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Your comment really underscores the issue with the NATO project as a supposed defensive alliance. You think if there is a moral reason for doing something, then
by hackinthebochs 2y ago
Your comment really underscores the issue with the NATO project as a supposed defensive alliance. You think if there is a moral reason for doing something, then that renders all other constraints moot. But because intervening in Yugoslavia was deemed the moral course of action, that shouldn't indicate to Putin or anyone else that NATO will act offensively if they deem some act moral coded. But NATO doesn't get to decide when its actions are precedent-setting and when they aren't. NATO's own history undermines the claim that it is purely a defensive alliance.
- arp242 2y agoThat you outright ignore that there was an objective real genocide campaign going on says a lot. The notion they attack nations for all sorts of dubious reasons is just bollocks. This is no better than "remember when the Americans invaded Europe in 1944?!" The context matters.
- hackinthebochs 2y agoI'm not ignoring it, it's just that it doesn't alter the calculus for every other nation who might be the target of NATO at some point in the future. NATO only needs to engage in an offensive action once for the precedent to be set permanently. How justified the action was just doesn't matter. It also underscores the point that there is no objective moral standard to which we can appeal to simultaneously allow an intervention without also permanently altering the power balance in relevant regions. The US right now says genocide is beyond the pale thus warranting intervention. In the future they may say cracking down on political dissent is beyond the pale thus warranting intervention in Russia. Moral impetus tend to be subject to scope creep at the behest of current national interest.