• redders@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Well…

    For the equal partner bit they’d probably have had to respect election results and stop murdering political rivals.

    And that would just be a step too far.

    • query@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Barely. They were in the G8. Even after being kicked out trade kept going as normal, new pipelines were being built, nuclear power plants were being shut down because who needs a fallback?

      Saudi Arabia gets full honors on the international stage, despite publicly executing people for criticizing the government or having independent thought, and cutting up a journalist in a consulate abroad.

    • PugJesus@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Not too sure about that. We’re pals-y with plenty of authoritarian states. Even in the late 2000s and early 2010s we were so desperate to include Russia, corruption and authoritarianism and all, in the international order.

      Above everything, you can get in good with the current international order simply by not making trouble for other countries. Russia, apparently, couldn’t abide by even that minor restriction.

      • Solivine@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Honestly if Russia didn’t do a full scale invasion and just annexed the lands they were originally aiming for I think the west would have probably ignored it like all their other activities in the region.

        • PugJesus@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I suspect the irritation over the previous annexation of Crimea and Ukraine’s increasingly pro-Western orientation would have led to a Western response even if the invasion wasn’t full scale, but it’s certainly not impossible that the West would’ve prioritized keeping things ‘calm’ over protecting Ukraine’s sovereignty in such a scenario.

    • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      As long as they kept it to murdering political rivals within the country they would have been fine.

      Everybody still does business with PRC, Saudi Arabia, etc