The existence of a "criticism" section on wikipedia does not mean a journal isn't reputable. But if you want to censor your own information sources that way, go ahead. The Quincy Institute -- which publishes Responsible Statecraft -- is a realist foreign policy think tank, designed to oppose neo-con foreign policy and advocate for a rationalist approach rather than an ideological approach. They opposed many of the foreign wars the U.S. has recently waged. Here is their mission statement:
"The Quincy Institute promotes ideas that move U.S. foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace."
That, of course, is enough to make a lot of the redditors very angry, but it's certainly a reputable outlet. You can read more here, which has their mission statement, list of board members, and major funders:
Funders include The Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Open Society Foundation, The Ploughshares fund, Ford Foundation, Streisand Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. Examine their full list of donors here:
I would also argue that wikipedia is not an unbiased source on anything that touches politics or foreign policy, and it would be quite foolish to trust it as a reputable information source on those topics.
There is nothing "rational" from a US point of view in opposing the supporting Ukraine in this war. It has basically infinite upsides with no downsides. They obviously have funding routes that come from the Russian government.
Also it seems hacker news isn't following their own policies as a different comment of mine got flagged simply for noting the background of this think tank.
The article is in the journal - Responsible Statecraft -- published by the think tank - Quincy Institute. This stuff isn't hard.
In terms of rational or irrational, it's irrational to fight wars that destabilize the world and that you cannot win. It doesn't matter that you really want to win. It doesn't matter if you think you should win. That's the difference between acting emotionally versus acting rationally. The Quincy Institute distinguished itself by opposing many of our middle east wars for this reason - wars that we lost and that resulted in millions of deaths. The US has attacked or invaded over 120 nations since 1991, and that's not even counting all the color revolutions and coups that we've sponsored to destabalize nations all over the world because we didn't like their governments or we want to create chaos along the borders of our rivals. I'm sure an argument could be made that each of these nations were led by a government that didn't share our values or that did some bad things, but nevertheless it was irrational to follow this course. For example, we destabilized Afghanistan by sponsoring Islamic terror there, incentivizing the Soviets to invade. That was covered in the book "The Bear Trap". The result was the radicalization and destruction of Afghan society, and it also led to the promotion of Islamic terror all over the world, including the creation of Al Qaeda. So this was irrational, even though it felt good to give the Soviets an L at the expense of destroying Afghan society. Similarly we are sponsoring Kurdish terror now to destabilize Iran and punish Turkey, but it is again causing a coalition of nations to form against the U.S. We are currently supporting Myanmar terror groups attacking the Junta in order to cause chaos on China's border, and also radical islamic terror groups in Pakistan that are attacking Belt and Road projects. We dismembered Libya with over 50,000 bombing runs because it was a Russian ally and now the nation which had the highest standard of living in Africa is a Mad Max scene of rival warlords and open air slave markets. We engineered two violent color revolutions in Ukraine to install anti-Russian governments and urged Ukraine to not negotiate and not implement the Minsk 2 agreement, and now we are pumping it full of weapons so that they will fight until the last Ukrainian. We supported contra terror groups in Nicaragua, mined their harbor, and blew up their oil pipelines. It is a wreckage of destroyed nations all around the world, which only hurts our long term interests, and this is why it is irrational.
Firstly, "millions of deaths" is inflating things. Even the most extreme estimates put deaths in the hundreds of thousands. Most estimates put them in the tens of thousands for Afghanistan and low hundreds of thousands in Iraq.
As to your other point a broken clock can be right two times a day. Just because they took the very easy and obvious position of being against the wars in the middle east does not make them a fount of knowledge. The fact that they effectively argue for Ukraine surrendering to Russia shows how little they care about "responsible statecraft". There's a lot of groups that I used to support that correctly opposed the middle east wars but then suddenly flipped to giving tacit support to Russia.
From what I can see they are a "tankie" organization as they borrow many of the talking points. If it's America doing it they're against it, which is the common tankie position and if it's some other organization that America is helping defend against, then America is still in the wrong.
Responding to your edit. Edit: You keep making your post longer and I'm not going to read your additional edits.
> In terms of rational or irrational, it's irrational to fight wars that destabilize the world and that you cannot win.
The US is not fighting the war. Ukraine is. Additionally, it is Russia that had no way to win this war. There would be a forever insurgency had Russia succeeded as they didn't have enough troops to maintain the peace, assuming they hadn't lost any.
> It doesn't matter that you really want to win. It doesn't matter if you think you should win. That's the difference between acting emotionally versus acting rationally.
I agree. There was little chance for Russia to win this war and so they shouldn't have started it.
