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> My main point here is not the nuclear thread, I am focusing on the fact that US security concerns outweighed Cuba's defense interests, they asked for the miss

> My main point here is not the nuclear thread, I am focusing on the fact that US security concerns outweighed Cuba's defense interests, they asked for the missiles after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. So while ideally every sovereign country should be free to decide whether or not they want to join NATO and which kind of military assets it wants to place there, I think one should not plainly dismiss Russia's security concerns about its neighbors becoming NATO members. That argument does not work since you have not come up with a new security argument after a pointed out there was not concrete security argument after you withdrew the nuclear threat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30570482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30570482 For the argument to work, for the analogy to work, NATO's threat to Russia needs to substantially change if Ukraine joins NATO. If there was such a security argument the next step would be to ask if Putin is going about insuring his security in a reasonable and efficient way which I have not seen a good argument for. > I am not claiming to know what Putin thinks, when I write »Putin considers Ukraine becoming a NATO member a security thread.« this is of course just a shorthand for »Considering everything I know, especially what Putin said and did, it seems to me the most plausible explanation that Putin considers Ukraine becoming a NATO member a security thread.«, nothing more, nothing less. I don't think anyone could reasonably mean anything else with a phrase like »Putin thinks« in this context, therefore I didn't think it is necessary to use really precise language. My observation over the last ~10 years is that claiming to know the personal thoughts or moral character, feelings of political leaders has seen(edit sp) an uptick in political conversations/arguments. If I were to do a rough estimate I would say I have seen more arguments like that, or at least are indistinguishable, than not. I am just comment on what I end up interacting with rather than claiming a global trend(edit added sentence). Enough that I can not, without wasting everyones time, assume, without verifying, that people are arguing and thinking with nuance when using such language.

danbruc 5y ago
That argument does not work since you have not come up with a new security argument after a pointed out there was not concrete security argument after you withdrew the nuclear threat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30570482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30570482 For the argument to work, for the analogy to work, NATO's threat to Russia needs to substantially change if Ukraine joins NATO. Russia does not trust NATO and especially the USA, any neighboring country joining NATO allows them place more military assets close to the Russian border and having military assets close to a target is obviously more threatening. Russia had all those assets that are in Ukraine now all the time but moving them to the Ukrainian border made a heck of a difference. I have now also looked at more resources and they mostly support what I researched before. I am somewhat worried that I accidently got trapped in a bubble as the pieces fit together almost to well, so I will have to look more for opposing opinions. M. E. Sarotte: Not One Inch - America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (2022) [1] John Mearsheimer: Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? (2015) [2] Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin (2018) [3] Vladimir Putin: Speech at Munich Security Conference (2007) [4] As a probably opposing opinion I found »Documents Talk - NATO-RUSSIA Relations after the Cold War« [5] but it is 600 pages and I really only read a few paragraphs from a few documents so far. It is however co-sponsored by NATO, so there is certainly the possibility of a bias in document selection. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXBKGRPwfZw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXBKGRPwfZw [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ58Yv6kP44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ58Yv6kP44 [5] https://pism.pl/publications/Documents_Talk_NATORUSSIA_Relations_after_the_Cold_War https://pism.pl/publications/Documents_Talk_NATORUSSIA_Relat...
- davorak 5y ago
  > Russia does not trust NATO and especially the USA, any neighboring country joining NATO allows them place more military assets close to the Russian border and having military assets close to a target is obviously more threatening. Russia had all those assets that are in Ukraine now all the time but moving them to the Ukrainian border made a heck of a difference. I do not think this justifies your analogy to the USA during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In Cuban Missile Crisis we are talking about first strike nuclear capability when people thought it mattered, and it really might have mattered. The ability to destroy a nation, kill millions of it civilians, without risking equal retaliation, and where that ability would not have existed otherwise. Compare that to Ukraine joining NATO, there is no comparison. NATO does not gain any new abilities that are even close to that. This disparity is why the analogy breaks down. > I have now also looked at more resources and they mostly support what I researched before. I am somewhat worried that I accidently got trapped in a bubble as the pieces fit together almost to well, so I will have to look more for opposing opinions. I am probably not going to have time to go through the multiple hours of videos here. Some of them look interesting so I will be listening to one or two in the background when I doing something else so thank you for the links. I do not think this additional info is likely to reconcile or explain the difference in view point we have here. Exploring how we see your analogy might. Exploring how I seem to think there is a larger divide between publicly shared motivations and all of the hidden layers of motivation which are not public than you might.
  - danbruc 5y ago
    I do not think this justifies your analogy to the USA during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In Cuban Missile Crisis we are talking about first strike nuclear capability when people thought it mattered, and it really might have mattered. The ability to destroy a nation, kill millions of it civilians, without risking equal retaliation, and where that ability would not have existed otherwise. Compare that to Ukraine joining NATO, there is no comparison. NATO does not gain any new abilities that are even close to that. This disparity is why the analogy breaks down. I get your point, you want me to demonstrate that a Ukrainian NATO membership would be an actual increased threat to Russia. I can not do this from the top of my head, I would have to research this. At best I vaguely remember concerns about anti ballistic missiles system, ICBMs are especially vulnerable during early flight when they are still slow but this requires of course being close to the launch location. Why does it matter? Because this may be able to weaken retaliatory strike capabilities and therefore make a first strike by the other side more viable. But I am not sure that this even matters, what if the threat is only perceived but not real? At least before the current mess I would have been reasonably confident that NATO would not attack Russia and only use its assets for defensive purposes. So there is no real threat, only a theoretical one, NATO could but would not. You could also imagine the inverse scenario, where there is an actual threat but the threatened country does not know or misjudges the situation. So what really seems to matter here is how the situation is perceived by Russia. If you think their perception is wrong, you can try to convince them otherwise. I could even try to make the case for the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cuba requested the missiles as a deterrent against further invasion attempts and if we assume for the sake of argument that they and the USSR are sincere, then there was no actual threat unless the USA tried to go after Cuba again. But it seems of course very unlikely to me that the USA would have this amount of trust and confidence.

