I don't know about right now, but not long ago UK forces were in Syria, that Syria government never asked for. Should we call it invading? If not, what's your definition of invading?
> Answer: Because on the whole it's not important enough to them to warrant the investment of effort and time. Because America's behaviors aren't that far out of the international norm of today (sad to say).
And to elaborate on “important enough” it’s about how beneficial for them is this to take the fight, and not about the moral or how "far out of the international norm". X can be amoral, but if powerful country X is doing it I will loose a lot in this fight, so I won’t take it. But if less powerful country Y is doing the same, there is high chance of winning and I will take the fight.
Asking “How about X?” is highlighting the issue - the more powerful country you are the more amoral things world can tolerate you doing. (The author of the comment doesn’t try to justify the bad actions, but tries to highlight the inequality of treatment).
Increase in whataboutism I think is caused by unequal treatment for the same evil actions.
Imagine there is a crime done by a person of a race X who gets a warning and the same crime done by a person of a race Y who goes to jail. Now by amplifying how bad person of a race Y did and asking for a death penalty you only increase that inequality of treatment.
How do you see we push for a movement and solidarity against evil in an equal for all manner in a world where some countries may not have economic power to put sanctions and other countries can ignore UN because of their power?
It doesn't seem whataboutism in the comment, as the author says "Russia is a bad actor", so it's not about someone did something before, so it should be accepted now. It's more about non equal treatment of the same bad situation done by different parties. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
That's more or less definition for annexing, not invading.
> That or installing a non-democratic dictatorship and subdue the local population.
That's a regime change or may be a coup.