> But turks said no.

No. If the Turks actually said "no," they wouldn't be making demands:

https://www.dw.com/en/nato-turkey-outlines-demands-on-finlan...:

> Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Sunday outlined demands for Finland and Sweden which seek membership in NATO in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

> Speaking with Turkish reporters after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin, he said that Sweden and Finland must stop supporting terrorists in their countries, provide clear security guarantees and lift export bans on Turkey.

From the Turkish perspective, why would they allow someone who supports their enemies to join the alliance?

I guess both Swedish and Finnish government would both need to swallow a few frogs to comply with these requirements.

At least, they won't be able to maintain a moral high horse over Turkey any more after complying.

> From the Turkish perspective, why would they allow someone who supports their enemies to join the alliance?

This makes it sound like Sweden does something that other NATO members don't. That's not the case. Sweden supports the SDC in syria, which supports the YPG, which is connected to the PKK. And this is controversial in several of the countries that do this, including the US.

While it's true that it's Sweden applying for membership and not anyone else, the logical thing for Turkey to do here is to try to pressure the whole alliance to adopt some policy change (such as a terror clasification for YPG, and/or no more aid to SDC and connected groups).

Exactly. Turkey's objection doesn't really have much to do with Sweden and Finland, it's more an opportunity for Turkey to get concessions from other NATO members on an issue on which Turkey disagrees with the rest of NATO: the Kurds.

> why would they allow someone who supports their enemies to join the alliance?

Because Russia is still the scarier enemy. If the rest of NATO approves, what is Turkey going to do? Leave NATO and accept eventual invasion?

As far as I know, it has to be approved unanimously, so Turkey can say "NO" and nothing will happen. The point is that ... today Turkey makes demands, sure, but tomorrow it's someone else, or event today itself, except that Turkey is more "dramatic" about it. Who knows what Finland and Sweden actually have to "give" in order to join NATO. That's life, and that's also okay.

Which is BTW similar to what's happening to EU: they realized that some states have too much power in the admission process, so they want to "speed up" the process. Probably they will go for a "3/4" of the members have to say YES. That kind of stuff. Same old, same old.

If I recall correctly, it requires unanimous vote of approval.

Everyone else leaves NATO and sets up NATO2 where Sweden and Finland are members but Turkey is not.

That sounds like a very big and complicated undertaking, both politically and militarily.

Turkey has NATO's second-largest army, for one thing.

Perhaps it's more important to have Turkey in NATO than Sweden and Finland, but I honestly don't know. I hear Finland has a strong army and it's useful to have all of the Baltic Sea countries in NATO.

Turkey's location is incredibly important strategically. They control access to the Black Sea.

Turkey is second-largest based on manpower, right? Time to update that ranking soon: Turkey 775,000 vs Finland 937,000 military personnel available

hahahha :D You missed the fact that every turk born as a soldier when it comes to availability :)

> From the Turkish perspective, why would they allow someone who supports their enemies to join the alliance?

Because the accession process provides Turkey an opportunity to apply leverage against Sweden and Finland to change their behavior. Simply refusing to allow it would gain Turkey nothing and harm them indirectly by weakening (or failing to strengthen) an alliance that Turkey depends on for its own security.

> From the Turkish perspective, why would they allow someone who supports their enemies to join the alliance?

...because neither country is supporting Erdoğan's enemies? The dictator is just posturing for his own people, he'll never actually dare to vote against every other country in NATO.

That's just a matter of haggling.

Everything has a price

The problem may very well be that Putin has bought off or compromised Erdogan in some form. Then there is no price high enough.

I doubt it, the Turks have been one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters, sending Bayraktar drones, closing their airspace to Russian flights, and closing the entrance to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean to Russian warships (all warships tbf). They’re no friend of Russia.

This appears to just be about Sweden and Finland’s support for the Kurds, some of who are in Iraq and some in Turkey. Turkey doesn’t want them forming a new and potentially hostile nation on its border, and doesn’t want any support for that from within NATO.

Unfortunately for the Kurds they’re probably about to get thrown under the bus, since Finland and Sweden are now more concerned about the much larger, aggressive, unstable, nuclear-armed rogue state on their own border.

I think you are missing a lot of the military cooperation between Russia and Turkey. Turkey is buying weapons from Russia. Also, Erdogan stopped delivering the tank-busting missiles for the TB2 drone, which is a big deal. There really is no replacement. The Hellfire missile is too heavy and the Americans now have delivered unguided rockets retrofitted with a laser-seeking head but which can't bust tanks...

