edit: Now I am downvoted too just for asking..? This just makes me think that there is not a solid answer?
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-s...
I wonder, how would the world have turned out if NATO had made a different decision here?
(Just to be perfectly clear, I'm not arguing that NATO decisions justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine.)
--New members must uphold democracy, including tolerating diversity.
--New members must be making progress toward a market economy.
--Their military forces must be under firm civilian control.
--They must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders.
--They must be working toward compatibility with NATO forces.
NATO's founding members in 1949 included Portugal, at the time ruled by a right-wing dictatorship (1926–1974). Turkey and Greece both joined in 1952, and both have gone through periods of brutal military rule even while remaining NATO members. For the majority of NATO's existence, most of these "requirements" you cite have been mere lip service at best.
Many political scientists classify Erdogan's Turkey as an anocracy – a hybrid form of government which is part-way between dictatorship and democracy, mixing elements of both systems. Yet, Turkey remains a full member in good standing of NATO. Putin's Russia is also often classified as an anocracy. Why demand genuine democracy as a condition to join NATO when its current membership includes a state which isn't one? Indeed, according to the Polity data series [0], Putin's Russia is actually more free than Erdogan's Turkey.
Don't get me wrong, democracy is a truly wonderful thing – but if welcoming non-democratic Russia into NATO might have prevented this war, wouldn't that have been a wonderful thing too?
And it wasn't the U.S.A. who sent troops to the Crimea and annexed in 2014?
Of course what is happening is tragic. We can all agree it should have been avoided, and I am curious if it could have been avoided.
1) Some parts of the Ukraine (the Crimea and Southern regions of the Ukraine) have a significant pro Russian population, e.g. they wouldn't protest a lot against Russian influence.
2) On the other hand the Western parts of the Ukraine are more EU/Western aligned, hence they don't want to do anything with the Putin's regime.
From Putin's perspective an independent Ukraine is no-no. And the West isn't willing to start WW3 over the Ukraine.
I think that this is the primary argument of people claiming that the USA MIC is partly to blame here. I do not have a good response to it.
Of course, Ukraine really wanted to be in NATO, for obvious reasons...
Here's the deal, from my standpoint. Russia is declining in relevance.
* Demographically, they're shrinking and aging.
* Economically, post-Crimea sanctions have blunted any growth.
* Trade / exchange--- petroleum becomes less relevant with time.
* Diplomatically, they're already pariahs from many past misdeeds.
* Culturally/socially, they've stagnated as well.
Clawing for land around them-- through proxy conflicts in Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, etc-- offers them a small chance of continued relevance. It's probably not a winning strategy, but it's at least one which could be winning. When you're in a bad situation, if you want to keep playing the game, you need to make the moves that at least could lead to a win.
Euromaidan happened 2013. Putin already lost the Ukraine back then. By annexing the Crimea and sending Russian troops now he is taking the Ukraine back.
I may be mistaken but I think whether the Ukraine was actually joining NATO or not wasn't really relevant in this conflict IMHO.
>If Russia was going to invade anyway, why not at least try to de-escalate and negotiate for a sovereign Ukraine?
For the couples months there were negotiations. Was there a possibility to avoid the current conflict?
I think unless you're the U.S./Russian diplomat it's impossible to answer this question.
NATO proposed Ukrainian and Georgian membership of NATO in 2005-2008, in the clear knowledge that this would destabilize the situation.
France, Germany, and others were against this. The proposal began the issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJBQikfYyKs
We then openly backed the 2014 putsch in Kiev, an open act of aggression just as irresponsible as a military incursion. CIA John Brennan, Senator John McCain, and Diplomat Victoria Nuland were there in Ukraine when Yanukovych was being overthrown. There is also evidence to show that we were involved through NGOs in overthrowing and promoting an atmosphere desiring the overthrow of Yanukovych.
"F* the EU" said Diplomat Victoria Nuland -- knowing full well that the Germans and French would be against a coup in then-neutral Ukraine.
Meanwhile, once again, soon after the Iraq debacle: here we are getting dragged into another "war for democracy".
Russia and America turned Ukraine into a "if we can't have, burn it to the ground" situation. Further American intervention in Ukraine will just turn it into another Syria.
The good news is that at almost 70, he doesn't have eternal life. The bad news is his replacement will probably be a similar sociopath.
Say, by similar vassalization as Belarus has gone through.
Ukraine was too free of a society for that as many of its members did not want that.
I am not a pro-Putin guy, but, if we don't recognize our part in this chaos, then, we're just promoting more of it.
We _had_ a buffer zone until yesterday. NATO was supporting Ukraine without much real intention of having it join, while Russia had Crimea and half of Donbass. This could have gone for decades - see Transnistria, which does exactly the same for Moldova for 30 years.
If you even say something other than "Putin is Satan" or "Russia bad", you get downvoted to oblivion. Enjoy. Don't bother mentioning the complexities of this situation or once again, you'll be downvoted.
(1) https://i.redd.it/iq2zlt0ldrj81.jpg
(2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfk-qaqP2Ws
(3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0PPaqnReu8
We still continued in order to destabilize all of Europe and prevent them from merging Central European industrial capital with Eastern European natural resources. It's the same old policy -- everything else is just bread and circuses.
