In an asylum scenario definitely can be considered but for migration in general we need to stabilize the housing and cost of living situation before we start inviting people over in my opinion. The population is also skewing more elderly (with immigration there being the only balancing factor) there and here so need go make sure our healthcare system is ready for such a migration without causing any institutional shocks.

William Dalrymple’s books on South Asian history. The man could have easily been a novelist with his writing style.

Yes, I’m afraid she comes from this planet.

My response, with respect, is that religion is always ever just a small walk away from fundamentalism and zealotry.

Billions currently live and have lived their religious lives without falling down this purported slippery slope which takes away from this point.

I would strongly disagree that the presence of religion in that environment was a fundamental requirement for the positive sides of those events to happen.

What secular equivalent is there to Christmas, Easter, Eid, Ramadan, Holi, Diwali etc? Why has no secular tradition been able to produce days of collective joy or reflection in a similar vein?

All benefits one can point to of religion can just as easily be present in secular settings as well.

Except happiness. Which according to the Pew Research Center is more common among the religious, for whatever reason.

You’re correct about Abrahamic religions but ancient polytheistic/pagan religions and current day Eastern and Dharmic religions often do not discuss life after death. Many do not believe there is only one life but instead there are multiple cycles through which a soul can exist. There is a concept of Nirvana/Enlightenment, which one could say is a type of heaven, but hell is essentially reliving life on Earth with progressively more hardship and struggle if you choose to live poorly.

Now Abrahamic religions do have the most followers, partly because monotheism is highly compatible with centralization and authoritarianism. It enforces conformity which makes it very effective at organizing people. Polytheistic or nontheistic religions (often Eastern) need to be much more flexible. Centralization has been a point of contention within even monotheistic religions with the Protestant split from the Catholic church for example.

Religion has more to it then a population control though. It does give people a sense of meaning and there have always been infights to challenge the power of the priestly class who act as gatekeepers to spiritual meaning and purpose.

The Spanish and Portugese were notorious for this in the early Modern period. As soon as they had a little taste of success taking out the Moors they were all about spreading Catholicism by the sword.

Christian missionaries operate under the assumption that non believers are excluded from heaven which is fairly patronizing. Christian lore was often used as justification for economies of dispossession (colonialism, slavery) in the modern European world.

Generally Eastern religions are more adaptable but they are also exclusionary in their own way. Buddhism was born out of Hinduism because of disillusionment with caste/ritual purity and ancient norms around animal sacrifice. Buddhism itself is exclusionary depending on how devout you are.

Generally speaking, every belief system / culture has “puritans” that perceive themselves as superior due to following a “less contaminated” or more traditional path. Nazism would be an example that does not have a strong religious basis.

I personally believe religion has two purposes 1) Giving people a sense of meaning in life and 2) Getting them accustomed to submitting to top down authorotarian structures (especially monotheistic religions which are often less decentralized). I think religion has acted as an important pacifier for people who felt fear and anxiety living a life of existential uncertainty, especially in pre-Modern times.

I think religion still has an important role today in helping people find meaning. I think it’s good for people to explore their own spirituality. But as soon as one’s spirituality devolves into seeing others as lesser, it loses both meaning and purpose.

India US relations have gone cold since Trump. Particularly with the +25% tariff for buying Russian oil which they perceive as unfair since

1. India followed the US in sanctioning Iran in 2019 which is why they increased purchases of Russian oil.

2. The West had set a price cap on Russian oil after the Ukraine war as everyone understood that completely banning its purchase would drive oil prices up undesirably.

3. The Biden administration was explicit in acknowledging and accepting that India buy Russian oil. It was seen as necessary to stabilize the market.

4. China buys more oil than India from Russia and faces no specific additional tariff.

5. The EU continues to buy gas and the US buys uranium from Russia (which also allows them to continue to finance the war).

6. The IMF (which is seen as an American/Western institution) continues to bail out Pakistan and the peception in India is that some of those funds will reach non-state actors who will perpetuate violence in India.

There are actually more reasons but India recently hosted Putin for a state visit and rolled out the red carpet for him. India and Russia have historically had good relations (the Soviet Union used its UN security council position to support India against postcolonial Western interference on several occasions) but this was friendlier than many were expecting and it is in large part due to the current US administration being inconsistent on trade policy and incompetent at diplomacy.

India’s official stance is ‘strategic autonomy’ or multialignment but at least right now it seems to have more friends in the East than in the West.

Middle East/Africa would likely become its own sphere just based on geography. I assume Europe would be in Russia’s sphere.

I am pro democracy and anti imperialist. I take your point about whataboutism but I’m sure you can see how

Yea and a large portion of the USA is against those wars.

does not make for a good argument in favor of Western liberal democracy.

This is clearly a very Western leaning audience that is passionate about their perspective.

I don’t support imperialism in general, regardless of where it comes from. I’m more interested in how empire justifies imperialistic behaviour and how its subjects align themselves with that behavior. This thread has been illuminating in that regard. I imagine there will be quite a few American supporters for war in Venezuela, for example, as there were for the Iraq war.

I agree that nothing the USA or any other party has done justifies Russia’s war in Ukraine. But how the state justifies imperialism and how the subjects buy into and hold dearly their state’s mistruths is what is of interest to me.

