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Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

Ukraine wasn’t armed with hi-tech weaponry until Russia started invading in 2014 and then continued being a bad actor which culminated in January/February 2022 delivery of said weapons at the last second.

NATO expansion is a convenient excuse but fails for two reasons:

1. Baltics are closer to Moscow than Ukraine and right on the border.

2. It is widely acknowledged that the primary driver for Putin is not NATO expansion but actually historical “reasons” he has drummed up. His “histories” are titled things like “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, not “On the Historical Animosity of Russia and NATO” for a reason.

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this!

Yeah, this argument about the NATO threat is repeated ad nauseam because it superficially sounds like a reasonable justification: "they just had to defend themselves".

But even if that was true, Otto von Bismarck said it well: "Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death".

Imagine an alternate universe where Ukraine joins EU and NATO and now russia faces a NATO "wall" on the west. In this alternate universe where Russia didn't initiate an aggression, the public opinion of most european countries is not particularly interested in military spending.

Compare that with this universe; the city I live in in Italy is going to build a new military base and while some people will certainly complain, the backlash won't come close to a pre-war scenario. Now even the population feel it that the rules have changed.

Effectively Putin has armed Europe to their teeth. What a perfect 4D chess move to protect Russian safety.

And seriously, I yet have to understand what is the threat that "NATO" would pose to Russia. What should they be worried about? Are they afraid that one morning NATO will invade Russia? What for? This part of the scenario is so embarrassingly hand-wavy, seemingly imbued only of reverberance of a distant past.

Or is it that Russia be afraid of Western values infecting Russia? In that case, what difference does it make how many neighbouring countries are NATO members? You can just decide to make your laws and your policies and live your life according to your chosen lifestyle (if your citizens so wish)

Or is it perhaps that Russia used to be a super power and now it isn't anymore. The greatness past now must live again. Let's reclaim our destiny and all this bullshit. This not how civilised nations should be run. This is barbaric and should stop and sadly the only reason humanity has to put up with it is the nuclear arsenal.

> Are they afraid that one morning NATO will invade Russia?

From everything I've heard thus far, Putin is afraid that NATO will prevent him from reconstituting the USSR under him.

Well USSR is as dead as russian soldier somewhere in muddy Ukraine. There were good reasons why it broke down, and those reasons are still present. Its plain simple - nobody sane, moral and free wants to be in pact with russia. Who remains are dictators, bullies and murderers.

Thank god Trump didn't succeed in effectively disbanding Nato. Imagine what Europe would look like now if that happened (as Bolton mentioned in cca 2018).

Which we know, but apparently Putin doesn't. I think in one of his writings or a public speaking engagement he said "They're (Ukrainians) Russian even if they don't know it".

I read an article recently—which I'm afraid I can't find anymore—that posited that part of what's going on is that Putin, and some of the rest of Russia, has a rather surprisingly expansive view of what it means to be "Russian", combined with the belief that if one is, by that definition, Russian, it is good and right to be part of Mother Russia.

It also pointed out that by extension, this means that anyone in Ukraine who does not believe that they are Russian (and thus does not want to be part of Russia) is either effectively insane, or some kind of seditious traitor (I don't remember the exact way that logic went in the article at this point).

I don't know to what extent what it described is true (my guess is "somewhat, but not necessarily absolutely"), but it does seem to help explain some of what's going on.

I agree and this is what I've read and listened to as well. (1) Putin tell us this is the case in his spoken words and in his written words and actions.

From an economic standpoint, or the standpoint that war is bad and should be avoided this obviously looks insane to you and I. But if you have different motivations, such as you and others described, it could look perfectly rational. It's all about the parameter space you operate in that determines your actions.

(1) Ezra Klein has some fantastic podcast episodes about this - let me know if you'd like a suggestion or two

> Thank god Trump didn't succeed in effectively disbanding Nato. Imagine what Europe would look like now if that happened (as Bolton mentioned in cca 2018).

This take bothers me, it's a sound bite repeated at nauseam with no backing what so ever. As a Romanian, I kept a close watch on US politics in Eastern Europe. Nothing that Trump did was pointing to disbanding NATO, on the contrary, he increased the US presence in Eastern Europe and was tougher on Putin than Obama was. Why do you think Russia-haters Poland began to like the US so much under Trump?

https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/01/12/poland-the-only-europ...

I feel like this is like a propaganda take: he forced countries to increase NATO spending, but somehow he wanted to weaken NATO?

