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No. Countries with their own free choice asked to be part of NATO. The US did not push this on them. NATO expansion happened exactly because none of those count

No. Countries with their own free choice asked to be part of NATO. The US did not push this on them. NATO expansion happened exactly because none of those countries trusted their neighbor Russia, who had previously invaded them and kept them under its thumb for 50 years. Russia is both to blame for the expansion of NATO and Russia's subsequent invasions of Georgia and Ukraine.

CapricornNoble 2y ago
>No. Countries with their own free choice asked to be part of NATO. The US did not push this on them. I've seen this stated frequently on HN. Here's a quote from President Clinton in February 1999[1]:That is why I have pushed hard for NATO's enlargement and why we must keep NATO's doors open to new democratic members... NATO would add 12 nations in the decade after those remarks, with the first 3 formally joining 2 weeks later. Also look at Clinton's remarks from October 1999[2]:NATO must also take in new members, including those from among its former adversaries. It must reach out to all the new democracies in Central Europe, the Baltics and the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union. At the first NATO summit I attended in January of 1994, I proposed that NATO should enlarge steadily, deliberately, openly. >Russia is both to blame for the expansion of NATO and Russia's subsequent invasions of Georgia and Ukraine. I used to have a link to a really good interview with a former US ambassador or special advisor to Sakashvilli. In it, he basically says that Sakashvilli is a risk-taker and gambler much like Putin, and in 2008 he gambled and lost. He basically laid the blame for what happened at the Georgian President's feet. Which is also the conclusion of the EU-backed investigation.[3] [1] https://clintonwhitehouse5.archives.gov/WH/EOP/NSC/html/nsc-05.html https://clintonwhitehouse5.archives.gov/WH/EOP/NSC/html/nsc-... [2] https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1996/s961022a.htm https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1996/s961022a.htm [3] https://www.reuters.com/article/world/georgia-started-war-with-russia-eu-backed-report-idUSTRE58T4MO/ https://www.reuters.com/article/world/georgia-started-war-wi...
- relistan 2y ago
  I think you are confusing support for expansion—which was necessary for it to happen—with somehow forcing the hand of other nations to join. Yes the above all shows that America thought it was in its strategic interest, that Clinton supported it. That does not eliminate the fact that much of Eastern Europe wanted to join for exactly the reasons I mentioned. And nobody made them do it. Furthermore, if you read the articles you cited, you’ll find that you are starting mid conflict. By the point when Georgia engaged with Russia in 2008, Russia had already stirred up separatist groups, armed them, supported their violent takeover, and sent Russian advisors to support them in occupying Georgian territory. You can’t start at the middle.
  - CapricornNoble 2y ago
    >Yes the above all shows that America thought it was in its strategic interest, that Clinton supported it. That does not eliminate the fact that much of Eastern Europe wanted to join for exactly the reasons I mentioned. And nobody made them do it. To prove that we'd probably need a FOIA request or a large CIA/USAID/NED document leak. Saying "nobody forced them" while the US operated probably the most effective coercive soft power institutions the world has ever seen, by subsidizing NGOs and "pro-democracy movements", strikes me as incredibly naive. I recommend reading some articles at the New Eastern Outlook by Brian Berletic (or watching his YT channel "The New Atlas"), he has some well-sourced deep dives on US soft power. > By the point when Georgia engaged with Russia in 2008, Russia had already stirred up separatist groups, armed them, supported their violent takeover, and sent Russian advisors to support them in occupying Georgian territory. You can’t start at the middle. 1. The Reuters article reads" Saakashvili had said Georgia was responding to an invasion by Russian forces when it attacked breakaway South Ossetia, but the report found no evidence of this. It said Russia's counter-strike was initially legal.." This sounds contrary to your point that Russia stirring up separatists to occupy Georgian territory was considered an acceptable casus belli. 2. Do you have references for WHEN the Russians initiated support for anti-Georgian separatism? If it was after the major NATO expansions of 1999 and 2004 it's kinda a moot point. I focused on the information around the timeframe of the 2008 invasion specifically because it was what you directly called out in your post. Re-reading it, I suppose you were thinking of all Russian grey-zone warfare in Eastern Europe but that context isn't clear. 3. Is your position that subsidizing armed rebel factions is not moral / not justified? Is it wrong for the US to support the MEK organization which actively works towards violent overthrow in Iran? At one point the Pentagon and CIA were funding two different separatist groups in Syria that were also fighting each other. This is what is missed by my most Americans and Europeans: to the rest of the world, complaining about Russia looks like blatant hypocrisy when the US has spent the post-Cold War period doing the exact same shit. Which would be fine, realpolitik and all that....if we didn't constantly posture as if we hold the moral high ground.
    - mopsi 2y ago
      To prove that we'd probably need a FOIA request or a large CIA/USAID/NED document leak. Saying "nobody forced them" while the US operated probably the most effective coercive soft power institutions the world has ever seen, by subsidizing NGOs and "pro-democracy movements", strikes me as incredibly naive. You have no idea what you are talking about and are clearly trying to spin a narrative out of nowhere. I, like many others in my country, voted for decades for governments that supported entry into NATO because we universally saw cooperation with other European countries as vital to our security. Our diplomats and politicians went to extreme lengths to achieve this goal, and it is considered one of the crowning achievements of the post-USSR era, alongside EU membership. These are universally recognized as the two most important foreign policy achievements since the end of the Cold War. This builds upon past experience: Hitler and Stalin were able to divide and conquer Europe in large part due to the Wilsonian belief in international law and neutrality by other countries. In the end, neutrality meant Hitler and Stalin could invade other European countries one by one at their convenience without triggering a wider backlash. That was a catastrophic failure of pre-WWII diplomacy, and we have no intention of repeating the mistake. I don't need an American NGO to convince me that simply hoping we're not the next item on the menu is not a sound national security policy. Do you have references for WHEN the Russians initiated support for anti-Georgian separatism? If it was after the major NATO expansions of 1999 and 2004 it's kinda a moot point. 1991: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia_war_(1991%E2%80%931992) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia_war_(1991%E2%80%... There is a wider history behind it, like the April 9 tragedy from 1989, when Soviet soldiers killed 21 Georgians who demonstrated in favor of Georgian independence from the USSR. Most of the killed were women, their faces were smashed in with sapper shovels so badly that they became unrecognizable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_9_tragedy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_9_tragedy It was one of the pivotal moments of USSR's collapse. Georgia was much further away from the spotlight of international press than, say, Poland, and that allowed the Russians to adopt a much more violent approach there to prevent Georgia from seceding from the USSR. If this is all news to you, then you need to pick up a book on USSR's history to gain a frame of reference. And not some sterile study of diplomatic telegrams, but history as people experienced it.

