6 ms·

I'm curious, do folks here think Putin would have still invaded if Ukraine didn't consider joining NATO? While yes, Putin very much wants his old USSR back, it

by winrid 5y ago

I'm curious, do folks here think Putin would have still invaded if Ukraine didn't consider joining NATO? While yes, Putin very much wants his old USSR back, it seems he's doing this in response to potentially having more NATO missiles on his borders. He's basically been saying "fuck around and find out" since 2008 when we said Ukraine would have the option of joining NATO.

glogla 5y ago
"Putin is only doing this because of NATO missiles" is a Russian propaganda line. It is disheartening to hear it repeated on HN.
- winrid 5y ago
  Ah. I just heard it in my circle. It makes sense that it could be propaganda.
- melony 5y ago
  Said the great software engineers who have never sat through a single geopolitics class.
- teatree 5y ago
  I am not aware of Russian / European geopolitics so pardon my ignorance, but isn't NATO reaching Russian borders a threat? Hypothetically, wouldn't the US would have serious concerns if Mexico decides to join a Chinese alliance. (I am not justifying a war, just wondering what could have been done on both sides to prevent it)
  - usrme 5y ago
    An above comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30452129 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30452129) seems to rebuke this: "Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania are all NATO members. If Putin takes Ukraine, and redraws his borders, he's just adding 4 NATO members. Wouldn't make much sense."
  - alde 5y ago
    Latvia and Estonia are already in NATO and they border Russia.
  - awb 5y ago
    Yes and no. Yes, countries prefer weak neighbors. A powerful alliance on your border is a potential threat (or deterrent to expansion). No in the sense that the US only has 90k troops in NATO countries, or about 10% of Russia’s standing military. So it’s not like troops are messing at their border or enough to threaten an invasion. It’s very much a deterrent. Also no in that the US, Russia and China are nuclear powers. The US should have little concern of a Chinese ground assault from Mexico as it could trigger a large scale nuclear war, defeating the purpose of the invasion. Similarly with Russia, their nuke arsenal means that no one will consider attacking them or invading their borders.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      Well, the Cuban Missile Crisis might have word regarding enemy troops close to the US mainland.
      - glogla 5y ago
        That was before modern ICBMs were a thing. Nowadays it doesn't matter where the missiles are.
        hef19898 5y ago
        Oh, it does a lot. The closer you are the less time your enemy has to react. ICBM launches are detected, buying at least enough time to shoot at least back.
      - techdragon 5y ago
        Yea, but you have to factor into your analysis the fact that at the time Soviet nuclear weapon design was leaning more towards inaccurate but with enough boom it doesn’t matter, so their weapons were on average larger and this limited their effective ballistic missile ranges. So Cuba, while a provocative encroachment, was from the Soviet side a necessary escalation of their military forces to counter things like the deployment of intermediate range ballistic missiles, such as the Jupiter, in Turkey and Italy. Also … While the “Cuban” part of the crisis can be viewed as instigated by the Soviets, it would be awfully foolish to ignore the fact that they were reacting to the US/NATO moves to deploy missile forces in Europe… by accepting the request from Cuba for nuclear weapons to defend their country from America, which they only asked for after the failed invasion effort in the Bay of Pigs. It’s never just as simple as “they started it”…
  - jollybean 5y ago
