There was even such a deal on the table in the early stages that the west pretty much killed…
At this point though idk what diplomatic solution exists. Deescalation should be everyone’s #1 goal atm.
Their assumption was that world would just let them do what they want as they did with Crimea, and that previous mistake is direct reason for current situation.
I’m no fan of the Russian federation, but they have legitimate security concerns regarding nato expansion.
We’ve been actively destabilizing the region for decades so they probably say the same thing about us.
Do we really want to go back to perpetual proxy wars with our adversaries?
This mentality is born from reality, Russia has agreed before to never even threaten Ukraines sovereignty, let alone actually invade.
Russia does not care about agreements, or treaties, or anything, all Russia cares about is what Russia wants.
> I’m no fan of the Russian federation, but they have legitimate security concerns regarding nato expansion.
Russia has legitimate security concerns regarding a defensive alliance expanding closer and closer to them?.
If thats the case maybe they should stop invading countries, Ukraines not the first, and unfortunately may not be the last.
NATO expansion is largely born closer to Russia from Russian imperialism(in the least for the last two members).
> Do we really want to go back to perpetual proxy wars with our adversaries?
Or Russia could not invade Ukraine and not openly call to end it as a country altogether?.
Sure, and before that? NATO has been expanding since the USSR fell.
The year the USSR fell, the Russians invaded Georgia.
So conveniently, Russian imperialism has existed since practically as soon as Russia existed.
Maybe if Russia stopped invading countries that used to be in the USSR NATO would stop expanding.
But it's clear that they cannot help themselves and they clearly believe they have a right to try and conquer these counties.
There certainly seems to be plenty of claims that Russia was overtly involved in conflict in south Ossetia and it was much more then just "assistance".
Yes. The “defensive” narrative is silly if you can think strategically. The United States would NEVER tolerate a similar situation. Remember the Cuban missile crisis?
Imagine if Texas seceded from the union and tried to form a military alliance with China, Iran, and Russia. Ukraine was the second most powerful Soviet and the USSR collapsed only 30 years ago.
NATO is an anti-soviet alliance from the Cold War era. We’ve been fighting proxy battles with the Russians for 80 years. Think about that! Why on earth would Russia trust us Americans and our “defensive” missile systems?
The truth is we danced on the graves of our enemies instead of working to built a better world. This is a tale as old as time and I fear we are doomed to perpetually repeat this mistake for the rest of civilization.
We need to stop excessively spreading our sphere of influence. We got problems at home. Obviously the US can’t back out now…but perhaps we should reassess our future military strategy before we do something REALLY stupid like go to war with China over Taiwan.
Because NATO, and America has never invaded Russia, even though they had the capability and will at the end of WW2.
> Imagine if Texas seceded from the union and tried to form a military alliance with China, Iran, and Russia. Ukraine was the second most powerful Soviet and the USSR collapsed only 30 years ago.
This would only be a fair comparison if the USA entirely collapsed and then, the free state of Texas, which, has international recognition from both the world and the country that succeeded the USA as being independent decided to join a military alliance.
> We need to stop excessively spreading our sphere of influence. We got problems at home. Obviously the US can’t back out now…but perhaps we should reassess our future military strategy before we do something REALLY stupid like go to war with China over Taiwan.
Or maybe it's that China shouldn't try and conquer Taiwan?. Like Russia shouldn't have tried to conquer Ukraine?. America(for once) and the EU really look like the goods guys this time around.
The US is hated in many regions for playing world police. I suppose you support the war in Iraq because Iraq shouldn’t have invaded Kuwait?
We only care about Taiwan because of TSMC. We don’t even officially recognize Taiwan as a country.
It amazes me that people can’t look in the mirror and realize military strategy is a cold dark forest. America is the undisputed king of warfare. We’ve been involved in more conflicts than any other government that exists today. We’ve trashed South America and the Middle East in pursuit of our strategic goals. Europe has been destroyed twice in the past century. Don’t pretend it’s all black and white and western developed countries are bastions of righteousness.
Big fan of it when it arms a country against its imperialistic neighbour that is doing its best to try and obliterate a country off the map.
The million land mines in Southeast Asia and record setting drones strikes and 20 yr occupation of Afghanistan sure is awesome. Slurp up that propaganda baby!
Russia doesn't have the capability to do this or they would have, Ukraines air defense is too much for Russia to even obtain air superiority after 9 months.
> Their nuclear arsenal is enough to obliterate much more than Ukraine off the map…
If Russia actually nuked Ukraine they would likely collapse in the coming 10 years from the international communities response, nuclear weapons were never on the table.
> The million land mines in Southeast Asia and record setting drones strikes and 20 yr occupation of Afghanistan sure is awesome. Slurp up that propaganda baby!
I can recognise when multiple countries do bad things, something that people who are pro Russia appear incapable of doing.
Russias war in Ukraine is bad, Americas war in Afghanistan and Vietnam were bad.
If you can recognize that every country commits war, you should be able to understand that diplomacy is a viable option. I mean seriously take a moment to think critically here. My position is that deescalation is possible. Yours is that war should continue and diplomacy will never work.
Is that honestly the stance you wanna take?