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These past few days we are trying to see how far we can take this proxy war without having to invoke NATO's Article 5 and precipitate into WW3. These are very p

These past few days we are trying to see how far we can take this proxy war without having to invoke NATO's Article 5 and precipitate into WW3. These are very precarious times.

jerojero 5y ago
These are my thoughts too. Although of course I do not agree with the actions of Russia I feel like the actions of "the west" are increasingly escalating the conflict. Perhaps due to the initial lukewarm response... I find worrying that Russia is being cornered into a position they did not consider when engaging in this military action and the consequences of what that might bring. I think the west is not really trying to de-escalate the conflict and that feels a bit baffling. Also, I feel like a lot of the sanctions are targeting the Russian people as a whole, and because I do know some Russians I can see how tough the situation is turning on them... even though they are as innocent as any other civilian in this war. It is really sad to see so many people celebrate sanctions and so on. It's a horrible situation! Where is our humanity?
- Buttons840 5y ago
  Does the west have any options for de-escalating that don't involve letting Ukraine fall?
  - themihai 5y ago
    It's not really only about Ukraine. It's about the whole Eastern Europe. If you listen to Putin's speech a good way to "reset" the relations would be redrawing the NATO borders to 1990 so I would say that at this point any options de-escalating the current conflict only postpones such a conflict which would be a bad move (i.e. Russia would better prepare before the next invasion). The games have already begun, more countries want now in NATO and EU because they know they are next on Russian's plate.
  - akg_67 5y ago
    Stop eastward expansion of NATO and make it clear Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO. Just visualize what would American response would be if Mexico or Canada considered joining a non-American Security Alliance. We already know how America will respond, when Venezuela brought up joining Russian security alliance, few years ago. NATO is a relic of Cold War and should have been disbanded when Cold War ended, instead it became a tool for American imperialism expansion, 19 members to 30 members. And, now we are seeing the poisoned fruits of how it is threatening world peace. Ukraine has become an American pawn in geo-political chess.
    - mupuff1234 5y ago
      Do you think Putin wouldn't have thrown a tantrum if Ukraine wanted to join the European union? NATO is just an excuse, Putin is not interested in an independent Ukraine with western values. And if you don't think that Ukraine has a say it this whole mess then you are the imperialist.
      - akg_67 5y ago
        Russia would have thrown similar temper tantrum as Americans when Venezuela brought up joining Russian Security Alliance. IMO, best course of action for Ukraine and the World is for Ukraine to stay independent and Neutral. I shudder to imagine what would the world look like if Russia loses and Ukraine joins NATO. North Korea will be proven right, only way to prevent US and NATO to bully, invade and destroy your country is to have a nuclear warhead on an ICBM pointed at a close US/NATO ally.
        kristiandupont 5y ago
        Do you honestly think anyone wants to invade Russia? I have never seen any western politician, no matter how hawkish or anything, even slightly indicate something like that. Who would want that!?
        mupuff1234 5y ago
        > North Korea will be proven right About what? No one is trying to invade neither Russia nor north Korea. If there is anything that was proven is that even if Ukraine would become a strong western ally, as is South Korea, still no one would attack Russia, just like no one is attacking North Korea. If anything Russia should be extremely wary about following the exact same path as North Korea, turning into a secluded prison state. It's all just extremely sad, and a lose for us all.
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  Russia is not cornered. They aren't even fighting on their own soil. Napoleon wasn't cornered when he was losing too. There is no sane reason to let a bully just take what he wants, since that's exactly what Putin is trying with his threats. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine
- hgomersall 5y ago
  The "west" has been trying to de-escalate the actions of Russia for the last two decades. When a foreign state can, with impunity, annex various chunks of its neighbours, carry out a proxy war through a seriously despotic regime and literally assassinate agents in said Western countries using both nuclear and chemical weapons, then it's difficult to argue that de-escalation hasn't been tried.
  - throckmortra 5y ago
    Most would not agree with you. From Chomsky to Kissinger, political analysts and historians have been ringing alarm bells for decades on NATO expansion eastward. TL;DR: we had a west-friendly Russian government at the fall of the wall - but pushing east allowed hawks/imperialists to rise to power Edit: I see a lot of you really struggling with this idea. The good news is you don't have to take my word for it! Please read analysis from both of the mentioned authors and more. They're much better sources than me and other hackernews posters
    - vimy 5y ago
      To be fair, NATO was initially opposed to expansion but the ex-Warsaw pact countries really pushed for it. They were afraid of Russia.
      - elzbardico 5y ago
        They wanted the money and prestige
      - chess_buster 5y ago
        Rightfully so, as it seems now.
    - rjzzleep 5y ago
      Stephen cohen also mentioned the military doctrine of Russia and how irresponsible and provocative obamas comments were when the whole Ukraine conflict kicked off. Someone posted the following leaked cable here a while back from 2008 > Comment > 12. (C) Russia's opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia is both emotional and based on perceived strategic concerns about the impact on Russia's interests in the region. It is also politically popular to paint the U.S. and NATO as Russia's adversaries and to use NATO's outreach to Ukraine and Georgia as a means of generating support from Russian nationalists. While Russian opposition to the first round of NATO enlargement in the mid-1990's was strong, Russia now feels itself able to respond more forcefully to what it perceives as actions contrary to its national interests. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
- Sol- 5y ago
  20 years the west and in particularly countries like Germany have deescalated and let assassinations and annexations by Russia slide in favor of having good relationships with Putin. He has no interest in deescalation, except maybe having all of Eastern Europe bow to his rule. Should the west kick the baltic states out of NATO too to appease Russia?
  - belter 5y ago
