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Again, you offer nothing but a barrage of lies. Lets take one lie at a time: > And Putin asking for Russia to get into NATO was rejected. Never happened. Acco

by mopsi 4y ago

Again, you offer nothing but a barrage of lies. Lets take one lie at a time: > And Putin asking for Russia to get into NATO was rejected. Never happened. According to Putin's top advisor on foreign policy at the time, Putin asked Lord Robertson for invitation into NATO. Robertson replied that Russia would have to go through the same integration process as everyone else. Putin got offended by that, replied that he was "not going to stand in line with countries that don't matter", and that was the end of it. It was never a serious goal that Putin and Russia worked towards, as it was in other Eastern European countries that set NATO membership as their main foreign policy goal and began building a relationship with NATO with the ultimate goal of becaoming a full member. NATO membership comes with political, legal and military obligations that Russia never even set out to meet. You don't get a seat at a collective defense organization and access to allied military information just by asking someone nicely at a formal dinner. In Eastern Europe, it took a decade of relentless political and military reforms to get there. In most of Eastern Europe, consecutive governments all agreed to this goal and there was no domestic indecision to stall the process. In Ukraine, public support was much smaller indeed, some parties were for NATO membership, others were against it, and as a result, without continuous work towards becoming a member, Ukraine did not become one, even though key figures like GWB signaled willingness to support that bid. In Russia, there was no work towards NATO membership at all. In contrast, Lithuanian parliament adopted a resolution calling for NATO membership as early as December 1993, reiterated the position throughout key foreign policy documents (such as the law on national security, adopted 19th December 1996), joined all sorts of NATO programs and committees, went through a shitload of reforms under NATO guidance and finally achieved full membership in 2004. What did Russia do at the same time? Asked NATO secretary general Lord Robertson a free pass and that's it? That's the whole rejection? Has Russian Duma even once voted NATO membership into their foreign policy doctrine?

