His anti US imperialism views blind him.

> February 4, 2022

https://chomsky.info/20220204/

Questions of human conflict are incredibly complex, but occasionally life gives you a freebie. Occasionally, things actually are black and white, there are good guys and bad guys and you should not support the bad guys. If you had trouble getting this one absolutely dead simple case right, maybe you should not bother having an opinion on these matters at all.

..must have a hell of a lot of downvotes.

1. A certain architecture (e.g. a module that enables syntactic processing) is not knowledge about the world.

2. We model the world according to our capabilities.

3. Modular language models have been tried, but did not meet with success.

4. The link you include is about the conceptual space, which is not (directly) related to human syntactic processing.

5. The question is not about metaphors, but about reality.

6. Babies aren't born with a base model and fine-tuned. They learn. This is the metaphor NNs are actually based on.

It matters.

The fact that LLMs trained on dumptrucks full of data cannot achieve what a middle schooler begrudgingly achieves using existence and snide remarks.

First and foremost (and what I think the parent comment is getting at) whether you could truly say an LLM "understands" language

As a secondary quibble in the context of the parent post, though big overall, I would argue that the whole argument is moot since a human couldn't possibly learn the way an LLM does in a single lifetime

I'd say rather than emotional he has the usual academic thing of being up in one specialist area - in this case US imperialism and not up on another speciality like Russia's history of invasion, expansion and the like.

LLMs on the other hand can easily learn these non-human grammatical structures which means that they are not the way humans do it.

Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979 and China invaded Vietnam in 1979. What are you talking about?

In addition a LOT of academics met with Epstein. The whole point of Epstein was that he clawed himself up the social ladder by schmoozing with money people and raising funds for academic work. It would be entirely shocking if Epstein raised all this money for academia and didn’t even try and meet probably the only famous academic in the world.

You can find many things that Noam missed the mark on. To err is human. But this is conspiratorial and not fair. If you were judged by all the people you had financial or social dealings with I’d imagine you would share a similar sentiment.

It seems a bit of a historical change - in the 19th century view it would be ok for the Russians to get pissed off with the US trying to steal their Ukrainian peasants and associated property. These days you're supposed to let sovereign democracies do their own thing even if they have smaller armies.

"...it would be a credulous fool who swallowed the (unsupported) word of Osama Bin Laden that his group was the one responsible. An attempt to kidnap or murder an ex-president of the United States (and presumably, by extension, the sitting one) would be as legally justified as the hit on Abbottabad. And America is an incarnation of the Third Reich that doesn’t even conceal its genocidal methods and aspirations. This is the sum total of what has been learned, by the guru of the left, in the last decade."

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/05/noam-chomsky-on-...

The core ideas are awesome, but then the same could be said of Democracy; any idea force fed from the top is going to have the same kind of shit sandwich quality, the rainbow madness is just the latest example.

https://www.openculture.com/2013/07/slavoj-zizek-responds-to...

https://unterguggenberger.org/the-free-economy-experiment-of...

1. Criminal trials via random lottery of jury with the charged being viewed as innocent until proven guilty.

2. Checks and balances, where governmental power is intentionally limited and weakened.

3. A system of federated governments that elect representations, with a design favoring minority members of that federation.

Anarchism is always a balancing act between legitimate power and limitations on that power. Most forms of Anarchism do not reject all forms of power as illegitimate but rather place a heavy burden of proof on the claim that legitimate of the use of power.

