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And yet, nearly 2 years later, at the end of '91, Yeltsin said the long-term goal of Russia was to join NATO[1]. And they were slowly moving in that direction t

And yet, nearly 2 years later, at the end of '91, Yeltsin said the long-term goal of Russia was to join NATO[1]. And they were slowly moving in that direction through the aughts. If your goal is to prevent NATO expansion, the Ukraine invasion makes no sense. In its wake it has caused multiple neutral countries to explore membership (Finland, Sweden) and has caused an otherwise austere Germany to increase defense spending. It has also laid-bare problems in the Russian military on the global stage. Massive unforced error. The counterfactual where Russia never invaded Ukraine in 2022 or 2014, we'd still be talking about leaving NATO - something Trump was floating in 2016. There were rumblings about dissolving it prior to these actions. If Putin had simply waited, further entangled Europe into its fossil fuel industry, and continued overtures to western right-wing parties, he could have probably eliminated NATO as a "threat" to Russia within a decade. Without a single shot fired, without a soldier stepping foot on foreign soil. [1]https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/21/world/soviet-disarray-yeltsin-says-russia-seeks-to-join-nato.html https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/21/world/soviet-disarray-yel...

scotty79 5y ago
Most painful mistake was that right at the end of the cold war Russia wasn't strongly encouraged, even pressured or bribed to join NATO. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Most painful mistake was that right at the end of the cold war Russia wasn't strongly encouraged, even pressured or bribed to join NATO. Because NATO works by consensus not majoritarianism, that would have given Russia a NATO veto, in effect. Despite that, Russia was on the NATO onramp from almost immediately after independence from the USSR until Putin demanded that Russia bypass the readiness criteria being applied to other new members and be immediately granted membership (and still technically was on the onramp after that, though no real progress was made between that point and when relations seriously started to degrade with Russia’s invasions of various of neighbors that were also, and more serious, NATO aspirants.)
dfxm12 5y ago
If Putin had simply waited, ... he could have probably eliminated NATO as a "threat" to Russia within a decade. At 70, I wonder if Putin thinks he doesn't have a decade to wait.
- spamizbad 5y ago
  He was 62 when he drew up plans to invade Ukraine in 2014. But neither of those actions in 2014 and 2022 really work towards the goal of protection against a NATO threat. It's clear he had other motivations.
  - MrMan 5y ago
    if I were him I would see Europe as a very easy-to-manage relationship unless "viral democracy" is somehow a real threat, which I dont really believe. China is a real threat to Russia, and it seems that Putin has decided to become a supplicant to China by buying into their Us vs the West paranoia (which I also dont quite believe literally, I feel it is a rhetorical device to increase nationalism in China to keep people bonded together. )
- CapricornNoble 5y ago
  Rumor mill is that he travels with a cancer doctor, and that he's dying of cancer.
- kingcharles 5y ago
  Wasn't there some leaked medical records recently saying he has cancer?
taxicabjesus 5y ago
- MrMan 5y ago
  this is a hodgepodge of tough-guy "realist" contrarianism. most of your statements do not connect into a thesis except maybe an impressionistic summary would be "since Russia plays chess, US is screwed." this is just hyper-masculine posturing - because the US seems soft, optically, and yet we are somehow simultaneously hegemons, we are both reponsible for the war and also doomed to lose. China is choosing a stance of non-neutrality. They seem to think that destabilizing all the regions outside of China is somehow going to help, or that a weaker Western bloc is somehow to their advantage. I obviously can only speculate but that is how it looks to me. I think it is a major error, because I think we could do better by repatching globalism and trying to de-fang nationalism, instead of going back to the dark ages and hoping to simply out-survive the other losers of global war.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  China, who refused to call it an "invasion"? Yeah, they tell the west to "avoid unfounded accusations" about Bucha. So if you don't listen to evidence from places like Bucha, then Russia is "making an extraordinary effort to avoid civilian casualties". Is western media biased? Yes. But so is China. They're biased very heavily on the side of not having to condemn Russia. (They're also biased on the side of the invasion going well. If Russia can't do this, it calls into question China's ability to take Taiwan.) In fact, from where I sit (also biased), western media is more willing to tell the truth than China is.
  - scotty79 5y ago
    From what I heard China clearly calls it a war on their public TV, indicates that it's perpetrated by Russia and even shows graphic imagery of war crimes Russia commits. Despite what USA is telling on every occasion about China to get it somehow involved in this conflict, China appears like they have no horse in this game and calls a spade a spade better than Vatican does without trumping up the narrative to global conflict level. Besides I think China is way more preoccupied with internal matters like covid outbreaks to be able to really nake any strong effort to profit from this conflict. India is way more pro-russian at the moment, given that the west was very unwelcoming to Indian ambitions and it was Russia who had their back.

