Like if someone gave someone a weapon and they were knowingly going to use it for it’s intended purpose, you would technically be an accomplice? So why is this different.
Edit: Thank you everyone for your responses! I appreciate it!
In: 9
It’s the international relations version of “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. So as long as Americans aren’t pulling the trigger the international community let’s it slide. Actual declared war between Russia and the USA would trigger treaties that trigger treaties.. etc. similar to what started WWI with the killing of the Arch Duke.
Admittedly this stuff is rather complicated and open to tons of interpretation. In the current case in Ukraine, the US and other countries are supplying Ukraine with weapons. So without a doubt they are supporting Ukraine. However, it is not US “minds” deciding exactly on how those weapons are used, although the US is giving some guidelines to limit their offensive employment. That’s on President Zelensky and his generals. No Americans are actually killing Russians in this regard. At least in terms of how a nation views its own involvement, its a pretty big difference. But just kind of how the politics play out it is possible to do so and kind of distance yourself from the war execution. WWII is a very good example in that the US supplied lots of weapons to the allies before entering the war “directly” at the end of 1941. Proxy wars are a thing, and this is one of the ways they are carried out.
One thing that is not mentioned here is that often it’s not a direct connection.
My family were refugees from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The USSR tried to claim that Afghanistan belonged to them, so the US didn’t want to go directly into Afghanistan.
As a result the US went to small rural villages in Pakistan just across the border in Pakistan. They gave these villagers excellent weapons and lots of money and told them “take these to Afghanistan so they can fight the Russians”. This was called Operation Cyclone:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
These people took some of it, and kept some of it. When the war with Afghanistan finally bankrupted the USSR, these people who kept the money and weapons then supported the Taliban and they used the American weapons to take over the country.
America has generally been reductant to admit that the Taliban has effective weapons so we often have to look at foreign media to get around US propaganda.
For example in British media, they show that the Taliban used American anti-aircraft missile systems to take down American aircraft:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-taliban-missile-strike-chinook
Meanwhile the American government wants to insist that leftover equipment is fully disabled. And that the Taliban are too stupid to use it.
If the Taliban know how to operate American missile systems, they could probably rebuild a few Humvees.
One of the biggest problems I see with Americans is they like to connect evil with stupidity.
There’s no reason you can’t have an evil genius. If Hitler was stupid, the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened.
In 2015-2016 countless people said Trump was too stupid and it’s impossible for him to become president.These people were too naive.
Underestimating evil entities is a very serious issue.
Nonetheless, the US likely gives Ukraine lots of stuff indirectly through neighboring countries.
If the US had a significant presence in Ukraine – that could cause a direct conflict with Russia.
If Russia kills a US soldier in Ukraine, that can now cause a messy situation.
Russia can’t effectively retaliate or prevent the transfer from happening without going to war with NATO as a whole. They’re getting their shit kicked in by NATO’s summer garage sale right now. If they went up against the real thing Moscow would be NATO property before you could say “nation building”.
One historical precedent was the [Lend-lease act.](https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/lend-lease-act-1)
>In December 1940, Roosevelt introduced a new policy initiative whereby the United States would lend, rather than sell, military supplies to Great Britain for use in the fight against Germany. Payment for the supplies would be deferred, and could come in any form Roosevelt deemed satisfactory.
Basically we are just a material supplier. As long as we don’t actually use our own troops to fight, we are not really “in the war”. We are no different that those many other countries that supply medicine, fuel, food and other supplies.
There’s no global definition of what does and does not constitute an act of war and there’s no international body that forces other countries to declare war on other countries. Something is considered an act of war if a country claims that it is. That’s it. Giving equipment to Ukraine to fight Russia is not an act of war because Russia has (at least not yet) said they consider to be. That’s all there is to it. Russia is pefectly free to say “we consider this an act of war, and so therefore we are not at war with all of NATO,” but they don’t want to be at war with NATO, so they don’t.
You’ve gotten a lot of good answers in here – I do want to add, though, that on the continuum between friendship and active war, giving weapons to a country’s enemy is waaaaaaay over on the war side. This isn’t really as binary as “going to war” or “not going to war” – arming Ukraine is very *close* to war.
Fundamentally, Russia can’t really do anything about it and NATO doesn’t want to get any more involved than they are. This is what’s called a proxy war.
You are a bang that wants more territory. You are armed to the teeth with many gang members, lots of weapons.
You attack a neighboring gang that you used to basically control, because they seem to want to align with another gang a bit further away that hasn’t moved in on your territory, but you’re worried that they might, at some point.
The faraway gang doesn’t actually get involved in the fight, but they throw some arms at the gang you’re fighting, so that they can at least defend themselves.
Is the faraway gang in the fight? Yes or no?
No. As stated in the scenario above, the faraway gang hasn’t actually gotten involved in the fight themselves.
It is, but Russia declaring war against the world before it had time to fully mobilize its fighting age men would mean they get wiped out quicker.
almost all wars usually have another nation or rich people supplying them that aren’t at war with the other nation.
its annoying but its not ‘going to war’. there are buyers, donators, and people that generally just support one side over the other.
its just a standard thing tbh. the US did it during WW1 before we entered the war. Germany mercenaries were used in the US revolutionary war. During the civil war they used French and British backers for weapons and stuff for the French side. China + Russia was bankrolling North Korea. Etc,etc,etc. Its just a normal thing for countries to support allies in times of war without being at war themselves.
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