    Kicking some states out of NATO has been officially requested by Russia. NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg press conference a few days ago: From correct time: https://youtu.be/JvxqTGrZxwQ?t=64 https://youtu.be/JvxqTGrZxwQ?t=64 Partial quote as of time above: "...The Kremlin objectives are not limited to Ukraine. Russia has demanded legal binding agreements to renounce further NATO enlargement. And remove troops and infrastructure from allies that joined after 1997..."
    - willis936 5y ago
      So that they can imperialize those nations too. Doesn't seem like a reasonable demand given their imperial behavior the past decade.
- leobg 5y ago
  Not only where is our humanity. But also: Where is our thinking? I think we are in danger of applying the wrong lesson from history. People today say you cannot be a "Putin apologizer", or that looking for reasons for Putin's behavior was a form of "appeasement". People who say these things believe they have learned from history. They look back at Hitler in 1938. Czechoslovakia. Austria. And, finally, Poland. They look back at England and France, who, not wanting to risk war, sought ways to "appease" Hitler. And by doing that, they lost valuable time and allowed Hitler to grow stronger, making the situation much worse for the world. Now, people are drawing the conclusion: "You should never try to appease a dictator!" But I'd argue that this is the wrong conclusion. What backfired back then is not that England and France tried to appease Hitler. What backfired was that the leaders of England and France grotesquely misread Hitler and his goals. Their mistake was not that they tried to understand Hitler's motives. Rather, their mistake was precisely that they failed to accurately understand his motives. They did not do too much understanding. They did too little. This is why the English public finally turned to Churchill. Because Churchill actually "grokked" Hitler: He had formed an accurate mental model of Hitler's motives. Did that make Churchill into a "Hitler apologist"? Not at all. Instead, it allowed him to accurately predict Hitler's next moves. It allowed him to predict that making territorial concessions to this man would never help to guarantee peace long-term. Churchill was actually one of the few European leaders who had troubled to read "Mein Kampf". He also read the books written by Sebastian Haffner, a German who had chronicled his life under Hitler from inside Germany. Whereas the others sought to resolve the situation by ignoring and disengaging, Churchill engaged with Hitler's thoughts. And he did so intimately and with a grave sense of personal responsibility for the outcome of this conflict (even though he did not start it). When I see people today saying they cannot stand Putin, and therefore they don't want to hear what he says, because it's all lies and propaganda anyway, that worries me. Even if Putin was a Hitler 2.0 (which is very doubtful, since History rarely repeats itself and reasoning by analogy often leads to spectacular failures), then that would mean that we should pay even more careful attention to his motives, and not less. We should pay even more careful attention on the outside contingencies and the mental frameworks that drive Putin's actions, and not less. Nietzsche has said, "If you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back into you." And it almost seems that people are afraid of precisely that. They almost think that by not acknowledging a thing they don't like, it will go away. Those who have been warning about a war in Ukraine have correctly pointed out that this strategy will not only not work. But that it will backfire. So the true lesson from 1938 is not that one should "never negotiate with dictators". The true lesson is that you have to make an effort to face the other party's viewpoint. To make an effort to understand the true motives, without any fear of what you might find. That includes the fear of finding out that your own behavior might have contributed to the status quo. You need to let go of your comforting beliefs -- that things will "sort themselves out", that it's "just the other party's fault", that there's "nothing to learn or understand" because you already know exactly what the other party is really after, etc.. What made Churchill great, in my view, is that he was able to overcome all of those comforting beliefs. People respected him because he would tell them not what they would have liked to hear, but what they needed to know, and needed to face. I think this is very, very different from what we're seeing today from our own leaders. Our leaders are posturing. They claim that the inconvenient truth is that "Putin is worse than we thought", and that the necessary sanctions will require "sacrifices from all of us". They try to sound like a Churchill. But they make no effort to be one. They imitate the outside posture, but they totally miss the inner essence. Scholz said something very revealing. He said to Putin during that recent press conference (and I'm paraphrasing), "What do you care about Ukraine and NATO? It's not going to happen anytime during our terms of office anyway". That isn't Churchill. That's Chamberlain.
- themihai 5y ago
  Something tells me that if Russia would not have been so assertive and nostalgic about the soviet times we would get alone with them just fine. But they are still in denial...Putin and a big part of russians would very much like the Soviet Union back. Just look at Putin's ratings after he annexed Crimea.
  - SyzygistSix 5y ago
    Putin has mentioned nothing about returning to Soviet times. But has explicitly invoked the memory of the Russian Imperium though.
    - themihai 5y ago
      Putin about the fall of Soviet Union: "It was a disintegration of historical Russia under the name of the Soviet Union". He said something similar about Crimea being part of the "historical Russia" and now Ukraine too. It doesn't take much research to know how the russians feel about the Soviet Union..just ask them! About Trust: >> The Kremlin has said Russia has no plans to launch a fresh attack on Ukraine and that the West appears to have convinced itself of Moscow's aggressive intentions based on what it calls false Western media stories. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-rues-soviet-collapse-demise-historical-russia-2021-12-12/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-rues-soviet-colla...
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      Putin has both claimed that the Soviet Union was a name of Russia, and that Soviet leaders betrayed Russia by transferring Russian territory from Russia to Ukraine within the USSR. (And that other Soviet leaders betrayed Russia by allowing the Soviet Union to fall.) Putin’s propaganda justifications for his wars of aggression aren't particularly coherent, but I don't think they are intended to form a logical theory of history so much as a powerful emotional appeal that neither invites nor rewards intellectual analysis.
- VictorPath 5y ago
  - lkrubner 5y ago
    There is no hostile military alliance against Russia. There is no alliance in the world that has sought a military conflict with Russia.
    - inawarminister 5y ago
      Huh? There were Napoleon's Grande Armee composed of allied/subjected Germans, Italians, Spanish, and assorted nationalities invading Moscow in 1812. The Iron Pact was also an alliance. And NATO was founded to compete with the Warsaw Pact, it's their raison d'etre.
