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Listen Andrey. Russia has invaded its neighboring countries repeatedly during recent history. I think that's more than enough to explain why anyone near Russia would like to be in a defensive pact.
I also don't think anyone should be concerned whether Russia finds that "weird" or "a provocation". At all.
> the ambitions are not different from the ambitions of Russia
The ambition of Russia to invade foreign countries and basically include them in the Russian state? is that the ambition of any NATO country? Which part of a country has been invaded and annexed by a NATO country?
Uh, if you have to go back 15 years to find a point where a country isn't invading it's neighbors its going to be super understandable that in the past 15 years countries have wanted to join a defense alliance.
Keep in mind, the USSR only collapsed in 1991 so the question you're asking is what aggressive actions has Russia done in the first 26 years of it's existence to make other countries scared of it.
Of which you have Chechnya (~1999), Georgia (~2008), Ukraine (~2014).
Before that, it was the original WW2 formation of the Soviet union with invasions of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithunia, Czechoslovakia and so on and so forth (which was obviously the whole reason for the existence of NATO).
The WW2 and postwar period wasn enough to sway e.g. Sweden to join NATO. Nor were the Afghan, Chechen or Georgian wars. It took the Ukrainan war to really see the veil come off.
But in this entire period I don't think there is much in terms of annexations by NATO countries, or countries currently in NATO but before the formation of NATO?
Not sure what your comment above really tries to say? Is it "I don't understand how countries in Russias vincinity can be afraid of annexation by their imperialist neighbor, they only invade a country every 5-10 years that's not so bad"? Are you hearing yourself?
Last I checked countries apply to join, and the alliance is free to leave. And of course like in any organization if you want to reap the benefits you may want to also accept some of the drawbacks. The most obvious one for a country like Finland probably isn't somehow being under the spell of the US, but rather being in an alliance with Turkey and Hungary, which can be pretty problematic for democratic countries these days.
I think in terms of arms deals Saab will benefit a lot from joining NATO. Gripen would likely have sold a lot better the last 15 years if it had been a NATO built plane.
I also think that dispersed deployment and simpler operation like 20 minute turnaround with a 3 man crew like the Gripen will be something all air forces including the USAF will master. Finland has always done this with their F-18s and they’ll continue to do it with F-35. It’ll be a bit more demanding no doubt, but they’ll make it work.
Russia says a lot of things, often contradictory, but what really speaks is their actions. Invading Ukraine wasn’t about denazification, or nato threat, or anything except naked imperialism.
I think it's important to bring nuance to these things and not just use a lazy label like "imperialism" to describe what's going on, even if imperialism maybe does play a part too.
Even dismissing the Nazi stuff - yes Russia has overblown it, but there were literal pro-Nazi military units of Ukraine fighting in that civil war that terrorized pro-Russian citizens.
I agree. An additional reason AFAICS is that a slavic country, similar to Russia in many ways, making moves towards becoming a liberal democracy was seen as a threat to the domestic power of Putin and his inner circle. The Maidan revolution spreading to Moscow is surely a nightmare scenario for Putin.
I doubt that, unless Putin is completely delusional. The guy has, at best, almost no time left before he either dies, due to age, or dies, due to age/decline + the perception of weakness, and therefore assassination.
If Putin is still running Russia in 6 months I'll be surprised, and if in 2 years, astonished.
I guess maybe he was concerned a decade ago, but he's all short term thought now.
It's likely why the whole Ukraine thing seems a bit nutty, but if you know you have a very short time, and you think you're the only guy to do something, caution to the wind!
IMO, this is what makes Putin dangerous. He knows he is checking out.
No. Nobody should care what Russia has to say about another country voluntarily wanting to (and joining) NATO
> the irony is that the expansion of NATO gives the US ability to force its will upon NATO members and its neighbors
All NATO members joined voluntarily. None of your business.
> the ambitions are not different from the ambitions of Russia.
I won’t even attempt to refute this.
I'm sorry, but Russia's concern is not out of thin air - you can only join NATO if your membership is not a threat to your border countries. This is one of the rules of NATO itself.
It would be odd to have such a rule, because NATO is a defensive alliance that is of no threat to any of the bordering countries.
Russia’s concern is out of the thin air, because if NATO really wanted it to, with how incompetent the russian army is, I estimate it’s 3 days to take Moscow.
The only people afraid of the Russian army are Russian men of military age.
I mean, read their rules.
https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/fs_members.html
Those are the minimum requirements for new members, everything else is negotiated in the accession process.
NATO members states, as members of the OSCE, are expected to adhere to the OSCE's Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security.
The 3rd aspect of the document says, quote:
3. They remain convinced that security is indivisible and that the security of each of them is inseparably linked to the security of all others. *They will not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other States. They will pursue their own security interests in conformity with the common effort to strengthen security and stability in the CSCE area and beyond.*
FYI, Russia is also a member of OSCE.
At this point I'm convinced you're either trolling or so high on Kremlin's propaganda that you're beyond saving.
Is there no world in your head where someone other than Russia does something wrong?
I live in the US for 10+ years and give zero shits about Russian / US / Ukrainian propaganda. There are rules and I'm not seeing "good" (according to conventional wisdom) countries following these rules. But who cares, right? The United States is like the biggest, most powerful country in the whole world, hands down. And if you think we're living in a unipolar kind of world, what you're saying is that we're the only major player on the global stage. And what that means? With all that crazy amount of power we've got, we can pretty much go out and do all sorts of wild and reckless stuff, and the crazy part is, it doesn't come back to bite us in any. major. way.