    No, NATO is not a threat to Russia. NATO is not organised well enough to conduct offensive operations on that scale, moreover, there is no state on earth, including US and China that could take parts of Russia and hold for long. But that aside, the very real political and economic situation in the world would make it unfathomable. There's basically no 'strategy game' where the West would have the intent let alone ability to truly invaded Russia. The 'NATO' issue is almost entirely a canard, a very easy argument that Putin uses to cause confusion, allow other supporters (i.e. China) to make empty arguments at the UN etc. Putin is literally using the 'UN Charter' to as cover to legitimise his invasion of Ukraine. Putin has used the term 'genocide' constantly in the last decade to refer to what is happening in Donbass even though this is obviously not the case. Putin's implication that 'he's invading Ukraine to stop fascist country, to protect Russian speakers and to 'keep peace'' is basically rubbish, as are his arguments with respect to NATO. There's a grain of truth in it, of course there is violence in Donbas, but amplifying the issue is the very obvious ruse. Their playbook is wide open - we know their doctrine, we know how they use misinformation, we know how they argue, we know their intentions. It looks pretty bad on us to allow any of this to happen. FYI - Western Media has been making a lot of money arguing in public lately, and it's appalling what we're seeing on some of the news outlets, and some of the statements by US public officials. Some people are 'taking a stake' in the situation as they would any other news item, i.e. 'jockeying for position' on the issue. It's disgusting.
    - amcoastal 5y ago
      I feel like its a lot to ask when the people of the U.S. can't even see through propaganda about what is happening in our own backyard. Why would you expect the average american to understand Putin is lying about genocide when half the country believes a caravan of invading Mexicans is attacking the country anytime an orange moron says it?
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      > There's a grain of truth in it, of course there is violence in Donbas, but amplifying the issue is the very obvious ruse. The only reason there is violence in Donbas is because of the previous undeclared Russian invasion of that territory as well as fomenting unrest there and elsewhere in Ukraine. Not to mention shooting down a commercial airliner. It's about as truthful as Hitler arguing there is violence in the West of Poland in October 1939.
  - glogla 5y ago
    The context for Ukraine wanting to be in NATO is that everyone in the region has been under constant thread by hostile nation looking to rebuild its empire. If US attacked and annexed several Central American nations over last two decades, except the ones who are part of pre-existing "defense against the US" alliance, Mexico wanting to be in it would be perfectly rational and normal.
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    Neighbors of Russia joining an alliance to defend themselves is no more a threat to Russia than Russia defending themselves is a threat to their neighbors. One the one hand, the (comparatively) small European countries clearly need that defense because otherwise Russia is big enough -- and willing -- to invade. I think the real problem is that NATO is a threat to Putin's imperialistic dreams.
  - vincnetas 5y ago
    So instead of NATO reaching RU borders, Russia will preemptively do that and come closer to NATO border first. Much logic.
  - xdennis 5y ago
    > isn't NATO reaching Russian borders a threat? No. NATO is a defensive alliance. Easter European countries are in NATO specifically to protect against the kind of aggression you're seeing in Ukraine now. Russia used to regularly invade neighbors: Poland 1939, Romania, Baltic countries, Finland 1940, Everywhere 1944, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968. None have been invaded since joining NATO. NATO expansion is removing threats, not creating them.
woutr_be 5y ago
Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania are all NATO members. If Putin takes Ukraine, and redraws his borders, he's just adding 4 NATO members. Wouldn't make much sense.
- winrid 5y ago
  That's certainly an interesting point.
- axiomsEnd 5y ago
  Just to be pedantic : three. Poland has a direct border with Russia in Kaliningrad Oblast.
thepra 5y ago
From Putins interview he does explicitly say that he wouldn't be in this position if the NATO didn't push for Ukraine, as simple as that.
- fphhotchips 5y ago
  Until this morning, Putin was saying that he wasn't going to invade. Perhaps trusting Putin at his exact word is not the best idea?