      - VictorPath 5y ago
        Also in 1918 the US, UK, France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Romania etc. invaded Russia.
  - skeletal88 5y ago
    This has been a lie propagated by Putin's apologists for decades already, this should stop. NATO exists to deal with the problems Russia is creating. We in Estonia wouldn't need NATO if Russia wasn't such a pain in the ass all the time, attacking it's neighbours, bullying with random stuff. For example - they randomly start "repairs" of a railway line on their border that.. maybe haven't finished after a decade, to mess with our logistics sector. They suddenly want to "inspect" (and stop imports from) all meat producers here that exported to Russia after our government made some decision they didn't like. If Russia was a nice and friendly neighbour, then we could be friends and have good trade relationships etc. Instead they have been bullying it's neighbours for decades and complained that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a disaster that needs to be fixed and so on. And now you tell us that we should not be in NATO?
    - 5y ago
- jonathanstrange 5y ago
  The West is not escalating anything, they have done everything to prevent this war. The diplomatic efforts to prevent this attack were unprecedented in history. Russia only needs to stop the war and withdraw their troops, and sanctions will go away in no time. There is no way Ukraine will become pro-Russian any time in the future, though, but that's obviously on Putin. It's hard to win the hearts and minds of people by bombing them and occupying their country. Maybe Putin should have asked the US about their experiences with that before ordering the invasion of Ukraine.
- nickspicer1993 5y ago
  Russia is shelling all major Ukraine cities right now trying to take over a country that does not want it. I am from the UK and if my government were doing this I would gladly welcome sanctions and be outside daily protesting regardless of the consequences, because I know that whatever I would go through it scarcely compares to what civilians of Ukraine would be feeling right now. That's where my humanity would lie personally...
  - akg_67 5y ago
    > I am from the UK and if my government were doing this I would gladly welcome sanctions and be outside daily protesting regardless of the consequences Selective memory, eh. Iraq and Afghanistan like to have word with you about you going outside daily protesting against your country. Edit: To add, consider the brutal history of British empire and how they invaded, occupied, and looted a large part of the world.
    - krzyk 5y ago
      Iraq was ruled by a dictator, invading saved more lives than letting him be. And go look what happens when military was withdrawn from Afghanistan. And see how that country looked in 1960s before the Taliban.
      - akg_67 5y ago
        LOL, just because you don't agree with how a country is ruled, managed and run doesn't give you right to invade and occupy a country.
        krzyk 5y ago
        Yes,on thenother hand if you could do something like that before September 1939 in Germany or sometime earlier in Russia you could save many lives. Having a blind eye doesnt solve problems.
      - Ygg2 5y ago
        Iraq instead became part of Islamic State. The state that makes Taliban appear moderate.
- watwut 5y ago
  > I think the west is not really trying to de-escalate the conflict and that feels a bit baffling. NATO is not only America+GB. It is also, for example, Estonia, Latvia and Poland. All countries that have border common with Russia. It is also Slovakia and Romania - counties that will have border with them if Russia win. These countries don't want to become part of Russia or fall under Russia control again. And in fact, Germany and France dont want that either, because the would mean having to deal with USSR right there again.
- toss1 5y ago
  >> It's a horrible situation! Where is our humanity? Our humanity is and must be placed squarely on the task of stopping the aggressor. Authoritarians, dictators and despots do not stop by themselves. They stop only when they are stopped by external forces. They will ALWAYS try the next available outrage and takeover. Appeasement and de-escalation has been tried, and the only result was yet another nation laid to rubble by Putin. He did not stop after Chechnya. He did not stop after Georgia. He did not stop after Syria. He did not stop after Crimea. He will not stop after Ukraine. When would you have us stop him? When he is bombing Warsaw? Or should we wait for Paris? How about London? Or should we wait until the rockets are falling in Washington DC? When? Nuclear blackmail is still blackmail, and it is a fools game to pay the blackmailer. Moreover, all other authoritarians are watching. If Putin is allowed to succeed in Ukraine, we can be very sure that Xi will go after Taiwan next. This is literally the fight for the free world. If we do not oppose it and stop it cold, it will continue. It is better to die standing than live on your knees (but if you want to live on your knees, I'm sure you'll be welcomed).
  - chess_buster 5y ago
    Thanks.
- skeletal88 5y ago
  How are western countries escalating the conflict? It was Putin who started massing his military at Ukraine's borders in autumn last year. The west was ready to talk but Putin's demands to return NATO to what was before 1997 were insane and impossible. It's the same when I say "I want your wife, 50% of your monthly salary and your house. See - I'm ready to negotiate, but these are my demands, if you do don't agree I will take your house by force anyway" How do you suggest to de-escalate? Putin has attacked another country, what else should we do? Ignore what they are doing and wait until he attacks another one of his neighbours? You just sound like one of the 'concerned' people who are Putin's trolls or apologists. Unfortunately there are many of you here in the comments.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    People in bad situations often analyze their own actions to see how it could be avoided. This is sometimes a useful thing to do, but sometimes it just supports an illusion of control, which in turn quickly segues into victims blaming themselves. On the bright side, Trump did a lot of damage in 4 years but he didn't totally kill us, or the State Department. He demonstrated to our allies that America is not reliable as a principled partner in protecting liberal values, which has the positive effect of spreading the load, and getting others (notably Germany) more involved in common defense.
- samwillis 5y ago
  > I feel like a lot of the sanctions are targeting the Russian people as a whole, and because I do know some Russians I can see how tough the situation is turning on them... even though they are as innocent as any other civilian in this war. This is an important observation, the point of the wider sanctions is to pressure the Russian people to push back at their own leaders rather than the West/Europe. It’s a very tight and difficult line to follow, the ideal outcome is to apply just enough pressure on the citizens of Russia to effect regime change. Starting at the top with applying that pressure to a small number of influential people and moving down to effect more of the population without the push back in the wrong direction. I hope it works and they don’t go too far. I feel for all ordinary citizen everywhere effected by this. It’s not their fight they have been drawn into.
