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Comment by travisgriggs | Hacker News Reader

We seem to be at an impass. NATO exists to help people not feel threatened by Russia. Putin has decided that the mere existence of a real NATO is a threat to Russia (he's fine with a paper tiger institution that is all but imaginary).

It's like a European version of 1860 in the US.

As an American, I'd be (emotionally, but not rationally) glad to just put an end to 100 years of Russian aggression, mostly because I'm a child of the cold war and do not want to go back to that existence. But this lies on Russia's neighbors first. EU countries need to lead the way here.

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What concretely does it mean to “put an end to 100 years of Russian aggression” for America? Maybe be more mindful of what you say.

Fair enough. This is actually a good call out. I tried to caveat with the "emotional but not rational". But perhaps that does not communicate well enough.

The historical narrative that has been told people of my age for much of their formative years is the above. Basically, Russia has been a thorn in Western World's side since the communist revolution, with leaders like Stalin and followers. Prior to that, despite some really bad czars, the rest of the world doesn't care too much.

So people like me, are sort of conditioned to have negative feelings about Russia on the world stage. That's the "emotional" part of it.

The rational part of me is able see that there's a lot of interesting dynamics. That Russian people are just as much people as I am too. That my own country has a history for the last 100 years that when seen from the outside is also none too proud of a story to tell.

Thank you for the elaboration.

last time i checked america and russia were right next to each other. but youre not touching i suppose so ok

It really makes perfect sense. USA has long history of imperialism and anti-democratic actions. And USA is core of NATO. Any sane country knows that only safe way is to have reasonable buffer zone against such well known aggressor.

Well, if Russia didn't act like a total asshole towards all their neighbors then maybe some of them would like to be their allies. The fact that Baltic states or Ukraine prefer to side with a "well known aggressor" instead of their "Slavic brothers" from Russia really tells you everything. Putin has no one to blame for that but himself.

No country that has experienced decades of Russian occupation wants to go back there.

I want to keep the conversation substantive, but I also would like for you to see what you've said and see if you think you've contributed to the conversation so far:

"[Russia] has long history of imperialism and anti-democratic actions. Any sane country knows that only safe way is to have reasonable buffer zone against such well known aggressor."

This argument is frankly dumb. By that logic, nato would be entitled to demand that Russia gets away from Ukraine, stop engaging with Belarus and it's soldiers leave borders of NATO countries.

Russia borders with nato at multiple places. It should leave those places and create buffer. After all, Russia ia the more aggressive one.

Ukraine was the buffer zone and Putin invaded them. Now he has NATO at his doorstep in Poland.

Not if the plan is to install a pro-Russian puppet regime. But considering 2014 I don’t see how that new regime would last for more than a week.

Which leads to Russia's next demand: to reduce NATO military deployments in NATO member states who joined after 1997.

Poland joined in 1999, and generally speaking all of the eastern European nations that joined were after 1997.

I guess I don't understand the "buffer zone" logic. I've read/seen that in a number of places of late. And it just seems like a dodge to me.

A while back, our company hired a difficult to cope with person. There was some social awkwardness. And some performance issues. It's a good sized disciplinary group, but his assigned tasks were most similar to mine. Guess who became the "buffer zone"? Me. It was the worst. When things finally spilled over, there was a larger meeting where issues were finally recognized. I expressed my bitter sweet gladness thusly: "I can't tell you guys how wonderful it feels to no longer have this be my burden and my burden alone. It is such a relief. On the flip side though, why the F** didn't this meeting happen 2 years ago?!?!? I could have laid this all out for you then, but I guess it wasn't bothering you yet, was it?"

I've seen this behavior in church youth groups I've worked with over the years. There's an odd-hard-to-cope with person. The group pushes back against maladaptive behavior. The troubled youth connects with one of the normal kids. And then that kid gets asked to be the problem child's "buddy". And the rest of the group abandons the buddy to suffer it alone.

I volunteered at our state penitentiary for a couple of years. It was interesting experience. On the outside, I would hear "tough on crime" and "three strikes and you're out" and "those people". On the inside... it was complicated, and a different story. A couple of truly evil people, mostly surrounded by people who grew up in crappy situations, were in the wrong place at the right time, and a whole lot of iffy mental health. Same thing. As long as it was somebody else's problem, the "rest of society" could have a happy existence.

Maybe I'm seeing too many similarities where I shouldn't, but I find the whole notion of a "buffer zone" a poli-sci euphemism for "somebody else should have a shitty life so we don't have to".

You see how Russian tanks and troops rolled across the boarder and were at Kyiv in 2 days. That is because there were no buffers.

Buffer zone in this context means Russia doesn't want US missiles and nuclear bombers with a 5 minute flight time to Moscow.

> Buffer zone in this context means Russia doesn't want US missiles and nuclear bombers with a 5 minute flight time to Moscow.

So you think it's OK for Russia to invade the (NATO member) Baltic countries, then?

I am interested if you are Serbian or Russian.

The Serbians I have talked to regarding the war with Ukraine seem to be very neutral, beginning any discussion with a criticism of NATO rather than a criticism of Russia for invading a neighbor.

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