Why should we? Is Ukraine really that important to the United States? Is provoking greater enmity from Russia on behalf of a faraway irrelevance really in our best interests? Would we have been wiser to have acceded to Russian requests that we abandon the idea of NATO membership and participation for Ukraine several years ago when this invasion could have been avoided?
Americans have short memories, and don't recall President Obama saying that, while Ukraine is a critical security matter for Russians, it is not so for America, and that we shouldn't allow concern over Ukraine to overshadow our greater national interest. It's a pity that neither his administration nor the two following ones have consistently followed that principle. Our meddling in Ukraine is a large part, though by no means the whole, of the cause of this action.
> Is Ukraine really that important to the United States?
We confront this now or relearn the lesson from almost exactly a century ago about the compounding cost, in blood and money, of appeasing a despot ruling a country with falling living standards.
> would we have been wiser to have acceded to Russian requests that we abandon the idea of NATO membership and participation for Ukraine several years ago
This happened. NATO membership for Ukraine was all but abandoned after the financial crisis. Years before Putin rolled tanks into Crimea. Had we actually accepted Ukraine in 2008, the last time consultations were seriously held, we'd likely have avoided this mess.
Just last year, NATO reaffirmed plans to let Ukraine to membership, after dropping the issue since 2008. This and increasing training and arms sales and donations to Ukraine played into the situation.
One has to ask, why are some NATO members intent on continued eastward expansion.
> why do some NATO members intent on continued eastward expansion
If Russia rolling tanks into Ukraine doesn’t show why expanding mutual protection makes sense, I don’t know what would. As a direct result of these moves Putin has all but guaranteed NATO forces in Sweden, possibly even Finland.
First, nobody says we want them, their membership was not on current NATO's agenda. Nobody is forcing them to join, just as we don't put any pressure on Finnland or Sweden. But the more the merrier - you have another ally you can at least half-count on the safer you are. The same applies to EU membership.
In 2016, Ukraine was granted a NATO Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP), comprising the advisory mission at the NATO Representation to Ukraine as well as 16 capacity-building programmes and Trust Funds.
In 2018, Ukraine was officially given an aspiring member status.
In 2021
NATO reaffirmed that “Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP)", which is the most traction on the topic since 2008.
In parallel to all this, joint military exercises and arms shipments have been ramped up.
I found this old article from the Ukrainian perspective to be informative:
>But the more the merrier - you have another ally you can at least half-count on the safer you are.
This seems to be the critical question. I think that current NATO members are safer without expanding east. I certainly feel that way today! In the future, I don't think conflict is less likely if Ukraine joins NATO and there are more us missiles and troops stationed on the Russian border.
Because the Ukraine does not fulfill the criteria for membership. The article you linked says "In spring 2021, Ukraine pointed out little progress in NATO’s “open-door” policy" and "U.S. Department of State spokesman, noted that the “open door” policy is applicable for states meeting the standard for membership and emphasized that Ukraine should do its homework"
> I think that current NATO members are safer without expanding east.
Well, this may be true but the problem is that this requires a lot of trust. You have to trust that if you do nothing, the other party also does nothing. I understand that Russians are scared and that they are acting out of fear but we (Poles) are acting out of fear too. In the past ~230 years for only ~50 we were not occupied by Russia.
I hope that one day we can talk honestly with Russians and address each others fears, but well, right now we are where we are :(
Ukraine wasn’t a NATO priority until now. Given what Putin has done, and his oligarchs have permitted, it is clear Ukraine must be a NATO member to keep Europe stable. Russia can be attended to by China. They will grant them financial access. In exchange, they will make Russia their vassal and keep them in check. What an idiot of a society they have been…
I can speak from perspective of Poland. We simply don't want to have a border with Russia. If our eastern neighbors were part of NATO we could sleep more peacefully. We feared of what just happened with Belarus - Putin effectively took it over and we now have Russian troops near our border. Now, instead of worrying about cigarettes smugglers, we need to secure the border from Putin. Just two months ago we had to deal with the immigrants crisis that he's caused.
I can understand that from the Polish perspective. From the American perspective, I know that the United States is one of the only countries that is more aggressive and interventionist then Russia in the world. I don't want our military bumping up against Russia any more than it has to. I think there are risks to Poland from this as well.
Interesting, so is the idea that neutral buffer states are impractical in the long term, and it would be better to have them in NATO than Russian control?
Generally speaking, yes (but again this is only Poland's perspective). Tbh you can't take anything for granted, being a NATO member does not guarantee that another member won't stab you in the back one day, but it makes it less likely.
What about Finland and Sweden, are those important to the United States? Because those two countries were threatened by Putin today with the same actions he's taking in Ukraine. Your line of argument assumes he'll stop with Ukraine. It's a fair line, but he's recently sent troops into Kazakhstan and Belarus, and remember he played by the same playbook in Georgia - "they are killing ethnic Russians let me recognize those 'republics' and pacify them".
Internet access and personal computing devices are critical civilian infrastructure. That's like advocating to blow up all the bridges in the whole country.
Can sympathize with the intent. However, remember an isolated country whose president loves playing with rockets every now and then? Now imagine a slightly bigger country with slightly madder and older dictator joining in on that game. I can see we may well be headed towards that world. (Edit: replaced 'nukes' with 'rockets', I cannot remember what North Korea has exactly.)
It's different. North Koreans never had the modern life in the first place, but Russians do. When you're used to that, when you take it for granted and it's suddenly taken away from you - that is the one thing that can cause unprecedented mass protests that Russia badly needs now. Want to get your tech back? Stop the war in Ukraine.