- tifadg1 5y ago
  Oh yes and he isn't known for lying.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    He sure is. Russia is pretty consistent with its view on NATO expansion to the East so, ever since the 90s.
- jollybean 5y ago
  "From Putins interview he does explicitly say that he wouldn't be in this position if the NATO didn't push for Ukraine, as simple as that." No, it's definitely not that. Taking Putin's word at face value is completely irrational. His actions and other policy objectives have made it clear that he and the Russian State do not view Ukraine as a legit country and have literally been invading it for the last decade wile the West twiddled their thumbs. Taking Ukraine is a primary objective of the Russian State under Putin - that's the more 'simple' thing to understand. Anything he says on the news is a 'game'. It's not even really a complicated game, we have all of their books, their doctrine, we know exactly how they think it's just a matter of applying it. In hindsight it will be hard for anyone to fathom how we didn't see all of this coming. We're literally watching it happen in real-time, from a very well established playbook. FYI have a read [1] This is Putin's grand thesis. He basically narrates a history in which Ukraine is just part of Russia. This has nothing to do with NATO. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181 http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
- awb 5y ago
ricardobayes 5y ago
I would think so, Russian geopolitical textbooks have been saying for a long time that an "independent Ukraine doesn't make sense". Read here the excerpts what it says about UK, and US. Makes an interesting read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
- Lio 5y ago
  That's eye opening. In the UK there's been much discussion of Russia's role in Brexit. i.e. Aaron Banks, the man who funded the Leave.EU campaign, was aledgidly backed by Russian "business partners". The Boris Johnson's Conservative government have said in the last 2 hours that they're going to keep £1.93 of Russian linked donations they've received since 2019. You can draw your own conclusions.
jollybean 5y ago
It would have changed the course but not the objective. The Kremlin apologists in American politics are really disturbing. Putin's objective is to re-integrate Ukraine into the 'Russian Empire', he's taking the 500-year view and so 'Nord Stream 2' is irrelevant. NATO acquiescence to his demands would have just changed maybe the nature of Putins' actions, or not but he would have continued. The big issue is obviously now Taiwan. In hindsight, I actually kind of blame the Germans a lot for this. Germany has been very successfully sucking in business and talent from the rest of Europe, building their economy while completely avoiding the 'responsibility' that comes along with that power. Partly military, but definitely geostrategic issues of security. Their, and European energy dependence on Europe is a giant lever that Russia has - we are talking about nulling 'Nord Stream 2' - it means nothing in the big picture. Laughably, nobody is even talking about Nord Stream 1 - i.e. the pipeline already in place. If Merkel were to have re-invigorated in Nuclear investment with a strong commitment to both reducing dependence on Russia and ironically CO2 at the same time, and, made serious improvements to military capabilities with a keen eye to the kinds of activities necessary to actually support fledgeling Belarus, Georgia, and Ukraine, and possibly better more serious coordination with UK, France, Sweden etc. then we may not be in this situation. Ukraine may have regiments of UK, French and Germany units 'training' there at any given time, with support from the US, which really changes the equation a lot. Putin pretty much telegraphed all of his moves years in advanced. Nobody did anything about it. The US could have done more, but this is more directly a European issue and there's a serious lack of leadership over there as well.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > In hindsight, I actually kind of blame the Germans a lot for this. Germany has been very successfully sucking in business and talent from the rest of Europe, building their economy while completely avoiding the 'responsibility' that comes along with that power. Partly military, but definitely geostrategic issues of security. The complete lack of historical awareness is impressive.