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Comment by danbruc | Hacker News Reader

This didn't start in 2014, this started in 1990, when it was informally agreed that there would be no eastwards NATO expansion. Then NATO expanded eastwards anyway, after all there was no formal agreement, and Russia kind of accepted it. In 2008 with the Bucharest declaration Ukraine and Georgia started the process of becoming NATO members. Russia attacked Georgia. Until 2014 under Yanukovych Ukraine no longer pursued a NATO membership, after that this again became more and more a priority and Russia annexed Crimea, intervened in eastern Ukraine and finally now this war.

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It's not wrong, but it's not the whole story. Why would these typically small countries bordering Russia want to join a military alliance in the first place? It's because of the experience with their large autocratic and unstable neighbor and they are, of course, once again proven right.

Can you point me in a more specific direction? Are you referring to events before, during or after the dissolution of the USSR? I already read the Wikipedia article on Estonia-Russia relations [1] but nothing really stood out between their separation from the USSR and 2004. Some back and forth over the treatment of the Russians remaining in Estonia. I will also check the other Baltic countries.

The other thing I would argue is that you can not use the current war in Ukraine as a reason why the Ukraine should become a NATO member if it is indeed true that Russia attacked primarily because Ukraine wanted to become a NATO member.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia%E2%80%93Russia_relatio...

Although everything you're saying is correct, you're being downvoted. And then people will just throw up their hands and wonder why Putin would do this lol

I am absolutely no expert in politics, I just spend two days reading and watching stuff to learn how we ended up in this situation. I am now writing this comments to share what I learned but also to be challenged and corrected in case I got things wrong. So I don't mind downvotes, especially if it is because I got things wrong and people correct me and I gain a better understanding. And I am also willing to take a few downvotes because people just don't like what I say, even though it is a bit annoying as my comments end up further down and are probably less likely to receive comments pointing out my mistakes.

Russia not being a democracy is the real problem. From early 2000 on Putin has solidified his power through shady means. Look up the various killings, from journalists and others.

After that, he has used all of his “Active Measures” (look that up too) to divide the West. Also I sincerely doubt we would be in this mess if Russia was a functioning democracy.

Basically you have one guy who can damage the world, answering to no one. Russia and Russians was never the problem, just one man and his cronies.

There were a ton of alternatives that would have made Russia more powerful and respected without resorting to Soviet tactics.

Russia not being a democracy is the real problem. From early 2000 on Putin has solidified his power through shady means. Look up the various killings, from journalists and others.

Of course, I will not argue with that, Russia is no democracy and Putin an autocrat who is willing to kill for his power. But this doesn't necessarily make any implications about his foreign policy, you can run an autocratic country without desiring to conquer the rest of the world.

After that, he has used all of his “Active Measures” (look that up too) to divide the West.

I am aware of the term but not much more and I will do some further reading. But interestingly the Wikipedia article [1] in the section »1991 to present« starts with 2014, which is well passed 2008 and aligns with Ukraine's renewed desire to become a NATO member.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures

This NYT opinion piece can fill some gaps : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_6dibpDfo

From there you can search up some terms and periods mentioned in that video.

I have skipped through it and it mirrors my first impression from Wikipedia - the first part talks about the time before the dissolution of the USSR, then it jumps to the time after 2008 and mostly after 2014.

I wouldn’t skip through it honestly, the whole thing is really a decent watch.

You can find more perhaps at https://csis.org

I think I have seen this before and skipped through it slowly enough the get the gist, all the details and which fake news were spread is not really too interesting to me. I have no reason to doubt that the USSR or Russia did use those active measures.

The interesting thing is the gap in the timeline which aligns with other resources I found. There was a time when all the current mess was avoidable, a time at which Russia was eager to work with the West, a time at which Russia was heading towards a NATO membership through the Partnership for Peace program. But things went south and Russia turned against NATO and the USA again, Putin's 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference is probably the most well known expression of Russia's or Putin's frustration [4].

M. E. Sarotte: Not One Inch - America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (2022) [1]

John Mearsheimer: Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? (2015) [2]

Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin (2018) [3]

Vladimir Putin: Speech at Munich Security Conference (2007) [4]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXBKGRPwfZw

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ58Yv6kP44

Would be interesting to see what the gap is. Thanks for the links btw.

I do know Obama really wanted to get closer to Russia in the sense of a better relationship at the start of his presidency. So what exactly happened I cannot tell.

I think the gap in the usage of active measures is easily explained. As I said, the documentary starts before the dissolution of the USSR, this was the Cold War, no surprise that such methods were used. After that there were relatively good relationships between Russia and the West, certainly into the early 2000s and Putins first term. Look at the Partnership for Peace map [1], there was a chance to unite all of Eurasia with NATO. This didn't work out, as far as I can tell it was a pretty complicated situation with all the fallout after the collapse of the USSR. The USA, or at least some circles, probably also viewed such unification efforts as a threat that would diminish US influence and power.

