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NATO has a moral quandary on their hands. It's reasonable to argue that a given decision is the wrong one, but it seems ridiculous to lay the label of "reckless

NATO has a moral quandary on their hands. It's reasonable to argue that a given decision is the wrong one, but it seems ridiculous to lay the label of "recklessly provocative" on anybody but Putin, who threatened to nuke Europe over "offenses" for which a nuclear holocaust is, to put it lightly, not commensurate.

Zanfa 5y ago
Putin’s been threatening to nuke or invade its neighbors about once a week for the past two decades already. Nothing but hot air, just a brand new audience who aren’t used to hearing it all the time.
- lolc 5y ago
  How I wish it was just hot air.
- NoOn3 5y ago
  Prior to recent events , he stated that no first nuke strike...
peoplefromibiza 5y ago
two things are clear: - Putin has been left in charge by the same people that now are surprised Putin is being Putin. also US were too busy in Afghanistan and trying to make China look like the biggest threat to international peace. - NATO should never ever intervene in areas that do not belong to NATO. When it happened it didn't go well (Bosnia and Herzegovina 1995, Kosovo 1999)
- sgc 5y ago
  Neither of those things are clear at all. I don't think anybody in Russia is surprised by Putin. They are, far and away, primarily responsible for him being in power. NATO stopped some pretty horrific atrocities from spiraling even further out of control during those interventions. The not going well part mainly happened before they intervened. And yes, nothing is ever perfect.
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    > I don't think anybody in Russia is surprised by Putin. who ever said anything about Russians? You should also aknowledge that Russians don't know as much as we do about what's really happening in Ukraine right now. > They are, far and away, primarily responsible for him being in power. ridiculous. Now it's clear why things are unclear to you, you don't even know how Putin got in charge in the first place. > NATO stopped some pretty horrific atrocities from spiraling even further out of control during those interventions No, it didn't. Nothing NATO did prevented any atrocity, the atrocities had already happened, they could be stopped in many other ways, NATO chose bombings because bombing was the easier option and the one that assured that as little men as possible would be killed on NATO side. The fact that it (kinda) worked doesn't imply that it did go well, it went very bad indeed. NATO bombings worked same way they worked in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, middle east in general: they didn't. They just killed a lot of people for no real gain, what actually stopped those wars was the capture of the dictator of the day, not the bombs. Milošević survived all of that and was also running for presidency in 2000. He was arrested on suspicion of corruption, abuse of power, and embezzlement. The international tribunal could not charge him with anything, he died of heart attack in his cell in 2006 without a verdict under very unclear circumstances. Ask William Perry (former Secretary of defense) what he thinks of those actions in retrospect. Also the legality of the operation is still unclear. You knew if your country was 30kms of sea away from former Yugoslavia and you could see the sky turning bright and red at night or fishermen kept digging up unused bomb flushed into the Adriatic sea by NATO bombers, together with a lot of toxic and dangerous chemicals. Just a few pointers to shed some light on the whole fiasco - United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade (bombed because allegation that proved to be false) - Niš cluster bombing (cluster bombs were already illegal in 1999) - A Perfect Failure: NATO's War against Yugoslavia - Michael Mandelbaum: Kosovo's consequences were just the opposite of what NATO intended: suffering Kosovar civilians, regional instability, and a fuming Russia and China. But yeah, I guess American propaganda worked if there are people that still believe 23 years later that bombing the Balkans was "good". The Mandela effect is stronger than I thought.
    - sgc 5y ago
      How Putin came to power and how he is now in power are two distinct things. I was talking about the present, with 20 years of many/most Russians just basking in Putin's killer tough guy shtick while he had his soldiers massacre and rape people indiscriminately, and invade countries around the region. Many Russians know exactly what is going on and still support it. And they all have a responsibility to attempt to overcome their media blackouts and find out. I am intimately aware of the Kosovo situation, and not from US sources. I had to do a fair amount of reading to understand since I was constantly exposed to both Serbian and Albanian perspectives. This always turns into a flame war whenever it is mentioned online, but suffice to say there are many people who think they would not be alive today if it were not for NATO's actions. And that war was 23 years ago. The same thing could be more precisely done today of course. Again, I do not claim they were perfect at all. However, exponentially more innocent people were killed by the Serbs than those bombings ever killed. And civilian deaths were never the intention. As for Milošević, let me pull out my tiney tiny violin. Whatever we might disagree on, I do think we can agree he was a war criminal, full stop. Whether he was convicted is irrelevant.