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    Lazy ad hominem with total lack of rhetoric or reason is 'impressive' by HN standards. In the meantime, here are some more actual facts: German/European dependence on Russian Energy [1] 'Foreign Policy' articulation of the problem, with specific reference to Germany, and their intransigence on supporting sanctions directly as a result of their energy policy [2] Germany Energy Mix, 1990-2020 [3] which decisively illustrates that if Germany had continued it's Nuclear program - without even expanding it - it could be entirely independent of Russian (and other) imports. Germany's continued disregard TO NATO agreements with respect to military spending [4] and some of the political causes. All the while [5] Germany grows into EU's hegemon (due to favourable Euro policy, weak France, absent UK et. al.) Here is exactly the argument that I am making in academic terms [6] "There is no disputing Germany’s dominant economic role within the eurozone (EZ) and the broader European Union (EU). Its GDP represented 29 percent of total EZ GDP in 2016 and, as of 2015, it was the top intra-EU trade partner for 18 out of 28 countries ... for reasons it is largely responsible for, the growth of exports to the ROW has been growing faster. The German trade surplus, however, is larger with the ROW than it is with other EU nations. Economic leadership in the world or in a region, however, entails responsibilities, especially in a world system of monetary production economies that compete with each other according to political and economic interests." And it goes on to make the fairly obvious case. [1] https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2022/02/how-europe-is-dependent-on-russian-gas https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2022/02/how-eu... [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/03/germany-energy-sanctions-russia/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/03/germany-energy-sanction... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#/media/File:Energymix_Germany.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#/medi... [4] https://warontherocks.com/2018/07/the-real-roots-of-germanys-defense-spending-problem/ https://warontherocks.com/2018/07/the-real-roots-of-germanys... [5] https://www.e-ir.info/2021/08/23/europes-hegemon-the-nature-of-german-power-during-europes-crisis-decade/ https://www.e-ir.info/2021/08/23/europes-hegemon-the-nature-... [6] https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_913.pdf https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_913.pdf
mopsi 5y ago
> I'm curious, do folks here think Putin would have still invaded if Ukraine didn't consider joining NATO? Yes. The trigger for current events was the possibility of closer cooperation with the EU, not anything NATO-related. Putin can't have a successful alternative to his regime. He can write off Finns and Lithuanians as being of different culture, but if their ethnic brothers Ukrainians built a successful country with wages multiple times higher than in Russia, then it would fatally undermine Putin's legitimacy. He doesn't want to end up like Saddam or Gaddafi.
cm2187 5y ago
Perhaps not invaded, but maintained a puppet gvt in ukraine, poisoning political opponents, etc.
fromPL123 5y ago
I think yes. So in 2008 when he attacked Georgia back then Polish president Lech told such thing: "first Georgia, then Ukraine then baltic states, then maybe our country". Maybe he read it right and in 2010 it was assassination like some suspect and not "an accident". IMO lots of EU parties are in Russian pocket and this is nothing good. This is dark scenario but if they got deal with China, we are all fucked. They will make mess in EU so they can focus on East Asia/Middle East. US is overleveraged and once oil != $ is done.
xdennis 5y ago
> I'm curious, do folks here think Putin would have still invaded if Ukraine didn't consider joining NATO? If Ukraine had joined NATO then, Putin wouldn't have invaded. That's the solution. Not to stay away from NATO. If Romania wouldn't have joined NATO, it would now be invaded together with Ukraine.