EGreg 4y ago
In the interest of upholding intellectual integrity, I will admit you have a point, that we don’t actually have a recent official request from Russia to join NATO. On the other hand, to pretend that this process is somehow all about clear rules and truly open door policies, is very disingenuous. Are you saying that this is what Russia would need to do: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W6ofIQi5XVY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W6ofIQi5XVY Obviously, it’s silly. There are a lot of unspoken considerations for which country gets into NATO and which country is pushed into it despite what their citizens want. Rule #1 is: Russia never gets in, that would be like China getting into QUAD. If Russia joined NATO, its raison d’etre would be obsolete, and moreover, USA (its main member) would be increasingly unnecessary since Russia would be then selling and using its weapons for European security. That is competition USA does not want. And look, USSR formally applied in 1954, and was rejected without any formal discussion! That is not a lie but simply a fact, and reported by NY Times back then: https://www.nytimes.com/1954/04/01/archives/soviet-in-bid-to-join-nato-u-s-says-no-offer-by-molotov.html https://www.nytimes.com/1954/04/01/archives/soviet-in-bid-to... Similarly, mainstream outlets also reported as early as 2001 that Putin continuously and repeatedly advocated for Russia to be in NATO: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2001/08/putin-is-right-russia-belongs-in-nato/377557/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2001/08/putin-i... And back in 2001 NYTimes reported how Bush anyway pushed for NATO to go right up to Russia’s border… https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/18/world/cordial-rivals-how-bush-and-putin-became-friends.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/18/world/cordial-rivals-how-... My characterization is quite accurate as to the main causes of this. Some even said Bush was pushing to go into Iraq on “day 1”… whether that is true or not is unclear because governments are opaque, but we DO KNOW that Bush was the biggest force behind the push to keep expanding NATO to Russia’s border and get Ukraine and Georgia in, so you downplaying that is disingenuous. It was a very destructive push by Bush. And nearly all of the foreign policy experts in USA, as well as his own ambassadors etc. ALL WARNED BUSH AND CLINTON against this, and predicted this exact outcome. https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-warnings-that-nato-expansion-into-eastern-europe-could-provoke-russia-177999 https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-... In June 1997, 50 prominent foreign policy experts signed an open letter to Clinton, saying, “We believe that the current U.S. led effort to expand NATO … is a policy error of historic proportions” that would “unsettle European stability.” In 2008, Burns, then the American ambassador to Moscow, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” So this reaction by Russia acting like a cornered animal before it is completely surrounded is not “unprovoked”. It was systematically provoked, and tried every other avenue to stop this — except FORMALLY applying to NATO, which I blame Putin for. Of course, Russia’s politicians are just as negligent and dumb as other countries’ politicians. Putin should have applied every year, and publicly lampooned the rejections year after year. He should have worked on having better PR for Russia’s positions to be heard in the West. RT was not enough. But to blame solely Putin? No, that is simply regurgitating propaganda.
- mopsi 4y ago
  Let's take one point at a time: > we DO KNOW that Bush was the biggest force behind the push to keep expanding NATO to Russia’s border and get Ukraine and Georgia in This is simply not true. The initiative (or lack of) has always come from Eastern Europe and that has been the main factor that determined which countries ended up in NATO and which ones did not. Nobody has been dragged into NATO "kicking and screaming", as you put it. Your whole narrative falls apart once you admit this simple fact.
  - EGreg 4y ago
    It’s not a fact at all. It is an extremely biased oversimplification and massive equivocation. “Eastern Europe” is very broad, consisting of many countries. Within a country there are many viewpoints. Anyone can always be found to say “the initiative came” from them, whether it’s Communists in Cuba / Nicaragua / Vietnam whatever, or whether it’s literal fascists like Pinochet’s revolution in Chile, or the Houthi rebels in Yemen, or even the mujahideen in Afghanistan — where we similarly came to “help Afghanistan” in a proxy war that killed 2 million people over there! We did it all for the express purpose of “making the Soviets bleed for as long and as hard as possible” and “creating a Vietnam for them”, not out of any great love for Afghans! The way proxy wars start, in fact, is that an outside actor emboldens one group in a country that foments a revolution, while another outside actor emboldens another group in the country that launches a counter-revolution. Whether it’s Maidan vs Anti-Maidan, or Houthis vs Saudi Loyalists, or even the Red Army vs the White Army in Russia, we know by now how a revolution can lead to destabilization and a destructive proxy war. I have SHOWN you that the actual POPULATION of Ukraine was majority against NATO, for the very reasons given by everyone else — they didn’t want war with Russia and they chose economic and military ties with Russia over NATO. So why was Ukraine’s president working with NATO to get Ukraine into NATO? So now you switched it to “Eastern Europe”. Wow, quite a big switch there, and certainly some other countries, like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania could be said to have had majorities who wanted to join NATO. In fact, that is what the 2001 article I linked to was about. It literally says: Mr. Bush declared that he wanted NATO to expand up to Russia's border Russia allowed this with no wars happening. But that was not enough. Soon afterwards it to be Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. It takes a special bias to look at a Reuters headline like “Bush VOWS to PRESS for Ukraine, Georgia in NATO” together with polls at the same time showing a solid majority of Ukrainians against it, and somehow conclude that Bush wasn’t pushing for Ukraine to be in NATO: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush-idUSL0141706220080401 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush-idUSL01... Everyone in Russia made it clear that this is an absolute red line, not just Putin. They did this for years, in every international forum. Every policy expert WARNED BUSH that this would be the consequence. To say it Russia’s reaction is “unprovoked” is just a total lie. The decision makers in the US simply ignored every single warning, and even now keep telling tons of people in their own government and other institutions to shut up and stop even so much as asking for a peace process. The reason is obvious: this is a push to hopefully surround Russia with members of a hostile alliance once and for all. Because otherwise Russia would be stronger with allies, and we’d rather their own beighbors fight them over there than we have to contend with a significant power with its own alliance on the global stage.

