on the fact that he's decided to go into a debate with no idea what he's talking about, for me this is a toxic trait, doing no research or fact checking whilst pretending that he knows everything until he gets pushback. Imagine if lonerbox was less informed- then so much more misinformation would get through. And using the not studied enough excuse is just proof that he's a lazy ideologue.
was this the guy who told ana maybe her dad would still be alive if the west didn't throw out peace talks last year in may? Or was that another guy cuz that shit was unreal
I don't understand why American citizens don't see the main issue. In Europe, long-time borders were never static, This is called the Potsdam Agreement, when all accepted the unusability of the borders. By annexing and occupying Crimea this agreement was destroyed, It has shown that u can change borders for all totalitarian countries. If we talk about Ukrainians, we choose to survive. The only way to survive is to fight. And if we go back for several decades, we find the Budapest Memorandum, It's the event when the USA, UK, and Russia agreed to protect us against any aggression in exchange for nuclear weapons. before russian's aggression, the USA was demilitarizing us. Our strategic aviation was ripped out and that is not all. Our military power was lowed that it could. And after all, I feel pain when I hear this way of thinking. I appreciate your support for us. Thanks.
This guy felt really good hearted. It was nice hearing him bring up fair points that one might read coming from the Russian narrative and have you acknowledge them.
44:44 Give them security assurances.... Like Russia gave them numerous times (including that time when Ukraine surrendered their nuclear weapons) until 2014 when it decided to break them?
I maybe paraphrasing here... But, didn't the guy (talking with/debating loner box), talk about years or decades of NATO supporting Ukraine, kinda wish that dudes like this would come with more details... What kind of support does that mean? Where and when did the support take place? In addition, is that NATO itself? Or a country which has NATO membership?
The debate panel he was on with Dylan Burns recently saw him utterly embarrassed by that exact sort of question. He likes to rely on vague nonsense because he's a mostly feels type of debater, and when asked for specifics he completely falls apart. Not that he was ever well put together to begin with.
He's trying to imply that the United States did a color revolution, a fake populist uprising instigated by the CIA, to oust the puppet dictator who basically confirmed he was a planted Putin shill after 2014; but also he knows that if he actually says that he's gonna get shredded by Loner asking "can you prove that?"
Exactly, he knew very little about Ukraine and its relationships with the west and Russia, hell he wasnt entirely sure when Euromaidan happened so Im hardly surprised he deals in vagueties.
US support for Ukraine is going to end soon 'because we never support a country for very long'? What about South Korea and Taiwa? Israel? Those are indefinite. Once Trump, and his ties to Russia, go, GOP will be fully on board to support Ukraine in perpetuity.
"They pit a line on the sand of Ukraine and that country (Georgia, probably) that neighboring countries can't join NATO." And then Finland joined NATO and Russia now has 1300km border with NATO.
Imagine going on a show and being as knowingly misinformed as that guy. I mean, at least nobody can doubt his confidence? He didn't seem to have the slightest clue what he was talking about.
I can forgive the ignorance, that’s understandable. It’s the utter arrogance that does my head in. There’s a total lack of interest in the hundreds of millions of people who live in Eastern Europe. A complete disregard for the agency of eastern Europeans and he admits he doesn’t even really care, for example, about the crowds in the Maidan. He thinks there weren’t many… probably.
15:00 Baltics did the same thing. The protection guarantee was so crucial that our countries did everything they can to keep the membership in consciousness and discussion
No one ever seems to want to argue that Russia ought to build up its industry and trade in such a way that other countries want to associate with them. It's always the case that Russia is entitled to the business of its neighbors and if they misstep they can expect to be invaded and razed. I can't really explain some of the poor foreign policy decisions made by America but at the very least it isn't currently attacking Venezuela or Cuba for being too chummy with "the enemy."
“Great power theory sucks for less powerful countries, but that’s just the way it is.” Says someone comfortably living in a great power. This chap should get a train to Kyiv, go to the Maidan, and explain this to the Ukrainians.
The problem with these Pro Russia people is that they are working from a conclusion which is that Russia is being 100% honest and they are only looking for information that suuports their conclusion. A great example is another one of them claiming to have an article where the German PM states that a potential treaty was so that NATO can train on Russia border and when they shared the article it stated no such thing. The sad thing is I don't think that person intentionally lied, though it just goes to show how useless their axioms are which drives me to approach the whole lot with an increased amount of skepticism. Also Russia has treatiest with nations in South America and the US isn't invading them as a result so this proves the claim that the caller is making to be false, they also love to make claims about influence in Ukraine without actually being able to back it up.
I don't think thats it. I dont think they believe in the concept of honesty or dishonesty..Its a bit like Trump ("he's dishonest but he's honest about it" kind of thing). Russia doesnt exactly lie to people, its more complicated than that. It presents a selection of contradictory justifications and says "you can pick whichever of these you like" Dishonesty only makes sense if you think there is a truth, but if truth is just another competing narrative, then neither honesty nor dishonesty exist
Thing is if he was even remotely informed he could have actually backed up the 'US influence' claim, for example US led organizations and senators going over to give moral support to the protesters of Euromaidan...however this wouldn't be proof of a US backed coup or even any remote justification for Russia. Sometimes 'influence' is not always big evil bad yada yada.
The Mexico hypothetical doesn’t really make sense. A better analogy would be if the USSR had survived and the US fell apart, and Texas or California declared independence. And Mexico is already a part of the USSR’s NATO-equivalent, sending aid and arms to the seceeded states. I think the way traditional US defense and foreign policy opinion would frame that would be at least as hawkish as Russia.
Russia has a paranoia about invasions. They've had it for hundreds of years. The reason they didn't do much about Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia joining NATO is that they're small nations and not a great staging post for a mass invasion of armies. However, Ukraine and Belarus are very different. They're massive and have obvious invasion points and as such those 2 nations are the red line for Russia about ex-republics joining NATO.
No, eastern European countries that joined EU don't have economy that is "just better than it was in 90s". They have economy which is much better than it was in Soviet Union. And it is definitely much better than it would be if they stayed in Russian sphere of influence. And here we are just talking about economy. Life is not just about economy - they also don't have to deal with lawlessness which is somehow exists in countries that stayed in Russian sphere of influence. Not to mention the whole psychological pressure by having to do what Russia tells, because Russia has rights to tell and you don't have right to oppose.
Being a Marxist-Leninist after all that history is like being a Nazi to me. Also I understand why the Nazis felt they had to invade Poland too, so fucking what? What is Lonerbox’s tattoo. I just noticed that.
