The presence of NATO forces in the ports of Odessa, Constanta or Varna would improve the balance of power in the Black Sea, which would otherwise become a Russian lake now that Turkey has its own agenda and it's not such a reliable partner as it was in the past.
And by "improve" the balance of power in the Black Sea I'm sure you mean move it in US's favour?
Or should Russia just bend the knee to the US overlords and be a good lapdog?
But if you wonder why everybody in the neighborhood is scrambling for NATO membership, this attitude is exactly that.
> Or should Russia just bend the knee to the US overlords and be a good lapdog?
Funny, you seem to expect that Ukraine should bend the knee to the Russian overlords and be a good lapdog...
Now with the coming of ICBMs, jets, and especially nuclear weapons it is no longer as vital for Russia to have these buffer zones. America on the other hand keeps purporting this outdated myth of scary Russia despite Russia barely even being a threat anymore so that it can keep members of NATO as effectively vassal states. This way it can control them - "you do as I say, or scary Russia will come and take you".
Having American military bases and American influence around its border will only increase tensions between Russia and their neighbouring countries. That is precisely the reason Finland hasn't joined NATO and they and Russia have been getting along fine. Russian troops haven't rolled into Helsinki as of yet.
It should also be noted that Russia's claim to join NATO was rejected in 1954, and Putin has stated that he has suggested Russia joining NATO to Clinton and was again rejected. Now I can see how USSR during Cold War would be rejected, but why was post-USSR crumbling and then Western-friendly Russia rejected? I'll suggest that it was because US would then lose its favourite boogeyman.
I'm pretty sure that the reason Poland is afraid of Russia isn't because the US keeps talking about "scary Russia". It's because it's had bitter experience with Russia, going back to the partition of 1772, then the second partition, the third partition, then World War II and the Warsaw Pact occupation. If you were Poland, and that was your neighbor, and you saw what your neighbor just did to Ukraine, would you really need the US to keep saying "scary Russia"? Or would you be running for NATO membership as hard as you could, because of the objective reality of what had happened, and was continuing to happen?
If a neighbour turns anti-Russian, joins a group whose sole reason is to be against Russia, and installs military bases right at your doorstep - yes, I'd say Russia has a right to intervene, and that doesn't take into account how Eastern Ukraine is very much pro-Russia and populace seems to identify as ethnically Russian and be okay with being part of Russia.
US does much worse things for much less - look at CIA getting rid of democratic governments as soon as they decide not to play in US's favour and installing a more favourable regime to their interests.
So Russia has the right to intervene if Ukraine elects an anti-Russia government? Really? Russia gets to decide which governments of Ukraine are acceptable?
And why doesn't Ukraine get to decide what governments of Russia are acceptable?
> US does much worse things for much less - look at CIA getting rid of democratic governments as soon as they decide not to play in US's favour and installing a more favourable regime to their interests.
So, do you think that's morally right, or morally wrong?
This attitude of Russia's - that they have the right to remove a neighboring government if they don't like it - is exactly why so many of Russia's neighbors are desperate to get into NATO. Putin couldn't do a better job of creating and installing anti-Russian governments if he were deliberately trying to do so.
Russia has the right to defend its national security within its means.
> This attitude of Russia's - that they have the right to remove a neighboring government if they don't like it - is exactly why so many of Russia's neighbors are desperate to get into NATO. Putin couldn't do a better job of creating and installing anti-Russian governments if he were deliberately trying to do so.
It's not about who Russia likes or dislikes - if a government acts in a way that could harm Russia why shouldn't they do something about it.
Please explain how do you associate the natural outcome of free and democratic elections in the Ukraine with a "national security " threat to Russia that's serious enough to justify a full blown invasion.
Russia did not commit a full blown invasion, it annexed a part of the country that had a crucial naval port to use which they had an agreement with the previous government and where the population of that area of the country is predominantly ethnic Russians who self-identify as Russian and didn't support the new anti-Russian government. The only reason that historically Russian land was given to Ukraine in the 1954 transfer of Crimea was due to Khrushev's blunder.
Don't try to pull wool over anyone's eyes here with claims that it was just an innocent change of power. In world politics you can't do things willy-nilly. Ukraine has threatened Russia by going against it, cutting off previous agreements and trying to ally itself with Russia's enemies and Russia did what it had to do stop it in its tracks.