danbruc 5y ago

That argument does not work since you have not come up with a new security argument after a pointed out there was not concrete security argument after you withdrew the nuclear threat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30570482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30570482 For the argument to work, for the analogy to work, NATO's threat to Russia needs to substantially change if Ukraine joins NATO. Russia does not trust NATO and especially the USA, any neighboring country joining NATO allows them place more military assets close to the Russian border and having military assets close to a target is obviously more threatening. Russia had all those assets that are in Ukraine now all the time but moving them to the Ukrainian border made a heck of a difference. I have now also looked at more resources and they mostly support what I researched before. I am somewhat worried that I accidently got trapped in a bubble as the pieces fit together almost to well, so I will have to look more for opposing opinions. M. E. Sarotte: Not One Inch - America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (2022) [1] John Mearsheimer: Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? (2015) [2] Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin (2018) [3] Vladimir Putin: Speech at Munich Security Conference (2007) [4] As a probably opposing opinion I found »Documents Talk - NATO-RUSSIA Relations after the Cold War« [5] but it is 600 pages and I really only read a few paragraphs from a few documents so far. It is however co-sponsored by NATO, so there is certainly the possibility of a bias in document selection. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXBKGRPwfZw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXBKGRPwfZw [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ58Yv6kP44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ58Yv6kP44 [5] https://pism.pl/publications/Documents_Talk_NATORUSSIA_Relations_after_the_Cold_War https://pism.pl/publications/Documents_Talk_NATORUSSIA_Relat...

davorak 5y ago
> Russia does not trust NATO and especially the USA, any neighboring country joining NATO allows them place more military assets close to the Russian border and having military assets close to a target is obviously more threatening. Russia had all those assets that are in Ukraine now all the time but moving them to the Ukrainian border made a heck of a difference. I do not think this justifies your analogy to the USA during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In Cuban Missile Crisis we are talking about first strike nuclear capability when people thought it mattered, and it really might have mattered. The ability to destroy a nation, kill millions of it civilians, without risking equal retaliation, and where that ability would not have existed otherwise. Compare that to Ukraine joining NATO, there is no comparison. NATO does not gain any new abilities that are even close to that. This disparity is why the analogy breaks down. > I have now also looked at more resources and they mostly support what I researched before. I am somewhat worried that I accidently got trapped in a bubble as the pieces fit together almost to well, so I will have to look more for opposing opinions. I am probably not going to have time to go through the multiple hours of videos here. Some of them look interesting so I will be listening to one or two in the background when I doing something else so thank you for the links. I do not think this additional info is likely to reconcile or explain the difference in view point we have here. Exploring how we see your analogy might. Exploring how I seem to think there is a larger divide between publicly shared motivations and all of the hidden layers of motivation which are not public than you might.
- danbruc 5y ago
  I do not think this justifies your analogy to the USA during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In Cuban Missile Crisis we are talking about first strike nuclear capability when people thought it mattered, and it really might have mattered. The ability to destroy a nation, kill millions of it civilians, without risking equal retaliation, and where that ability would not have existed otherwise. Compare that to Ukraine joining NATO, there is no comparison. NATO does not gain any new abilities that are even close to that. This disparity is why the analogy breaks down. I get your point, you want me to demonstrate that a Ukrainian NATO membership would be an actual increased threat to Russia. I can not do this from the top of my head, I would have to research this. At best I vaguely remember concerns about anti ballistic missiles system, ICBMs are especially vulnerable during early flight when they are still slow but this requires of course being close to the launch location. Why does it matter? Because this may be able to weaken retaliatory strike capabilities and therefore make a first strike by the other side more viable. But I am not sure that this even matters, what if the threat is only perceived but not real? At least before the current mess I would have been reasonably confident that NATO would not attack Russia and only use its assets for defensive purposes. So there is no real threat, only a theoretical one, NATO could but would not. You could also imagine the inverse scenario, where there is an actual threat but the threatened country does not know or misjudges the situation. So what really seems to matter here is how the situation is perceived by Russia. If you think their perception is wrong, you can try to convince them otherwise. I could even try to make the case for the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cuba requested the missiles as a deterrent against further invasion attempts and if we assume for the sake of argument that they and the USSR are sincere, then there was no actual threat unless the USA tried to go after Cuba again. But it seems of course very unlikely to me that the USA would have this amount of trust and confidence.