So, Turkey and Russia might not exactly be friends. Erdogan and Putin is another topic.

Also, be wary of what Erdogan and his people say. He's about as trustworthy as Putin, and when he calls those organizations "Terrorists" or that Sweden and Finland support them, then that's actually quite far from the truth and he wants something much less palatable.

Realistically Erdogan doesn't have the power to stop this.

Sweden is lucky that Erdogan is in power and he'll bend and do a 180 in a month max. If anyone else was in that position, this would never happen. This topic is probably the only thing that has this much mainstream support since Erdogan came to power.

This is very likely. Erdogan really isn't much more than a thug, they always have a price, and often have dirty secrets they don't want laundered.

> But turks said

I very much doubt that these announcements are the _start_ of negotiations.

More likely, the public phase makes the beginning of the end of negotiations for Sweden (and Finland) to join NATO. It would be a co-ordinated, done deal or close to it, before they break cover and announce it to the world, and to Russia specifically.

If they had to choose, NATO would probably rather have Sweden and Finland in and Turkey out. Here's an interesting thread on Finland's strategic importance: https://twitter.com/tomiahonen/status/1525959053490458624

NATO is not just about Russia. To me, suggesting that Sweden is somehow more strategically important than Turkey is foreign policy illiterate.

Turkey brings a military ~30x the size of Sweden, they are actively involved in being a buffer for conflicts in the Middle East, and they have an advanced military manufacturing capability that they have used to supply Ukraine and others with military drones.

They also have substantial more recent conflict experience and partnerships with affiliates throughout MENA.

Even if NATO was about Russia, Turkey is a much more important buffer to Russian ambitions than Sweden is.

I'm not a particular fan of Turkey, but the only reason we would rather have Sweden over Turkey is due to "soft" cultural, christian, western centrism (calling things racism is taboo on HN so I will refrain).

Yes but it's not just about military size, it's about cooperation. There's no point in having a military that's 30x the size of another one if they don't really cooperate with you.

> calling things racism is taboo on HN so I will refrain

In this case it's because it's just wrong. Sweden is by and large a peaceful, democratic, liberal democracy that has free markets and cooperates with NATO member states on a variety of areas. In other words, the interests and values are very closely aligned. The reason we would have Turkey "out" here is because of a misalignment of values - i.e. Turkey is (or would in this case) diverge from the shared interests of the majority of NATO members. I mean, to point this out from the start there's absolutely no reason for Turkey to object over Sweden joining NATO in the first place. The very act of that objection is a divergence from the rest of the group's shared values.

But this is also mostly a nothing-burger because Turkey's public messaging is different from its private messaging. Erdogan will get an internationally inconsequential bone for domestic audiences and will happily vote Sweden (and Finland) in to NATO.

NATO wouldn't do this without having all the members already in agreement with expansion. That's how things work at this level.

> there's absolutely no reason for Turkey to object over Sweden joining NATO in the first place

This is disingenuous. The YPG question is not "no reason" for Turkey. (I disagree about the reason, but it is still an actual concern for the Turkish government).

> if they don't really cooperate with you.

Turkey absolutely cooperated extensively with the US & NATO. Militarily, much more so than Sweden does.

> This is disingenuous. The YPG question is not "no reason" for Turkey. (I disagree about the reason, but it is still an actual concern for the Turkish government).

I don't view that as a valid reason to object to Sweden joining NATO. Maybe Turkey does, and maybe they won't be in NATO over it by the end of the year? There's 0 chance that Sweden and Finland don't join NATO, regardless of what Turkey publically claims.

> Turkey absolutely cooperated extensively with the US & NATO. Militarily, much more so than Sweden does.

Sure, and that cooperation is expected to continue. Ongoing partnerships have to like, keep going on right? Voting "no" to block Sweden and/or Finland from joining NATO would stop the ongoing partnership and end many elements of cooperation. Frankly, while Turkey is helpful militarily and strategically, the US can do anything in the world it needs to do with or without Turkey. But the one thing the US (and NATO) can't afford is serious dissension in the ranks, and that won't be tolerated regardless of the cost.

It's similar to me with the Taiwan thing. For some crazy reason people think that the US wouldn't go to war with China to defend Taiwan. For a while, people such as myself even were concerned about the Baltic states - then the US and UK moved thousands of troops there. These alliances and commitments are a big deal, especially when genuine strategic interests are at stake amongst nation states.