I disagree with a lot of what Chomsky has said but I do think his definition of anarchism was very well stated:

"Well, anarchism is, in my view, basically a kind of tendency in human thought which shows up in different forms in different circumstances, and has some leading characteristics. Primarily it is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, and it asks whether those systems are justified. It assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them. Their authority is not self-justifying. They have to give a reason for it, a justification. And if they can’t justify that authority and power and control, which is the usual case, then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by something more free and just." - Noam Chomsky

I think US historians wrote books on it, but often fail to mention that after (or really, a bit before) Neuschwander took control, the metal and steel industry that sold them metal gave them structurally deficient steel, poor quality copper and were largely inconsistent in their metal delivery, being late for months, then giving them all the late commands at the same time, stretching or overflowing their storage. The luxury store and industry wasn't any better (one more reason to hate LVMH and never support them as a French), leaving their products in inventory and not in display, rejecting previously accepted commands, and limiting foreign exports to less than the number of exported goods than when Lip watches had to be smuggled. The courts and police didn't help and (according to what i heard: this is a biased account) refused to take any declaration.

Is that system “working”?

In June 1888 Peter Kropotkin wrote “Are we good enough?” on the subject of human nature and anarchism. It’s well worth a listen: https://youtu.be/jytf-5St8WU

The problem with anarchism is never infighting it just wasnt good at defending itself from external military threats.

Stalinism on the other hand, was a perfectly crafted machine for dealing with external military threats, but wasn't very nice to live under.

There were never any promises, and Putin barely even cared that it resulted in Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

Because Russia's stated motivation for invading Ukraine was never Putin's actual reason, which is basically an emotional desire for historical greatness by reclaiming Russia's lost empire, combined with war always being an excellent mechanism for staying in power and distracting from domestic problems.

So it's sad to see anyone falling for Putin's lies so easily. (See also Mearshimer.)

The way he phrases it, NATO was essentially at fault and the Russian response followed from that. I don't buy that he misspoke or we misheard; the line of reasoning was very clearly stated. We can quibble about what "taking sides" means, but the message he meant to convey was that the current outcome was the US's responsibility.

Chomsky's line of reasoning was clear, but it's always been very weak on this matter (he's said this quite often). It largely ignores the Kremlin's agency; it hardly matters what the US did here since the Kremlin had choices too and those mattered much more. Even more problematically, it ignored both Ukrainian and the wider post-Soviet region's agency as well. NATO expansion was never forced on anyone; to the contrary, it was eagerly sought after, and why? Because the Kremlin wasn't to be trusted, which turned out to be an accurate prediction.

It didn't have to be so; the Kremlin's institutional mistreatment of its neighborhood _caused_ that mistrust and sustain it to this day. The Kremlin could have acted in good faith, and would have continued to receive the warm welcome from western governments that the initial post-Soviet governments did. It could have mended the Soviet-derived mistrust in eastern Europe, and likely easily so given it's richness in natural resources, and the logistical centrality that attracted trade between former USSR nations via Russia, and it's initially warm reception by western powers.

The hint of far-future NATO membership was a "threat" to Putin the way mere talk of bolt-cutters are a threat to a kidnapper. That threat might well have been real, to be clear, but framing it the way Chomsky did isn't helpful; it obscures Putin's (or the Kremlin's inner circle's) choice to be an oppressive, almost colonial power ruling over it's neighbors.

The problem never was talk of bolt-cutters, the problem is that people _wanted_ those for a reason.

All this talk of "poor Russia and its thirteen timezones felt threatened by a defensive alliance" is complete bullshit. It's the "she looked at me wrong so I stabbed her" defense, and the fact that Chomsky could not see right through this is telling.

The explanation is much simpler - Putin wanted to add a slice to the empire, and miscalculated that the West would do nothing, like it did before. And then the bitching and moaning ensued.

Did the neutral Sweden consider joining NATO before the invasion? No. Poor Russia, besieged by all sides by the neighbors who do not want to die defending against Russian recidivist meat waves and in torture cellars.

Just. Stop. It.

That is a total nonsense that has been called as such by people who were in key positions of power in the USSR and pre-Putin Russia. Out of their irrational anti-american hatred, "intellectuals" like Chomsky choose to blatantly ignore when people like Gorbachev directly say that the sob story about NATO promising not to accept Eastern Europe into the organization is a myth that even theoretically isn't plausible and couldn't be true.

https://chomsky.info/20220204/

Oh also his georgian take https://chomsky.info/200809__2/

It's also a complete mindfuck of a piece, with obvious cognitive distortions and major factual evasions flying from every paragraph.

