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Comment by 0xDEF | Hacker News Reader

>There's no real doubt that possible Ukrainian NATO membership (and short of that, its ever closer de facto integration with NATO) were primary motivating factors for the Russian decision to invade.

That is a lie. Russia's primary motivation is irredentism. They have been saying Ukraine is a fake nation that should not exist since before 2014.

>American analysts and diplomats have been saying for decades (both in public and in confidential cables) that Russia viewed Ukrainian NATO membership as the reddest of all red lines

This is a narrative being pushed by pro-Russian propagandists. Ukraine was not on the trajectory of becoming a NATO country. Most Ukrainians didn't want to join NATO before Russia invaded Crimea and Eastern Ukraine in 2014.

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> This is a narrative being pushed by pro-Russian propagandists.

Is William Burns, former American ambassador in Moscow and now CIA director under Biden, a pro-Russian propagandist? When he was serving as ambassador in Moscow (in 2008), he wrote back to Washington that Russia deeply feared NATO expansion, and that it might even directly intervene in Ukraine over the issue.[0]

Burns is far from the only person to hold these views. My reading is that these views were actually very common views among Russia experts in the US.

You can't just call all these people Russian propagandists or liars.

0. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html

Of course Russia doesn’t want NATO expansion! It makes us (NATO. Yes, "us.") stronger and them weaker. It is manifestly opposed to their stated interests of encroaching on territories they wrongly view as theirs. That's precisely why NATO needs to expand. So, naturally, we shouldn’t ever do what our adversary wants us to not do, right?

I would have loved to see the consequences if this kind of attitude had ultimately prevailed in WW2. Was the allied fortification of Britain a provocation too? If it was, was it not a necessary one?

Godwin's law has just kicked in.

And that is a gigantic cop-out that indicates you can't defend your position. Surely there must be a corollary to Godwin's law for the inablity to defend yourself to comparisons with WW2 when it's the best example available?

WW2 is a terrible comparison here. You haven't given any good reason why we should view present-day Russia as analogous to Nazi Germany. Until you convincingly make that argument (and I'm frankly not interested, because the comparison is absurd on its face), there's no reason to consider your conclusions.

You really can't see the parallels? An aggressive, unilateral land invasion of an Eastern European country? Really, zero parallels there? OK! Doesn't seem like you're debating in good faith but that tends to be the case with Russia sympthasizers.

In any case you've seized upon this point so you could (weakly) invoke Godwin's law and failed to address any of the other points I made, which stand regardless of any comparison to WW2. But again, I prefer debating those who do so in good faith and at least take it as a premise of their arguments that 1) Western, liberal democracy, though imperfect, is better than other forms of government, and way better than the rule-by-mafia that exists in Russia 2) it is better for more countries to be liberal democracies than for fewer to be, and if Russia's invasion of Ukraine succeeds, fewer will be

It seems like you don't accept those points so there's very little for us to discuss

> You really can't see the parallels? An aggressive, unilateral land invasion of an Eastern European country?

By this standard, there's a new Hitler every year. George W. Bush was Hitler for invading Iraq. Obama was Hitler for bombing Libya. Clinton was Hitler for illegally bombing Yugoslavia. Of course, this is a silly way of seeing the world, and it will lead you to completely incorrect conclusions. Hitler, driven by an insane racial ideology and backed by conservatives who saw him as a tool to eradicate socialism, set about on an unprecedented expansionist policy that aimed at subjugating all of Europe, while carrying out a brutal policy of genocide almost without parallel in history. No, not every country that invades another country is comparable to that. In this particular circumstance, Russia is not waging a genocidal war, is not driven by a crazy ideology of racial superiority, and has no designs on conquering Europe. Russia has much more limited aims. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is criminal, but that doesn't make Russia the equivalent of WWII Germany.

> it is better for more countries to be liberal democracies than for fewer to be, and if Russia's invasion of Ukraine succeeds, fewer will be

In terms of corruption and lack of democratic freedoms, Ukraine is not obviously better than Russia. One thing this war is definitely not about is democracy.

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