3 ms·

Russia did inquire about joining NATO multiple times, as far back as the 50s as the USSR, in the 90s after USSR collapsed, and then again by Putin in the 2000s.

Russia did inquire about joining NATO multiple times, as far back as the 50s as the USSR, in the 90s after USSR collapsed, and then again by Putin in the 2000s. It was rebuffed each time. Joining the EU would be somewhat nonsensical as they would gain very little from it and cede substantial sovereignty in exchange. It's the same reason places like Norway have no interest in joining the EU.

andrewflnr 10mo ago
(0) GP didn't mention NATO, (1) NATO exists primarily to defend against Russian aggression, so obviously they're not allowed to join, and (2) besides the incidental details added for flavor, the actual question is why Russia insists on being broadly hostile to the world rather than broadly cooperative.
- somenameforme 10mo ago
  The logic of 'No of course you can't join us - we're organizing to fight you!' is a good way to create a self fulfilling prophecy. Beyond that, one of the big practical reasons NATO exists is to stop its members from fighting against each other. Europe had centuries of never-ending and ever deadlier warfare eventually culminating in WW2. NATO largely stopped that by putting them under a common umbrella. Of course a practical reality is that history has shown alliances need an external enemy, or they start to turn on themselves. If the US had foreseen had powerful China would be today, I expect Russia would have been 'enlisted' into NATO. And I don't think Russia is broadly hostile to the world. They cofounded BRICS which comprises near to a majority of the world's population, and also a greater share of the world's economy than e.g. the G7. Rather the "problem", and one that applies to China too, is that they will never behave in a submissive fashion to the US. They want a multipolar world, whereas the political establishment in the US still dreams of a hegemonic world order, akin to what we had after the USSR collapsed. This inevitably sets the stage for geopolitical conflict, and as the saying goes - when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers.
  - cosmicgadget 10mo ago
    > 'No of course you can't join us - we're organizing to fight you!' If only this had a more complicated explanation than something akin to schoolyard drama. > NATO largely stopped that by putting them under a common umbrella. You're thinking of democratization, the end of imperialism, and the elimination of aggressive regimes. Helped along by the financial devastation caused by the war. > I don't think Russia is broadly hostile to the world. Sure, unless you listen to all of their broadly hostile rhetoric or are on a Malaysian or Azerbaijani airliner or something. > This inevitably sets the stage for geopolitical conflict This your way of saying Russia needs to cut undersea cables and invade neighbors?
    - gspetr 10mo ago
      > or are on a Malaysian or Azerbaijani airliner You're right, a democratic country would never do anything like that. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/1359353/Ukraine-admits-it-shot-down-Russian-airliner.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/13... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_flight_655
      - cosmicgadget 10mo ago
        > You're right, a democratic country would never do anything like that. Can you point to the place I said this? Does the US shooting down an Iranian airliner somehow make Russia not hostile to the world? These seem like independent things.
        gspetr 10mo ago
        "The world"? I don't think I've ever heard the definition of the world defined as narrowly as "80% of Europe and the US with its military allies" before.
        cosmicgadget 10mo ago
        Where's Malaysia?
NoMoreNicksLeft 10mo ago
>Russia did inquire about joining NATO multiple times, as far back as the 50s as the USSR, But Russia never inquired in good faith. It was only ever sarcastically. And had it joined NATO (perhaps because the west was stupid, which it is), then right now we'd be in the pickle of trying to reconcile one NATO member invading another (likely) NATO member, and wondering what to do about it. Russia doesn't honor its treaties, neither according to the spirit of the law nor to the letter. Now that there's no longer any point in hiding it, we should expand NATO to include everyone that is marginally adjacent to Russia. Japan, South Korea, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan. Hell, why not throw Taiwan in.
- crazybonkersai 10mo ago
  Citation needed. Stalin did at one point signal interest in joining NATO, fully aware that the proposal would be rejected; the gesture was largely ironic and intended to expose the alliance’s anti-Soviet character rather than to pursue genuine integration. Post-Soviet Russia likewise raised the possibility of NATO membership on two occasions—first under Yeltsin and again early in Putin’s presidency. In both cases, the idea was dismissed, even as NATO proceeded to incorporate nearly all former Warsaw Pact members. This asymmetry contributed to the deterioration of Russia–NATO relations. Declassified materials from the U.S. National Archives documenting NATO–Russia talks over the years shed light on the alliance’s consistent reluctance to treat Russia as a potential partner rather than an object of containment. That said, NATO and Russia were structurally ill-suited for integration from the outset. Russia’s geographic scale, strategic culture, and legacy military doctrine and equipment posed serious obstacles to meaningful interoperability within a U.S.-led alliance. A more stable European security order might have emerged from the creation of a new, inclusive framework after the dissolution of the USSR. Instead, Western states chose to expand and entrench NATO, a decision that effectively marginalized Russia and helped lay the groundwork for today’s confrontation.
  - tpm 10mo ago
    > This asymmetry contributed to the deterioration of Russia–NATO relations. What asymmetry are we talking about here? The Warsaw Pact disintegrated because it was held together by force by the Soviet Union and as that had ceased to exist, the Warsaw Pact had no reason to exist either (ask yourself if you think for example Poland would be in a military alliance with Russia if it could choose freely; the same for Czechoslovakia (invaded 1968-1991) and Hungary (1956)). Maybe if Russia sincerely tried to become part of the Western World, many things would look different now, buth we both know it did not. > Western states chose to expand and entrench NATO Well if the russians could once think about other peoples as having free agency it would help them immensely to get out of their eternal (and of course false) victim status. Why exactly do you think the Central European states jumped onto the chance to get into NATO as fast as possible? By whom are they feeling threatened? Of course since at least 2008 (Georgia) everyone knows the feeling was right and Russia will continue mass killings of their neigbours unless they meet a stronger enemy.

