Thread by @benjaminwittes

It’s really maddening when Westerners speak about a “negotiated” solution to the Ukraine war. Let me translate that lingo into plain English for you. The subject of the “negotiation” they speak of is how much of Russia’s conquest Ukraine should have to accept. If you are not a 👇

Ukrainian, you have exactly zero standing to engage this subject. Our role is to support the Ukrainians to the maximum extent we can without triggering a wider conflict. It is emphatically not to tell them how much of their country to give up or what limitations on their 👇

sovereignty they need to swallow. I’m sorry if you don’t like war. I don’t either. But this one is not your war or mine to end. Asking people to negotiate when their army is starting to turn the tide is presumptuous in the extreme. It’s up to them whether to take risks to take 👇

back Donbass and Crimea and the various territories the Russians are occupying.

This tweet thread is inspired by a rant by @saletan on the @BulwarkOnline Podcast yesterday, which eloquently channeled the rage I have been feeling on this particular subject.

Another key point on this matter that I want specifically to direct to international law Twitter:
To the extent you engage in this rhetoric you are taking a meat axe to the UN Charter and you should be honest about what you’re doing.

The Charter makes unlawful the acquisition of territory by the use of force. And it makes lawful the defensive use of force to prevent this. It does not say that when Country A invades Country B, the world will decide how much of Country B’s territory Country A gets to acquire 👇

through it’s use of force, and it does not say either that Country B will under threat of annihilation be pressured to accept limitations on its sovereignty instead of pursuing its lawful right of self defense to protect ALL of its territory.👇

When you accept the rhetoric that the “sides” should “negotiate” a “solution,” what you’re really saying is that the charter can go fuck itself when the threat of escalation scares you too much. That’s fine if that’s what you believe. But don’t expect us to 👇

take your bromides about the “rules based international order” terribly seriously if that’s where you fall on when it counts. If you take the rules-based system remotely seriously, you have to consider any negotiated resolution that allows Russia to keep any part of Donbas or 👇

Crimea and forces Ukraine to accept that as a gross failure.
That’s all I got.