But because it's expressed in that calm, authoritative, rational (sounding) voice -- and it's coming from Saint Chomsky after all -- "principled, internationalist" lefties eat it up like candy.

I admire Chomsky for other things he's done. But he's got a split personality also, and in some cases his "morals" are very deeply flawed.

Seems that by your logic one who disagrees with an evil he sees in his society should leave immediately or commit to silence.

I have no idea if this is true. I also don't want to say that Russia always tells the whole truth without lies and propaganda. But I'm finding it rather that our own side doesn't behave in the Ukraine conflict as we behave in other conflicts between third countries. We also engage in a lot of propaganda and biased reporting, especially on the topic of Ukraine and Israel (as shown by fair.org), so I've become careful too quickly deciding what the truth is.

(I do disagree in at least one point with all the russia apologists though: Whatever may have happened in Ukraine before the war and whatever the larger context is, what is happening right now there is driven by Russia and is absolutely devastating for Ukrainians. That Ukrainians hate Russia is absolutely understandable. So I think we should continue to support Ukraine. Nevertheless, if there was some hidden context in the lead-up of the war, it would be in our best interests to expose this.)

You might consider your consent has simply been manufactured in another direction. Lots of Chomsky acolytes never quite reach that epiphany.

They simply follow in his footsteps of being oh so traumatized by the sudden realization that governments lie and propaganda is a thing that you could get them to opt in to an even deeper set of absurdities and half truths quite easily. To the great delight of the enemies of the US.

This is how you get college students to chant "Death to America".

(Having both "pro-russian" and "pro-western" family members, so I'm engaged in lots of discussions currently and would be glad for new information, no matter which side)

I think it's important which countries the experts are coming from. That our own IR/Russia experts are sharing this view doesn't seem very surprising to me - it's a war situation after all. I just notice that a lot of non-Western countries seem to be at least undecided which narrative to follow, e.g. Brazil, India, Turkey, many African countries. (Ignoring China which is obviously allied with Russia and therefore also has a clear bias).

Also, BRICS membership seems to be in demand, what I wouldn't expect if it was generally believed to be dominated by an insane, warmongering megalomaniac.

Mearsheimer is not alone though (even though it's definitely a minority position here). Jeffrey Sax, Ulrike Guerot and, well, Noam Chomsky come to mind, or also organisations such as fair.org with well-documented sources.

Now, I don't like guessing. When Russia entered negotiations the war was clearly not going its way, so the obvious explanation is that Putin wanted to disentangle from it with the least damage to his image as possible.

The question is why the negotiations failed, if they were really as advanced as suggested in the articles I linked above. Since the name of Boris Johnson has been brought up (in the context of being one of the Western representatives that told Zelenskiy to drop the deal) I tend to believe that a peace deal failed because at least one side in the negotiations was incompetent fools who should have never made it in power. That the other side is probably the same makes no difference.

My post did not cover Chomsky's takes on the matter because, honestly, I have not read them. Not for lack of desire, just personal time and priority.

> Ironically, returning to a might-makes-right global order as envisioned by Russia would mean the United States could behave far worse in future

The US could act much worse in the present if it wanted. Only China is really in a position to stop them and even there only in a geographically limited area of Asia. The reason the US often doesn't bother with a might-makes-right response is because it isn't effective, not because they're purposefully holding themselves back from useful options. It is more effective to have the rule based order where, famously, the US makes the rules and gives the orders.

Unless you mean, the only way to have prevented the Russian invasion of Ukraine would have been to accept Ukraine into NATO, I strongly disagree with you here.

Russia invaded Ukraine not because Russia is fearful of NATO but because Russia wished to recreate the Soviet empire. It's just plain old imperialism.