There is an argument going around saying that the way Putin's been acting kinda shows that it was a smart move to try and get NATO to grow eastward and bring in countries like Ukraine and Georgia. But, what's really interesting is that before the Ukrainian crisis happened, the US didn't have any reason to believe that Putin was acting all aggressive. And there's nothing showing that the US was considering making NATO bigger just to keep the Russians in check. We just didn't see Russia as being all pushy and aggressive. But then, when the Ukrainian crisis kicked off on February 22 2014, that's when the US changed its mind. That's when the US decided, "Hey, Russia is being aggressive". And the US started thinking Russia wanted to make itself bigger, like a "greater Russia" or something. This change in perception occurred post facto.
This is, of course, complete nonsense. It is as much a fact as the oft-cited claim that NATO promised not to expand (another lie that is true only to rubes).
NATO has a requirement that you settle any ongoing border disputes before ascension: If you have a simmering feud with a neighbor country about who owns a pile of rocks, it's such an obvious flashpoint that you need to resolve it first. It has zero requirement that you don't threaten the tyrannical empire building pursuits of the neighboring madman.
Russians defending Russian aggression is something that I find just impossible to believe. Putin has sent tens of thousands of Russians into a meat grinder for a futile, ego-driven war that has zero outcome that isn't negative for Russia for decades to come. And he's going to keep grinding those bodies into corpses and you'll keep talking about deNazification or whatever nonsense you're fed.
This is not a complete nonsense simply from the fact that if a joining country has conflicts with a bordering country, then such a member would trigger the "attack on one shall be considered an attack on all".
> Putin has sent tens of thousands of Russians into a meat grinder, ego-driven war that has zero outcome that isn't negative for Russia for decades to come.
I agree that this war is stupid, but it could've been avoid entirely had the US conducted a constructive dialog with Russia.
Ukraine is grinding Ukrainian males the same way Russia is grinding theirs. People with cash has already bribed to leave the country. Those who haven't bribed yet get caught on the streets and sent to the war the very next week. Military folks don't care whether you are a software engineer who has never held a weapon in your hands or a 58 old guy who's about to retire.
Whatever is happening today is the result of something. That something has been brewing for years. The root of that something are the ambitions of NATO. Some countries simply do not want NATO to be around. And I don't get why it's so hard to understand that.
Edit: I'm a software engineer who has never fired a firearm. Had I been in Ukraine right now, they'd sent me to the war as well, because they mailed my parents all the papers. Luckily I left the country many, many years ago.
Stop smoking Kremlin's propaganda. The war has got NOTHING to do with NATO or the US whatsoever. It's 100% over resources. Russia simply wants to deny Ukraine the oil and natural gas rich regions of the Donbas and Black Sea.
Russia is a gas station pretending to be a country. They simply couldn't allow competition, lest Europe might choose a different supplier for their energy needs.
> The root of that something are the ambitions of NATO. Some countries simply do not want NATO to be around. And I don't get why it's so hard to understand that.
Ah yes, and this would be the reason why Russia is bullying their non-NATO neighbors and wouldn't dare to touch a NATO member state.
And yes, it was obviously NATO that forced Russia to invade Georgia in 2008 or Ukraine in 2014.
In 2014 Ukrainians simply made the democratic choice to get rid of their Russian-puppet tyrant and elect a pro-European president.
No, they blew that chance when they attacked Ukraine, and when they massacred civilians in Bucha (and Mariupol, and in other places).
Now nobody cares what the Russian propaganda is trying to say anymore, what difference does it make? Their actions speak for themselves.
What is Russia trying to say?
They want to install their own people in other countries regardless of the locals choice?
Is that what they were publicly saying since 2007 or is that what you interpret it as perceiving Russia as the evil because big media pumps ad revenue on it?
I’m asking, what is Russia trying to say?
Stop the expansion. Watch the video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ58Yv6kP44
That doesn't sound like it's a message worth listening to.
[1] https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-biden-putin-sanctions...
russia had no chance but go in and bomb maternity wards, genocide away freely, poor-poor russia, they had no chance of just not doing any of that?
/s
> Russia made the last attempt to stop the expansion
you even use the word expansion here
What really happens is Russia targets military objects as part of their demilitarization goal. Ukraine shots down a rocket and then debris strikes into civilians buildings. This is happening daily. Example: today's night. My family is in Ukraine right now. Russia was bombing a military base which I used to walk around when I was a kid. Not a single civilian was harmed, but the base is on fire.
> So russia tried really hard to NOT invade a sovereign country and US made it impossible?
US made it possible by declining Russia's ask. That's how I see it.
That's a strange question. There is very little common sense when a war is in progress. What legitimate business US had in Afghanistan? Such questions make zero sense.
> Let alone you just lying about russia only targeting military.
30 minutes ago I jumped off a call with my parents in Ukraine. That's what they told me. That's what they've been telling me pretty much every day since the war began.
Ukraine did not attack russia. Russia attacked Ukraine and is killing Ukrainians. This war may just be the least morally ambiguous war out there.
Ukrainians are fighting for SURVIVAL. What are russians fighting for? So their pathetic muppet can live out his delusional fantasies? And what do you get for for trying to whitewash genocide here?