- koonsolo 5y ago
  So we should do nothing while Ukrainian citizens are being bombed? And Moldova is next. We also do nothing when Russians do the same to Moldova? At some point, you will have to draw the line: here and no further. And now me made a very clear statement: if you invade another country, you lose all benefits that we provide, and we lose all benefits you provide. It's just that the benefits that we provide seem bigger than the other way around.
quadcore 5y ago
NATO article 5: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm
NicoJuicy 5y ago
This isn't a proxy war. Russia is a main actor here being a bully. Ukraine is not a member of NATO ( yet?). But it's a neighbour+trade partner.
- 1_player 5y ago
  Russia is indeed being a bully, the West (and not only) is terrified of this turn of events and the best course of action is to send as much equipment and weapons into Ukraine, apply catastrophic economic sanctions hoping the Russian citizens or oligarchs topple the dictator while officially not being at war. "A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors which act on the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities. In order for a conflict to be considered a proxy war, there must be a direct, long-term relationship between external actors and the belligerents involved. The aforementioned relationship usually takes the form of funding, military training, arms, or other forms of material assistance which assist a belligerent party in sustaining its war effort." — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war
  - NicoJuicy 5y ago
    Terrified? I see much more cooperation now to say: "it's enough." Merkel led Germany always preferred trade before blaming. Increase trade with a malicious actor and it will work out in the end. There's a huge shift currently happening and if you didn't realize it yet. The position of Putin was one of weakness, not of strength and the west knows this. And it's not a proxy war, Russia is literally invading a country. Ukraine doesn't prefer the Russian model to keep people poor and stupid, so they wouldn't protest.
    - 1_player 5y ago
      We are cooperating because we're terrified we have a madman at our doorstep. Are you saying Europe and US and NATO aren't scared shitless of what's going on in Ukraine? I am. Still, what's happening is the definition of proxy war, and I don't see the point of discussing semantics.
ourmandave 5y ago
Meh. We've set up a deconfliction hotline with Russia so we don't start WW3. I remember all the breathless headlines when Trump and Kim Jong-un were trading barbs that nuclear war could happen any time. Now its Putin whose the unpredictable madman or whatever.
- rocketpastsix 5y ago
  >Meh. We've set up a deconfliction hotline with Russia so we don't start WW3. So far Russia has shown they don't care. They will take this war as far as they can, to make the casualties they have already sustained "worth it". A deconfliction hotline is only as good as the parties on either end and Putin isn't exactly arguing or negotiating in good faith.
belter 5y ago
For any Aliens living among us: This is the moment to make yourself known...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- moffkalast 5y ago
  This is the moment to retreat to the safety of LEO and observe from there. Fireworks ought to be good.
  - chess_buster 5y ago
    [Your weapons are no threat to us.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrswlFxEiV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrswlFxEiV4)
c7DJTLrn 5y ago
Indeed, Putin is mentally off the rails and a dangerous person to be playing games with. I don't think he would hesitate to launch a westbound ICBM or flip the monopoly board and turn Ukraine into a wasteland if he can't have it.
- chess_buster 5y ago
  Then he will die in a nuclear fire along with all Russians and the rest of the world.
  - belter 5y ago
    His talking of Nuclear weapons, like it's his new cool Smith & Wesson, might mean he thinks he won't. Special Siberian underground military cities and all that... I remember one Nuclear Weapons specialist commenting once in a interview, that he worried about the fact that the new generation of Politicians had never seen a Nuclear explosion. And that might make it easier to even contemplate the possibility of using it. The previous generation was still alive before the Nuclear Arms Tests ban and seen the tests. They knew the horrifying scenarios they imply.
pyb 5y ago
No matter what NATO does or doesn't do, if Putin needs a pretext for further aggression, he will find it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tyjen 5y ago
China, Russia, and US are involved in frequent cyberattacks against each other without leading to physical escalation. Plus, NATO CCDCOE accepting Ukraine into the fold appears to be a knowledge sharing relationship to enhance cyber security and resilience without an offensive orientation.
jacquesm 5y ago
Technically we are already there. The bigger question is how far it will escalate, and whether slow walking it isn't the best guarantee that it will eventually spiral out of control. The West is happy to sit back and watch Ukraine get slaughtered as long as it isn't their territory that is involved, absorb the refugees (the ones that survive, that is) and then pretend to get back to business as usual. But Putin's appetite is not satisfied and once he has 'won' Ukraine (or whatever remains standing there) for sure he will push on. Moldavia was apparently already on the menu, I can easily see another sortie from Belarus into any one of the Baltics (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia in that order). This is far from over.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  The West is happy to sit back and watch Ukraine get slaughtered as long as it isn't their territory that is involved, absorb the refugees (the ones that survive, that is) and then pretend to get back to business as usual. This was always true, even when Western leaders said otherwise. Some people in Ukraine learned from the examples of Georgia (and Hungary). Others did not.
keewee7 5y ago
>proxy war Again a comment that subtly blames the West. This is not a proxy war. The only war right now is an unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- sph 5y ago
  Quit making assumptions. I live in the West, I am against the Russian invasion and I want to see Putin hanging upside down on the Red Square. Where in my comment am I blaming anyone? Tone down the paranoia. Russia invaded, the West can't help Ukraine without causing WW3, so they're by sending all they can to the Ukrainian people, praying they win and Putin kills himself or someone does it for him. This is called a proxy war. I can understand it might be a bit hard to categorize as such, but there is no blame anywhere.

