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Comment by tharmas | Hacker News Reader

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And here I was thinking that "arrogant" was expecting a neighboring country, whose nation, identity and language you claim "aren't real", whose people you call "little Russians", would fall at your feet within days.

And flagrantly violating every agreement that has ever been made w/r/t Ukraine. And killing political opposition with impunity. And giving medals to every soldier in the units stationed in Bucha a few days after of the massacres were uncovered. And "annexing" regions of Ukraine where your soldiers haven't even reached, and putting them on official maps of Russia.

And using chemical and radiological weapons to conduct assassinations on UK soil. And blowing up Czech ammo depots.

And telling the world that if there were any Russian soldiers amongst the "little green men" in Crimea, they were merely on vacation.

And this trash: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60562240.

How is the west being arrogant if the new member states want to join? It's not the west who invaded Georgia in 2008 or Crimea in 2014. It's not the west that invaded Ukraine in 2022. Countries bordering Russia have, for decades, known the threat that Russian imperialism is to them and it's their choice to protect themselves from an extremely aggressive, brutal neighbour.

Never understood people who believe the narrative of an expanding NATO. The baltics, Poland and other Eastern countries want to join NATO because they have been invaded several times by Russia, women raped, cities plundered, people tortured and killed. That is the reason those countries want to join NATO.

The west is arrogant because everyone else is trying to bring back feudalism lol

There's a reason non-western aligned countries are a bunch of corrupt shitholes, they want more serfs to do their bidding and the west is showing their population what their life could be and ruining their plans.

If the people of Ukraine want to get in NATO for protection, how is this the West being arrogant?

Study great power politics and you will understand what I mean. Russia is a nuclear power. That means no matter how much you dislike them for whatever reasons you don't go giving them the finger. That's like giving the Mafia boss the finger when he has a gun pointed at your head. You might think that's brave defiance but inarguably that will get you killed.

Study the outrage in the USA when Russia put nuclear missiles in Cuba, when Cuba, a sovereign country asked for those missiles (aka The Cuban Missile Crisis). Substitute Cuba for Ukraine and USA for Russia and you will be begin to understand the Russian point of view. But hey the West is Right, We are the Good Guys, always on the side of Freedom and Democracy so we can't be wrong. Just ask the Palestinians in Gaza.

Ukraine hasn't even been formally offered membership in NATO. They've never had any realistic prospect to join. Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation. Stop pretending otherwise.

> That means no matter how much you dislike them for whatever reasons you don't go giving them the finger.

You haven't considered the consequences of folding to nuclear blackmail. That increases the chances bad actors will use nuclear blackmail again (because you've shown it works), and it increases nuclear proliferation because small states start feeling unsafe if larger states refuse to help them defend themselves out of fear.

I'm sure if we just kneel down and give Putin what he wants, he'll stop with eastern Ukraine.

Russia: signed the memorandum guaranteeing Ukraine's borders, sovereignty and independence.

Also Russia: "NATO pinky promised in a discussion between two people no one remembers that it wouldn't expand East, so we're invading Ukraine and threatening you with nuclear war"

They signed when they were weak. That's Great Power Politics. The USA was sole Hegemon. It could do whatever it wanted. The West continued to provoke Russia because the West knew Russia was too weak to do anything about it. The West's arrogance was in underestimating how Russia would react as they continued to provoke them. (By "provoke" I mean doing things that the West knew that the Russians wouldn't like). The neocons in Washington were quite happy to see Russia invade Ukraine. They thought it was Afghanistan 2.0 (Soviet invasion, I'm referring too). The neocons thought they could bleed Russia dry using Ukraine as a proxy to bring down the Putin regime. A huge miscalculation. Now Russia and China a friends. In Great Power Politics that is a huge blunder. Why do you think Nixon, a staunch anti-communist, would do a deal with China? Answer is: Great Power Politics.

From a purely realpolitik standpoint, this war is going very well for the US. Russia is bogged down in a stalemate, with 100,000 soldiers dead already. (vs 10,000 over 10 years in Afghanistan). They've destroyed the idea that Russia is the second-strongest army in the world. NATO is now stronger and larger than ever, and haven't taken a single casualty.

My heart goes out to the Ukrainians, who are fighting determinedly not to be liquidated by Putin's mafia state. But the Dick Cheneys of the world couldn't be happier that Putin decided to invade.

How many times has Putin tried to shake the nuke stick?

He has threatened Sweden directly with nukes if we ever tried to join Nato for instance.

And even then, Putin has no limits. We cannot continue to put red lines and limits on ourselves when the opponent doesn't have any.

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