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> Putin sees NATO as an existential threat That would make him crazy though, or at least extremely deluded. I don't think any NATO member had (or has!) any int

by smcl 5y ago

> Putin sees NATO as an existential threat That would make him crazy though, or at least extremely deluded. I don't think any NATO member had (or has!) any intention of entering into conflict with Russia - otherwise we would've seen an escalation back in 2014. I think you are giving him too much credit and are taking his words at face value. I think he probably sees NATO or the EU as contributing to the shrinking Russian of influence. This is definitely true, but it doesn't in any rational world justify military action and certainly isn't an existential threat to either Russia or Putin. Hence the popular "crazy Putin" narrative ... because it really kind of is.

mjburgess 5y ago
NATO is presently sending massive amounts of arms to Ukraine and has tried to destroy the Russian economy. Ukraine isn't in NATO and has no claim to NATO support. And yet, NATO is basically using the country to conduct a proxy war. From the Russian POV, everything here has been confirmed. NATO is an existential threat to russia. Imagine if the USA invaded cuba and russia sent massive arms/etc. to cuba, and destabalized the US economy. What would the USA think about Russia? That, exactly, it is very much the threat "it was always believed to be".
- fabian2k 5y ago
  That's just plain ridiculous. The economic sanctions are in direct response to the invasion of a sovereign country. You can't use them as justification for this very same invasion. And the arms shipments are not by NATO directly, though of course many countries here are also members of NATO. And those shipment only started when Russia started to threaten Ukraine, invaded the Krim and finally invaded the whole country.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > NATO is presently sending massive amounts of arms to Ukraine and has tried to destroy the Russian economy. Why did they decide to do all that?
  - romwell 5y ago
    Sadly, the person you're asking the question to seems to be either arguing in bad faith, or has internalized circular logic, and won't be able to see the point you're making Thank you for highlighting it for everyone else reading the thread!
- smcl 5y ago
  So you're telling me that Putin ordered the invasion of Russia because NATO represented an existential threat to Russia. And this existential threat to Russia is demonstrated by an inflow of arms to Ukraine as a direct result of the invasion? Meaning that he could accurately predict the future reaction to his invasion, and used it as a justification for the invasion? We don't have to cheerlead a NATO or EU military response (and I'm certainly not for that), make stupid "Ghost of Kyiv" memes or display the sort of bloodlust that some in the media have ... but this is a really weird position you're taking. One mistake I think many are making is mapping this to different invasions/wars in the past - Germany/Poland, USSR/Agfhanistan, USA/Afghanistan etc - and assigning roles then picking sides accordingly. I do not think it is that simple and by the same token I do not know what the right course of action should be. But I know that "Putin is justified and acting rationally" is one of the wrongest takes of this war.
  - mjburgess 5y ago
    Russia regarded NATO as an existential threat, rightly or wrongly. If the west wanted to show that NATO wasnt a threat, it could have stopped trying to capture ukraine -- this is what russians explicitly said they didnt want. The USA didnt listen, europe (france, germany) did -- but the USA overruled them. That NATO is now conducting a proxy war in ukraine shows, after the fact, that russia's thinking here was actually just correct. Russia poses no existential threat to NATO, but NATO is now bent on destroying Russia. If NATO was not an enemy of Russia, why is it helping ukraine? China is not sending arms to ukraine, NATO is --- because NATO is an existential threat to russia.
- stevesimmons 5y ago
  How about the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, signed by Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Russia, USA and UK? In exchange for the first three countries giving up their nuclear weapons, the signatories offered them security assurances that included (using wording taken from [1]): * Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders. * Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. * Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to influence their politics. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
  - mjburgess 5y ago
    Agreements of this era also were that NATO wouldnt expand. It did so, twice, into former USSR countries. Agreements are meaningless. If the west wanted russia not to invade Ukraine, the answer was trivial. It was to completely hault NATO expansion. Too late now.
    - smcl 5y ago
      No this has been covered thousands of times since the invasion started and it’s getting boring having to repeat it. The commonly cited “agreement” not to expand wasn’t part of any treaties. To the extent that it is said to exist, it was part of some verbal/gentleman’s agreement between leaders who are now dead. I’m not sure what value such agreements would have now, if they ever happened at all.
      - mjburgess 5y ago