These past few days we are trying to see how far we can take this proxy war without having to invoke NATO's Article 5 and precipitate into WW3. These are very precarious times.

jerojero 5y ago

These are my thoughts too. Although of course I do not agree with the actions of Russia I feel like the actions of "the west" are increasingly escalating the conflict. Perhaps due to the initial lukewarm response... I find worrying that Russia is being cornered into a position they did not consider when engaging in this military action and the consequences of what that might bring. I think the west is not really trying to de-escalate the conflict and that feels a bit baffling. Also, I feel like a lot of the sanctions are targeting the Russian people as a whole, and because I do know some Russians I can see how tough the situation is turning on them... even though they are as innocent as any other civilian in this war. It is really sad to see so many people celebrate sanctions and so on. It's a horrible situation! Where is our humanity?

Buttons840 5y ago
Does the west have any options for de-escalating that don't involve letting Ukraine fall?
- themihai 5y ago
  It's not really only about Ukraine. It's about the whole Eastern Europe. If you listen to Putin's speech a good way to "reset" the relations would be redrawing the NATO borders to 1990 so I would say that at this point any options de-escalating the current conflict only postpones such a conflict which would be a bad move (i.e. Russia would better prepare before the next invasion). The games have already begun, more countries want now in NATO and EU because they know they are next on Russian's plate.
- akg_67 5y ago
  Stop eastward expansion of NATO and make it clear Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO. Just visualize what would American response would be if Mexico or Canada considered joining a non-American Security Alliance. We already know how America will respond, when Venezuela brought up joining Russian security alliance, few years ago. NATO is a relic of Cold War and should have been disbanded when Cold War ended, instead it became a tool for American imperialism expansion, 19 members to 30 members. And, now we are seeing the poisoned fruits of how it is threatening world peace. Ukraine has become an American pawn in geo-political chess.
  - mupuff1234 5y ago
    Do you think Putin wouldn't have thrown a tantrum if Ukraine wanted to join the European union? NATO is just an excuse, Putin is not interested in an independent Ukraine with western values. And if you don't think that Ukraine has a say it this whole mess then you are the imperialist.
    - akg_67 5y ago
      Russia would have thrown similar temper tantrum as Americans when Venezuela brought up joining Russian Security Alliance. IMO, best course of action for Ukraine and the World is for Ukraine to stay independent and Neutral. I shudder to imagine what would the world look like if Russia loses and Ukraine joins NATO. North Korea will be proven right, only way to prevent US and NATO to bully, invade and destroy your country is to have a nuclear warhead on an ICBM pointed at a close US/NATO ally.
      - kristiandupont 5y ago
        Do you honestly think anyone wants to invade Russia? I have never seen any western politician, no matter how hawkish or anything, even slightly indicate something like that. Who would want that!?
      - mupuff1234 5y ago
        > North Korea will be proven right About what? No one is trying to invade neither Russia nor north Korea. If there is anything that was proven is that even if Ukraine would become a strong western ally, as is South Korea, still no one would attack Russia, just like no one is attacking North Korea. If anything Russia should be extremely wary about following the exact same path as North Korea, turning into a secluded prison state. It's all just extremely sad, and a lose for us all.
NicoJuicy 5y ago
Russia is not cornered. They aren't even fighting on their own soil. Napoleon wasn't cornered when he was losing too. There is no sane reason to let a bully just take what he wants, since that's exactly what Putin is trying with his threats. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_in_Ukraine
hgomersall 5y ago
The "west" has been trying to de-escalate the actions of Russia for the last two decades. When a foreign state can, with impunity, annex various chunks of its neighbours, carry out a proxy war through a seriously despotic regime and literally assassinate agents in said Western countries using both nuclear and chemical weapons, then it's difficult to argue that de-escalation hasn't been tried.
- throckmortra 5y ago
  Most would not agree with you. From Chomsky to Kissinger, political analysts and historians have been ringing alarm bells for decades on NATO expansion eastward. TL;DR: we had a west-friendly Russian government at the fall of the wall - but pushing east allowed hawks/imperialists to rise to power Edit: I see a lot of you really struggling with this idea. The good news is you don't have to take my word for it! Please read analysis from both of the mentioned authors and more. They're much better sources than me and other hackernews posters
  - vimy 5y ago
    To be fair, NATO was initially opposed to expansion but the ex-Warsaw pact countries really pushed for it. They were afraid of Russia.
    - elzbardico 5y ago
      They wanted the money and prestige
    - chess_buster 5y ago
      Rightfully so, as it seems now.
  - rjzzleep 5y ago
    Stephen cohen also mentioned the military doctrine of Russia and how irresponsible and provocative obamas comments were when the whole Ukraine conflict kicked off. Someone posted the following leaked cable here a while back from 2008 > Comment > 12. (C) Russia's opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia is both emotional and based on perceived strategic concerns about the impact on Russia's interests in the region. It is also politically popular to paint the U.S. and NATO as Russia's adversaries and to use NATO's outreach to Ukraine and Georgia as a means of generating support from Russian nationalists. While Russian opposition to the first round of NATO enlargement in the mid-1990's was strong, Russia now feels itself able to respond more forcefully to what it perceives as actions contrary to its national interests. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
Sol- 5y ago
20 years the west and in particularly countries like Germany have deescalated and let assassinations and annexations by Russia slide in favor of having good relationships with Putin. He has no interest in deescalation, except maybe having all of Eastern Europe bow to his rule. Should the west kick the baltic states out of NATO too to appease Russia?
- belter 5y ago
  Kicking some states out of NATO has been officially requested by Russia. NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg press conference a few days ago: From correct time: https://youtu.be/JvxqTGrZxwQ?t=64 https://youtu.be/JvxqTGrZxwQ?t=64 Partial quote as of time above: "...The Kremlin objectives are not limited to Ukraine. Russia has demanded legal binding agreements to renounce further NATO enlargement. And remove troops and infrastructure from allies that joined after 1997..."
  - willis936 5y ago
    So that they can imperialize those nations too. Doesn't seem like a reasonable demand given their imperial behavior the past decade.
