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.