Hacker News Reader

Comment by ericb | Hacker News Reader

Nonsense. Don't invade your friendly neighbors, and peace is simple. Ukraine gave up their nukes and signed the Budapest memorandum with Russia. Russia turned around and invaded Ukraine. So, sob stories about torn up security "agreements" with Russia are just crocodile tears.

Nato doesn't "expand." Countries join it for protection from predatory nations like Russia. Russia is NATO's greatest salesperson. Seriously.

View on HN

> friendly neighbor

> Ukraine gave up their nukes and signed the Budapest memorandum with Russia

For a moment, let's take your highly simplistic statement at face value. USSR gave up East Germany and voluntarily dissolved itself on the agreement that NATO won't expand east of Germany and Russia will be "admitted" into the West. What do we do about that now?

> agreement that NATO won't expand east of Germany

What agreement? Even Gorbachev (last leader of USSR) confirmed that there was no such agreement.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/did-nato-promise-not-to-e...

And it did not voluntarily dissolved itself, it fell apart. Like when your plate voluntarily dissolves itself when you drop it on the floor.

> For a moment, let's take your highly simplistic statement at face value. USSR gave up East Germany and voluntarily dissolved itself on the agreement that NATO won't expand east of Germany and Russia will be "admitted" into the West. What do we do about that now?

"Myth," Gorbachev said. "Had we had an agreement, we would've written it down," he added: https://x.com/splendid_pete/status/1650735533826375680

Of course it's all BS. Putin was stationed in Dresden, the GDR in 1989 and he probably shit his pants when the Wall fell and the KGB was too busy with other stuff to extract him. That's why he made up this childrens' story that the US promised not to expand NATO Eastward: misundertanding + whisful thinking + PTSD.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-06-15/russia...

USSR didnt dissolve itself, it collapsed.

Can you point me to this treaty? Russia had admittance into the West. It wasn't serious about it. There was excitement to welcome Russia into commerce and brotherhood with the West. Russia wasn't considered an enemy after the fall of the Soviet Union until it chose to be, by becoming an expansionist power under Putin. An easy way to tell is to look at American movies in that time period--Russians stopped featuring as the default villain in American movies--no more "Ivan Drago" as foreign antagonists. The opportunity was there.

NATO doesn't threaten non-expansionist powers as a defensive treaty. Read the treaty. Being "admitted" into the west is easy--don't invade other countries, send little green men army invasions or make bellicose nuclear threats, and focus on business-first and the red carpet rolls itself out.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com