I guess things really went south post 9/11 when the USA really used its power without accountability. In its 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference he is frustrate with how the USA acts, how it ignores the UN which he considers the only legitimate entity to decide over military interventions. He complains that the USA wants a unipolar world order. Then in 2008 the Bucharest Declaration opens the way for Ukraine and Georgia to become NATO members and this crosses the red line. It had of course been crossed before with the Baltic states but Russia still swallowed that.

Russia intervenes in Georgia in 2008. And in the active measures documentary you see some dates from the time after 2008, the good relations with the West are over. But the vast majority of examples in the documentary are actually from after 2014, when the the pro-Russian Yanukovych government, that had essentially suspended seeking a NATO membership, was replaced and a NATO membership became a priority again. He annexed Crimea, intervened in eastern Ukraine, and stepped up active measures. He was now somewhat running out of time, Ukraine becoming a NATO member was unacceptable to him but there was no indication that anyone would care.

By keeping Ukraine in conflict in Donbas he could prevent a NATO membership for some time, but it would probably only be a matter of time until Ukraine would become powerful enough to take back eastern Ukraine. And once Ukraine would become a NATO member, he would have to face NATO instead of Ukraine. And this would probably also mean that it would be likely that he will lose the strategically important naval base in Sevastopol on Crimea.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_Peace#/media/F...

Putin apparently considered joining NATO around 2000. It is hard to argue one definitive beginning outside of a narrow sense.

I can give you the sense in which I consider this the beginning, even though it is mostly restating what I already said. I think the primary reason for this war is that Putin does not want NATO at his borders. That this would not happen was informally agreed in 1990 but unfortunately did not make it into any official documents. After that each eastward expansion of NATO was seen by Russia as the violation of a promise. When in 2008 Ukraine and Georgia started their way to become NATO members this was the final straw and Putin attacked Georgia and eventually Ukraine.

Sure, we can now argue whether the promise (1990), the first NATO expansion afterwards (1999), the Bucharest declaration that Ukraine and Georgia will become NATO members (2008) or Ukraine changing its stance from remaining unaligned to seeking a NATO membership (2014) should be labeled the beginning of the current situation, but I think it is fair to pick 1990 as this is where the situation that Russia does not want was laid out.

There are most likely also other interest such as oil and gas in Ukraine but I don't think they are the primary reasons, even though they might have tipped the calculations. And I consequently think that this could have been avoided if the Ukraine would not have pursued a NATO membership or if Russia would also have joined.

NATO expansion is definitely one of the primary viewpoints. There are convincing rebuttals against those viewpoints as well though. Geopolitics is messy and chaotic. There probably were mustache twirling strategists hellbent on pursuing an anti-ussr agenda despite the USSR no longer existing. I've never heard anyone argue they are the architects of NATO's expansion. I'm curious. European and african commentators I've been checking have very much emphasized that the states themselves decided to join NATO, that they weren't solicited or coerced by NATO itself. Considering lukashenko implied Moldova is next, it doesn't seem like they were unreasonable to try to pursue NATO as a means of assuring continued sovereignty. I think for most of the general public, the beginning was last week. Put to people working in state departments all around the world, off the record and unpublished, I wonder what their answers would be.

I feel like it changes a lot depending on how you feel about hegemony.

Edit: If north and south Korea were about to unify, but China invaded to reconstitute a north Korean buffer state, where was the beginning and what could have been done? Should the south have refused the north because it didn't want to be seen as expanding? Should the north have? China definitely wouldn't be invaded by a unified Korea, maybe they would argue that how they are positioned in international trade justifies it. I'm trying to think of parallels and this is what I've come up with.

Nobody forced anyone to join NATO, at least as far as I can tell. The problem is Putin does not trust NATO, he does not perceive NATO as a defensive alliance that will do nothing unless you poke it, he perceives NATO as an ever expanding organization that accumulates power and influence for the west and the USA in particular. And while the west argues that sovereign countries can decide on their own whether or not they want to join NATO, Putin made it very clear that he considers this unacceptable.

The most similar situation is in my opinion the Cuban Missile Crisis. The USSR could argue that Cuba is free to decide whether or not they want nuclear missiles stationed in their country, the USA argues that it is an unacceptable security thread to have those missiles so close to their border. What would have happened of the USSR had not backed down? Would the USA have tolerated the missiles or would the USA have attacked Cuba or at least the launch sites? What would the USA do today, say if China agreed with Mexico to place military assets in Mexico?

The US stationed missiles in Turkey and as a response the USSR stationed missiles in Cuba. The crisis ended when the USSR publicly deconstructed their sites and the US agreed to do the same to theirs privately. This all because Kennedy needed to save face and have the USSR be the agressor.