Of course Turkey cooperated more extensively with NATO, I mean it's part of NATO and Sweden is currently a neutral nation...

>Yes but it's not just about military size, it's about cooperation. There's no >point in having a military that's 30x the size of another one if they don't >really cooperate with you.

Well if it prevents them from cooperating with someone else it might still be worth it.

True - though I think I’m this case military power is less of an issue than diplomatic and political capital.

> NATO is not just about Russia.

Not only, but for the most part....It's about Russia.

> Turkey brings a military ~30x the size of Sweden

On the other hand Sweden and Finland at 2% GDP has a similar defense budget to Turkey. Money does not a military make, but "30x the size" is only counting manpower and not much else. Modern fighter aircraft is around a factor 2x rather than 30x, for example.

> a buffer for conflicts in the Middle East > advanced military manufacturing capability > partnerships with affiliates throughout MENA

These are all very important.

> "soft" cultural, christian, western centrism (calling things racism is taboo on HN so I will refrain).

It's perhaps easier to look at democracy and press-freedom indices then, to see why Turkey isn't like the others. Perhaps that's what you meant? The problem is that undemocratic/authoritarian states tend to be stable, until they suddenly aren't. NATO is supposed to be a partnership of democracies (It's a prerequisite for applying!) so it's safe to say that being not-a-democracy isn't popular once in the alliance either.

So sure, NATO is a defense mechanism for what some would call western (that is: secular, liberal, ...) democracy. That indeed does touch on culture and religion, but only superficially. Turkey has long been the champion of secularism in the area, and obviosuly everyone in NATO (and elsewhere) hopes that will remain the case, hence one is reluctant to push Turkey away too.

>Turkey has long been the champion of secularism in the area, and obviosuly everyone in NATO (and elsewhere) hopes that will remain the case, hence one is reluctant to push Turkey away too.

Exactly. With all the faults of current Turkish government, they are a mile ahead of everyone else in Middle East. The problem is the comparison: they were going forward with EU membership - their government just was way more sane in the past... And there's decent chance that Erdogan will be voted out in 2023.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2023_T...

> there's decent chance that Erdogan will be voted out in 2023.

This isn’t irrelevant to what we are seeing now. He needs some good news/external foes/strongman aura these days.

They also occupy with 40000 soldiers one third of Cyprus, an EU country, thus essentially European territory.

Well isn't this comment completely disingenuous and devoid of context..

When they mutually recognize each others occupied lands as "sovereign states" the context would be pretty obvious. (Turkey to recognize the Russian backed separatists in Ukraine and Russia to recognize the Turkish backed separatists in North Cyprus).

Another point of context to you: Russia's narrative for the invasion of Ukraine is copied word by word from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

> Another point of context to you: Russia's narrative for the invasion of Ukraine is copied word by word from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.

Super disingenuous considering that Greece was the initial country to invade and that multiple UN-brokered solutions to the problem have been supported by the Turkish side only to have been voted down by Greek cypriots. [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annan_Plan

www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1617660/Boris-Johnson-Nato-expansion-Turkey-crisis-North-Cyprus-Sweden-update

Apparently, the Turks included the recognition of the occupied (by them) North Cyprus as one of the terms for agreeing to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

And Greece stations troops in Cyprus as well after illegally invading them.

Enough of the lying propaganda. North Cyprus is by the accession treaties EU territory that the Republic of Cyprus cannot effectively control due to the illegally occupying Turkish troops. Much like the Russian controlled parts of Ukraine.

Numbers speak by themselves: 2000 troops in the South, 40000 troops in the occupied North.

Most people don't realize how important is the "size" of active military for any country.

Turkey is the 2nd most powerful military in NATO after USA. It has access to all modern weapons, manufacturing abilities and above all, centuries of experience in fighting, winning and losing WARS.

Turkey's location is very very important for all kind of military operations and trade via Black Sea.

They can also close the gates to the Mediterranean sea.

NATO is 95% about Russia. It actually probably wouldn't exist without Russia because it was starting to get a bit wobbly after the Trumpian regime attempted to dismantle it in the eyes of Americans. Now that we see it is 100% necessary given that Putin has gone of the rails I think it's stronger than it has been since the 70s

Sweden has about zero chance of ever going against American/western Europe, short of having a puppet regime instated by Russia.

