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Also Finland just joined and Russia barley registered a complaint.
So NATO has demonstrated they can be whatever they want when the right time comes. NATO intervention in Kosovo to “liberate it” is also being used to morally justify Russian’s invasion of eastern Ukraine, since from a Russian standpoint it’s exactly the same scenario and they are “liberating” the Russian population in those Ukrainian territories.
But my point is that NATO is a military alliance, to call it “defensive” is just propaganda as it has shown it can be offensive too. And there is nothing wrong with simply calling it for what it is, I believe countries should be able to form military alliances, but let’s not gaslight ourselves.
This is a very naive take, I think. When you are responsible for the security of a nation, you can't just remain passive to the potential threats that shows up on your doorstep. I mean, it would be irresponsible his people if Putin did that and trusted NATO/US blindly to not cross the line, one way or another. (I mean, US could always make up some cooked up justification for the attack, like it has done so many times in the past), So if US is putting missiles near Russian border, even if that is on behalf of NATO, I think Putin is bound to do something about it..
I don't understand what part of that is "Russian propoganda"..
Do the neighbors of France need an alliance against a French invasion? Do the neighbors of Germany need an alliance against a German invasion? Why not?
Also, you should respond to the second part of their post, as it contains a viewpoint that you might find interesting, and a question asked of your own viewpoint. Understanding others' viewpoints is a good foundation for coming to agreement.
Perhaps once a century the answer to this question is “yes”.
What threats specifically? This should be very easy to answer, but no one ever does.
NATO has had missiles at Russia’s border for 70 years, in Turkey, but that never resulted in a US special military operation to Moscow.
I don't think this is very easy to answer. The fact that people think it should be very easy to answer this, shows how naive they are, because the reason why country x think country y is a threat could include a lot of information and context that is not available to an external observer.
The rest of the world has no problem observing and analyzing geopolitical interests.
“The corridors of power are unknowable” isn’t an interesting or useful take.
Russia did not invade a NATO country, they invaded Ukraine when it wasn't seeking to join NATO (in 2014 before the invasion, after the invasion they wanted to join NATO but there were too many objecting countries in NATO and it was obvious to everyone that Ukraine wasn't getting in anytime soon and this was just as true in early 2022).
> US could always make up some cooked up justification for the attack, like it has done so many times in the past
Russia has a history with making up justifications to invade and they did in this case.
> So if US is putting missiles near Russian border, even if that is on behalf of NATO, I think Putin is bound to do something about it..
They were not putting missles in the border. In fact until recently nato had minimal forces and no bases next to Russia to try to mollify them. Especially not in Ukraine which again was not in NATO and was not getting any closer to NATO. Russia was not bound to invade Ukraine and it was in fact a pretty dumb move which had obvius consequences of making Russias security much worse and even many Putin's advisors had a hard time believing he would do it.
The second video repeats the same argument: the "NATO's eastward march". Putin says Russia had to start the war in Ukraine to stop NATO from expanding too close (he failed as two more countries joined NATO). But when you dig one "why?" deeper you can understand that NATO is not a self-aware entity that expands and threats, it's an alliance of countries that realize that if Russia attacks them and they are alone, they are in the same situation as Ukraine: alone and doomed to begging for help. Whereas if they stand together, Russia will think twice before attacking them. That's why Putin hates NATO so much: he can't freely conquer the Baltics - he'd have done it already in 2008 or so. So he uses anti-NATO rhetoric that people in Russia buy. Maybe they are really afraid Estonia or Bulgaria attacks Russia? Who knows what's in their heads.
Expansion, colonization, power and wealth. Classic
So here Putin says he had no choice but to attack Ukraine because NATO (a defensive treaty) was "expanding" into Ukraine. This is false. Ukraine wanted to be in NATO, but its membership request was rejected. And from the start of the war in 2014, it was never on the table - how would a country in a state of war could even dream of joining NATO (which at the time seemed a stable alliance)?
I know some Russians believe in this explanation, it seems very simple: Russia is not setting up nukes in Cuba so from the same PoV Ukraine should not host missiles hostile to Russia. Seems valid, right? The problem here is that Putin, as he admitted in his retracted victory piece[0], wanted to "solve the Ukrainian problem for the future generations" and basically make Ukraine part of his empire just as he did with Belarus. Ukrainians don't want to be his slaves so they chose to fight.
The term “NATO expansion” for example, is propaganda. Countries that had suffered under the Russian/Soviet oppression looked for protection when the USSR collapsed and requested to join the alliance.
When we call out propaganda you can listen to us.
Oh yea, here is one guy that does exactly that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD_KEFpuIro
Transcript:
https://singjupost.com/transcript-jeffrey-sachs-on-the-geopo...
>Not for Crimea. Not for the Donbas. Nothing like that. This idea that Putin is reconstructing the Russian empire, this is childish propaganda. Excuse me.
>If anyone knows the day-to-day and year-to-year history, this is childish stuff. Childish stuff seems to work better than adult stuff. So no designs at all. The United States decided this man must be overthrown. It’s called a regime change operation.
Just because you can dig up three YouTube links that supports the russian side doesn't mean we should belive them.
That is propaganda
Surely he didn't mean all the people present there are paid. As far as I understand, when you want some initiate a political change, you pay influencers, and they actually go an convince/gaslight the masses about the need for change.
So all the people who were present there might not be paid, but a lot of prime movers and the require infrastructure might be paid by the interested party.
I don’t know what he “meant”, that’s what he said. There was a very clear external event that triggered Maidan, there was another event that made it massive.
The payment of influencers is just as a massive contribution into protests is just a speculation
If those "unfaithful" countries join NATO this creates problems for Russia to force them to give up their freedom.
And USSR/Russia started a fuss that NATO is a threat for them.
The threat to putin wasn't Nato om his doorstep but a partially russian speaking country becoming a successful democracy and joining EU.
> Ukraine has a sovereign right to join the European Union, but this “sovereignty” does not apply to military alliances, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
https://www.politico.eu/article/dmitrt-peskov-kremlin-ukrain...
2. Ukraine has the right to join whatever alliance it wants regardless of what russia means.
So this makes sense to me. Basically I think it is US that Russia sees as a threat (because may be US seen Russia as a major threat and wants to break it up).
it is a very very dangerous time to be this naive.