Outside the West, Putin has interestingly suffered no significant reputational damage (particularly in the Global South) which makes one wonder how widely the truths that are presented here as fact are accepted globally.

The reality is the US has started numerous wars on shaky grounds / manufactured consent and we at least try to reflect on their rationale and judge whether there’s any way for empire to be held accountable for war on false pretenses. In the US’ case it essentially never is.

This is clearly a very Western leaning audience that is entrenched in their perspective which is totally fine. As long as it’s understood that they are also perceiving reality through propaganda disemminated by their elites.

I don’t support imperialism in general, regardless of where it comes from. I’m more interested in how empire justifies imperialistic behaviour and how its subjects align themselves to that behavior. This thread has been illuminating in that regard. I imagine there will be quite a few American supporters for war in Venezuela, for example.

I agree with you. Nothing the USA or any other party has done justifies Russia’s war in Ukraine. But how the state justifies imperialism and how the subjects buy into and hold dearly their state’s mistruths is a fascinating sight to behold.

Well they started the war so there’s no question they’re the aggressor. But to mount a legitimate defense it is important to understand the factors that contributed to their choice and judge their legitimacy. Certain actions taken by the US are noteworthy.

If we assume we are good faith actors and whoever it is we are against are acting in bad faith then we fail to see the whole picture.

NATO has not started a war but that is not mutually exclusive from it being perceived as an arm of American imperialism. The general perception is that due to its astronomical defense spending the US has disproportionate influence within the group. There is precedent for NATO countries joining America in unjustified wars. This contributes to the perception that, if the US conjures up a reason to go to war with your country, there is a whole club of countries which America may have coercive leverage over (due to defense investment) that may join in seeking to anhilate you.

NATO countries are (or perhaps were) America’s sphere of influence.

That’s fair, what was meant was whether Russia could feel justified in doing so (from their perspective) in a similar way that America felt justified in its war on Iraq or its posturing for war in Venezuela. All of which are not justified from an objective perspective.

No doubt imperialism is involved but I think we need to be realistic in recognizing that non-NATO countries do not see NATO as a defense alliance. They see it as an extension of the American empire/imperialism. With the Trump administration it seems like even America has come to see it that way.

In 2019, the US pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty claiming that Russia had violated the treaty by developing, testing and fielding a ground‑launched cruise missile (GLCM) designated SSC‑8.

Independent analysts noted that the evidence for the Russian violation was contested, with some questioning the reliability of the U.S. claims and pointing out that the United States itself operated missile‑defense systems (e.g., Aegis Ashore) that could be interpreted as infringing the INF’s ban on land‑based intermediate‑range missiles.

This fed into their perception that if Ukraine joined NATO such weapons would pointed in their direction from Ukrainian territory.

On August 4, 2025, the Russian Federation announced the termination of its unilateral moratorium on deploying ground-launched intermediate-range (1,000–5,500 km) and shorter-range (500–1,000 km) missiles, six years after the US pulled out

Not good if you’re a fan of denuclearization.

The tough thing about soft power is its built on trust so its unlikely America will be getting it back.

Financially it’s a lucrative one and makes them more resilient to Western sanctions. China is on a trajectory to surpass the US economy in 10 years. Wealth, power and influence are gradually drifting East and South so it’s important for Western leaders to adapt now instead of disregarding reality and becoming more entrenched. Being forced to align economically with China will likely be to Russia’s long term benefit.

The West (particularly US) is currently doubling down on AGI and fossil fuels (US and Canada). The AGI bet can definitely blow up in its face in the short term. Emerging markets are already pivoting hard to renewables so fossil fuels may not be as good a long term bet as they’re hoping. The EU is a stagnant market and the UK is still limping after shooting itself in the foot with Brexit. Many of these countries are now tied up by infighting over immigration, impacting their ability to project power.

The only absolute advantage is the massive defense spending but even the majority of that is by the US so if they decide to leave the rest of the West to fend for themselves then all bets are off.

Western propaganda machine constantly pumps out information on Russia’s economy being on the verge of collapse. I recall buying into it years ago and, well, we’re still waiting.

I think it’s a bit of old world thinking at work. In the post WW2 period the West controlled the vast majority of global capital so being blocked out of trade by us meant guaranteed economic despair (if you weren’t big enough). The world is very different today but many Westerners (even in leadership) still perceive the world as if we’re still in that era.

It’s interesting to invoke the US as it typically has a low threshold for military action.

I don’t think it justifies war but I would understand if the US perceived that as a national security threat (though it appears everything is a national security threat in the US today). It would be naive to assume a great power would sit by idly and watch that occur.

I definitely understand that many percieve this through a cultural ‘us vs them’ lens but I would advise against oversimplified conceptualizations. Global geopolitics is complex and a positive outcome in this war is dependent on deeper understanding of historical contexts and how they play into motivation and strategy today.

Fair bit of speculation on Russia’s behalf.

The most important point to keep in mine is that most of the world (ie countries outside of NATO) do not see NATO as a defensive alliance.

We can argue back and forth about whether Russia was justified to start a war over perceived expansion (I don’t believe so) but historical context is important and I don’t think it’s hard to see how they perceived a threat from their geopolitical perspective, especially if even Merkel recognized that.