Turkey would have zero reason to be pro-west in any way without NATO. They've basically been the one fairly stable Muslim-majority, non-oil dictatorship in the Middle East for decades now and it's much better to keep them as a lukewarm ally than have them be an outright enemy.

Vietnam is in a similar position. They're not exactly friends with the US, but the fact they have more motivation to be anti-China than anti-US is a good reason to not antagonize them. They're a strong antagonist against the US's enemies more than they are a full-on ally of the US, and that's a perfectly fine partnership to have.

Possibly but the fact that Turkey has been a NATO member since the 1960s pretty much makes that "wish" irrelevant or at least not ignorable. Seniority does count for something and ignoring it is great way of destroying a organization/treaty.

since 1952

Not at all. If Murmansk's importance causes Finland to be strategic then what about Crimea? Turkey blocks Russia's warm water sea access. Much more important for Turkey to be in NATO than Finland purely on the basis of geography.

What is the point of having a NATO member who illogically rails against new members just because Russia tells them not to?

> What is the point of having a NATO member who illogically rails against new members just because Russia tells them not to?

You, I think, know very little about Turkey's politics to make a claim like that.

PKK & YPG has long been a perceived thorn in Turkey's side and they have largely felt like the rest of NATO has ignored this problem if not actively antagonized them on it.

To them, it's akin to as if the rest of NATO was funding cartels in Mexico.

But NATO can't choose because getting rid of a prior member of an alliance undermines the very idea and value of the alliance.

> getting rid of a prior member of an alliance undermines the very idea and value of the alliance

Not really. It does if one does this after they’re invaded, to evade mutual defence commitments. But acknowledging that there are no longer shared values and providing an off ramp is perfectly fine. Strengthening, even, as it shows heightened resolve to take the commitment seriously.

That's not how must treaties work and certainly not how the NATO treaty is written. Maybe you should read it first.

> not how must treaties work and certainly not how the NATO treaty is written

Most treaties have termination clauses. The North Atlantic Treaty’s Article 13 provides for voluntary exit [1]. (One could argue Ankara’s SS-4 purchase constitutes an Article 8 violation, though this would be petry.)

Treaties are about mutual understanding. If Americans and Czechs would find it unseemly to fight for Turkey’s defence in case of invasion, it does more harm to pretend they’re under collective defence than to amend the treaty to make it extremely clear whom one can invade without getting nuked and whom one cannot.

All this said, I think Turkey should remain a NATO member. They have shown themselves by arming Ukraine and denouncing Putin. They are a founding member. And their position remains strategically critical.

[1] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.ht...

It doesn't sound like you know what you are talking about and I have no idea what an "SS-4" is.

> doesn't sound like you know what you are talking about

Okay?

> no idea what an "SS-4" is

Sorry, pre coffee. S-400.

okay how would Turkey's s400 purchase be an article 8 violation?

> how would Turkey's s400 purchase be an article 8 violation?

This has been covered in the American refusal to sell Ankara F-35s and ensuing sanctioning of it under CAATSA [1].

In short, no detection system is perfect. And no modern military system is sold without servicing. Letting Russia service an air defence system with the privilege of painting NATO jets, arms and missile defences is a breach of trust. It could be considered, again, pettily, though good luck to those who claims the law is often anything but, “an international engagement in conflict with” Turkey’s NATO obligations.

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mepo.12628

If any member gets booted out because of ideological differences, no matter the circumstances, other members will necessarily fear the same. This is extremely hard to avoid...

> member gets booted out because of ideological differences, no matter the circumstances, other members will necessarily fear the same

Ejection is a serious thing. Even its deliberation will have the effect you describe.

But anyone pretending NATO is immortal or immutable or above political alignment is naïve. If a member behaves radically differently from the others, will it be politically feasible to send one’s soldiers to their aid in a time of need? If the answer to that question isn’t predictably an unambiguous yes, the treaty should be modified. Leaving Russia to guess whether Estonia is a Britain member or a Hungary member undermines the alliance's deterrence.

These treaties were forged by our parents and grandparents. They’re stronger as living documents than relics.

NATO has no provisions for evicting a member. It would need to form a separate alliance and all the others would join that one and leave NATO. And about the only reason that would conceivably ever happen is if a member grossly violated the values of all the others. Turkey despite being mostly non-democratic isn’t even close I’d imagine.

Formal eviction is not the only option to get rid of someone. The other member states might create circumstances (sanctions...) where Turkey would have to leave NATO "voluntarily".