by winrid 5y ago

glogla 5y ago

"Putin is only doing this because of NATO missiles" is a Russian propaganda line. It is disheartening to hear it repeated on HN.

winrid 5y ago
Ah. I just heard it in my circle. It makes sense that it could be propaganda.
melony 5y ago
Said the great software engineers who have never sat through a single geopolitics class.
teatree 5y ago
I am not aware of Russian / European geopolitics so pardon my ignorance, but isn't NATO reaching Russian borders a threat? Hypothetically, wouldn't the US would have serious concerns if Mexico decides to join a Chinese alliance. (I am not justifying a war, just wondering what could have been done on both sides to prevent it)
- usrme 5y ago
  An above comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30452129 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30452129) seems to rebuke this: "Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania are all NATO members. If Putin takes Ukraine, and redraws his borders, he's just adding 4 NATO members. Wouldn't make much sense."
- alde 5y ago
  Latvia and Estonia are already in NATO and they border Russia.
- awb 5y ago
  Yes and no. Yes, countries prefer weak neighbors. A powerful alliance on your border is a potential threat (or deterrent to expansion). No in the sense that the US only has 90k troops in NATO countries, or about 10% of Russia’s standing military. So it’s not like troops are messing at their border or enough to threaten an invasion. It’s very much a deterrent. Also no in that the US, Russia and China are nuclear powers. The US should have little concern of a Chinese ground assault from Mexico as it could trigger a large scale nuclear war, defeating the purpose of the invasion. Similarly with Russia, their nuke arsenal means that no one will consider attacking them or invading their borders.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Well, the Cuban Missile Crisis might have word regarding enemy troops close to the US mainland.
    - glogla 5y ago
      That was before modern ICBMs were a thing. Nowadays it doesn't matter where the missiles are.
      - hef19898 5y ago
        Oh, it does a lot. The closer you are the less time your enemy has to react. ICBM launches are detected, buying at least enough time to shoot at least back.
    - techdragon 5y ago
      Yea, but you have to factor into your analysis the fact that at the time Soviet nuclear weapon design was leaning more towards inaccurate but with enough boom it doesn’t matter, so their weapons were on average larger and this limited their effective ballistic missile ranges. So Cuba, while a provocative encroachment, was from the Soviet side a necessary escalation of their military forces to counter things like the deployment of intermediate range ballistic missiles, such as the Jupiter, in Turkey and Italy. Also … While the “Cuban” part of the crisis can be viewed as instigated by the Soviets, it would be awfully foolish to ignore the fact that they were reacting to the US/NATO moves to deploy missile forces in Europe… by accepting the request from Cuba for nuclear weapons to defend their country from America, which they only asked for after the failed invasion effort in the Bay of Pigs. It’s never just as simple as “they started it”…
- jollybean 5y ago
  No, NATO is not a threat to Russia. NATO is not organised well enough to conduct offensive operations on that scale, moreover, there is no state on earth, including US and China that could take parts of Russia and hold for long. But that aside, the very real political and economic situation in the world would make it unfathomable. There's basically no 'strategy game' where the West would have the intent let alone ability to truly invaded Russia. The 'NATO' issue is almost entirely a canard, a very easy argument that Putin uses to cause confusion, allow other supporters (i.e. China) to make empty arguments at the UN etc. Putin is literally using the 'UN Charter' to as cover to legitimise his invasion of Ukraine. Putin has used the term 'genocide' constantly in the last decade to refer to what is happening in Donbass even though this is obviously not the case. Putin's implication that 'he's invading Ukraine to stop fascist country, to protect Russian speakers and to 'keep peace'' is basically rubbish, as are his arguments with respect to NATO. There's a grain of truth in it, of course there is violence in Donbas, but amplifying the issue is the very obvious ruse. Their playbook is wide open - we know their doctrine, we know how they use misinformation, we know how they argue, we know their intentions. It looks pretty bad on us to allow any of this to happen. FYI - Western Media has been making a lot of money arguing in public lately, and it's appalling what we're seeing on some of the news outlets, and some of the statements by US public officials. Some people are 'taking a stake' in the situation as they would any other news item, i.e. 'jockeying for position' on the issue. It's disgusting.
  - amcoastal 5y ago
    I feel like its a lot to ask when the people of the U.S. can't even see through propaganda about what is happening in our own backyard. Why would you expect the average american to understand Putin is lying about genocide when half the country believes a caravan of invading Mexicans is attacking the country anytime an orange moron says it?
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    > There's a grain of truth in it, of course there is violence in Donbas, but amplifying the issue is the very obvious ruse. The only reason there is violence in Donbas is because of the previous undeclared Russian invasion of that territory as well as fomenting unrest there and elsewhere in Ukraine. Not to mention shooting down a commercial airliner. It's about as truthful as Hitler arguing there is violence in the West of Poland in October 1939.
- glogla 5y ago
  The context for Ukraine wanting to be in NATO is that everyone in the region has been under constant thread by hostile nation looking to rebuild its empire. If US attacked and annexed several Central American nations over last two decades, except the ones who are part of pre-existing "defense against the US" alliance, Mexico wanting to be in it would be perfectly rational and normal.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  Neighbors of Russia joining an alliance to defend themselves is no more a threat to Russia than Russia defending themselves is a threat to their neighbors. One the one hand, the (comparatively) small European countries clearly need that defense because otherwise Russia is big enough -- and willing -- to invade. I think the real problem is that NATO is a threat to Putin's imperialistic dreams.
- vincnetas 5y ago
  So instead of NATO reaching RU borders, Russia will preemptively do that and come closer to NATO border first. Much logic.
- xdennis 5y ago
  > isn't NATO reaching Russian borders a threat? No. NATO is a defensive alliance. Easter European countries are in NATO specifically to protect against the kind of aggression you're seeing in Ukraine now. Russia used to regularly invade neighbors: Poland 1939, Romania, Baltic countries, Finland 1940, Everywhere 1944, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968. None have been invaded since joining NATO. NATO expansion is removing threats, not creating them.

