I assume you were talking about me. I think blame is a stupid and fruitless framing for discussion. I do think the Eastward advance of NATO was a strategic and moral mistake.
That is the only reason NATO still exists.
We literally paid hundreds millions of dollars to prop up Russia and their nuke labs during Yeltsin.
Look what it got us. We should have snuffed them out like cockroaches. Instead we let them live. To our detriment.
We needed to keep the boogeyman alive.
The US takes the cake in all categories, but of course we aren't a bully, all the people we kill were the bullies. We are the strongest so we define who is a bully or not.
>We should have snuffed them out like cockroaches. Instead we let them live. To our detriment.
yeah, you really sound like the good guy here
The hypocrisy of people saying they "should have snuffed them out like cockroaches" after 50 years of US atrocities is just astounding.
Russia is a bully, but the US is 10x worse. Ukraine is the looser here.
The US intentionally played them like a pawn and use their lives to get more leverage against Russia.
What does that mean in concrete terms? An invasion and occupation of Russia after the fall of the USSR? An extermination of the Russian people?
What would a more complete defeat looks like?
> What does that mean in concrete terms?
A thorough de-Communistification and collective education into the principles of democratic government and statehood, like the de-Nazification of (West) Germany after WW2.
> An invasion and occupation of Russia after the fall of the USSR?
Would have been preferable, yes; mainly because it would have been required for the above. Which would have meant that under the watchful eyes of a (comparatively enlightened) occupying force, Communism would have been far less likely to be replaced by a kleptocracy -> oligarchy -> neo-Soviet pseudo-fascist rule, which is what we've seen play out in Russia over the last thirty years. (Hm, about one decade per stage of this evolution?)
> An extermination of the Russian people?
If you absolutely want to be ridiculous, go ahead and be ridiculous. Not that comments like that make anyone more negative to the idea, you know.
> What would a more complete defeat looks like?
Pretty much anything would have been preferable to what the Russian people have become: The same as they have always been, a willing herd for autocrats to rule and use.
Isn't it about time for the Russians, too, to try something other than authoritarian rule for once[1] in their thousand years of history? If they can't even catch up to the seventeenth century, what use does the world really have of a "Russian people"? The Golden Horde and the Aztecs are also gone, and nobody seems to be missing them much.
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[1]: For a bit longer than the two single decades of dithering chaos under, uhm, Kerensky? and of kleptocratic free-for-all under Yeltsin.
I have a much more cynical view of US military interventions, in which they are largely self serving. The ideas of freedom, independence, and stability are platitudes to sell the war, are rarely align with the outcomes for the people in those countries.
The US did a good job of building liberal democracies after WWII, and perhaps up to the Vietnam war. If you look at countries in the last 50 years, the outcomes for the countries the US went into is quite poor.
I said if I was Lithuanian I would probably apply. Sounds like they think the way I said they do.
The question of what is a strategic and moral mistake for this US is entirely separate from what makes Lithuania happy.
If someone asks me how I would feel if I were Russian, Lithuanian, or Chinese I provide an answer from that perspective. That doesn't mean I agree with it or it is moral.
To be absolutely clear, I can understand why Lithuania would want to be part of NATO, but I do not think it was wise or moral for the US to grant such a request.
This is not a radical position, and was held by many NATO members at the time. They required significant persuasion from the US to allow Lithuania entry to NATO.
Similarly, France, Germany, and many NATO countries did not want to open the door to Georgia and Ukraine in 2008. They felt that it would lead to war in Europe. Again they were overruled by the US and we got a war in Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the largest war in Europe since WW2 today.
> This is not a radical position
Maybe not; only a stupid and morally abhorrent one.
> and was held by many NATO members at the time. They required significant persuasion from the US to allow Lithuania entry to NATO.
Yeah, NATO member states are also capable of holding stupid and morally abhorrent positions.
> Similarly, France, Germany, and many NATO countries did not want to open the door to Georgia and Ukraine in 2008. They felt that it would lead to war in Europe.
We'll never know, though, will we? Since Georgia and Ukraine weren't admitted into NATO in (or soon after) 2008, I mean.
> Again they were overruled by the US and we got a war in Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the largest war in Europe since WW2 today.
Yup. Judging from the facts, all because Georgia and Ukraine weren't admitted into NATO in (or soon after) 2008. Well, because of that, and mainly because the Russian people keep clinging on to a fucking dictator who does shit like that, of course. Time for a fucking revolution, perhaps? I've heard you've tried one of those before. Pro tip: Try not to replace one fucking dictator with another this time.
I would say any price, as after WW3 civilization as we know it, if not all of humanity will perish.
It is WW3 that we are edging towards in this war over NATO membership.
It's not a "war over NATO membership"; that's just the Putler-propaganda framing of it.