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I think one of the central theses of his argument is that NATO is actively expanding to antagonize Russia, rather than a passive expansion due to the Baltic sta
by vore 5y ago
I think one of the central theses of his argument is that NATO is actively expanding to antagonize Russia, rather than a passive expansion due to the Baltic states falling out of the post-Soviet sphere of influence taking advantage of NATO's open door policy: this is not a far-fetched assumption, given the relative prosperity of Western European countries compared to their Eastern European counterparts.
If you accept the latter rather than the former, I think it's hard to lay the blame on the West for simply having a defense alliance that sovereign states chose to join -- unless you would argue that NATO should simply not exist.
- jolux 5y agoNATO is a defensive alliance against Russia. What the invasion of Ukraine has done is proved that the states that chose to join NATO in the decades since the end of the Cold War made the right decision.
- jacquesm 5y ago> NATO is a defensive alliance against Russia. Strictly speaking that isn't true.
- skissane 5y agoNATO was founded as a defensive alliance against the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation is recognised as the Soviet Union’s legal successor. That doesn’t justify Russia’s action - you aren’t justified in invading your neighbour over the mere inchoate possibility they might join a potentially hostile military alliance. (Ukraine still hasn’t joined NATO, and there is no evidence they were likely to be accepted as a NATO member in the near future.)
- jacquesm 5y agoNATO has as its interests the security of the member states, it is as simple as that.
- wolf550e 5y agoThis is technically true and also 100% bullshit. It is phrased that way, but I have never heard anyone actually believe that NATO is anything except the US promising to use its military and its nuclear weapons to defend weaker European states that didn't have the ability to credibly defend themselves from the USSR.
- jacquesm 5y agoYou must be the only person then that slept through Yugoslavia, 9/11, the Iraq war, Afghanistan, Libya and others.
- jolux 5y agoNATO didn’t authorize the Iraq War.
- jacquesm 5y agoYou have your parties mixed up I think. You probably meant to write 'UN'. NATO does not 'authorize wars'. Even so, in fact the 'alliance' contained many nations not in NATO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing The really bad part is that they were acting during the 'first installment' against people that weren't part of the attack on the United States to begin with (it was essentially a pretext), and the second time they outright lied about the intelligence regarding the WMDs (of which there already was conflicting data collected by the UN weapons inspectors).
- jolux 5y agoRussia currently occupies the USSR’s seat on the UN Security Council and concerns about Russian aggression have persisted have persisted since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s not literally true that it’s a defense against the legal entity known as the Russian Federation but insofar as Russia has failed to shed its image as an aggressor it’s true.
- jacquesm 5y agoI think Russia just confirmed its image as an aggressor in a way that leaves no doubt.
- yucky 5y agoUsing that argument, would the US also be considered "an aggressor"?
- jacquesm 5y agoMore whataboutism.
- yucky 5y agoI don't think I was clear in my question. I'm not excusing it, and perfectly willing to call it aggression since that is how I see it. I'm just asking if the standard we apply to foreign aggression is consistent. In other words, I feel like some people have a consistent standard on what constitutes acceptable aggression depending on who the aggressor is.
- lern_too_spel 5y agoRussia did not even attempt to build a coalition for defending the separatist regions of Ukraine because, as this article clearly lays out, his justification is bullshit that no country has bought. (At best, China is looking the other way.) It's a clear case of invasion.
- simonh 5y ago
- d0mine 5y agoHow many countries were bombed by NATO?
- Ambix 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia That was a really eye-opening moment for many people, I felt the same as now about Ukraine.
- watwut 5y ago> What the invasion of Ukraine has done is proved that the states that chose to join NATO in the decades since the end of the Cold War made the right decision. Honestly, that is going to be tested when Russia attacks one of them. How eager the rest of NATO will be to support or abandon them.
- refurb 5y agoSeems like it might be the opposite? Joining NATO won’t protect you and will just antagonize Russia. Maybe next time they’ll just try and remain neutral?
- Yoric 5y agoI may be wrong, but if I understand correctly what you just wrote, you believe that Ukraine is part of NATO. To clarify: it isn't. Putin claims that it might some day join NATO, and that this somehow justifies a pre-emptive invasion, but that's very different.
- refurb 5y agoFair point, I should have left it at “NATO or the West” won’t help you. My understanding is the Ukraine was “up” for consideration of NATO membership at some unspecified date in the future?
- SergeAx 5y agoCountry that has unregulated territorial dispute cannot be a member of NATO by it's rules. So to give up on Crimea was the only way for Ukraine to join. It was unfeasible, any politician discussing this would be a political dead.
- jolux 5y agoNo, it was left in an ambiguous position after the Bucharest Summit in 2008 as Germany and France opposed its membership. As of now it can’t join because of the territorial dispute in Crimea, which is probably one of the reasons Russia invaded Crimea back in 2014. It’s not hard to imagine a similar fate awaits Finland if it continues to remain neutral.
- lupire 5y agoCrimea is an essential port for Russia's long term interests.
- raxxorrax 5y agoUkraine as a sovereign state has to build a relation with its neighbor. To join a defensive pact with most of former enemies of Russia is a provocation. That does in no circumstance justify an invasion, but it does serve as an excuse. Nato did show signs of expansion by giving (false) hope to Georgia and Ukraine. On the other hand, around 20 years ago Putin said he could imagine joining Nato one day... Of course the west is ultimately not to blame for Russia to invade. There were bad choices...
- dmurray 5y agoNATO has shown at least some willingness to fight wars of aggression. It's hard to paint the intervention in Yugoslavia in the 1990s as defence of an alliance member, however justified it might have been by humanitarian concerns.
- jacquesm 5y agoNATO isn't a defensive alliance, period. It is a mutual security pact. Here is the actual treaty: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.ht... Article 4 is quite deliberately vaguely worded. And the treaty also explains why NATO only got involved in Libya after the UN requested it to.
- jolux 5y agoI can’t tell if you’re being pedantic here or if you actually substantially disagree with the characterization that it is primarily about the security of Europe against Russian aggression.
- jacquesm 5y agoThat may have been what it was about a long time ago, and I think in light of the current developments that probably will be what it is about again in the present, but in the intermediary that was less strongly a factor than that it was 'The affluent West' against 'the rest'. Even the Yugoslavian war did not - though it almost happened - ended up pitting NATO against Russia, and I believe that if Russia had followed through on the reforms instead of turning into a Dictatorship/kleptocracy that they just might have joined NATO at some point.
- rossmohax 5y agoPutin did ask to join NATO in early 2000s, was laughed out of the room.
- 5y ago
- hef19898 5y agoWhether or not NATOs expension is to antagonise Russia is less important than the question how Russian leadership sees it. And Putin's answer was pretty clear.
- macilacilove 5y agoHe does not say that NATO expands to antagonize Russia, just that Russia will inevitably see it that way, and if the situation was reversed, where China has a military alliance at US border it would be seen the same way from the United States too. Moreover he explicitly says that NATO/US does not want to expand to Ukraine as it is not a vital strategic interest to the United States, instead US will have to focus on Asian alliances to counter China.
- lupire 5y agoUSA has a military alliance with Taiwan (while also claiming Taiwan is part of China).