woutr_be 5y ago

Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania are all NATO members. If Putin takes Ukraine, and redraws his borders, he's just adding 4 NATO members. Wouldn't make much sense.

winrid 5y ago
That's certainly an interesting point.
axiomsEnd 5y ago
Just to be pedantic : three. Poland has a direct border with Russia in Kaliningrad Oblast.

thepra 5y ago

From Putins interview he does explicitly say that he wouldn't be in this position if the NATO didn't push for Ukraine, as simple as that.

fphhotchips 5y ago
Until this morning, Putin was saying that he wasn't going to invade. Perhaps trusting Putin at his exact word is not the best idea?
tifadg1 5y ago
Oh yes and he isn't known for lying.
- hef19898 5y ago
  He sure is. Russia is pretty consistent with its view on NATO expansion to the East so, ever since the 90s.
jollybean 5y ago
"From Putins interview he does explicitly say that he wouldn't be in this position if the NATO didn't push for Ukraine, as simple as that." No, it's definitely not that. Taking Putin's word at face value is completely irrational. His actions and other policy objectives have made it clear that he and the Russian State do not view Ukraine as a legit country and have literally been invading it for the last decade wile the West twiddled their thumbs. Taking Ukraine is a primary objective of the Russian State under Putin - that's the more 'simple' thing to understand. Anything he says on the news is a 'game'. It's not even really a complicated game, we have all of their books, their doctrine, we know exactly how they think it's just a matter of applying it. In hindsight it will be hard for anyone to fathom how we didn't see all of this coming. We're literally watching it happen in real-time, from a very well established playbook. FYI have a read [1] This is Putin's grand thesis. He basically narrates a history in which Ukraine is just part of Russia. This has nothing to do with NATO. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181 http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
awb 5y ago

ricardobayes 5y ago

I would think so, Russian geopolitical textbooks have been saying for a long time that an "independent Ukraine doesn't make sense". Read here the excerpts what it says about UK, and US. Makes an interesting read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

Lio 5y ago
That's eye opening. In the UK there's been much discussion of Russia's role in Brexit. i.e. Aaron Banks, the man who funded the Leave.EU campaign, was aledgidly backed by Russian "business partners". The Boris Johnson's Conservative government have said in the last 2 hours that they're going to keep £1.93 of Russian linked donations they've received since 2019. You can draw your own conclusions.

jollybean 5y ago

It would have changed the course but not the objective. The Kremlin apologists in American politics are really disturbing. Putin's objective is to re-integrate Ukraine into the 'Russian Empire', he's taking the 500-year view and so 'Nord Stream 2' is irrelevant. NATO acquiescence to his demands would have just changed maybe the nature of Putins' actions, or not but he would have continued. The big issue is obviously now Taiwan. In hindsight, I actually kind of blame the Germans a lot for this. Germany has been very successfully sucking in business and talent from the rest of Europe, building their economy while completely avoiding the 'responsibility' that comes along with that power. Partly military, but definitely geostrategic issues of security. Their, and European energy dependence on Europe is a giant lever that Russia has - we are talking about nulling 'Nord Stream 2' - it means nothing in the big picture. Laughably, nobody is even talking about Nord Stream 1 - i.e. the pipeline already in place. If Merkel were to have re-invigorated in Nuclear investment with a strong commitment to both reducing dependence on Russia and ironically CO2 at the same time, and, made serious improvements to military capabilities with a keen eye to the kinds of activities necessary to actually support fledgeling Belarus, Georgia, and Ukraine, and possibly better more serious coordination with UK, France, Sweden etc. then we may not be in this situation. Ukraine may have regiments of UK, French and Germany units 'training' there at any given time, with support from the US, which really changes the equation a lot. Putin pretty much telegraphed all of his moves years in advanced. Nobody did anything about it. The US could have done more, but this is more directly a European issue and there's a serious lack of leadership over there as well.