And for your information, Ukrainian citizens are worse off than they were before, whilst the new anti-Russian elite of Ukraine is busy getting rich and robbing the country. But hey, at least they're no longer associated with Russia, right? Because EU and the US cared so much about them in the first place and totally not trying to destabilise Russia's southern border.
Russia's enemies are actually its current leaders and the oligarchs that support them. Vladimir Sorokin's Sugar Kremlin is quite telling in this regard.
Russia's strategy in Eastern Europe and more recently in Crimea was not to fight, but send in little green men with rifles and organise elections. That's how the USSR has installed regimes of their choice in its vassal states which later formed the Warsaw Pact.
NATO and thd US has a new bogeyman called China now. Russua has its own version of NATO called the CSTO and is part of the SCO or Shanghai Pact along with China and their satellite states.
Finland did very well in the Winter War, but it did not "beat the crap out of Russia" because that would be assuming that they have won. Instead they have lost, but Russia has achieved what's called a Pyrrhic victory and Finland has received favourable terms.
> Russia's strategy in Eastern Europe and more recently in Crimea was not to fight, but send in little green men with rifles and organise elections. That's how the USSR has installed regimes of their choice in its vassal states which later formed the Warsaw Pact.
Are you then claiming that Eastern Ukraine is not dominantly ethnic Russians?
> NATO and thd US has a new bogeyman called China now. Russua has its own version of NATO called the CSTO and is part of the SCO or Shanghai Pact along with China and their satellite states.
No, China is not the bogeyman because China doesn't go for hard-power like USSR did or in fact the USA does. Instead they go for soft-power by investing into countries and getting influence through financial means - look at Australia, Greece, and now increasingly the USA itself. Note how the USA didn't even squeak about the Wuhan lab leak theory until recently - would it be the same if a virus has appeared near a virology lab in Vladivostok?
Well, Finland did unequivocally won it's war against Russia, didn't it?
I mean, is there any possible room for any doubt whatsoever?
In light of your comment, how do you describe Russia's attack on Georgia and Ukraine, as well as it's threats directed at not only Baltic countries but also Poland?
While it was a sign of being more comfortable with the US than the USSR, for many it was more a hedge against an eventual resurgence of Germany than a perceived imminent Soviet threat. Which, sure, looking back from after the Cold War seems a bit weird, but from the perspective of the immediate aftermath of the two World Wars with a short breathing space in between is less so.
> It should also be noted that Russia's claim to join NATO was rejected in 1954,
No, Russia’s suggestion that if appropriate changes to the structure and character of NATO were made it might be interested in discussing joining (not a “claim to join”), made as part of a multipronged strategy to disrupt the formation of European Defense Community, promote the demobilization of Western European militaries, and gradually push the US out of Europe (which everyone could see at the time, but we know for certain now because we have thr internal Soviet Foreign Ministry memos as the strategy developed) was given a hard pass.
> and Putin has stated that he has suggested Russia joining NATO to Clinton and was again rejected.
Russia was admitted to NATO’s Partnership for Peace, a membership on-ramp program, in 1994, and NATO has been pretty clear about the path forward if Russia wants full membership. Russia’s not interested in membership (though it may have been when it joined PfP), only disruption, so it hasn’t made any recent steps on that path, but that's Russia’s decision.
> but why was post-USSR crumbling and then Western-friendly Russia rejected?
Russia made a bit of progress toward membership during its brief Western-friendly phase, with the support of the Alliance. The 2000 discussions where Putin floated the suggestion of joining were after that period. It was a nonserious empty propaganda maneuver.
> I'll suggest that it was because US would then lose its favourite boogeyman.
Nah, by then Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a bigger boogeyman than Russia; sure, the US had conflict—and almost, in the Balkans in the late 1990s, direct armed conflict—with Russia, but the US government publicly downplayed that conflict, rather than treating Russia as a boogeyman. Russia didn't really get back boogeyman status until it forced its way back to it with its invasions of Ukraine.
Every country is obligated to respect territorial integrity of others. It's not something that you get in a deal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
"Crimean Russians are not exists" - lol.
Every square meter in the world has multiple claims to it on endless bases, including history, ethnicity, etc. Much of the U.S. is ethnically German and was owned by Native Americans.
The only important question is, what do the people of Crimea want? It's their choice, not yours or mine or Putin's.
There's another important question: How do we country-level political changes? We can't have geographical areas constantly switching countries.