NATO was literally founded on the USSR's border ("Russia", as a top-level sovereign, did not exist), it had nothing to "expand up to", on either the Eastern or Western side.

> despite repeated promises not to

Assuming any such promises were made (which only one dubious alleged instance is ever pointed to, so hardly "repeatedly" in even the best case), they were personal guarantees between individual leaders of the USA and USSR, not durable binding commitments (note the absence of a treaty, executive agreement, public document or even mere joint contemporaneous oral statement of any kind) binding governments to their terms beyond the term of individual officials and heritable after the fall of one of the involved states by some successor regime.

And even had such an undocumented commitment existed and had validity, it was implicitly nullified by Russia's attempts to join NATO.

> Whether or not this is "NATOs fault", it's clear that the Ukraine invasion was motivated, in part, by NATO expansion.

It's not clear at all that it was. For one thing, Georgia was invaded immediately after NATO complied with the Russian request in 2008 not to extend Membership Action Plans to Georgia and Ukraine, and Ukraine subsequently abandoned efforts to join NATO until after Russia invaded and purported to annex much of the country in 2014. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been the cause of, rather than a response to, recent NATO expansion.

Olle Tolgraven? He said the Khmer Rouge were shooting people during the ordered mass evacuation, something Chomsky left out. He also left out the other accounts from the same article which describe Phnom Penh as being littered with decomposing bodies.

He pointed to Hildebrand and Porter and called it "based on a wide range of sources" when in reality, everything documented after the Khmer Rouge took charge came from one source: official Khmer Rouge propaganda.

In order to refute claim Barron and Paul that "virtually everybody saw the consequences" he invented citations to J.J. Cazaux and Schanberg so he could use carefully cherry-picked quotes from them against it.

Chomsky claimed publications like the Economist have "analyses by highly qualified specialists who have studied the full range of evidence available, and who concluded that executions have numbered at most in the thousands." Notably, the Economist did write an article that hundreds of thousands had been executed. The claim the number was in the thousands came not from the Economist's highly qualified specialists, but rather a letter from a reader in response to that article.

It goes on and on and on and on. If Chomsky was held to the standard he held others, we would dismiss him as not credible for even a fraction of the half-truths and lies he peddled.

Think of how difficult it is today to get even remotely truthful news. And then think about how this horseshit will be written up by government funded historians once all the political scores are settled and winners are determined

Why does thinking about nuclear weapons cause most people to think in absolutist terms like this?

Maybe Russia was counting on getting a 15-minute warning of ICBMs approaching, but if a hostile military can station missile right on their southwestern border (523 miles from the center of Moscow) their plan goes out the window.

Except he himself explicitly says that there were killings multiple times.

> Neither Cazaux nor Shanberg were cited as evidence for the passage quoted.

I don't understand what you are trying to say. Chomsky claims Cazaux wrote that '“not a single corpse was seen along our evacuation route,” and that early reports of massacres proved fallacious', that seems to provide a conflicting account of the "passage quoted" (i.e. "virtually everybody saw...").

> This was an example of Chomsky dishonest borrowing of authority

As I said maybe you could argue that if he didn't explicitly describe the evidence and the source at length in the very next paragraph.

> an article that stated (correctly) that there were a million civilian deaths.

What we are arguing about is whether there was a basis for those figures. I can't find the Economist article online at the moment but as far as I know the only source of those high figures at the time was Lacouture which Chomsky showed to be fabricated. I assume if you knew of another source you would have cited it already.

----

I will re-iterate that the key issue is not any of the above but that the most important piece of evidence, the Lacouture number, was fabricated and would have failed the most basic fact-checking, yet was loudly promoted. In contrast the US government's own numbers, which conflicted with La Couture, were ignored. These hard figures were the most important pieces of evidence and the fact they were treated as they were is what proves Chomsky's point about distortion of information, the Cambodia case being only one example.

* Intervention in the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, invited to do so by the UN in response to the genocide going on there.