jacquesm 5y ago
> In hindsight, I actually kind of blame the Germans a lot for this. Germany has been very successfully sucking in business and talent from the rest of Europe, building their economy while completely avoiding the 'responsibility' that comes along with that power. Partly military, but definitely geostrategic issues of security. The complete lack of historical awareness is impressive.
- jollybean 5y ago
  Lazy ad hominem with total lack of rhetoric or reason is 'impressive' by HN standards. In the meantime, here are some more actual facts: German/European dependence on Russian Energy [1] 'Foreign Policy' articulation of the problem, with specific reference to Germany, and their intransigence on supporting sanctions directly as a result of their energy policy [2] Germany Energy Mix, 1990-2020 [3] which decisively illustrates that if Germany had continued it's Nuclear program - without even expanding it - it could be entirely independent of Russian (and other) imports. Germany's continued disregard TO NATO agreements with respect to military spending [4] and some of the political causes. All the while [5] Germany grows into EU's hegemon (due to favourable Euro policy, weak France, absent UK et. al.) Here is exactly the argument that I am making in academic terms [6] "There is no disputing Germany’s dominant economic role within the eurozone (EZ) and the broader European Union (EU). Its GDP represented 29 percent of total EZ GDP in 2016 and, as of 2015, it was the top intra-EU trade partner for 18 out of 28 countries ... for reasons it is largely responsible for, the growth of exports to the ROW has been growing faster. The German trade surplus, however, is larger with the ROW than it is with other EU nations. Economic leadership in the world or in a region, however, entails responsibilities, especially in a world system of monetary production economies that compete with each other according to political and economic interests." And it goes on to make the fairly obvious case. [1] https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2022/02/how-europe-is-dependent-on-russian-gas https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2022/02/how-eu... [2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/03/germany-energy-sanctions-russia/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/03/germany-energy-sanction... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#/media/File:Energymix_Germany.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#/medi... [4] https://warontherocks.com/2018/07/the-real-roots-of-germanys-defense-spending-problem/ https://warontherocks.com/2018/07/the-real-roots-of-germanys... [5] https://www.e-ir.info/2021/08/23/europes-hegemon-the-nature-of-german-power-during-europes-crisis-decade/ https://www.e-ir.info/2021/08/23/europes-hegemon-the-nature-... [6] https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_913.pdf https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_913.pdf

mopsi 5y ago

> I'm curious, do folks here think Putin would have still invaded if Ukraine didn't consider joining NATO? Yes. The trigger for current events was the possibility of closer cooperation with the EU, not anything NATO-related. Putin can't have a successful alternative to his regime. He can write off Finns and Lithuanians as being of different culture, but if their ethnic brothers Ukrainians built a successful country with wages multiple times higher than in Russia, then it would fatally undermine Putin's legitimacy. He doesn't want to end up like Saddam or Gaddafi.

cm2187 5y ago

Perhaps not invaded, but maintained a puppet gvt in ukraine, poisoning political opponents, etc.

fromPL123 5y ago

I think yes. So in 2008 when he attacked Georgia back then Polish president Lech told such thing: "first Georgia, then Ukraine then baltic states, then maybe our country". Maybe he read it right and in 2010 it was assassination like some suspect and not "an accident". IMO lots of EU parties are in Russian pocket and this is nothing good. This is dark scenario but if they got deal with China, we are all fucked. They will make mess in EU so they can focus on East Asia/Middle East. US is overleveraged and once oil != $ is done.

xdennis 5y ago

> I'm curious, do folks here think Putin would have still invaded if Ukraine didn't consider joining NATO? If Ukraine had joined NATO then, Putin wouldn't have invaded. That's the solution. Not to stay away from NATO. If Romania wouldn't have joined NATO, it would now be invaded together with Ukraine.