So if NATO would decide to invade Belarus right now, then it might be similar to the Cuban missile crisis. Until then, it is just a gross oversimplification of a conflict that is the result of complex relations between countries.

tangent: I don't know if you have ever seen Noam Chomsky discuss Kennedy's decisions at that point, but I think it is the only topic I've ever seen him visibly furious over.

This [1] is probably not the talk you have seen, at least I would not describe Chomsky as furious in that clip. But I was not aware - maybe I once knew and forgot - that removing the missiles from Turkey was not really a concession but planned anyway because they were obsolete.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcUUgYQASfI

I am not sure if you understood my analogy, let me try to be more explicit. The USSR tried to put nuclear missiles next to US borders, the USA did not like this. Ukraine wants to become a NATO member, Putin views this as NATO - maybe as a proxy for the USA - eventually putting military assets - potentially nuclear missiles or whatever he is most concerned about - next to Russian borders, Putin does not like this.

In case of the Cuban Missile Crisis the actions of the USSR were only a response but still not tolerated. You could maybe find an equivalent, something that Russia did first and that then caused Ukraine to seek a NATO membership, but I don't think this is important for the analogy. The equivalent of Russia backing down and not stationing missiles in Cuba for Cuba's protection would be Ukraine not joining NATO.

But I have to admit that I don't get your analogy either, would you mind elaborating?

For me the analogy falls flat, as the cuban missile crisis is a response to something the US did, and the invasion of Ukraine is a response to something that Ukraine did (and not NATO)

NATO did not court Ukraine, instead Ukraine wishes to be a member, the current invasion to prevent it being so ironically a case in point. Finland is now considering joining as well, as a response to Russias agression.

It is clear that Russia does not think to invade Finland as well, as it does not consider it to be a part of its old empire, but it does Ukraine.

So in this case it is the sovereignty of a country that is being challenged, as Russia is trying to strongarm countries into backing off from joining NATO. It is not threatening NATO directly. That is a big difference with the Cuban missile crisis.

In the Cuban missile crisis it is very clear that both sides were pointing arms at each other and coercing members of their respective alliances to comply. Here a potential member is invaded. Korea, Vietnam or even the colonisation if Africa would make more sense as an analogy, of power blocs deciding what a country belongs to.

For me the analogy falls flat, as the cuban missile crisis is a response to something the US did, and the invasion of Ukraine is a response to something that Ukraine did (and not NATO)

I think I didn't make my main point in the analogy very clear. In case of the Cuban Missile Crisis the USA decided that US security concerns override Cuban sovereignty and security concerns as the missiles were requested as a deterrent against further US interference after the Bay of Pigs Invasion. In case of Russia NATO takes the stance that sovereignty and security concerns of other countries, especially now Ukraine, prevail. This actually used to be different, in the 1990s NATO was initially careful with NATO expansion and created the Partnership for Peace program to make the process more gradual hoping to avoid tensions.

I would argue that the distinction between NATO and Ukraine is not too important from Putin's point of view. He claims that the West, NATO, and especially the USA are interfering in other countries and shaping their governments. If you believe this, the line between a country wanting to join NATO and NATO wanting a country to join becomes pretty blurry.

It is clear that Russia does not think to invade Finland as well, as it does not consider it to be a part of its old empire, but it does Ukraine.

This has been repeated frequently, but is there actually any good evidence that Putin thinks this way? I haven't looked into this, so I am only vaguely aware of two points. When Putin became president in 2000, there was a controversy about the national anthem of Russia and Putin decided to use the USSR one with new lyrics. His explanation was that there was already enough change and considered it as a small token of stability.

Then I am aware that he called the fall of the Soviet Union a tragedy, but I don't know about the context. On the other hand in 2000 he said roughly this.

You can not take anything back. You can neither get your youth back nor the years that have passed. Even more, if we try to return to the past, we will certainly destroy everything permanently. But we can do something so that people are not only not worse off but better off than in the past.

This isn't made any easier by the fact that we are talking about at least two decades and viewpoints change. But I would really be interested in evidence one way or the other and how this might have changed over time.

EDIT: The points about the national anthem and going back in time I got from the documentary Putin's Witness which was recently uploaded by Ukrainians in two parts [1][2] with English subtitles. I was quoting from the scene at 18:05 in part two. The subtitles in those videos may be more faithful translations as I just roughly translated it from the German version of the documentary.

I would also like to highlight what follows 22:50 in part one, it's about the apartment bombings and Putin visiting the scene. I can hardly imagine a more stark contrast between his words then and his actions now. And the whole things is of course a big controversy in itself, were those terrorist attacks or did Russian forces blow up Russian apartment buildings in order to unite people behind Putin and legitimize military interventions? If it was staged, did Putin know or was even involved?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc8-EaP5GM4

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtGqcYH4hUk

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