* Invasion of Afghanistan, following the invocation of Article 5 after an attack on a NATO country (i.e., 9/11).

Yes as I pointed out.

As I pointed out that made it worse because they lied to the security. They simply wanted to take sides in a civil war.

Did you read what I wrote at all?

That wasn't defensive by any means, but that also doesn't make it unjustified nor should it really be called "aggressive".

Chomsky, naturally, denied that ethnic cleansing was happening there because it wasn't the US or "western" countries doing it.

Fine. Don't take my word for it. Go look.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War:

"The Korean War was fought between North Korea and South Korea; it began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea and ceased after an armistice on 27 July 1953. North Korea was supported by the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union while South Korea was supported by the United Nations Command (UNC) led by the US."

The US could only green light strikes on Russian territory with American-made weapons like ATACMs, it had no authority over those supplied by others or produced by Ukraine. This is clearly shown by the fact that Ukraine was hitting Russian territory using its own domestically produced drones long before the US gave the green light to do the same (albeit only in Belgorod) using US weapons.

This isn’t unique to the US: Countries routinely place limitations and restrictions on the uses of their weapons as a condition of sale, especially Western countries. For instance when Switzerland sold Pilatus trainers to South Africa it required a legal commitment from South Africa to never arm them and use them in combat missions. Countries also usually forbid retransfer or resale without their permission. These are often stipulated in the End User Certificate.

Putin and other Russian officials have made many claims to many audiences, often contradicting each other. But when you analyse the most consistent and those that align most consistently to codified doctrine you’ll find that it’s all about Russian hegemony over the former USSR territories, and its revanchist aims to regain lost power. Once again, former empires have no right to their former colonies, and that includes Russia regarding Ukraine.

Ukraine was not anywhere near close to joining NATO in January/February 2022, its request for admission was stalled and key NATO countries had made it clear that it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Ironically, it’s Russia’s invasion that provided the impetus for the Ukrainian accession to NATO to move forward, even though it’s still a long way away.

Joining the EU was much more likely and was a key foreign policy goal of the Ukrainian government before Russia invaded. It remains one now.

As for the US, its economic and political power is declining much faster than its military power. If it really was such an imperialist state it would seek to use that military power to restore its economic and political power, aiming for full hegemony rather than just influence. It doesn’t because American society would not support that kind of approach, having moved past the age of annexation by force.

Because you utterly ignore Finland. It's less that it's not NATO and more that it literally can't be. Why would Putin drive them into NATO if having NATO neighbors (which, besides, was already a fact anyways) is such a threat?

He views it as his rightful property, and that's that.

Got it.

The Russians have had more than ample opportunity to join the civilized world and stop acting like dicks, but that's apparently not what they want to do. So, containment it is.

And if they feared NATO encroachment on their borders, trying to take over Ukraine was a really stupid way to discourage that. Nukes are scary enough, but nukes in the hands of stupid people are downright terrifying. Personally I doubt any of theirs still work, but that's all too easy to say.

>In any case, even in a MAD setting every side will be constantly trying to manoeuver to a position of advantage.

There is no real "advantage" over having an extra few minutes or not. Russia is also building some sort of nuclear tsunami weapon, the US does not care. Because the strategy remains unchanged from threat of ICBMs. Frankly speaking, if you want to talk about what actually is a disadvantage for Russia right now, it's this war. If NATO actually invaded, they'd caught with their pants down. Hell, the US might even successfully ensure a first strike given they moved their air defences away.

The fact that Putin started this war even when knowing this should tell you that he dosen't actually view NATO as a threat. And they're not, from the Houthis, to Iran to Hamas, everbody can tell the US has no stomach for a war. This is not the result of US aggression, it is the result of US unassertiveness

One shouldn't, and both should be condemned of course.

And not apologized for, like you are doing here.

Your idea that he should be handed over without question for trial does not follow any legal logic but is simply the logic of an imperialist.

