Politics & News

Only logged in members can reply and interact with the post.
Join SimilarWorlds for FREE »

How do you judge which side has popular appeal in a war-zone?

It's necessarily a tough question to answer because truth is the first casualty of war, information is hard to find and no voting is going to happen when tanks are rolling past. Also, a side controlling a recently contested territory, isn't going to do a referendum that anyone should trust.

I do have a theory of sorts though: If a side has an volunteer army prepared to put bodies on the line and a local population prepared to support it, then it's a regime with some serious popular appeal.

Someone asked if Assad was popular in Syria. He clearly wasn't, given how quickly his regime collapsed after a major defeat. Like them or not, the rebels against his regime kept fighting long after they'd seemingly lost the war in 2019 and has been reduced to guerillas on the fringes of their country. Guerillas can only survive at all as long as local people support their cause so they clearly have (at least) regional hegemony.

It's similar with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The western military was never able to take them out because rural Afghan communities hid them, fed them and supported them. For contrast, the well-founded pro-western army lost as soon as American military left the country.

People who say that Ukrainians resisting Russia are mere tools of western imperialism are wrong by this hypothesis. Why would they keep fighting and dying in a war they are losing if they didn't care about Ukrainian nationalism? Zelensky would win an election against a pro-putin Ukrainian. The people's reaction to the war tells us that.

Obviously there are other geopolitical issues in all these conflicts and my own opinions are different. Though I do think my general hypothesis is true.

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

beckyromero · 36-40, F

I pretty much agree with all that with a caveat.

It's similar with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The western military was never able to take them out because rural Afghan communities hid them, fed them and supported them. For contrast, the well-founded pro-western army lost as soon as American military left the country.

That's because we (i.e. the United States) never made a serious effort to engage those rural Afghan communities, to borrow a phrase "to win their hearts and minds."

We had a chance to do so when the Soviet Union pulled out. We could have built schools, roads, hospitals. We could have brought in medical supplies, food, emergency personnel.

Then after 9-11, we were given a second chance. And we blew that chance, too.

We could have spent pennies to the dollar for what it ending up costing in blood and treasure: 9-11, the aftermath, the occupation, etc. Probably even LESS than a penny to the dollar.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@beckyromero I was talking about the situation since the US led invasion.

As of the situation after the soviet invasion, I just don't know. A lot of moving parts in that one.

beckyromero · 36-40, F

@Burnley123

As of the situation after the soviet invasion, I just don't know. A lot of moving parts in that one.

What would plain old fashion charity have cost us back then? A few hundred million?

We've spent probably close to two TRILLION on the war and occupation of Afghanistan since 2001, not to mention all the ramifications from it.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@beckyromero I'm not sure I'm buying this. Maybe but, erm...

beckyromero · 36-40, F

@Burnley123

The Taliban didn't even exist at the time of the Soviet withdrawl.

And I'm not advocating that we should have went in with any military mission.

Simply to aid the people of a nation that had been brutally occupied by the Soviet Union.

The Afghan people really needed to know that it was the United States that furnished the weapons, material and financial support that they used to drive the Soviets out. Recall that it was a covert operation.

And then we abandoned them at a critical time that could have changed the future of Afghanistan.

Because we selfishly wanted to cash in on the so-called "peace dividend" when the Berlin Wall came down.

sarabee1995 · 26-30, F

@beckyromero You are not wrong. But it is complicated.

If when the Soviets withdrew, we poured in humanitarian aide as we so often do in the world, would Afghanistan have been so open to letting Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden use it as a training and staging ground. That is impossible to know but for sure if it worked it would've cost mere pennies on the dollar

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@beckyromero The Afghanis have a very strict moral code. They very much viewed the US as being a danger to that moral code. They were not about to be bought by a few trinkets given them by the Yanks.

beckyromero · 36-40, F

@hippyjoe1955

Until the Saur Revolution in 1978, U.S. relations with Afghanistan had been cordial.

Then in 1979, our new Ambassador, Chicago-native Adolph "Spike" Dubs, was kidnapped in Kabul without any demands given to us. And then despite our pleas to wait, the Afghan government at the urging of their Soviet puppetmasters stormed the hotel room where Dubs was being held. Dubs was murdered in the ensuing firefight.

President Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski believed that Dubs' death "was a tragic event which involved either Soviet ineptitude or collusion."

The KGB was likely involved and the entire incident may have been concocted to diminish U.S. financial aid to Afghanistan. If that was the goal, it succeeded as the U.S. immediately reduced planned humanitarian aid.

Later that year the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@beckyromero The state and the people are two very different entities.

beckyromero · 36-40, F

@hippyjoe1955

The state and the people are two very different entities.

Yes, but the state is considered to represent the people.

Hence when the state does something objectional, such as launching a sneak attack on a military base, invading a peaceful neighboring state or blowing up a passenger jet over Scotland, the people of that state will be the ones to suffer the consequences.