CapricornNoble 2y ago

>No. Countries with their own free choice asked to be part of NATO. The US did not push this on them. I've seen this stated frequently on HN. Here's a quote from President Clinton in February 1999[1]:That is why I have pushed hard for NATO's enlargement and why we must keep NATO's doors open to new democratic members... NATO would add 12 nations in the decade after those remarks, with the first 3 formally joining 2 weeks later. Also look at Clinton's remarks from October 1999[2]:NATO must also take in new members, including those from among its former adversaries. It must reach out to all the new democracies in Central Europe, the Baltics and the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union. At the first NATO summit I attended in January of 1994, I proposed that NATO should enlarge steadily, deliberately, openly. >Russia is both to blame for the expansion of NATO and Russia's subsequent invasions of Georgia and Ukraine. I used to have a link to a really good interview with a former US ambassador or special advisor to Sakashvilli. In it, he basically says that Sakashvilli is a risk-taker and gambler much like Putin, and in 2008 he gambled and lost. He basically laid the blame for what happened at the Georgian President's feet. Which is also the conclusion of the EU-backed investigation.[3] [1] https://clintonwhitehouse5.archives.gov/WH/EOP/NSC/html/nsc-05.html https://clintonwhitehouse5.archives.gov/WH/EOP/NSC/html/nsc-... [2] https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1996/s961022a.htm https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1996/s961022a.htm [3] https://www.reuters.com/article/world/georgia-started-war-with-russia-eu-backed-report-idUSTRE58T4MO/ https://www.reuters.com/article/world/georgia-started-war-wi...

