The Government of Canada is hammering down on its stance against the use of cluster munitions following the U.S. decision to send the controversial weapon to Ukraine.
a plausible argument could be made on humanitarian grounds that a negotiated settlement as quickly as possible is the best of the bad options
Absolutely not, that idea is based on a total lack of historical memory and amounts to nothing more than kicking the can down the road. Russia will not accept anything less than keeping the territories it currently occupies, and that’s not an option. This invasion happened because Russia had been getting away with this kind of stuff for two decades. It’s not Putin’s first land grab. It was Chechnya in 2000, Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014, the rest of Ukraine in 2022. They took a small bite at first, and when they got away with it, they took a bigger bite next. And again, and again. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Allowing Russia to get away with this and keep the territories it took guarantees another repetition of the same pattern less than a decade later with yet more devastating results. If we had nipped this in the bud, the war could’ve been avoided entirely. The second best time is now.
Absolutely not, that idea is based on a total lack of historical memory and amounts to nothing more than kicking the can down the road. Russia will not accept anything less than keeping the territories it currently occupies, and that’s not an option. This invasion happened because Russia had been getting away with this kind of stuff for two decades. It’s not Putin’s first land grab. It was Chechnya in 2000, Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014, the rest of Ukraine in 2022. They took a small bite at first, and when they got away with it, they took a bigger bite next. And again, and again. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Allowing Russia to get away with this and keep the territories it took guarantees another repetition of the same pattern less than a decade later with yet more devastating results. If we had nipped this in the bud, the war could’ve been avoided entirely. The second best time is now.