First, those who had modern life are not going to want to lose it by getting murdered in an attempted violent uprising. Second, Russia will just keep using Chinese tech which has always been more popular than Apple tech. A generation grows up without iPhones and there isn't anyone left to miss them or empathize with Western democracy.
This may backfire though, since people could simply turn on the Western companies and say "hey Putin was right, they ARE out to get us".
Stoking protests against the Russian government using the very same tools you mentioned above sounds like a more promising route. Maybe there are still factions inside Russia's political apparatus that are powerful enough to decapitate this government. Not that they will hear "the will of the people", but they may sense an opportunity to take Putin down and enrich themselves, while cutting down on the USSR imperialism nostalgia.
Let's start with cutting off their cloud/remote services before doing something with very large friendly fire potential. I think Ukrainians with devices sourced through Russia would prefer they stay working
> I would say it's time to take the gloves off. If you want Putin to listen, you need to speak his language.
> Remote wipe and brick all iOS, Android and Windows devices in Russia, then cut off their internet and see how they can "live with it". I've seen arguments like "But... but... how can other countries trust FAANG after that?".
If they can do that, the intelligence value of keeping those devices active surely outweighs any advantage of disabling them.
But I don't think that's "speaking Putin's language." To do that would require some kind of military action (e.g. shooting down Russian aircraft over Ukraine at the very least, and maybe airstrikes against Russian invasion forces there). Basically showing some backbone and willingness to risk escalation.
These kinds of more-severe sanctions, while stronger than last time, still show fundamental weakness. In the end, I doubt they'll accomplish anything besides pushing Russia deeper into China's arms.
I agree. While Russia has lots of popular services which win over western counterparts (Yandex>Google, VKontakte>FB ...) they still do use Google/Apple devices. Blocking them would cause more powerful force than any government can currently yield.
We have a way to go though - Google generously offered $2M in Adwords credit as a response to Ukraine war. Let's encourage them to do more!
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30476940)
The unquestioning desire to inflict serious harm on 100+ million civilians in this thread (by bricking their communication devices) is disturbing to me.
I agree. From what I understand the Russian people mostly don't want this war. It's Putin's war, not Russia's.
There's a point to be made "if the Russian people feel this, they might revolt against Putin since this is his fault.", although that could easily backfire in the opposite direction "if the Russian people feel this, then that means Putin was right, the west IS out to get us".
Bricking devices remotely sounds terrible for this reason already, let alone the damages regular civilians will feel.
> I agree. From what I understand the Russian people mostly don't want this war. It's Putin's war, not Russia's.
I'm no expert, but this is probably not a sufficient understanding. As I understand it, Putin's successful invasion of Ukraine to annex Crimea in 2014 was deeply popular and helped boost his popularity at a time when that was needed. It may be useful to look at this invasion of Ukraine through the same political lens, which you can't do if you see most of the populace as being unsupportive of it.
That's the depth of my understanding of the situation, though. So definitely don't take my word for it. It is fair to imagine that the attractiveness of annexation to the population is less now than it was in 2014.
It is certainly true that there's significant lack of support, though you said "most" which is much stronger.
I think there should always be something left on the table. If the west does everything possible to hurt Russia, Russia will have nothing to lose and will be more likely to attack NATO countries. This is something they should reserve in case there is a risk for such event.
If Apple shows off that they can and will remotely brick iOS devices at US demand, how many Chinese people (their soon to be largest market, and fastest growing market) will buy iPhones in the future?
Do you think the Chinese government would permit iPhones to then be sold in China?
Worse yet, do you think the Chinese government would continue to allow iPhones to be manufactured in China (where the vast majority of all iPhones sold worldwide are made)?
Apple ceases to exist without China.
What you are advocating is corporate suicide, and that doesn't benefit Ukraine, the US, or Apple.
EDIT:
Also, you are advocating for bricking the mobile phones of approximately 100% of all medical doctors and firefighters and EMS in a country of a hundred and fifty million people.
That would kill more people in 24 hours than have died in the entire Ukraine invasion so far.
Apple smartphone market share is like 8% in Russia according to a quick DDG search. Maybe stop with exagerations...
Also if people don't already know that remotely updateable device can be bricked by the manufacturer, they're just very ignorant. But yeah, people pop up on HN again and again surprised that Google can just take away everything from them without a moment's notice, so that one is not a remote possibility. People just don't understand technology very well.
Anyway, I'm against bricking phones. That'll not do any good. It will harm communication between disidents, and spread of news/information, too.
Does the US have legal authority to kidnap, detain, torture, murder random people from all over the world? Or forbid anyone to deal with countries the US doesn't like?
Even the law is 'founded' on the monopoly of state violence within its borders. Extend this logic to the whole world: whoever has more power to inflict violence has the 'legal' authority. Law without the monopoly on violence is toothless.
The only possible "good" way for this to end is for Putin to fall or at least feel significant internal pressure forcing him to back down. Destroying the communications of all Russian citizens will not only make this impossible, but actively harm any chances of people siding with Ukraine and its friends/allies/backers over Putin.
What do nukes have to do with FAANG, a bunch of private companies, cancelling their products and services? I'm sure they can come up with something from the fine print in their T&Cs to justify that.
This is the only way that is not direct military action to hit them hard. So why not?
Sorry, but bricking mobiles is not "the only way ... to hit them hard".
Cutting them off from international trade, refusing shipments of semiconductors and other "dual use" resources, refusing docking rights to load/unload to Russian flagged vessels, refusing travel visas, etc etc are all ways to impose pressure on Russia to cease it's war.
Well, with a crazy person who seemingly doesn't care anymore - I can see the "fuck it, it's my way or the highway" scenario playing out when he feels the gun put to his head.