Well, we still have Russia by the throat, now I just think we shouldn't squeeze so hard that they collapse -- which would lead to a complete and utter destabilization of a huge chunk of the world, and it would be detrimental to our short and long-term interests. Miscreants would take over and have a field day.
NATO is a defensive pact and existing members have always been very hesitant about accepting new members, because it is intended as a cooperation platform between equals and not a substitute for building up own defense force. The initiative to join NATO has always been driven by Eastern European countries seeking to maintain independence and reduce the risk of Russian invasion. Together with EU membership, it's the holy grail of foreign policy.
The referenced Mearsheimer et al are irrelevant. They depict everything as a grand Russia vs USA standoff as if it were a board game, and ignore the delicate histories and current relationships between countries in Europe.
If you are a fan of history, I recommend rejecting grand narratives and reading a general history of every country in Europe. How has Sweden fared in the past 500 years? Why Russians have an inferiority complex with Finns? Why isn't Austria in NATO? The more you read, the more you'll see the complex network of relationships and understand what every country seeks to achieve. To treat all of them as pawns of the US or Russia is unbelivably ignorant. Even countries as small as Iceland have their own foreign policy, and sometimes have a great impact on international relations.
The comment above is pushing Russian propaganda.
Do the people in Ukraine want to be 'used' as a buffer? What do they want?
Because without addressing that your comment has a ‘I’m in favour of sacrificing people’ vibe.
> We then openly backed the 2014 putsch in Kiev, an open act of aggression just as irresponsible as a military incursion. CIA John Brennan, Senator John McCain, and Diplomat Victoria Nuland were there in Ukraine when Yanukovych was being overthrown. There is also evidence to show that we were involved through NGOs in overthrowing and promoting an atmosphere desiring the overthrow of Yanukovych.
This is an aspect to this that way too many people just ignore as "Russian misinformation".
The Orange revolution was a prior US attempt [0] at facilitating a regime-change in Ukraine from pro-Russian politics to pro-Western politics, which failed.
In 2014 there was the next attempt McCain not only riling up protesters [1], but meeting with the future PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk and leader of right-wing militias Oleh Tyahnybok [2] that were the muscle behind the 2014 revolution [3].
Arseniy Yatsenyuk was already declared the US's "man" during the leaked "Fuck the EU Nuland" calls [4], same Victoria Nuland that was literally handing out cookies to Ukrainian protesters [5].
Yatsenyuk wasn't even too shy about these connections; His OpenUkraine foundation's list of partners reads like the who is who of US regime change actors, down to the CIA's a National Endowment for Democracy and literal NATO itself [6].
Tho it was a bit too blatant, so they ended up putting his wife in charge of the foundation and removing the partners list.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/john-mccain-uk...
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/john-mccain-meets-oleh-tyahn...
[3] https://youtu.be/KfD_CaSIxmQ
[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
[5] https://euobserver.com/tickers/122437
[6] https://web.archive.org/web/20140407065419/http://openukrain...
And only power he got was that in autumn of 2014 his party got a fairly good numbers, that's why he became a PM, not because Americans have put him there.
It has to do with the fact that the country has been in a civil war [0] since he came into power after the "revolution of dignity", not only him, but literally Americans who were fast tracked Ukrainian citizenship [1] so they could act as minister.
But a whole lot of people in those East Ukrainian territories liked the old government, they voted for it, and they saw their votes burned in a revolution to be replaced with Americans and people sponsored by them.
Which prompted them to do the same in their parts of Ukraine, leading to the separatists territories and a low to high intensity civil war that has by now been lasting 8 years.
> And only power he got was that in autumn of 2014 his party got a fairly good numbers
In elections where the old party was not even allowed to be voted for anymore, consequently, those elections were boycotted in territories that voted for the old government.
And believe me, people never really liked Yanukovych so much to take arms. The leaders of “separatists” were literal nobodies, nobody knew who they are. Members of Yanukovych party themselves did not en masse supported separatists.
Second, politicians from Party of Regions participated in both 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections. Same politicians, top Yanukovych lieutenants, with the same oligarchic sponsors.
Third, those elections were not “boycotted” people still participated, on territory controlled by Ukrainian government.
You were there and then missed the following 8 years of civil war, complete with separatist territories, to now ask "What has any of that to do with the invasion?"?
> Yanukovych was nearing the end of his term, he ordered snipers to shoot at protesters, it was only right for him to step down.
Afaik there was no order for government snipers to shoot protesters, those sniper shots hit protesters and police alike, using hunting cartridges, and the government probe into those shootings was extremely flawed [0]
Just like to this day nobody was ever charged for shooting police officers.
> The next step was re-elections.
As somebody who was apparently there, do you remember who provided "security" for those elections at the Rada?
> The leaders of “separatists” were literal nobodies, nobody knew who they are.
Quite an accomplishment for "nobodies that nobody knows" to be representatives of state parliaments, like that of Crimea.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-killings-probe-sp...