I just hope that when the shit will hit the fan for India, then US, EU and related countries will remember to let India deal with it alone and not provide them assistance!
Liberal international relations work on the same game theoretical principles as any group interaction with a prisoner's dilemma-type payoff matrix. The optimal strategy for any individual is to betray, to not do work on the group project and still receive good grades, to fake your credentials on your CV and still get the job, to subsidize the murder of Ukrainians and still receive economic benefits and international sympathy.
Of course, if everyone refuses to work on the group project, you receive a failing grade. If everyone fakes their credentials, the company fails due to lack of expertise, if every country prioritizes their own interests over avoiding conflict, the world goes back to the pre-WWII era of rampant warfare, colonialism and exploitation. The optimal strategy for groups is to zealously persecute defectors.
This is the reason why this decision is much more relevant to India's future than you think. It's the reason why the West seems like a vindictive in-group that doesn't tolerate dissent. It's the same old mechanism that instructed the first multicellular organism to destroy cancerous cells. The mechanism that makes guppies instinctively reject their own conspecifics if they don't participate in the dangerous inspection of predators. The mechanism that drives our conceptions of justice, vengeance and shame.
It will many many decades, may be Centuries, before Ukrainian understand that tolerating Nazism is not a good plan and undermining the culture that gave Buddhu and Gandhi is immoral. It may take more time to realize that this war is completely manufactured outside of Europe.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932022_China%E2%80%...
Sure, would be nice if they also officially joined, but complaining this way about their current choice is hypocrisy.
I speak to Chinese and Taiwanese colleagues, also to South Korean colleagues. All are against the Western-led anti-Russia war.
We are in a bubble here. A huge bubble and we believe that we are the only right people with the only right opinion.
Do they support Russia's invasion of Ukraine?
What did Russia think Europe and the US were going to do? Russia seems to have gambled on the idea that Europe and the US would let the invasion happen unimpeded. It turns out Russia was wrong about that.
Russia also seems to have been wrong about the effectiveness of their own forces and the resistance they would face from Ukrainians.
Isn't the simple solution here for Russia withdraw from Ukraine, pay reparations, help with the extradition of those soldiers who have committed war crimes, and work on restoring international relations?
I would too. But that is not what is happening, instead we have Russian-led war against Ukraine.
Russia invaded neighboring sovereign nation with the goal of annexing the territory. Dichotomy is simple: If you want to live in a world where this is okay, you can support Russia.
What the west is doing is taking anti-war measures to actually make it stop.
Anti-war is to do everything to stop the war specifically diplomacy and talking to the enemy. Making deals, even if the enemy is an absolute psychopath.
I do think Chinese and Indian media are largely pushing the same narratives as you and Russia, but polling colleagues about politics isn't going to be very accurate
