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Devil's advocate here: can we — for the sake of the argument — assume for a sec that what Russia's been saying is true, and that their goal is: not having Nato

by maratc 5y ago

Devil's advocate here: can we — for the sake of the argument — assume for a sec that what Russia's been saying is true, and that their goal is: not having Nato in Ukraine? Because if we can — for the sake of the argument — assume that, their winning condition is achieved. Ukraine, being in the middle of a military conflict, won't be admitted to Nato.

netsharc 5y ago
That was already achieved before the invasion, one of the NATO criterias for entry is not to have disputed borders. https://www.rferl.org/a/1099020.html https://www.rferl.org/a/1099020.html search for "territorial disputes".
- maratc 5y ago
  I don't think that stopped Turkey (having a territorial dispute with Cyprus) from being admitted. Also, your interpretation means Russians would have to rely on Nato interpreting their own criterias in a certain way. This may be a reasonable thing for you or me — but I don't think it's a reasonable thing for the Russians, considering all the bad blood between Russia and Nato for the last 70 years.
  - netsharc 5y ago
    "winning condition is achieved", hooray, the Putin in your imagination thinks, Ukraine won't be a member of NATO, never mind the cost of economic destruction of Russia?
    - maratc 5y ago
      My imagination has nothing to do with it, but from what I know from history, countries will go to great lengths — sometimes leading to their destruction — when they feel their existence is under a threat.
- shrikant 5y ago
  This is naive thinking at best. This isn't a "smart contract". The only reason a club has membership rules is to be able to selectively apply them and keep applicants out. Stated slightly differently: a club's membership rules are really just "rejection rules". If big name members of a club want someone to have membership, then there's all sorts of flexibility that can be found within the scope of the rules, ranging from a narrow relaxed interpretation to creative accounting to outright one-off exceptions. THe best example that I can think of currently is Greece's membership to the EU, where the EU conveniently just looked the other way despite pretty stark evidence that Greece had cooked their books.
  - netsharc 5y ago
    Honestly, why go to war to prevent another contract, that can also be broken: that some men agree they'll defend each other's countries?
  - Paradigma11 5y ago
    There is zero chance of a country being admitted that has a territorial conflict with russia. But russia is trying to solve this problem right now, so making ukraines medium term admission more feasable.

by maratc 5y ago

netsharc 5y ago

That was already achieved before the invasion, one of the NATO criterias for entry is not to have disputed borders. https://www.rferl.org/a/1099020.html https://www.rferl.org/a/1099020.html search for "territorial disputes".

maratc 5y ago
I don't think that stopped Turkey (having a territorial dispute with Cyprus) from being admitted. Also, your interpretation means Russians would have to rely on Nato interpreting their own criterias in a certain way. This may be a reasonable thing for you or me — but I don't think it's a reasonable thing for the Russians, considering all the bad blood between Russia and Nato for the last 70 years.
- netsharc 5y ago
  "winning condition is achieved", hooray, the Putin in your imagination thinks, Ukraine won't be a member of NATO, never mind the cost of economic destruction of Russia?
  - maratc 5y ago
    My imagination has nothing to do with it, but from what I know from history, countries will go to great lengths — sometimes leading to their destruction — when they feel their existence is under a threat.
shrikant 5y ago
This is naive thinking at best. This isn't a "smart contract". The only reason a club has membership rules is to be able to selectively apply them and keep applicants out. Stated slightly differently: a club's membership rules are really just "rejection rules". If big name members of a club want someone to have membership, then there's all sorts of flexibility that can be found within the scope of the rules, ranging from a narrow relaxed interpretation to creative accounting to outright one-off exceptions. THe best example that I can think of currently is Greece's membership to the EU, where the EU conveniently just looked the other way despite pretty stark evidence that Greece had cooked their books.
- netsharc 5y ago
  Honestly, why go to war to prevent another contract, that can also be broken: that some men agree they'll defend each other's countries?
- Paradigma11 5y ago
  There is zero chance of a country being admitted that has a territorial conflict with russia. But russia is trying to solve this problem right now, so making ukraines medium term admission more feasable.