leobg 5y ago
Not only where is our humanity. But also: Where is our thinking? I think we are in danger of applying the wrong lesson from history. People today say you cannot be a "Putin apologizer", or that looking for reasons for Putin's behavior was a form of "appeasement". People who say these things believe they have learned from history. They look back at Hitler in 1938. Czechoslovakia. Austria. And, finally, Poland. They look back at England and France, who, not wanting to risk war, sought ways to "appease" Hitler. And by doing that, they lost valuable time and allowed Hitler to grow stronger, making the situation much worse for the world. Now, people are drawing the conclusion: "You should never try to appease a dictator!" But I'd argue that this is the wrong conclusion. What backfired back then is not that England and France tried to appease Hitler. What backfired was that the leaders of England and France grotesquely misread Hitler and his goals. Their mistake was not that they tried to understand Hitler's motives. Rather, their mistake was precisely that they failed to accurately understand his motives. They did not do too much understanding. They did too little. This is why the English public finally turned to Churchill. Because Churchill actually "grokked" Hitler: He had formed an accurate mental model of Hitler's motives. Did that make Churchill into a "Hitler apologist"? Not at all. Instead, it allowed him to accurately predict Hitler's next moves. It allowed him to predict that making territorial concessions to this man would never help to guarantee peace long-term. Churchill was actually one of the few European leaders who had troubled to read "Mein Kampf". He also read the books written by Sebastian Haffner, a German who had chronicled his life under Hitler from inside Germany. Whereas the others sought to resolve the situation by ignoring and disengaging, Churchill engaged with Hitler's thoughts. And he did so intimately and with a grave sense of personal responsibility for the outcome of this conflict (even though he did not start it). When I see people today saying they cannot stand Putin, and therefore they don't want to hear what he says, because it's all lies and propaganda anyway, that worries me. Even if Putin was a Hitler 2.0 (which is very doubtful, since History rarely repeats itself and reasoning by analogy often leads to spectacular failures), then that would mean that we should pay even more careful attention to his motives, and not less. We should pay even more careful attention on the outside contingencies and the mental frameworks that drive Putin's actions, and not less. Nietzsche has said, "If you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back into you." And it almost seems that people are afraid of precisely that. They almost think that by not acknowledging a thing they don't like, it will go away. Those who have been warning about a war in Ukraine have correctly pointed out that this strategy will not only not work. But that it will backfire. So the true lesson from 1938 is not that one should "never negotiate with dictators". The true lesson is that you have to make an effort to face the other party's viewpoint. To make an effort to understand the true motives, without any fear of what you might find. That includes the fear of finding out that your own behavior might have contributed to the status quo. You need to let go of your comforting beliefs -- that things will "sort themselves out", that it's "just the other party's fault", that there's "nothing to learn or understand" because you already know exactly what the other party is really after, etc.. What made Churchill great, in my view, is that he was able to overcome all of those comforting beliefs. People respected him because he would tell them not what they would have liked to hear, but what they needed to know, and needed to face. I think this is very, very different from what we're seeing today from our own leaders. Our leaders are posturing. They claim that the inconvenient truth is that "Putin is worse than we thought", and that the necessary sanctions will require "sacrifices from all of us". They try to sound like a Churchill. But they make no effort to be one. They imitate the outside posture, but they totally miss the inner essence. Scholz said something very revealing. He said to Putin during that recent press conference (and I'm paraphrasing), "What do you care about Ukraine and NATO? It's not going to happen anytime during our terms of office anyway". That isn't Churchill. That's Chamberlain.
themihai 5y ago
Something tells me that if Russia would not have been so assertive and nostalgic about the soviet times we would get alone with them just fine. But they are still in denial...Putin and a big part of russians would very much like the Soviet Union back. Just look at Putin's ratings after he annexed Crimea.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  Putin has mentioned nothing about returning to Soviet times. But has explicitly invoked the memory of the Russian Imperium though.
  - themihai 5y ago
    Putin about the fall of Soviet Union: "It was a disintegration of historical Russia under the name of the Soviet Union". He said something similar about Crimea being part of the "historical Russia" and now Ukraine too. It doesn't take much research to know how the russians feel about the Soviet Union..just ask them! About Trust: >> The Kremlin has said Russia has no plans to launch a fresh attack on Ukraine and that the West appears to have convinced itself of Moscow's aggressive intentions based on what it calls false Western media stories. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-rues-soviet-collapse-demise-historical-russia-2021-12-12/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-rues-soviet-colla...
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    Putin has both claimed that the Soviet Union was a name of Russia, and that Soviet leaders betrayed Russia by transferring Russian territory from Russia to Ukraine within the USSR. (And that other Soviet leaders betrayed Russia by allowing the Soviet Union to fall.) Putin’s propaganda justifications for his wars of aggression aren't particularly coherent, but I don't think they are intended to form a logical theory of history so much as a powerful emotional appeal that neither invites nor rewards intellectual analysis.
VictorPath 5y ago
- lkrubner 5y ago
  There is no hostile military alliance against Russia. There is no alliance in the world that has sought a military conflict with Russia.
  - inawarminister 5y ago
    Huh? There were Napoleon's Grande Armee composed of allied/subjected Germans, Italians, Spanish, and assorted nationalities invading Moscow in 1812. The Iron Pact was also an alliance. And NATO was founded to compete with the Warsaw Pact, it's their raison d'etre.
    - VictorPath 5y ago
      Also in 1918 the US, UK, France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Romania etc. invaded Russia.
- skeletal88 5y ago