The same logic is what led to the Hague invasion act, Guantanamo bay, the imperialist invasion of Iraq and, of course, the various attempts to push NATO further and further up against the more vulnerable parts of the Russian border.

As I said before, a Putin supporter would have broadly similar views to you - in reverse.

I don't have a position on 2 and 3 although they seem pretty reasonable. 4 I mostly agree with - the caveat to that is the last part. Russia's decision to invade is easily understandable and reasonable. We can see what NATO was planning on doing to them based on what is currently being done. If they didn't act now they'd lose their chance and the US would probably start setting up missile banks along the Russian border at some point. Realistically that might still happen, it looks quite bad for Russia right now.

This war has cost Russia a number of troops that, while difficult to estimate, is probably measured in 100,000s. Their opposition is entirely sustained by NATO logistics. Going in to the war Putin, on behalf of Russia, basically started the speech with "I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border" [0]. This theory that Russia was motivated by internal conditions to Ukraine and no broader strategic concerns requires them to be ignorant of the biggest military threat to them, which turned out the be on the verge of materialising, while simultaneously pretending to be motivated by it for political reasons. It is a much more reasonable view to accept that in their military action they are probably motivated by the single biggest military threat they are facing. The one they publicly identified and that is a very realistic concern given what then happened.

We have a reference here, which is the US invasion of Iraq. It was appalling, unprovoked and the US encountered no real resistance from the rest of Asia who accepted that sometimes the big players just attack the small ones. The fact that the response in Ukraine is so different is a dead giveaway that NATO was provoking the conflict. Otherwise there isn't a reason for them to be involved. We've had more than 100 wars this century [1] and the NATO involvement and escalation of this one stands out as unusual.

And on some minor points:

> For it to be a proxy war would require that NATO caused the war

I don't expect that to be correct, but it turns out that a proxy war technically requires one of the actors to be a non-state actor [2], so I can only agree that this isn't a proxy war. But the US is using Ukraine as a metaphorical club to kill Russians.

> Would you accept the US invading Venezuela because it was concerned about that country's close alliance with Russia and substantial re-armament using Russian weapons?

Something like a reoccurrence of the Cuban missile crisis? I'd expect the US to respond with extreme violence if Russia didn't back down as soon as possible.

[0] http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67843

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars:_2003%E2%80%93pre...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Kyiv_convoy

Getting invading troops out of Ukrainian territory.

> There has been order-of-magnitude 100 billion dollars worth of NATO gear provided to Ukraine with the express purpose of killing as many Russians as possible, let alone the intangible value of various forms of aid provided (things like intelligence are hard to assess). "Hehe, well we didn't file the proper paperwork" isn't exactly the sort of response that is going to get a good result. > I doubt the Russians are worried about whether the US followed its own self-imposed process of officially declaring the alliance. They're worried about the network of countries that the US is building up with the fairly plain purpose of destroying the Russian military followed by regime change. They respond to threats when they detect them, not when the US or whoever decide to officially declare that the threat is being made.

Many countries, just not NATO, have sent weapons and other resources to Ukraine for it to defend itself against the Russian invasion, and to deter further Russian incursions or invasions beyond Ukraine. They were not sending those quantities in advance of the war.

Had Russia not invaded Ukraine in February 2022 two things would be presently true: First, it would not have lost all that military personnel and military equipment, and, second, Ukraine would still not be in NATO. Once again, Western countries spent months trying to convince Russia not to invade, as they expected Russian forces to swiftly overwhelm Ukrainian forces and take over the country. It was only when Ukraine put up better than expected resistance and repelled the attempt to take over Kyiv that Western countries began supplying it in earnest.

> The presence of all those members is why I think it might well happen. NATO has the real estate and doesn't seem worried about escalations. Why not? NATO seems to be pretty firm in their belief that a good offence is the best defence; I think technically we've never seen them fighting defensively? Although I maintain de-facto that what seems to be happening in Ukraine is the defence of a NATO country.

