Talk:Is the 2022 Russian military operation in Ukraine justified?

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This subject is entirely opaque to me. Even setting aside any ethical questions, I do not see what they have to gain in material terms. I know little about the history of the region and their motivations for doing this, and I find most popular explanations dissatisfying. From what little I know and can see, they hardly want for land or natural resources. America's mass media is of course useless at best but more often a tool for misleading propaganda and half-truths. Even though I can sympathize strongly with nationalism, or rather patriotism, one should always take it with a grain of salt when leaders claim to be so principled, likewise when the media asserts an ideological motive for realpolitik. One should never be all that satisfied by the media's explaining away. Roughly paraphrasing, the media also cites preventing NATO expansion, the westward expansion of Russian influence, and similar such broad and nearly tautological explanations, which don't seem incorrect at face value but nor are they all that illuminating. [User:AP295|AP295]] (discuss • contribs) 07:05, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Another thing that bothers me is that considering how bogus mass media is in America, it would not be hard at all to completely undermine or completely discredit altogether. Couldn't a nation like Russia easily do this if they really wanted to? I feel somewhat ambivalent about it, but surely if Russia wanted to undermine the American public's faith in its leaders and media, they'd not have a hard time of it. This is why we need better leaders and journalists in America, but putting that aside for a moment, it's curious that western mass media goes unchallenged by so many supposed adversaries. Either the USA has even more extensive censorship than I imagined, or nobody's actually trying to put up much a fight against the status quo in America. For instance, telling the rest of the world that the Ukrainian leadership are "Nazis" seems a bit too crude as far as propaganda goes. Surely they're smarter than that, no? It almost seems like a straw-man, fodder that our media can easily refute or object to. With the right sort of propaganda (or really even just truthful information in the correct form), the American public could likely be motivated to demand foreign policy that is far less 'interventionist', if that were desirable. Mass media here is so low-brow and incredulous that I cannot imagine most people have much faith in it. I feel somewhat ignorant trying to reason about the topic of Russia, so I could be entirely off base. Take all this with a grain of salt. I'm simply trying to work out something I don't understand. I suppose my question is an ignorant question, perhaps not as stupid as "why don't they simply invade the US?" but in the same vein. That said I can't help but feel that the American people could be quite easily persuaded to pay more attention and to turn a closer and more critical eye to their own government and media, to the benefit of all concerned. This is all to say nothing of Ukraine, whose people I do sympathize with. They deserve sovereignty no less than anyone else. It all seems rather senseless from my view, which is really my point. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 08:07, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally, this debate is vague and poorly titled. Why not "What motive does Russia have to invade the Ukraine" or some such question? What do they mean by "justified?" Justified morally? Justified tactically? Justified in terms of some other objective? I assume the former but how can anyone answer that without knowing the motive? I hate to say it but Wikidebate titles seem to miss the mark every time. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 08:56, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

The above was produced in 19 edits. There is a better plan: create a new text file, write a post (e.g. in Notepad), keep editing the post until the thoughts settle, wait, edit again, iterate, and when the mind and its product is reasonably stable, after, say, several hours if need be, post it to the wiki. --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 11:56, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Wikiversity should have a "save as draft". It's a pain to switch between a text editor and wikipedia, especially if you're referencing it or want to preview your work. I don't see that it does any harm if I have to make a few edits. Maybe if there were a good emacs package/major-mode for wikitext it would be tolerable. AP295 (discuss • contribs) 14:52, 22 December 2023 (UTC)