> The US has attacked or invaded over 120 nations since 1991
You got a source on that? That's a pretty outrageous claim.
> For example, we destabilized Afghanistan by sponsoring Islamic terror there, incentivizing the Soviets to invade.
You reversed cause and effect here. The former happened after the latter. Soviets invaded and then we supported the Islamic rebels to successfully win out against the Soviets. If we hadn't history would have taken a very different course. And as usual, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
And none of that is relevant to Ukraine. Supporting the democratically elected government against an invading imperialist power.
> The result was the radicalization and destruction of Afghan society
Afghan society was based on tribal warfare, and is still based on tribal warfare. Nothing was changed. I've even heard anecdotes from some of those tribesmen who thought it was still the soviets invading when Americans showed up.
> So this was irrational, even though it felt good to give the Soviets an L at the expense of destroying Afghan society.
You think the Soviets would have preserved Afghan society had they taken the place over and integrated it into the Soviet Union? Just as minorities suffered in Russia, they continue to suffer to this day. They are second class citizens with their culture slowly being erased.
And again, supporting Ukraine in fending off an invading empire does not "destroy their society", it preserves it.
Edit: One last reply as you added some nonsense to your post at the end.
> We engineered two violent color revolutions in Ukraine to install anti-Russian governments and urged Ukraine to not negotiate and not implement the Minsk 2 agreement, and now we are pumping it full of weapons so that they will fight until the last Ukrainian.
Yeah this is pure lies. There was no US engineering of the revolution in Ukraine. It was entirely done by themselves. This type of propaganda you have fallen for is the problem with the nonsense put out by responsible statecraft. They repeat Russian imperialist state-written lies.
Secondly, it is the actually the west (mostly Europe) who instead pushed Ukraine into Minsk 2. It is something that Ukrainians hate more than anything and why they push back against any US politician or European politican who says that something else like that is created. https://twitter.com/christopherjm/status/1592427657601650689 Zelensky hates the Minsk agreements and has vowed that he will never allow a "Minsk 3".
> You reversed cause and effect here. The former happened after the latter. Soviets invaded and then we supported the Islamic rebels to successfully win out against the Soviets. If we hadn't history would have taken a very different course. And as usual, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
No, you reversed cause and effect. Russia didn't invade Afghanistan for no reason. Why did it invade? Because the nation was plunged into a civil war with armed islamic groups, funded by the U.S., pouring into the country attacking the existing government that had good relations with Russia. Strange how the U.S. always funds radical, destabilizing groups all along the borders of its rivals.
> You think the Soviets would have preserved Afghan society had they taken the place over and integrated it into the Soviet Union?
The Soviets didn't care about "preserving society" because they are not hysterical children trying to engage in a moralizing foreign policy with a huge body count. E.g., they are not the United States. What the Soviets care about -- what any rational nation cares about -- is stability. They do not want radical groups causing chaos along its borders. Which is exactly why the U.S. funds radical groups causing chaos along Russia and China's borders. The U.S. is now getting kicked out of Syria -- why? Because they have been funding and arming radical Kurdish groups that have been causing terrorism in Turkey, Iran, and Syria, and all the nations of the region are uniting in opposition to this US proxy, and are actually inviting China in to help them deal with the Kurds. So the Kurds are going to get screwed once again - just like the last time the U.S. urged them to rise up against Saddam. The U.S. uses these groups as tools to smash enemies, and then the tools are the ones that get smashed. The same thing happened to the Uyghers, which the U.S. was supporting in various terror attacks in China and Southeast Asia until China had enough and decide to crack down on them. Again, the Uyghers suffer as a result of this policy. All over the world, you see this pattern, whether it is supporting contras in Nicaragua, neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine, muslim separatists in China, Kurdish separatists in Syria, Turkey, and Iran -- the U.S. funds these groups to attack and weaken their enemies, but the result is always blowback, first on the tools of U.S. policy, and then on the U.S. itself.
This is not a rational foreign policy, nor a diplomacy-first foreign policy. This is a foreign policy based on destabilization and terror - of spreading chaos all over the world that ultimately weakens the U.S. and carries a great human toll.
> Yeah this is pure lies.
These are the facts. There is no defending the death squads and Georgian trained snipers of Maidan shooting police, anymore than there is no defending the violence of the Orange revolution. These are just violent coups to install puppet governments, using them as a tool to smash geopolitical enemies, and the result is great human suffering.
You can try to say bigfoot is real all that you like, but without evidence little will come of it. I suggest trying to understand things better rather than spreading conspiracy theories.
There were no "death squads", other than those on the Ukrainian government side.