relistan 2y ago
I think you are confusing support for expansion—which was necessary for it to happen—with somehow forcing the hand of other nations to join. Yes the above all shows that America thought it was in its strategic interest, that Clinton supported it. That does not eliminate the fact that much of Eastern Europe wanted to join for exactly the reasons I mentioned. And nobody made them do it. Furthermore, if you read the articles you cited, you’ll find that you are starting mid conflict. By the point when Georgia engaged with Russia in 2008, Russia had already stirred up separatist groups, armed them, supported their violent takeover, and sent Russian advisors to support them in occupying Georgian territory. You can’t start at the middle.
- CapricornNoble 2y ago
  >Yes the above all shows that America thought it was in its strategic interest, that Clinton supported it. That does not eliminate the fact that much of Eastern Europe wanted to join for exactly the reasons I mentioned. And nobody made them do it. To prove that we'd probably need a FOIA request or a large CIA/USAID/NED document leak. Saying "nobody forced them" while the US operated probably the most effective coercive soft power institutions the world has ever seen, by subsidizing NGOs and "pro-democracy movements", strikes me as incredibly naive. I recommend reading some articles at the New Eastern Outlook by Brian Berletic (or watching his YT channel "The New Atlas"), he has some well-sourced deep dives on US soft power. > By the point when Georgia engaged with Russia in 2008, Russia had already stirred up separatist groups, armed them, supported their violent takeover, and sent Russian advisors to support them in occupying Georgian territory. You can’t start at the middle. 1. The Reuters article reads" Saakashvili had said Georgia was responding to an invasion by Russian forces when it attacked breakaway South Ossetia, but the report found no evidence of this. It said Russia's counter-strike was initially legal.." This sounds contrary to your point that Russia stirring up separatists to occupy Georgian territory was considered an acceptable casus belli. 2. Do you have references for WHEN the Russians initiated support for anti-Georgian separatism? If it was after the major NATO expansions of 1999 and 2004 it's kinda a moot point. I focused on the information around the timeframe of the 2008 invasion specifically because it was what you directly called out in your post. Re-reading it, I suppose you were thinking of all Russian grey-zone warfare in Eastern Europe but that context isn't clear. 3. Is your position that subsidizing armed rebel factions is not moral / not justified? Is it wrong for the US to support the MEK organization which actively works towards violent overthrow in Iran? At one point the Pentagon and CIA were funding two different separatist groups in Syria that were also fighting each other. This is what is missed by my most Americans and Europeans: to the rest of the world, complaining about Russia looks like blatant hypocrisy when the US has spent the post-Cold War period doing the exact same shit. Which would be fine, realpolitik and all that....if we didn't constantly posture as if we hold the moral high ground.
  - mopsi 2y ago
    To prove that we'd probably need a FOIA request or a large CIA/USAID/NED document leak. Saying "nobody forced them" while the US operated probably the most effective coercive soft power institutions the world has ever seen, by subsidizing NGOs and "pro-democracy movements", strikes me as incredibly naive. You have no idea what you are talking about and are clearly trying to spin a narrative out of nowhere. I, like many others in my country, voted for decades for governments that supported entry into NATO because we universally saw cooperation with other European countries as vital to our security. Our diplomats and politicians went to extreme lengths to achieve this goal, and it is considered one of the crowning achievements of the post-USSR era, alongside EU membership. These are universally recognized as the two most important foreign policy achievements since the end of the Cold War. This builds upon past experience: Hitler and Stalin were able to divide and conquer Europe in large part due to the Wilsonian belief in international law and neutrality by other countries. In the end, neutrality meant Hitler and Stalin could invade other European countries one by one at their convenience without triggering a wider backlash. That was a catastrophic failure of pre-WWII diplomacy, and we have no intention of repeating the mistake. I don't need an American NGO to convince me that simply hoping we're not the next item on the menu is not a sound national security policy. Do you have references for WHEN the Russians initiated support for anti-Georgian separatism? If it was after the major NATO expansions of 1999 and 2004 it's kinda a moot point. 1991: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia_war_(1991%E2%80%931992) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia_war_(1991%E2%80%... There is a wider history behind it, like the April 9 tragedy from 1989, when Soviet soldiers killed 21 Georgians who demonstrated in favor of Georgian independence from the USSR. Most of the killed were women, their faces were smashed in with sapper shovels so badly that they became unrecognizable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_9_tragedy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_9_tragedy It was one of the pivotal moments of USSR's collapse. Georgia was much further away from the spotlight of international press than, say, Poland, and that allowed the Russians to adopt a much more violent approach there to prevent Georgia from seceding from the USSR. If this is all news to you, then you need to pick up a book on USSR's history to gain a frame of reference. And not some sterile study of diplomatic telegrams, but history as people experienced it.