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NATO 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 en

• jacquesm 5y ago
  > NATO is a defensive alliance against Russia. Strictly speaking that isn't true.
  • skissane 5y ago
    NATO 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 ago
      NATO has as its interests the security of the member states, it is as simple as that.
      • wolf550e 5y ago
        This 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 ago
          You must be the only person then that slept through Yugoslavia, 9/11, the Iraq war, Afghanistan, Libya and others.
          • jolux 5y ago
            NATO didn’t authorize the Iraq War.
            • jacquesm 5y ago
              You 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).
              • hef19898 5y ago
                Oh yes, I almost forgot the "Coalition of the Willing" against the "Axis of Evil". Still sounds like straight of a Marvel movie. Including the Mission Accomplished speak on a carrier, also that part is more like Michael Bay.
              • skissane 5y ago
                NATO does “authorize” military operations - the NATO ambassadors meet and agree to take military action, which means that NATO assets and staff can be used to help plan and support the action. NATO never authorised the invasion of Iraq, so NATO’s own assets and facilities could not be used. By contrast, Libya and Kosovo were NATO authorised operations, so NATO resources could be used. NATO’s own resources are essentially office buildings, computer and communication systems, bureaucrats, and seconded military planners. The US didn’t need them for the Iraq War, although it would have liked to have had them involved, because of what that would have meant politically/diplomatically/symbolically. Despite claiming a broad “coalition”, only three countries actually contributed fighting assets to the initial US invasion - the UK, Poland, and Australia - only the first two are NATO members, and Poland at the time had only recently joined (only 4 years prior). 3 more NATO members (Netherlands, Italy and Spain) provided non-combatant support. I don’t see in what meaningful sense it could be said to be something NATO did. More NATO members joined in the occupation forces after the initial invasion. But that was never an official NATO operation because those require unanimous approval, and certain member states (most notably France) were always opposed to that. NATO eventually did become involved in Iraq - training the new Iraqi government’s military. But no fighting ever happened in NATO’s name.
      • glimshe 5y ago
        I suggest that you read about the history of NATO in detail. It was originally created as a way to defend Western Europe from a possible future aggression from the Soviet Union. Wikipedia even says [1]: "The treaty was created with an armed attack by the Soviet Union against Western Europe in mind, but the mutual self-defense clause was never invoked during the Cold War." After WW2, it became clear that a new world order had emerged around what would be called "First World" (US-led countries members of NATO) and "Second World" (Soviet Union-led communist countries members of the Warsaw Pact). The "Third World" were non-aligned countries, often confused with "poor countries". The roots of the current crisis trace back to these power structures. The fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of China could be seen as the beginning of new alignment, but so far, we haven't seen it fully taking shape (China is certainly working on it). Russia, while nowhere near its Soviet Union peak, remains a military superpower and the owner of vast natural resources. Russia's current role in the world is unstable - there is a dissonance between its hard power and its actual influence in world matters. It doesn't accept being relegated to a weak geopolitical player, and the invasion of Ukraine is part of an attempt to assert its position in the world. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Treaty
        • jacquesm 5y ago
          Yes, things change, I'm aware of that. And they just changed again.
        • lupire 5y ago
          jacquesm is repeatedly being annoyingly coy, but his point is that the NATO institution itself (not just members) has acted in many non-Russia conflicts and crises, under its own banner. http://nato.int http://nato.int
          • saurik 5y ago
            This is a hard argument to make. "Strictly speaking"--based on only the arguments and references made here--"NATO is a defensive alliance against Russia" seems to only be false in that the USSR is not Russia (though I wonder if Putin even believes that?)... that it can do other things seems irrelevant, and origin stories matter deeply.
  • jolux 5y ago
    Russia 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 ago
      I think Russia just confirmed its image as an aggressor in a way that leaves no doubt.
      • yucky 5y ago
        Using that argument, would the US also be considered "an aggressor"?
        • jacquesm 5y ago
          More whataboutism.
          • yucky 5y ago
            I 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 ago
          Russia 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 ago
    How many countries were bombed by NATO?
    • Ambix 5y ago
      https://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 ago
  Seems 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 ago
    I 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 ago
      Fair 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 ago
        Country 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 ago
        No, 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 ago
          Crimea is an essential port for Russia's long term interests.