        I'm not sure why you're set on not understanding geopolitics. Maybe the idea that the west could have done nothing to stop russia is comforting. Maybe the idea that we are blameless is comforting. Maybe russia needs to be evil, for you. You can persist in these delusions if you like. russia has been very clear, and avoiding this disaster was in the west's power, and esp. that of the USA. Germany and france warned the USA this was going to happen, and it insisted ukraine be part of NATO nevertheless. You still think things like "agreements" and "rights" and "soverignty" matter -- they dont. These are just games played amongst friends. When you arent dealing with friends, what matters is real stakes -- not made up things. The USA had the power to prevent this; and indeed, still does. In arming ukraine they are sentencing it to death. Russia will level the country. This was in our power to stop. You lot, in wanting to be Right in the stories you're telling yourselves will get ukraine destroyed. Russia is a rational actor with needs and objectives. We could've given it what it wanted. We still, to a large degree, can. But you have your nationalistic pride, your stories, and your delusions of agreements. This will not end well. Ukraine will be flattened. It is in the wests power to prevent it, instead, we're sending ukraine enough arms to get itself killed. We're not doing this to help ukraine win. It cannot win. It will be destoryed. We're sending arms to ukraine to punish russia and get them bogged down in a quagmire. We're goading ukraine into killing itself so we can punish the russians. These delusional stories you're telling, they cost lives. Ukrainian lives. Lives, no doubt, you're dead set on spending. Russians are pulling the trigger so you have no blood on your hands. I tell you: you do. We're sending the nerd out to the playground with a butter knife, and the big bully is going to send him to hospital.
- rectang 5y ago
  "NATO" is not doing any of those things. Individual member states are making choices, but not under the auspices of the alliance agreement. If Russia attacks one of the NATO member states, that will change and NATO will act.
dirtyid 5y ago
The rationale and justification for UKR/RU war has been so obvious that strategic thinkers from Kennan to Kissinger to Mearsheimer and host of other relevant experts like Clinton defense secretary Perry or US ambassador to USSR Matlock has been warning about it for years. Some decades. RU/UKR is about immediate short/medium/long term interests executed before RU leverage in terms of demographics and economics is projected decline for generations. NATO friendly UKR was positioned to replace RU as gas station of EU post reserve discovery while relegating west RU (the heart) to geographic vulnerability forever. Even if you think Putin has lost his marbles now, it's important to remember he's come to the same calculations as other western thinkers 10/20 years ago. He won Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Syria and improved RU position each time. UKR might have been a stretch goal, but also always on the chopping block if NATO/UKR upset balance of power enough to undermine RU interests. More so when NATO became an offensive alliance for US interests after Kosovo. In absence of guaranteeing RU security interests via treaty, which RU asked for, NATO/EU simply cannot be trusted medium long term. His assessment and actions is about as geopolitically coherent as it gets. Execution might be shit, the entire venture might even be an existential gamble, but it's fundamentally rational.
random_upvoter 5y ago
In the 19th century Russia was invaded by Napoleon, most of Moscow was burnt to the ground on that occasion. In the 20th century Nazi Germany invaded Russia with an obvious program to exterminate the Slavic people. Forty million Russians died on that occasion. You have to understand how such events embed in the collective consciousness of a people. For Russia, the danger comes from the west and it's real. It's all very easy for us to say "Oh but we are really peaceful and enlightened now". Except that we have been expanding NATO to the west, essentially breaking a promise we made to Russia when Germany was reunited. Nothing of this justifies the brutal invasion of Ukraine right now, but the whole story is a little bit more complicated than "muh Russia evil".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- smcl 5y ago
  Who said “muh Russia evil”? You’re infantilising Putin as a lil smol bean who’s feeling really scared, and reaching back in time for supporting evidence and finding conflicts that happened with totally different contexts and ignoring or hand-waving away anything that might contradict this. I think this is a mistake. Here’s what I think is going on, we have had a number of controversial recent wars where US and British (and various allies) were categorically, undeniably in the wrong. There was a media frenzy during those conflicts which was used to manipulate popular opinion in favour of these conflicts, so many of us are now mistrustful of when we get a sense this sort of thing is happening. There is now a popular push for US and allies to be more involved in an ongoing conflict which is getting a lot of attention in the media. It is instinctive and natural to assume we are being manipulated once more and to not want to get caught up in it. We probably are to some extent, so it is right to be mistrustful and take some things with a pinch of salt. But many people are overcorrecting - saying that not just should we not start WW3 (which is a sensible position), but that this is actually mostly our fault (which is a stretch). And starting with that belief people have had to work back to find something to support it. With the tit-for-tat nature of geopolitics mixed with our continents extensive history of horrific warfare you can probably paint any of the former great powers as the source of all evil in many modern conflicts today if you want to (in some cases you’d be right too). In this case I think you’re wrong though. In one respect the situation is complex in that there’s no clear path out of it. But it’s also very simple in that there is one very very clear aggressor who has initiated a bloody conflict on flimsy grounds (in fact his stated goal was “denazifying” Ukraine which none of you guys have mentioned) and I think anyone being proudly contrarian about it is going to feel a bit silly about it when the dust settles.