andrewflnr 10mo ago

(0) GP didn't mention NATO, (1) NATO exists primarily to defend against Russian aggression, so obviously they're not allowed to join, and (2) besides the incidental details added for flavor, the actual question is why Russia insists on being broadly hostile to the world rather than broadly cooperative.

somenameforme 10mo ago
The logic of 'No of course you can't join us - we're organizing to fight you!' is a good way to create a self fulfilling prophecy. Beyond that, one of the big practical reasons NATO exists is to stop its members from fighting against each other. Europe had centuries of never-ending and ever deadlier warfare eventually culminating in WW2. NATO largely stopped that by putting them under a common umbrella. Of course a practical reality is that history has shown alliances need an external enemy, or they start to turn on themselves. If the US had foreseen had powerful China would be today, I expect Russia would have been 'enlisted' into NATO. And I don't think Russia is broadly hostile to the world. They cofounded BRICS which comprises near to a majority of the world's population, and also a greater share of the world's economy than e.g. the G7. Rather the "problem", and one that applies to China too, is that they will never behave in a submissive fashion to the US. They want a multipolar world, whereas the political establishment in the US still dreams of a hegemonic world order, akin to what we had after the USSR collapsed. This inevitably sets the stage for geopolitical conflict, and as the saying goes - when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers.
- cosmicgadget 10mo ago
  > 'No of course you can't join us - we're organizing to fight you!' If only this had a more complicated explanation than something akin to schoolyard drama. > NATO largely stopped that by putting them under a common umbrella. You're thinking of democratization, the end of imperialism, and the elimination of aggressive regimes. Helped along by the financial devastation caused by the war. > I don't think Russia is broadly hostile to the world. Sure, unless you listen to all of their broadly hostile rhetoric or are on a Malaysian or Azerbaijani airliner or something. > This inevitably sets the stage for geopolitical conflict This your way of saying Russia needs to cut undersea cables and invade neighbors?
  - gspetr 10mo ago
    > or are on a Malaysian or Azerbaijani airliner You're right, a democratic country would never do anything like that. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/1359353/Ukraine-admits-it-shot-down-Russian-airliner.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/13... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_flight_655
    - cosmicgadget 10mo ago
      > You're right, a democratic country would never do anything like that. Can you point to the place I said this? Does the US shooting down an Iranian airliner somehow make Russia not hostile to the world? These seem like independent things.
      - gspetr 10mo ago
        "The world"? I don't think I've ever heard the definition of the world defined as narrowly as "80% of Europe and the US with its military allies" before.
        cosmicgadget 10mo ago
        Where's Malaysia?

NoMoreNicksLeft 10mo ago

>Russia did inquire about joining NATO multiple times, as far back as the 50s as the USSR, But Russia never inquired in good faith. It was only ever sarcastically. And had it joined NATO (perhaps because the west was stupid, which it is), then right now we'd be in the pickle of trying to reconcile one NATO member invading another (likely) NATO member, and wondering what to do about it. Russia doesn't honor its treaties, neither according to the spirit of the law nor to the letter. Now that there's no longer any point in hiding it, we should expand NATO to include everyone that is marginally adjacent to Russia. Japan, South Korea, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan. Hell, why not throw Taiwan in.

crazybonkersai 10mo ago
Citation needed. Stalin did at one point signal interest in joining NATO, fully aware that the proposal would be rejected; the gesture was largely ironic and intended to expose the alliance’s anti-Soviet character rather than to pursue genuine integration. Post-Soviet Russia likewise raised the possibility of NATO membership on two occasions—first under Yeltsin and again early in Putin’s presidency. In both cases, the idea was dismissed, even as NATO proceeded to incorporate nearly all former Warsaw Pact members. This asymmetry contributed to the deterioration of Russia–NATO relations. Declassified materials from the U.S. National Archives documenting NATO–Russia talks over the years shed light on the alliance’s consistent reluctance to treat Russia as a potential partner rather than an object of containment. That said, NATO and Russia were structurally ill-suited for integration from the outset. Russia’s geographic scale, strategic culture, and legacy military doctrine and equipment posed serious obstacles to meaningful interoperability within a U.S.-led alliance. A more stable European security order might have emerged from the creation of a new, inclusive framework after the dissolution of the USSR. Instead, Western states chose to expand and entrench NATO, a decision that effectively marginalized Russia and helped lay the groundwork for today’s confrontation.
- tpm 10mo ago
  > This asymmetry contributed to the deterioration of Russia–NATO relations. What asymmetry are we talking about here? The Warsaw Pact disintegrated because it was held together by force by the Soviet Union and as that had ceased to exist, the Warsaw Pact had no reason to exist either (ask yourself if you think for example Poland would be in a military alliance with Russia if it could choose freely; the same for Czechoslovakia (invaded 1968-1991) and Hungary (1956)). Maybe if Russia sincerely tried to become part of the Western World, many things would look different now, buth we both know it did not. > Western states chose to expand and entrench NATO Well if the russians could once think about other peoples as having free agency it would help them immensely to get out of their eternal (and of course false) victim status. Why exactly do you think the Central European states jumped onto the chance to get into NATO as fast as possible? By whom are they feeling threatened? Of course since at least 2008 (Georgia) everyone knows the feeling was right and Russia will continue mass killings of their neigbours unless they meet a stronger enemy.