He wanted Germany and Europe off of Russian gas, even blocking Nord Stream2 (upsetting the Germans), but somehow he was working for Putin? Btw, Biden unblocked NS2 in his first week in office, for no good reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5MJEMHZZsI

Truth is somewhere around here, I'm not sure where exactly:

"Senior administration officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Mr. Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set.

In the days around a tumultuous NATO summit meeting last summer, they said, Mr. Trump told his top national security officials that he did not see the point of the military alliance, which he presented as a drain on the United States"

I'd say ultimately whether this was some sort of good-natured negotiating tactic with European allies or not, Trump lost enough credibility that his motives are/were seriously concerning and questionable. This didn't come from nowhere.

> He wanted Germany and Europe off of Russian gas

Maybe but again I think the motives are questionable. Did he want this because he spent years antagonizing Europe and decided that it made sense for oil and natural gas companies who donated to his campaign to get in on the fun by selling American gas to Europe, or because he had a genuine concern for geopolitical interests and saw how Putin was acting? I'm sure you can understand that many don't really trust Trump or his motivations to do anything. For example, was he advocating for getting Germany and Europe off of Russian gas and on to American gas, or did he also advocate for nuclear power and renewables (both, not just one of those)?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-presiden...

That "tumultuous meeting last summer" was the one from which I shared the youtube video?

That's how it got to the press: Trump is against NATO. When you watch the video you see it's more about the US is being upset that they pay for Europe's security while Germany pumps billions into Russia's gas every year.

He was right. And btw, he was not the first US president to try this (and they all failed).

But to base the whole "Trump wanted out of NATO" on some leaks from unnamed aids, while all his actions and policies were opposed to that, it just shows you want to hate Trump no matter what.

He was in power for 4 years, he didn't do 1 step to remove US from NATO, he made NATO stronger. He deployed more troops and bases in Eastern Europe, and conducted more exercises than ever before.

> Imagine an alternate universe where Ukraine joins EU and NATO and now russia faces a NATO "wall" on the west.

if nato were at russian border then russia would in some ways be china's ukraine. possibly something they preferred to avoid

But NATO is already at russian border. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are NATO members since 2004.

Also, if russia annexes Ukraine (because, remember "Ukraine doesn't exist, they all just russians") then suddenly the number of NATO members that would share the border with Russia will include Poland and Hungary (members since 1999), Slovakia and Romania (members since 2004).

I don't think it works like that; it's not Risk.

From a purely geographical perspective, Ukraine is far more strategically important than the Baltics, due to its access to key rivers that flow into Belarus and Russia and due to its Black Sea coastline. I am sure if the U.S. tried to place missile systems in the Baltics it would trigger a Cuban missile-crisis like situation.

1. The Baltics joined NATO when Russia was still in disarray and aren't as important strategically. Russia tried to join NATO itself after that but was rebuffed.

2. This was primarily for domestic consumption and the West picked it up in February/March together with the notion that Putin had gone mad. Hardly anyone talks about either of these theories any longer.

> Russia tried to join NATO itself after that but was rebuffed.

Yes but it's not that simple. First, do you trust Russia in NATO? Given the nefarious things Russia has done over the last 30 years, you can't trust this on the face of it. It would be a very Russian thing to do. By accounts that I've read (open to other readings here) Russia wanted to join in a privileged position as well, versus as "just another country" and wanted to be fast-tracked and so forth.

> The Baltics joined NATO when Russia was still in disarray and aren't as important strategically.

I don't find any sympathy with the disarray argument. That just says "these countries joined NATO when Russia couldn't do anything about it". Your point about strategic importance, though, is well taken. Ukraine is strategically important for many reasons. Some/one of which is that it can undermine Russia's stranglehold on European gas imports.

> This was primarily for domestic consumption and the West picked it up in February/March together with the notion that Putin had gone mad. Hardly anyone talks about either of these theories any longer.

Agreed. I think the simple case is simply that Putin believe(s)(d) that he had enough negotiating power against NATO countries to be able to stop them from inflicting serious damage on Russia after invading Ukraine, and also that because Ukraine (in Putin's words) isn't a state, the fiction would simply collapse once Russia arrived. We don't do a great job and assume that our incentives are the same as someone else's. In this case Putin couldn't give a crap less about dead people and economic destruction. He cares about The Historical Unity of Russians and Ukraine. Perhaps at a much higher cost than we are willing to endure.

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