by smcl 5y ago

mjburgess 5y ago

NATO is presently sending massive amounts of arms to Ukraine and has tried to destroy the Russian economy. Ukraine isn't in NATO and has no claim to NATO support. And yet, NATO is basically using the country to conduct a proxy war. From the Russian POV, everything here has been confirmed. NATO is an existential threat to russia. Imagine if the USA invaded cuba and russia sent massive arms/etc. to cuba, and destabalized the US economy. What would the USA think about Russia? That, exactly, it is very much the threat "it was always believed to be".

fabian2k 5y ago
That's just plain ridiculous. The economic sanctions are in direct response to the invasion of a sovereign country. You can't use them as justification for this very same invasion. And the arms shipments are not by NATO directly, though of course many countries here are also members of NATO. And those shipment only started when Russia started to threaten Ukraine, invaded the Krim and finally invaded the whole country.
ceejayoz 5y ago
> NATO is presently sending massive amounts of arms to Ukraine and has tried to destroy the Russian economy. Why did they decide to do all that?
- romwell 5y ago
  Sadly, the person you're asking the question to seems to be either arguing in bad faith, or has internalized circular logic, and won't be able to see the point you're making Thank you for highlighting it for everyone else reading the thread!
smcl 5y ago
So you're telling me that Putin ordered the invasion of Russia because NATO represented an existential threat to Russia. And this existential threat to Russia is demonstrated by an inflow of arms to Ukraine as a direct result of the invasion? Meaning that he could accurately predict the future reaction to his invasion, and used it as a justification for the invasion? We don't have to cheerlead a NATO or EU military response (and I'm certainly not for that), make stupid "Ghost of Kyiv" memes or display the sort of bloodlust that some in the media have ... but this is a really weird position you're taking. One mistake I think many are making is mapping this to different invasions/wars in the past - Germany/Poland, USSR/Agfhanistan, USA/Afghanistan etc - and assigning roles then picking sides accordingly. I do not think it is that simple and by the same token I do not know what the right course of action should be. But I know that "Putin is justified and acting rationally" is one of the wrongest takes of this war.
- mjburgess 5y ago
  Russia regarded NATO as an existential threat, rightly or wrongly. If the west wanted to show that NATO wasnt a threat, it could have stopped trying to capture ukraine -- this is what russians explicitly said they didnt want. The USA didnt listen, europe (france, germany) did -- but the USA overruled them. That NATO is now conducting a proxy war in ukraine shows, after the fact, that russia's thinking here was actually just correct. Russia poses no existential threat to NATO, but NATO is now bent on destroying Russia. If NATO was not an enemy of Russia, why is it helping ukraine? China is not sending arms to ukraine, NATO is --- because NATO is an existential threat to russia.
stevesimmons 5y ago
How about the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, signed by Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Russia, USA and UK? In exchange for the first three countries giving up their nuclear weapons, the signatories offered them security assurances that included (using wording taken from [1]): * Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders. * Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. * Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to influence their politics. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
- mjburgess 5y ago
  Agreements of this era also were that NATO wouldnt expand. It did so, twice, into former USSR countries. Agreements are meaningless. If the west wanted russia not to invade Ukraine, the answer was trivial. It was to completely hault NATO expansion. Too late now.
  - smcl 5y ago
    No this has been covered thousands of times since the invasion started and it’s getting boring having to repeat it. The commonly cited “agreement” not to expand wasn’t part of any treaties. To the extent that it is said to exist, it was part of some verbal/gentleman’s agreement between leaders who are now dead. I’m not sure what value such agreements would have now, if they ever happened at all.
    - mjburgess 5y ago
      I'm not sure why you're set on not understanding geopolitics. Maybe the idea that the west could have done nothing to stop russia is comforting. Maybe the idea that we are blameless is comforting. Maybe russia needs to be evil, for you. You can persist in these delusions if you like. russia has been very clear, and avoiding this disaster was in the west's power, and esp. that of the USA. Germany and france warned the USA this was going to happen, and it insisted ukraine be part of NATO nevertheless. You still think things like "agreements" and "rights" and "soverignty" matter -- they dont. These are just games played amongst friends. When you arent dealing with friends, what matters is real stakes -- not made up things. The USA had the power to prevent this; and indeed, still does. In arming ukraine they are sentencing it to death. Russia will level the country. This was in our power to stop. You lot, in wanting to be Right in the stories you're telling yourselves will get ukraine destroyed. Russia is a rational actor with needs and objectives. We could've given it what it wanted. We still, to a large degree, can. But you have your nationalistic pride, your stories, and your delusions of agreements. This will not end well. Ukraine will be flattened. It is in the wests power to prevent it, instead, we're sending ukraine enough arms to get itself killed. We're not doing this to help ukraine win. It cannot win. It will be destoryed. We're sending arms to ukraine to punish russia and get them bogged down in a quagmire. We're goading ukraine into killing itself so we can punish the russians. These delusional stories you're telling, they cost lives. Ukrainian lives. Lives, no doubt, you're dead set on spending. Russians are pulling the trigger so you have no blood on your hands. I tell you: you do. We're sending the nerd out to the playground with a butter knife, and the big bully is going to send him to hospital.
rectang 5y ago
"NATO" is not doing any of those things. Individual member states are making choices, but not under the auspices of the alliance agreement. If Russia attacks one of the NATO member states, that will change and NATO will act.