Is that fair? I guess that depends on one's point of view.

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@beckyromero I hope that made more sense to you than it does to me. You simply sound desperate. Kind of funny actually.

beckyromero · 36-40, F

@hippyjoe1955

I hope that made more sense to you than it does to me. You simply sound desperate. Kind of funny actually.

What's funny is that you seem to expect that U.S. anti-aircraft crews should have somehow asked the pilots of Kate bombers if they represented the Japanese government or the Japanese people as they dropped bombs on Battleship Row on December 7, 1941 and their answer would dictate whether we'd go later go forward with the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo four months later.

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@beckyromero The longer you go on the less sense you make. Really? You are that desperate? Really?

beckyromero · 36-40, F

@hippyjoe1955

You're the one who said, "The state and the people are two very different entities."

Care to clarify how you separate the two in war time?

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@beckyromero Some wars are popular among the people of the nations and others are not. Some time during most wars some people change their mind.

beckyromero · 36-40, F

@hippyjoe1955

Some wars are popular among the people of the nations and others are not. Some time during most wars some people change their mind.

I agree with that.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@beckyromero It's a good question

If the people make sacrifices to support a state in war time then the differences between the two entities are negligible. That's kind of the point of this post

sarabee1995 · 26-30, F

@Burnley123 @beckyromero So if this "popular support" concept is applied to the current conflict in Ukraine, what conclusions do we draw?

By all reports, the Russian people support the special military operation.

Clearly, the Ukrainian people support the war effort to expel the invaders.

So? What conclusion can be drawn from this concept of popular support?

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@sarabee1995 With geopolitics, it's also highly complicated so judgements and going to be impacted by multiple factors.

Why I think this matters here is the principle of national self-determination. The people of a territory (or majority of) should decide which state they belong too.

It's a idea that goes back to Woodrow Wilson and even further back though it's inconsistently applied because great powers also interpret things based on their own self-interest.

However, it works as a general principle of you are trying to evaluate what is 'right' and 'wrong'.

It's the reason why I (as a critic of NATO) was against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

sarabee1995 · 26-30, F

@Burnley123 Self determination is so difficult to measure and implement though.

Prior to the Russian invasion of 2014, the majority of the Crimean people voted to remain in Ukraine. Post invasion, the majority voted to go with Russia. 🤷‍♀

beckyromero · 36-40, F

@sarabee1995 @Burnley123

As you said, Sarabee, the "popular support" was in the invading country, not the invaded. No different than (yes, Burnley, I will say it 😉) in Poland in 1939. I don't think any other conclusion can be drawn from it other than Russia is the aggressor.

@Burnley123

Why I think this matters here is the principle of national self-determination. The people of a territory (or majority of) should decide which state they belong too. It's a idea that goes back to Woodrow Wilson and even further back though it's inconsistently applied because great powers also interpret things based on their own self-interest.

The principle of national self-determination can be a tricky proposition. How big must an area be before a vote should be taken on self-determination? Should it be strictly defined by a majority ethnic group? What about the rights of the minorities? What happens to them and their lands? Wilson never clearly defined any of that.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@sarabee1995 It's what I said about referendums in contested territory. Nobody will trust them

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@beckyromero

As you said, Sarabee, the "popular support" was in the invading country, not the invaded.

I don't know how this is a gotcha or contradicts anything I've said. The invasions was popular with Russians. The resistance is popular with Ukrainians. Yes, Russia was the aggressor. As they also were in 1939, along with NAZI Germany.

This post is about trying to work our which wars are popular, regardless of my own value judgements. You can be against a popular war, as I have many times.

The principle of national self-determination can be a tricky proposition. How big must an area be before a vote should be taken on self-determination?

This is a better point and it's why I hold to national self-determination as a general principle, rather than an Iron law. Russian bureaucrats were moved to east Ukraine during the Soviet period, Northern Ireland remained British because its borders were drawn deliberately to give a majority but most of the unionists had been there for only a few generations. Don't get me started on Israel changing facts on the ground.

As I said, geopolitics is complicated and judging right and wrong from a neutral point of view is complicated.

sarabee1995 · 26-30, F

@Burnley123

... geopolitics is complicated and judging right and wrong from a neutral point of view is complicated.

No truer words ...

beckyromero · 36-40, F

@Burnley123

Not at all a "gotcha" question.

I agree with you on this.

And as to 1939, yes, the world often forgets that the U.S.S.R. was also an aggressor.

In fact, the Soviet prosecutor before the Nuremberg Trials began contributed to the idea of charging the defendants for "crimes against peace." Then the Soviet government tried to suppress evidence of the secret part of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact being brought up at trial because they were concerned the same charge could be leveled against them.

Many members of the Soviet delegation were't even aware of the secret part of the pact to invade Poland two weeks after Nazi Germany (and the Baltic states), of the Soviets' forced deportation of Poles and the massacre of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest (which they tried to blame on the Nazis).