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If many countries near Russia prefer to align themselves with NATO and the west, how will violent behavior from Russia improve the situation? It seems like it w

by nsv 5y ago

If many countries near Russia prefer to align themselves with NATO and the west, how will violent behavior from Russia improve the situation? It seems like it will do the opposite.

nix23 5y ago
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > because everyone told Russia that the NATO expansion is not going East No, “everyone” didn't. In fact, no one told Russia anything, the same way the Soviet Union didn't tell California anything. The most anyone has even alleged is that executive branch officials of a particular administration around 1989 made private assurances not incorporated into any kind of international agreement that there were no plans for further NATO eastward expansion beyond united Germany, which was considered by the USSR an expansion from pre-unification West Germany. (At least one of the bases frequently cited for this actually refers not NATO having no plans to deploy forces in the former East Germany after unification, not eastward NATO expansion at all and another was actually a communication of possible agenda items that could be open for negotiation if the USSR came to the table on German unification, not even a promise of current intent, but we’re not talking about the basis of the allegation but the allegation itself.) Now, the USSR was a big grown up country then and knew quite well the difference between private assurances and binding commitments incorporated intoninternational agreements like treaties, and was quite aware that even if it has the former, it never had the latter. Had that been an international agreement, we could discuss whether Russia alone was a successor to it and, if so, if they were the sole successor to it or, otherwise, what the effect of disunity among the former Soviet Republics as to intent to continue it and other questions that would determine whether it was still an operative, binding agreement, but it was never an a binding agreement in the first place, so there's was nothing for post-Soviet successor states to inherit. Not that even if a treaty did exist, it's violation by admitting willing members to a defensive alliance would justify an invasion of Ukraine. This is seriously like murdering a neighbor who is discussing selling land to someone because you thinks the prospective buyer isn't behaving in line with a casual statement never incorporated into a contract or other binding commitment that they made to your dad about not wanting to buy land near his a couple years before he died 30 years ago, when several neighbors, and your siblings who have inherited part of your dad's land, have voluntarily sold him land starting about a decade after that conversation. It's insane.
  - nix23 5y ago
    >In fact, no one told Russia anything https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...

by nsv 5y ago

If many countries near Russia prefer to align themselves with NATO and the west, how will violent behavior from Russia improve the situation? It seems like it will do the opposite.

nix23 5y ago

dragonwriter 5y ago
> because everyone told Russia that the NATO expansion is not going East No, “everyone” didn't. In fact, no one told Russia anything, the same way the Soviet Union didn't tell California anything. The most anyone has even alleged is that executive branch officials of a particular administration around 1989 made private assurances not incorporated into any kind of international agreement that there were no plans for further NATO eastward expansion beyond united Germany, which was considered by the USSR an expansion from pre-unification West Germany. (At least one of the bases frequently cited for this actually refers not NATO having no plans to deploy forces in the former East Germany after unification, not eastward NATO expansion at all and another was actually a communication of possible agenda items that could be open for negotiation if the USSR came to the table on German unification, not even a promise of current intent, but we’re not talking about the basis of the allegation but the allegation itself.) Now, the USSR was a big grown up country then and knew quite well the difference between private assurances and binding commitments incorporated intoninternational agreements like treaties, and was quite aware that even if it has the former, it never had the latter. Had that been an international agreement, we could discuss whether Russia alone was a successor to it and, if so, if they were the sole successor to it or, otherwise, what the effect of disunity among the former Soviet Republics as to intent to continue it and other questions that would determine whether it was still an operative, binding agreement, but it was never an a binding agreement in the first place, so there's was nothing for post-Soviet successor states to inherit. Not that even if a treaty did exist, it's violation by admitting willing members to a defensive alliance would justify an invasion of Ukraine. This is seriously like murdering a neighbor who is discussing selling land to someone because you thinks the prospective buyer isn't behaving in line with a casual statement never incorporated into a contract or other binding commitment that they made to your dad about not wanting to buy land near his a couple years before he died 30 years ago, when several neighbors, and your siblings who have inherited part of your dad's land, have voluntarily sold him land starting about a decade after that conversation. It's insane.
- nix23 5y ago
  >In fact, no one told Russia anything https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...