dirtyid 5y ago

The rationale and justification for UKR/RU war has been so obvious that strategic thinkers from Kennan to Kissinger to Mearsheimer and host of other relevant experts like Clinton defense secretary Perry or US ambassador to USSR Matlock has been warning about it for years. Some decades. RU/UKR is about immediate short/medium/long term interests executed before RU leverage in terms of demographics and economics is projected decline for generations. NATO friendly UKR was positioned to replace RU as gas station of EU post reserve discovery while relegating west RU (the heart) to geographic vulnerability forever. Even if you think Putin has lost his marbles now, it's important to remember he's come to the same calculations as other western thinkers 10/20 years ago. He won Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Syria and improved RU position each time. UKR might have been a stretch goal, but also always on the chopping block if NATO/UKR upset balance of power enough to undermine RU interests. More so when NATO became an offensive alliance for US interests after Kosovo. In absence of guaranteeing RU security interests via treaty, which RU asked for, NATO/EU simply cannot be trusted medium long term. His assessment and actions is about as geopolitically coherent as it gets. Execution might be shit, the entire venture might even be an existential gamble, but it's fundamentally rational.

random_upvoter 5y ago

In the 19th century Russia was invaded by Napoleon, most of Moscow was burnt to the ground on that occasion. In the 20th century Nazi Germany invaded Russia with an obvious program to exterminate the Slavic people. Forty million Russians died on that occasion. You have to understand how such events embed in the collective consciousness of a people. For Russia, the danger comes from the west and it's real. It's all very easy for us to say "Oh but we are really peaceful and enlightened now". Except that we have been expanding NATO to the west, essentially breaking a promise we made to Russia when Germany was reunited. Nothing of this justifies the brutal invasion of Ukraine right now, but the whole story is a little bit more complicated than "muh Russia evil".

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
smcl 5y ago
Who said “muh Russia evil”? You’re infantilising Putin as a lil smol bean who’s feeling really scared, and reaching back in time for supporting evidence and finding conflicts that happened with totally different contexts and ignoring or hand-waving away anything that might contradict this. I think this is a mistake. Here’s what I think is going on, we have had a number of controversial recent wars where US and British (and various allies) were categorically, undeniably in the wrong. There was a media frenzy during those conflicts which was used to manipulate popular opinion in favour of these conflicts, so many of us are now mistrustful of when we get a sense this sort of thing is happening. There is now a popular push for US and allies to be more involved in an ongoing conflict which is getting a lot of attention in the media. It is instinctive and natural to assume we are being manipulated once more and to not want to get caught up in it. We probably are to some extent, so it is right to be mistrustful and take some things with a pinch of salt. But many people are overcorrecting - saying that not just should we not start WW3 (which is a sensible position), but that this is actually mostly our fault (which is a stretch). And starting with that belief people have had to work back to find something to support it. With the tit-for-tat nature of geopolitics mixed with our continents extensive history of horrific warfare you can probably paint any of the former great powers as the source of all evil in many modern conflicts today if you want to (in some cases you’d be right too). In this case I think you’re wrong though. In one respect the situation is complex in that there’s no clear path out of it. But it’s also very simple in that there is one very very clear aggressor who has initiated a bloody conflict on flimsy grounds (in fact his stated goal was “denazifying” Ukraine which none of you guys have mentioned) and I think anyone being proudly contrarian about it is going to feel a bit silly about it when the dust settles.