by mopsi 4y ago

EGreg 4y ago

In the interest of upholding intellectual integrity, I will admit you have a point, that we don’t actually have a recent official request from Russia to join NATO. On the other hand, to pretend that this process is somehow all about clear rules and truly open door policies, is very disingenuous. Are you saying that this is what Russia would need to do: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W6ofIQi5XVY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W6ofIQi5XVY Obviously, it’s silly. There are a lot of unspoken considerations for which country gets into NATO and which country is pushed into it despite what their citizens want. Rule #1 is: Russia never gets in, that would be like China getting into QUAD. If Russia joined NATO, its raison d’etre would be obsolete, and moreover, USA (its main member) would be increasingly unnecessary since Russia would be then selling and using its weapons for European security. That is competition USA does not want. And look, USSR formally applied in 1954, and was rejected without any formal discussion! That is not a lie but simply a fact, and reported by NY Times back then: https://www.nytimes.com/1954/04/01/archives/soviet-in-bid-to-join-nato-u-s-says-no-offer-by-molotov.html https://www.nytimes.com/1954/04/01/archives/soviet-in-bid-to... Similarly, mainstream outlets also reported as early as 2001 that Putin continuously and repeatedly advocated for Russia to be in NATO: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2001/08/putin-is-right-russia-belongs-in-nato/377557/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2001/08/putin-i... And back in 2001 NYTimes reported how Bush anyway pushed for NATO to go right up to Russia’s border… https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/18/world/cordial-rivals-how-bush-and-putin-became-friends.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/18/world/cordial-rivals-how-... My characterization is quite accurate as to the main causes of this. Some even said Bush was pushing to go into Iraq on “day 1”… whether that is true or not is unclear because governments are opaque, but we DO KNOW that Bush was the biggest force behind the push to keep expanding NATO to Russia’s border and get Ukraine and Georgia in, so you downplaying that is disingenuous. It was a very destructive push by Bush. And nearly all of the foreign policy experts in USA, as well as his own ambassadors etc. ALL WARNED BUSH AND CLINTON against this, and predicted this exact outcome. https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-warnings-that-nato-expansion-into-eastern-europe-could-provoke-russia-177999 https://theconversation.com/amp/ukraine-war-follows-decades-... In June 1997, 50 prominent foreign policy experts signed an open letter to Clinton, saying, “We believe that the current U.S. led effort to expand NATO … is a policy error of historic proportions” that would “unsettle European stability.” In 2008, Burns, then the American ambassador to Moscow, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” So this reaction by Russia acting like a cornered animal before it is completely surrounded is not “unprovoked”. It was systematically provoked, and tried every other avenue to stop this — except FORMALLY applying to NATO, which I blame Putin for. Of course, Russia’s politicians are just as negligent and dumb as other countries’ politicians. Putin should have applied every year, and publicly lampooned the rejections year after year. He should have worked on having better PR for Russia’s positions to be heard in the West. RT was not enough. But to blame solely Putin? No, that is simply regurgitating propaganda.

mopsi 4y ago
Let's take one point at a time: > we DO KNOW that Bush was the biggest force behind the push to keep expanding NATO to Russia’s border and get Ukraine and Georgia in This is simply not true. The initiative (or lack of) has always come from Eastern Europe and that has been the main factor that determined which countries ended up in NATO and which ones did not. Nobody has been dragged into NATO "kicking and screaming", as you put it. Your whole narrative falls apart once you admit this simple fact.
- EGreg 4y ago
  It’s not a fact at all. It is an extremely biased oversimplification and massive equivocation. “Eastern Europe” is very broad, consisting of many countries. Within a country there are many viewpoints. Anyone can always be found to say “the initiative came” from them, whether it’s Communists in Cuba / Nicaragua / Vietnam whatever, or whether it’s literal fascists like Pinochet’s revolution in Chile, or the Houthi rebels in Yemen, or even the mujahideen in Afghanistan — where we similarly came to “help Afghanistan” in a proxy war that killed 2 million people over there! We did it all for the express purpose of “making the Soviets bleed for as long and as hard as possible” and “creating a Vietnam for them”, not out of any great love for Afghans! The way proxy wars start, in fact, is that an outside actor emboldens one group in a country that foments a revolution, while another outside actor emboldens another group in the country that launches a counter-revolution. Whether it’s Maidan vs Anti-Maidan, or Houthis vs Saudi Loyalists, or even the Red Army vs the White Army in Russia, we know by now how a revolution can lead to destabilization and a destructive proxy war. I have SHOWN you that the actual POPULATION of Ukraine was majority against NATO, for the very reasons given by everyone else — they didn’t want war with Russia and they chose economic and military ties with Russia over NATO. So why was Ukraine’s president working with NATO to get Ukraine into NATO? So now you switched it to “Eastern Europe”. Wow, quite a big switch there, and certainly some other countries, like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania could be said to have had majorities who wanted to join NATO. In fact, that is what the 2001 article I linked to was about. It literally says: Mr. Bush declared that he wanted NATO to expand up to Russia's border Russia allowed this with no wars happening. But that was not enough. Soon afterwards it to be Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. It takes a special bias to look at a Reuters headline like “Bush VOWS to PRESS for Ukraine, Georgia in NATO” together with polls at the same time showing a solid majority of Ukrainians against it, and somehow conclude that Bush wasn’t pushing for Ukraine to be in NATO: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush-idUSL0141706220080401 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush-idUSL01... Everyone in Russia made it clear that this is an absolute red line, not just Putin. They did this for years, in every international forum. Every policy expert WARNED BUSH that this would be the consequence. To say it Russia’s reaction is “unprovoked” is just a total lie. The decision makers in the US simply ignored every single warning, and even now keep telling tons of people in their own government and other institutions to shut up and stop even so much as asking for a peace process. The reason is obvious: this is a push to hopefully surround Russia with members of a hostile alliance once and for all. Because otherwise Russia would be stronger with allies, and we’d rather their own beighbors fight them over there than we have to contend with a significant power with its own alliance on the global stage.