Zanfa 5y ago

Putin’s been threatening to nuke or invade its neighbors about once a week for the past two decades already. Nothing but hot air, just a brand new audience who aren’t used to hearing it all the time.

lolc 5y ago
How I wish it was just hot air.
NoOn3 5y ago
Prior to recent events , he stated that no first nuke strike...

peoplefromibiza 5y ago

two things are clear: - Putin has been left in charge by the same people that now are surprised Putin is being Putin. also US were too busy in Afghanistan and trying to make China look like the biggest threat to international peace. - NATO should never ever intervene in areas that do not belong to NATO. When it happened it didn't go well (Bosnia and Herzegovina 1995, Kosovo 1999)

sgc 5y ago
Neither of those things are clear at all. I don't think anybody in Russia is surprised by Putin. They are, far and away, primarily responsible for him being in power. NATO stopped some pretty horrific atrocities from spiraling even further out of control during those interventions. The not going well part mainly happened before they intervened. And yes, nothing is ever perfect.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  > I don't think anybody in Russia is surprised by Putin. who ever said anything about Russians? You should also aknowledge that Russians don't know as much as we do about what's really happening in Ukraine right now. > They are, far and away, primarily responsible for him being in power. ridiculous. Now it's clear why things are unclear to you, you don't even know how Putin got in charge in the first place. > NATO stopped some pretty horrific atrocities from spiraling even further out of control during those interventions No, it didn't. Nothing NATO did prevented any atrocity, the atrocities had already happened, they could be stopped in many other ways, NATO chose bombings because bombing was the easier option and the one that assured that as little men as possible would be killed on NATO side. The fact that it (kinda) worked doesn't imply that it did go well, it went very bad indeed. NATO bombings worked same way they worked in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, middle east in general: they didn't. They just killed a lot of people for no real gain, what actually stopped those wars was the capture of the dictator of the day, not the bombs. Milošević survived all of that and was also running for presidency in 2000. He was arrested on suspicion of corruption, abuse of power, and embezzlement. The international tribunal could not charge him with anything, he died of heart attack in his cell in 2006 without a verdict under very unclear circumstances. Ask William Perry (former Secretary of defense) what he thinks of those actions in retrospect. Also the legality of the operation is still unclear. You knew if your country was 30kms of sea away from former Yugoslavia and you could see the sky turning bright and red at night or fishermen kept digging up unused bomb flushed into the Adriatic sea by NATO bombers, together with a lot of toxic and dangerous chemicals. Just a few pointers to shed some light on the whole fiasco - United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade (bombed because allegation that proved to be false) - Niš cluster bombing (cluster bombs were already illegal in 1999) - A Perfect Failure: NATO's War against Yugoslavia - Michael Mandelbaum: Kosovo's consequences were just the opposite of what NATO intended: suffering Kosovar civilians, regional instability, and a fuming Russia and China. But yeah, I guess American propaganda worked if there are people that still believe 23 years later that bombing the Balkans was "good". The Mandela effect is stronger than I thought.
  - sgc 5y ago
    How Putin came to power and how he is now in power are two distinct things. I was talking about the present, with 20 years of many/most Russians just basking in Putin's killer tough guy shtick while he had his soldiers massacre and rape people indiscriminately, and invade countries around the region. Many Russians know exactly what is going on and still support it. And they all have a responsibility to attempt to overcome their media blackouts and find out. I am intimately aware of the Kosovo situation, and not from US sources. I had to do a fair amount of reading to understand since I was constantly exposed to both Serbian and Albanian perspectives. This always turns into a flame war whenever it is mentioned online, but suffice to say there are many people who think they would not be alive today if it were not for NATO's actions. And that war was 23 years ago. The same thing could be more precisely done today of course. Again, I do not claim they were perfect at all. However, exponentially more innocent people were killed by the Serbs than those bombings ever killed. And civilian deaths were never the intention. As for Milošević, let me pull out my tiney tiny violin. Whatever we might disagree on, I do think we can agree he was a war criminal, full stop. Whether he was convicted is irrelevant.