  This has been a lie propagated by Putin's apologists for decades already, this should stop. NATO exists to deal with the problems Russia is creating. We in Estonia wouldn't need NATO if Russia wasn't such a pain in the ass all the time, attacking it's neighbours, bullying with random stuff. For example - they randomly start "repairs" of a railway line on their border that.. maybe haven't finished after a decade, to mess with our logistics sector. They suddenly want to "inspect" (and stop imports from) all meat producers here that exported to Russia after our government made some decision they didn't like. If Russia was a nice and friendly neighbour, then we could be friends and have good trade relationships etc. Instead they have been bullying it's neighbours for decades and complained that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a disaster that needs to be fixed and so on. And now you tell us that we should not be in NATO?
  - 5y ago
jonathanstrange 5y ago
The West is not escalating anything, they have done everything to prevent this war. The diplomatic efforts to prevent this attack were unprecedented in history. Russia only needs to stop the war and withdraw their troops, and sanctions will go away in no time. There is no way Ukraine will become pro-Russian any time in the future, though, but that's obviously on Putin. It's hard to win the hearts and minds of people by bombing them and occupying their country. Maybe Putin should have asked the US about their experiences with that before ordering the invasion of Ukraine.
nickspicer1993 5y ago
Russia is shelling all major Ukraine cities right now trying to take over a country that does not want it. I am from the UK and if my government were doing this I would gladly welcome sanctions and be outside daily protesting regardless of the consequences, because I know that whatever I would go through it scarcely compares to what civilians of Ukraine would be feeling right now. That's where my humanity would lie personally...
- akg_67 5y ago
  > I am from the UK and if my government were doing this I would gladly welcome sanctions and be outside daily protesting regardless of the consequences Selective memory, eh. Iraq and Afghanistan like to have word with you about you going outside daily protesting against your country. Edit: To add, consider the brutal history of British empire and how they invaded, occupied, and looted a large part of the world.
  - krzyk 5y ago
    Iraq was ruled by a dictator, invading saved more lives than letting him be. And go look what happens when military was withdrawn from Afghanistan. And see how that country looked in 1960s before the Taliban.
    - akg_67 5y ago
      LOL, just because you don't agree with how a country is ruled, managed and run doesn't give you right to invade and occupy a country.
      - krzyk 5y ago
        Yes,on thenother hand if you could do something like that before September 1939 in Germany or sometime earlier in Russia you could save many lives. Having a blind eye doesnt solve problems.
    - Ygg2 5y ago
      Iraq instead became part of Islamic State. The state that makes Taliban appear moderate.
watwut 5y ago
> I think the west is not really trying to de-escalate the conflict and that feels a bit baffling. NATO is not only America+GB. It is also, for example, Estonia, Latvia and Poland. All countries that have border common with Russia. It is also Slovakia and Romania - counties that will have border with them if Russia win. These countries don't want to become part of Russia or fall under Russia control again. And in fact, Germany and France dont want that either, because the would mean having to deal with USSR right there again.
toss1 5y ago
>> It's a horrible situation! Where is our humanity? Our humanity is and must be placed squarely on the task of stopping the aggressor. Authoritarians, dictators and despots do not stop by themselves. They stop only when they are stopped by external forces. They will ALWAYS try the next available outrage and takeover. Appeasement and de-escalation has been tried, and the only result was yet another nation laid to rubble by Putin. He did not stop after Chechnya. He did not stop after Georgia. He did not stop after Syria. He did not stop after Crimea. He will not stop after Ukraine. When would you have us stop him? When he is bombing Warsaw? Or should we wait for Paris? How about London? Or should we wait until the rockets are falling in Washington DC? When? Nuclear blackmail is still blackmail, and it is a fools game to pay the blackmailer. Moreover, all other authoritarians are watching. If Putin is allowed to succeed in Ukraine, we can be very sure that Xi will go after Taiwan next. This is literally the fight for the free world. If we do not oppose it and stop it cold, it will continue. It is better to die standing than live on your knees (but if you want to live on your knees, I'm sure you'll be welcomed).
- chess_buster 5y ago
  Thanks.
skeletal88 5y ago
How are western countries escalating the conflict? It was Putin who started massing his military at Ukraine's borders in autumn last year. The west was ready to talk but Putin's demands to return NATO to what was before 1997 were insane and impossible. It's the same when I say "I want your wife, 50% of your monthly salary and your house. See - I'm ready to negotiate, but these are my demands, if you do don't agree I will take your house by force anyway" How do you suggest to de-escalate? Putin has attacked another country, what else should we do? Ignore what they are doing and wait until he attacks another one of his neighbours? You just sound like one of the 'concerned' people who are Putin's trolls or apologists. Unfortunately there are many of you here in the comments.
- javajosh 5y ago
  People in bad situations often analyze their own actions to see how it could be avoided. This is sometimes a useful thing to do, but sometimes it just supports an illusion of control, which in turn quickly segues into victims blaming themselves. On the bright side, Trump did a lot of damage in 4 years but he didn't totally kill us, or the State Department. He demonstrated to our allies that America is not reliable as a principled partner in protecting liberal values, which has the positive effect of spreading the load, and getting others (notably Germany) more involved in common defense.
samwillis 5y ago
> I feel like a lot of the sanctions are targeting the Russian people as a whole, and because I do know some Russians I can see how tough the situation is turning on them... even though they are as innocent as any other civilian in this war. This is an important observation, the point of the wider sanctions is to pressure the Russian people to push back at their own leaders rather than the West/Europe. It’s a very tight and difficult line to follow, the ideal outcome is to apply just enough pressure on the citizens of Russia to effect regime change. Starting at the top with applying that pressure to a small number of influential people and moving down to effect more of the population without the push back in the wrong direction. I hope it works and they don’t go too far. I feel for all ordinary citizen everywhere effected by this. It’s not their fight they have been drawn into.
koonsolo 5y ago
So we should do nothing while Ukrainian citizens are being bombed? And Moldova is next. We also do nothing when Russians do the same to Moldova? At some point, you will have to draw the line: here and no further. And now me made a very clear statement: if you invade another country, you lose all benefits that we provide, and we lose all benefits you provide. It's just that the benefits that we provide seem bigger than the other way around.