scotty79 5y ago

Most painful mistake was that right at the end of the cold war Russia wasn't strongly encouraged, even pressured or bribed to join NATO. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Most painful mistake was that right at the end of the cold war Russia wasn't strongly encouraged, even pressured or bribed to join NATO. Because NATO works by consensus not majoritarianism, that would have given Russia a NATO veto, in effect. Despite that, Russia was on the NATO onramp from almost immediately after independence from the USSR until Putin demanded that Russia bypass the readiness criteria being applied to other new members and be immediately granted membership (and still technically was on the onramp after that, though no real progress was made between that point and when relations seriously started to degrade with Russia’s invasions of various of neighbors that were also, and more serious, NATO aspirants.)

dfxm12 5y ago

If Putin had simply waited, ... he could have probably eliminated NATO as a "threat" to Russia within a decade. At 70, I wonder if Putin thinks he doesn't have a decade to wait.

spamizbad 5y ago
He was 62 when he drew up plans to invade Ukraine in 2014. But neither of those actions in 2014 and 2022 really work towards the goal of protection against a NATO threat. It's clear he had other motivations.
- MrMan 5y ago
  if I were him I would see Europe as a very easy-to-manage relationship unless "viral democracy" is somehow a real threat, which I dont really believe. China is a real threat to Russia, and it seems that Putin has decided to become a supplicant to China by buying into their Us vs the West paranoia (which I also dont quite believe literally, I feel it is a rhetorical device to increase nationalism in China to keep people bonded together. )
CapricornNoble 5y ago
Rumor mill is that he travels with a cancer doctor, and that he's dying of cancer.
kingcharles 5y ago
Wasn't there some leaked medical records recently saying he has cancer?

taxicabjesus 5y ago

MrMan 5y ago
this is a hodgepodge of tough-guy "realist" contrarianism. most of your statements do not connect into a thesis except maybe an impressionistic summary would be "since Russia plays chess, US is screwed." this is just hyper-masculine posturing - because the US seems soft, optically, and yet we are somehow simultaneously hegemons, we are both reponsible for the war and also doomed to lose. China is choosing a stance of non-neutrality. They seem to think that destabilizing all the regions outside of China is somehow going to help, or that a weaker Western bloc is somehow to their advantage. I obviously can only speculate but that is how it looks to me. I think it is a major error, because I think we could do better by repatching globalism and trying to de-fang nationalism, instead of going back to the dark ages and hoping to simply out-survive the other losers of global war.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
China, who refused to call it an "invasion"? Yeah, they tell the west to "avoid unfounded accusations" about Bucha. So if you don't listen to evidence from places like Bucha, then Russia is "making an extraordinary effort to avoid civilian casualties". Is western media biased? Yes. But so is China. They're biased very heavily on the side of not having to condemn Russia. (They're also biased on the side of the invasion going well. If Russia can't do this, it calls into question China's ability to take Taiwan.) In fact, from where I sit (also biased), western media is more willing to tell the truth than China is.
- scotty79 5y ago
  From what I heard China clearly calls it a war on their public TV, indicates that it's perpetrated by Russia and even shows graphic imagery of war crimes Russia commits. Despite what USA is telling on every occasion about China to get it somehow involved in this conflict, China appears like they have no horse in this game and calls a spade a spade better than Vatican does without trumping up the narrative to global conflict level. Besides I think China is way more preoccupied with internal matters like covid outbreaks to be able to really nake any strong effort to profit from this conflict. India is way more pro-russian at the moment, given that the west was very unwelcoming to Indian ambitions and it was Russia who had their back.