Now you're just speculating. The actual history of NATO expansion, its actions, and the restrictions it has openly placed on forward deployment of forces have shown it to be very concerned about escalations and about Russia's fears.

> Can you name a war where the invader had a right to start it? This is war! The people purposefully starting wars are almost uniformly monsters clothed in human flesh. The best case is that they are monsters in an age of other monsters. If there are exceptions to that none spring to my mind.

Yes, the coalition attack on Iraq in 1991 to repel its forces from Kuwait is one example, but there are others. You should read up on jus ad bellum and how it applies.

Yes. My whole position in this thread has been that countries tend to do things for the obvious reason, I'm not sure why people keep expecting me to disagree on points like that. Everyone wants to be in NATO. Even Russia probably wants to join NATO. But that doesn't change the fact that the US was provoking Russia by signing everyone up and the US acting on that expansionist urge in Ukraine seems to be the major driver of this war.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

This was the basis for manufacturing consent for the invasion. What you are linking is simply the after-the-fact legalese.

This has come only after years of war against Ukraine and refusal by Russia to take any offered exit ramp.

When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, Obama refused to provide lethal aid to Ukraine. After Russia launched the full-scale invasion in 2022, the US infamously offered Zelensky a ride and not ammo. Countries like Germany were openly mocked for providing only 5000 helmets. It took approximately half a year before any considerable aid began to appear in Ukraine. They got their first American tanks (only 31 provided so far) full year and a half into the war.

NATO countries and other allies have consistently dragged their feet and done too little too late. This allowed Russia to recover from the initial shock, and their armed forces are larger than at the start of the war. This year, they are forming two new armies that are larger than the ground forces of UK, France, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, and a number of other countries COMBINED.

Instead of a conspiratorial ruse, European governments have finally recognized that Russia is a rapidly growing threat to entire Europe, and that's why they started to pour a lot of resources into Ukraine starting around fall 2023, and into rebuilding their own militaries. Russians are wiping one Ukrainian town after another from the earth with no indication of stopping anytime soon. At worst, we can expect a second front launched from Belarus against Poland and Lithuania.

> unless you believe that the NATO military planners are so incompetent they didn't have contingency plans for Russia invading Ukraine

It is very obvious that there were no serious plans for such turn of events. Many NATO countries, including mine, were caught by surprise and have had to provided military aid to Ukraine at the expense of own security from readiness stocks that cannot be replenished for many years to come, but might be needed to fulfill NATO obligations, should Russia broaden the war.

Not only were NATO countries unprepared, but several key countries didn't even believe such development could be possible at all. The chief of French military intelligence was infamously fired over inadequate assessments related to Russian invasion of Ukraine.

> The hopes of Ukraine were never dashed.

Yes they were. Even today, nobody is willing to give any firm commitments. At the last NATO summit, Biden refused to support NATO invitation for Ukraine and instead lobbied for a vague "Ukraine will become a member of NATO" statement without any specified date, to great frustration of Ukrainians.

The story you are trying to spin is the polar opposite of observable reality.

The idea that the US drove the Saudis to lobby the Soviets is absurd: The Saudis were independently lobbying everyone they could because all signs were that the much more powerful Iraqi military would invade them next in order to gain control of much of the world’s oil supplies. That’s why the first coalition response was to form Desert Shield to protect Saudi Arabia from an Iraqi invasion.

34 countries took part in the military operation to push Iraqi forces from Kuwait, which they had invaded without any legal justification at all. The operation was clearly and unambiguously authorised by the United Nations Security Council. It’s as clear an example of Jus ad Bellum in the modern era as you could hope for. And you still aren’t satisfied.

As for your last sentence, you’re conflating events thirty years later. It’s irrelevant to a discussion about whether the 1990 UN-authorised ejection of Iraqi forces from Kuwait was legally sound and justified.

And there, there. You are smarter than anyone foreign. You read more, your mind is more open, and you are always right.