NATO was created as an anti-Soviet bulwark. The Soviet Union is gone, yet NATO has continued to expand in a manner which seems designed to weaken the strategic position of Russia. Add to that America's history of color revolutions and military aggression, and it would be difficult not to interpret this as anything other than a threat.
Imagine China entered into a "defensive" military alliance with Mexico. Imagine you spoke to a Chinese friend about it, and they demanded that you justify "what makes Chinese proximity so bad for America?", as though the Chinese have just as much reason to place their military assets along our southern border as we do! Would you consider such a question to be in good faith?
> Do they actually think NATO would use it to launch invasions? Do they have no idea how much Europe hates war and military combat?
Within living memory, 10 million Soviets were killed in an unprovoked invasion from Europe. It's hardly unreasonable for them to be concerned.
Correction. WWII costed Soviet Union between 20 and 30 million lives [0]. Main thrust of the German onslaught in 1941 went through Ukraine. The same happened in WWI when in 1914 Germany and Austria invaded Russia through Ukraine.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the...
So while the "Soviet Union" is gone, Russia remains, weakened by it's loss of territories, still as irredentist and imperialist as ever. Hence why ex-Soviet and Soviet client-states begged to join.
Wow, that sounds pretty bad. But I seem to remember that when Ukraine unilaterally declared its independence from the Soviet Union, Russia let them go without a fight. That's hardly what you'd expect from an evil empire, is it? Imagine how poorly you'd think of them if instead they had chosen to wage an unconstitutional war, suspended habeus corpus, shut down newspapers and imprisoned dissenters! Imagine the low regard you'd hold them in if they had invaded the "rebel" territories, killing the very people they insisted were their countrymen, burning their homes and property until they surrendered, then unconstitutionally altering the terms of their membership in the empire.
You mean like what Russia is now doing to Ukraine?
The USSR's collapse was rather peaceful not by their own choice. The USSR was in such a deep shit by the final days that officers were forcing conscripts into street prostitution to earn money for food. Secret services and armed forces became completely demoralized. Officers and soldiers sat in their bases, ignored orders in total apathy, and were busy drinking or selling off anything they could, even copper wiring from the walls of their barracks was sold for scrap. You could buy a truckload of binoculars directly from the gates of a military base for less than $100. Radars, missiles, fighter jets too - anything for the almighty dollar. Survival until the next day was the only concern; little else mattered.
The US civil war comparison alluded to is superficial nonsense. They're only similar if you ignore all the details that matter like states voluntarily joining with full knowledge they were giving up sovereignty, actual federal political representation and that the Confederacy started the war by attacking Union soldiers first. Nor was there anything unconstitutional about waging a war, putting down a rebellion or even suspending habeas corpus - those are explicitly enumerated powers - powers that several of the seceding states helped draft.
The idea that Sumter justified the Yankees' war of aggression is one of the greatest canards in human history. The Yanks were occupying foreign soil at Sumter (an act of war). They lied about their plans to leave. They attempted to resupply the occupiers but were foiled by an attack... which resulted in zero Union dead. Ergo the Yanks had to wage total war? Lmao.
Read Spooner.
Russia declared independence from the Soviet Union before Ukraine did.
NATO is not a living organism that expands. It is composed of free countries who can join it if the rest agrees (the rest didn't agree on Georgia or Ukraine). Whenever a country like Finland or Sweden feels threatened by Russia, they can join NATO and immediately gain protection from Russia. That's why Putin hates NATO as it limits his option for potential invasion. So far, he could only invade Georgia and Ukraine - only because they are not in NATO.
Yeah. I'd be worried if I was a US citizen. Because China has a recent history of pushing airspace boundaries and behaving in an expansionist manner. But the comparison there is more accurately with Russia rather than NATO. Russia is continually making minor incursions into NATO and European airspace and waters, for example, whereas the reverse is very rare. I'm no fan of US foreign policy, but it pales in comparison to Russia's.
> Within living memory, 10 million Soviets were killed in an unprovoked invasion from Europe.
Believing that the political reality of Europe in the 1940s is anywhere close to today is bizarre.
It makes Russian interference in its neighboring countries more difficult.
surely you would like to be surrounded by people who are adversaries to you and your family, you woild flock to move to a neighborhood like that :)
I mean, I wouldn't feel 100% comfortable but I wouldn't launch an invasion over it. Especially since it predictably encourages other bordering countries like Finland to accelerate their membership, and Ukraine itself will definitely be pushing for membership as soon as possible once the war is over. It was neither a proportionate nor a productive course of action, if that was the reason.
Except that's not what happened.
It's just a soundbite you heard somewhere, but has no basis in reality.
You can follow this thread, if of interest:
Ukraine decided to break the Budapest Memorandum by seeking the NATO ascension, and GW Bush promised them NATO in 2008, and then in 2014 CIA/State Department organized a coup (just a mere month before official elections) and pro-western puppet leader was put in charge (search Victoria Nuland's call where she decided to appoint pro-western Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister after the coup) who decided to seek EU and NATO membership.
Thus, Ukraine effectively nullified the neutrality clause of the Budapest Memorandum.
So it was Ukraine that walked back from Budapest Memorandum by giving up neutral status, that nullified the territorial sovereignty guarantees given by Russia.
if you think about it, it kinda makes sense. Russia can tolerate friendly and aligned country on its border that is 70% comprised of Russian speakers and/or Russian ethnicity.
But Russia cannot tolerate NATO member on its border, the same way that USA cannot tolerate Canada/Mexico that are in military alliance with Russia/China.
Ask yourself, what would USA do if tomorrow Canada/Mexico decided to join exclusive economic and military alliance with China ?
Did you generate your post with an AI tool? It's such a strange collection of undisputably incorrect statements, from the wrong year of the Budapest memorandum to the invalid reference of upcoming elections in 2014.
In August 2014, and only after Russia invaded both the Crimea and the Donbas. In fact even after the invasion of just the Crimea (in March) his government was still playing it safe, and renouncing any intent to join NATO (Reuters, March 18):
Ukraine's new pro-Western leadership is not seeking membership of NATO, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Tuesday, in comments intended to reassure Russia and Ukraine's large number of Russian-speakers.[0]
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-ukraine-crisis-nato-idUKB...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas#August_2014_inva...
Basically the expansion of NATO and the EU screwed up the Kremlin's plans to weaken Russia's Western neighbours and bring them into its sphere of influence. Poland and Romania are the new West Germany. In fact Moldova was part of Romania before it was occupied by the USSR after WW2, so it's pretty much in a similar situation to East/West Germany. It became independent after 1991 because Russia wanted to control it. They are using narratives such as the "Moldovan language" (in fact Romanian) since at least the 70s and later blackmail using Transnistria in order to divide and control. Moldova being admitted into the EU is basically on a path to de facto unification.
I think fear of NATO is pretty reasonable, but it's likely it's rather seen by Russia and others as moving the limit of the possible in international law and war.