In reply to UKC/UKH Articles:
Definitely torn on this one. Good to see a range of views in the article.
I can see the argument that by making life difficult / miserable for all Russians we may end up spurring them to political dissent, which is what may be necessary to halt the invasion.
But at the same time I'm not sure I like the implication that ordinary people of a particular nationality can be targeted with the intent of coercing them to put themselves and their families at risk, or broadly hold them responsible for their government's actions. Especially for Russians that don't actually live in Russia at the moment. Discriminating against people based on their nationality so blatantly just feels instinctively wrong to me.
Then again is this so different to sanctions which result in hardship for all Russian residents regardless of their personal action or inaction, belief or lack of belief in the propaganda? I suppose the difference was that in my head the sanctions are aimed at disabling the government and damaging the interests of very wealthy and influential Russians who might be in a position to persuade Putin to retreat, and the damage to the general population was more incidental than deliberate. Maybe that was just me being naive or misunderstanding things though.
I'm not sure how productive it actually will be though. For the Russians that believe the propaganda then being banned from mountaineering abroad will just make them more insular and dependent on the internal propaganda that got them banned in the first place, and they're more likely to think the whole world has it in for Russia, and that Putin was right all along. For disillusioned Russians, will it make them more likely to protest? Maybe, maybe not, probably depends on their personal situation and beliefs.
I'd be curious to see arguments about where this sort of thing would end too. Eg should we apply the same treatment to Chinese, Israeli, Syrian, Saudi Arabian, North Korean, Burmese mountaineers and so forth, until they manage to prevent their governments from doing Bad Things? Maybe even UK mountaineers should be banned until our government relinquishes claim to the Chagos Islands?
Countering my slippery sloping / whatabboutery, the Russia / Ukraine conflict is identified as special by David in the article :
"There are 43 ongoing armed conflicts globally, but this is the only invasion war since WWII," he said. "There hasn't been an outright invasion of this scale where one country invades another — all the other current conflicts are civil, tribal, religious or proxy wars. This needs to be taken seriously."
I'm not an expert like David is so I'm not sure what the precise definition of an invasion war is, but I'm not really convinced there's such a difference between this war and many of the other wars involving invasions since WWII, or that those other wars or Bad Things such as religious or ethnic discrimination are serious on a different scale to this war.
Post edited at 02:11