That was around 2000. At the time Russia was fighting a brutal, dirty war in Dagestan and Chechnya and trying to destabilise Georgia, was supplying and providing intelligence to Saddam Hussain, was propping up the Assad regime and were helping the Iranians set up their nuclear technology program. Then there are the apartment bombings and Ryazan incident. The Kursk nuclear accident. Russian foreign relations, internal conflicts and military security operations at that time were as much of a dumpster fire as ever.

It's hard to see how those activities could be compatible with NATO membership. It would simply have provided Russia with security guarantees while providing cover for it to cause as much trouble as it wanted.

WAT? Do you have any proofs with real appliance to NATO from Russia? I don't remember that, apart from some usual russian rhetorics how they ask USA (for some reason) to allow them into the NATO and for some reason USA (not nato) didn't answer them.

But ok, lets imaging you are right. So you are saying that, it is NATO fault that Russian invades Ukraine simply because they didn't take Russia into NATO? Right?

Russia did want to be part of NATO. That's why they joined NATO Partnership for Peace [1] and cooperated the other ways.

Of course, the formal application doesn't exist, since countries of that size and importance usually don't apply officially to something unless they already have an agreement that it's just a formality. They would just look silly if the applied and got rejection.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_Peace

Russia and NATO together doesn't make sense to me. Who would they defend against? What common threats do they have?

NATO is made to promote democratic values, Putin runs a dictatorship, how does that work?

In a world where Russia also sought to promote free democracies and started with itself, then Russia being in NATO would make sense.

> Russia and NATO together doesn't make sense to me. Who would they defend against?

Central Asian Islamic extremists?

> NATO is made to promote democratic values, Putin runs a dictatorship, how does that work?

Russia wasn't clearly a dictatorship when it was admitted to the Partnership for Peace, or when Putin wanted direct admission to NATO without the usual accession process, though, yeah, it is now.

Someone who was unreasonably optimistic might think NATO membership would have mellowed Putin rather than just letting him jam up the alliances consensus-based processes.

Or, alternatively that once in NATO that he could take over the Baltics without opposition having already stationed troops there as part of the NATO taskforce. There were plenty of really good reasons not to want Russia in NATO at the time.

NATO as a "defensive" alliance sure did start a lot of wars in far away countries.

If Russia had joined NATO then there would be nothing to stop Putin taking the Baltic states right now.

That is pure speculation.

Even if you're right, Eastern European countries would be stupid to put their trust in Russian dictators staying benevolent. They were smart and joined NATO.

We ban accounts that post like this. Commenters here need to follow the site guidelines, regardless of how strongly they feel. The need for that goes up, not down, in times of conflict.

Since you have a history of breaking the site guidelines, I was going to ban you for this post, but decided not to because emotions and pressure are so high right now. Please don't break the guidelines again, though.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thank you. I appreciate the decision.

> Fuck you

Triggered? Is this the kind of discussion we want here on HN?

Extremely triggered. You are applying Russian propaganda tactics No, this is exactly not the discussion we want. 'This discussion' meaning blaming anything other than Russia for invading. Russia got what it wanted. A war.

I don't defend Russia here, I don't have stakes in this war. Just trying to point that it's not black and white, and history matters. There are many subltleties to discuss.

But yes, if you forget what happened from 1939 to 1943, you can look in horror how evil Soviet Union invades Germany. Or you, an example closer to you, you forget Pearl Harbor and look now USA invades Japan and kill innocent Japanese soldiers and civilians.

> Russia got what it wanted. A war.

I don't know if Russia wanted a war. But for the moment, just take a break and take a look who profits and who is a loser of this war.

The biggest loser is the people of Ukraine, followed by the people of Russia. The second-biggest loser is the EU. The winner is clearly the USA and its military and oil industry, followed by the China, which will profit from the trade with both sides.

Now, that we know who benefits from the war, let's think about again who really wanted the war.

> I don't defend Russia here,

Yes, that is exactly what you are doing.

> Just trying to point that it's not black and white,

Exactly. That's called relativism or whataboutism, and is a typical tactic in the defence of evil.

> There are many subltleties to discuss.

Only if one is trying to defend evil by focusing on irrelevant "subtleties" so as to distract from the actual issue.

> But yes, if you forget what happened from 1939

You mean when the Soviet Union unprovokedly invaded Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland?

> to 1943, you can look in horror how evil Soviet Union invades Germany.

Just because the Nazis were even better than Russia at being evil doesn't make Russia good.

No, this is exactly not the discussion we want. 'This discussion' meaning blaming anything other than Russia for invading. Russia got what it wanted. A war.