As an Eastern European, I cannot thank the US enough for pushing NATO. It makes me feel safe. I'm just sad that they could not get Ukraine into NATO before all this madness started.
NATO only does things when it benefits the US.
What are you talking about? Turkey's 'occupation' is not of a member state.
Why 'occupation' and not occupation ?
I also think that Western international institutions are systemically biased in favor of Greece and other more western nations, which is pretty obvious by the disparate response to Greek invasion of Cyprus vs Turkish.
Multiple political analysts, US ones included, say that this would not have been the case.
Wars are only good for those in power, in both sides.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations...
Invaded? Probably not. Becoming a second Belarus? Yes. Overall it would have meant a Russia - NATO border closer to me. I prefer an Ukrainian - Russian NATO border far, far more.
Membership in NATO prevents regional wars, because it increases the risk for Russia. Standing alone, a country like Finland or Poland can respond only with conventional weapons, which they don't have too many considering the scale of Russian war against Ukraine. By attacking a NATO member, Russia risks with a nuclear response from other alliance members up to a global nuclear war.
Russians understand and react to power, and NATO represents that. When a Russian fighter jet intruded Turkish airspace while flying sorties in support of Assad's regime in Syria and got shot down by Turkish air defense, Russian officials came to apologize instead of ramping up the usual "we'll nuke everything!" rhetoric. Demonstrate credible force and they'll backtrack.
> Do you think that if Ukraine was not being courted by US that it would've been invaded like that ?
The premise of your question is upside down. Ukraine was courting the US to get security guarantees such as NATO membership, not vice versa. The notion that Eastern Europe had to be somehow tricked into EU and NATO is deeply misguided. Instead, these have been the main foreign policy goals for most countries in the region, the holy grail.
The alternative for Ukraine was to become an oppressive dictatorship like Belarus has become under Russian influence. That would've meant that Russia would've moved in their armed forces, installed nuclear weapons and prepared to use Ukraine as a staging ground for further invasions westwards - everything they've done in Belarus so far.
Instead of seeing Kyiv under missile attacks, we'd be seeing the same happening 1000 km westwards in Warsaw. How far towards Paris and London do you prefer to let this thing creep before tackling the problem? Until Picadilly Circus?