quadcore 5y ago

NATO article 5: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm

NicoJuicy 5y ago

This isn't a proxy war. Russia is a main actor here being a bully. Ukraine is not a member of NATO ( yet?). But it's a neighbour+trade partner.

1_player 5y ago
Russia is indeed being a bully, the West (and not only) is terrified of this turn of events and the best course of action is to send as much equipment and weapons into Ukraine, apply catastrophic economic sanctions hoping the Russian citizens or oligarchs topple the dictator while officially not being at war. "A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors which act on the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities. In order for a conflict to be considered a proxy war, there must be a direct, long-term relationship between external actors and the belligerents involved. The aforementioned relationship usually takes the form of funding, military training, arms, or other forms of material assistance which assist a belligerent party in sustaining its war effort." — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war
- NicoJuicy 5y ago
  Terrified? I see much more cooperation now to say: "it's enough." Merkel led Germany always preferred trade before blaming. Increase trade with a malicious actor and it will work out in the end. There's a huge shift currently happening and if you didn't realize it yet. The position of Putin was one of weakness, not of strength and the west knows this. And it's not a proxy war, Russia is literally invading a country. Ukraine doesn't prefer the Russian model to keep people poor and stupid, so they wouldn't protest.
  - 1_player 5y ago
    We are cooperating because we're terrified we have a madman at our doorstep. Are you saying Europe and US and NATO aren't scared shitless of what's going on in Ukraine? I am. Still, what's happening is the definition of proxy war, and I don't see the point of discussing semantics.

ourmandave 5y ago

Meh. We've set up a deconfliction hotline with Russia so we don't start WW3. I remember all the breathless headlines when Trump and Kim Jong-un were trading barbs that nuclear war could happen any time. Now its Putin whose the unpredictable madman or whatever.

rocketpastsix 5y ago
>Meh. We've set up a deconfliction hotline with Russia so we don't start WW3. So far Russia has shown they don't care. They will take this war as far as they can, to make the casualties they have already sustained "worth it". A deconfliction hotline is only as good as the parties on either end and Putin isn't exactly arguing or negotiating in good faith.

belter 5y ago

For any Aliens living among us: This is the moment to make yourself known...

deleted 5y ago
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moffkalast 5y ago
This is the moment to retreat to the safety of LEO and observe from there. Fireworks ought to be good.
- chess_buster 5y ago
  [Your weapons are no threat to us.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrswlFxEiV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrswlFxEiV4)

c7DJTLrn 5y ago

Indeed, Putin is mentally off the rails and a dangerous person to be playing games with. I don't think he would hesitate to launch a westbound ICBM or flip the monopoly board and turn Ukraine into a wasteland if he can't have it.

chess_buster 5y ago
Then he will die in a nuclear fire along with all Russians and the rest of the world.
- belter 5y ago
  His talking of Nuclear weapons, like it's his new cool Smith & Wesson, might mean he thinks he won't. Special Siberian underground military cities and all that... I remember one Nuclear Weapons specialist commenting once in a interview, that he worried about the fact that the new generation of Politicians had never seen a Nuclear explosion. And that might make it easier to even contemplate the possibility of using it. The previous generation was still alive before the Nuclear Arms Tests ban and seen the tests. They knew the horrifying scenarios they imply.

pyb 5y ago

No matter what NATO does or doesn't do, if Putin needs a pretext for further aggression, he will find it.

deleted 5y ago

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tyjen 5y ago

China, Russia, and US are involved in frequent cyberattacks against each other without leading to physical escalation. Plus, NATO CCDCOE accepting Ukraine into the fold appears to be a knowledge sharing relationship to enhance cyber security and resilience without an offensive orientation.

jacquesm 5y ago

Technically we are already there. The bigger question is how far it will escalate, and whether slow walking it isn't the best guarantee that it will eventually spiral out of control. The West is happy to sit back and watch Ukraine get slaughtered as long as it isn't their territory that is involved, absorb the refugees (the ones that survive, that is) and then pretend to get back to business as usual. But Putin's appetite is not satisfied and once he has 'won' Ukraine (or whatever remains standing there) for sure he will push on. Moldavia was apparently already on the menu, I can easily see another sortie from Belarus into any one of the Baltics (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia in that order). This is far from over.

jessaustin 5y ago
The West is happy to sit back and watch Ukraine get slaughtered as long as it isn't their territory that is involved, absorb the refugees (the ones that survive, that is) and then pretend to get back to business as usual. This was always true, even when Western leaders said otherwise. Some people in Ukraine learned from the examples of Georgia (and Hungary). Others did not.

keewee7 5y ago

>proxy war Again a comment that subtly blames the West. This is not a proxy war. The only war right now is an unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine.

sph 5y ago
Quit making assumptions. I live in the West, I am against the Russian invasion and I want to see Putin hanging upside down on the Red Square. Where in my comment am I blaming anyone? Tone down the paranoia. Russia invaded, the West can't help Ukraine without causing WW3, so they're by sending all they can to the Ukrainian people, praying they win and Putin kills himself or someone does it for him. This is called a proxy war. I can understand it might be a bit hard to categorize as such, but there is no blame anywhere.