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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

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.
  - skissane 5y ago
    > the USSR is not Russia (though I wonder if Putin even believes that?) Putin believes that the "Soviet Union" is simply another name for Russia, the name of a particular phase of Russian history. In his mind, the ex-Soviet states were all part of Russia, and their people were Russian–Ukrainians and Lithuanians and Georgians are not neighbouring foreign nationalities, they are Russians, traditional Russian ethnic minorities just like Chechens or Tatars or Tuvans. He views their independence in the breakup of the USSR as a historical mistake, for which he blames the Communist leadership. He wishes the Communists had never introduced the idea of a "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" because he believes it planted the seeds for the breakup of Russia–yes, Russia, since to him the Soviet Union was just another name for Russia–in 1991, and his current invasion of Ukraine is an attempt to partially reverse that breakup – even though he probably doesn't plan to annex the whole of Ukraine in the near-to-medium term, installing a puppet government in Ukraine which will promote Russophilia and Russification would bring Ukraine back into the Russian fold, and might even eventually lead to full annexation further down the line.
    - saurik 5y ago
      Thanks: this is along the lines of what I was thinking and the clarification on the mental model of "Russia" vs. the origin and issue with "USSR" was very valuable!
  - saurik 5y ago
    https://www.economist.com/international/2022/02/12/how-russia-has-revived-nato https://www.economist.com/international/2022/02/12/how-russi... > Since then, however, NATO has revived admirably. Under President Joe Biden America sounded the alarm about Russia’s build-up and co-ordinated the Western response. “Putin has single-handedly given NATO a vitamin injection,” says Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, an annual transatlantic talkfest that begins on February 18th. NATO’s three decades of angst about its role after the end of the cold war has been dispelled. Having performed “out of area” operations in the Balkans and counter-insurgency in Afghanistan, it is going back to basics: the territorial defence of allies. The theological rivalry between institutions in Brussels over whether the EU should have an autonomous defence capability has for the moment been stilled.

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.
- skissane 5y ago
  > the USSR is not Russia (though I wonder if Putin even believes that?) Putin believes that the "Soviet Union" is simply another name for Russia, the name of a particular phase of Russian history. In his mind, the ex-Soviet states were all part of Russia, and their people were Russian–Ukrainians and Lithuanians and Georgians are not neighbouring foreign nationalities, they are Russians, traditional Russian ethnic minorities just like Chechens or Tatars or Tuvans. He views their independence in the breakup of the USSR as a historical mistake, for which he blames the Communist leadership. He wishes the Communists had never introduced the idea of a "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" because he believes it planted the seeds for the breakup of Russia–yes, Russia, since to him the Soviet Union was just another name for Russia–in 1991, and his current invasion of Ukraine is an attempt to partially reverse that breakup – even though he probably doesn't plan to annex the whole of Ukraine in the near-to-medium term, installing a puppet government in Ukraine which will promote Russophilia and Russification would bring Ukraine back into the Russian fold, and might even eventually lead to full annexation further down the line.
  - saurik 5y ago
    Thanks: this is along the lines of what I was thinking and the clarification on the mental model of "Russia" vs. the origin and issue with "USSR" was very valuable!
- saurik 5y ago
  https://www.economist.com/international/2022/02/12/how-russia-has-revived-nato https://www.economist.com/international/2022/02/12/how-russi... > Since then, however, NATO has revived admirably. Under President Joe Biden America sounded the alarm about Russia’s build-up and co-ordinated the Western response. “Putin has single-handedly given NATO a vitamin injection,” says Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, an annual transatlantic talkfest that begins on February 18th. NATO’s three decades of angst about its role after the end of the cold war has been dispelled. Having performed “out of area” operations in the Balkans and counter-insurgency in Afghanistan, it is going back to basics: the territorial defence of allies. The theological rivalry between institutions in Brussels over whether the EU should have an autonomous defence capability has for the moment been stilled.