Another option is if a member state were to commit genocide. In that case the alliance might dissolve and the other members might instead band together and attack that member. Hypothetically speaking.

> If they had to choose, NATO would probably rather have Sweden and Finland in and Turkey out. Here's an interesting thread on Finland's strategic importance: https://twitter.com/tomiahonen/status/1525959053490458624

Turkey controls the Dardanelles Strait.

If NATO is to drop one of its loyal members over such simple request, what would be a reason for anyone to join that "alliance"? They could then as well drop a member that get attacked, instead of invoking Article 5 alliance case.

I think NATO will be very important in this decade, so is Turkey.

Strategic importance does not matter much if Finland does not allow the storage of nuclear weapons in their territory. Effective deterrence strategy would require that.

Would you rather NATO drop Turkey, or Sweden drop the PKK?

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nato-meet-turkey-critic...

"The problem is that these two countries are openly supporting and engaging with PKK and YPG. These are terrorist organisations that have been attacking our troops every day," Mevlut Cavusoglu said as he arrived in Berlin for a meeting with his NATO counterparts.

"Therefore it is unacceptable and outrageous that our friends and allies are supporting this terrorist organisation," he said. "These are the issues that we need to talk about with our NATO allies as well as these countries" Sweden and Finland, he added.

But Sweden and Finland are NOT "openly supporting" the PKK and YPG. Just copying the Erdogan propaganda is at best lazy. Nor is it correct to label these organizations as entirely "terrorist".

The reality is a lot more complicated, but Erdogan would very much like you to simplify "organized Kurds = Terrorists"...

Sweden most especially is not supporting the PKK. The PKK is even designated a terrorist organisation by the EU.

To Turkey, there is no distinction between PKK & YPG, and Sweden is host to a number of YPG politicians.

If they aren't then what's the problem?

On the other hand, if the PKK is able to fundraise in Sweden and Finland like the IRA used to be able to in the US, then it seems logical for Turkey to use whatever leverage they have to decrease that activity, similar to GB.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1987/03/22/i...

Understand why most people feel this is a slippery slope. If Erdogan says that YPG is the PKK because the YPG politically support the PKK, what's preventing Netanyahu from using the same arguments against its neighbor supporting politically or selling weapons to the Hamas? China attacking India/Nepal for harboring the leader of the Free Tibet movement?

You probably it is not the same, but for many, many people it is.

Also, your example missed the point where the Good friday agreement was drafted with US backing and help. This actually did more for the peace than decreasing fundraisers. Maybe Turkey should learn from this example?

Has the slope already slipped? As far as I can tell Israel regularly conducts air strikes in Syria with a claim that they are against Hamas targets. The US waged war against Taliban b/c of association with Alqaeda.

I’m ask out of moderate ignorance in that I read the claims of Turkey and that of Sweden and Finland without a mechanism for deducing truth beyond various actors’ assertions.

While it would be optimal if Turkey did wage “Good Friday” peace to the extent that it is possible, it doesn’t seem likely since their position in the triad is that of GB, not the US. The non-NATO Nordics are more similar to the role of the US.

You are right, of course that's why I choose this example (forgot about the reason given for the Afghanistan war, good point). I might have poorly explained my second point, but you reformulated it better.

I don't have a solution either. I'll let professional negotiators find one :)

In Turkish propaganda, any form of Kurds organizing themselves, be it inside Turkey our outside in Iran, Iraq or Syria, is "terrorism". Even though most of this activity is political and from a democratic standpoint quite "legitimate". Even much of what the PKK has been doing historically falls under that umbrella.

Also the Kurds are forming a state in parts of Syria and Iraq, where the "original" state is not able to restore order, especially against islamic militants. On top of that, the Turkish security forces have a long history of prosecuting Kurdish civilians. This makes the whole label of "terrorism" extremely murky and what Erdogan wants of NATO is much less nice than support against terrorists: He wants support and acquiescence in his war against Kurdish forces, including outside Turkey.

Turkey sees YPG as a subsidiary to PKK. Others don't necessarily agree.

The history of Turkish forces prosecuting Kurdish civilians makes the whole matter extremely murky. Even the PKK does have quite legitimate and understandable goals and motivations, though it has been criticized for its methods which could be called "terrorism". But the same can be said of the Turkish state.

As a total outsider I see the situation as somewhat related to the Palestinian struggle: The more you are struggling for basic survival in the face of aggression, oppression and poverty, the less energy and motivation there is to curb the excesses of extremists in the own ranks.

I'm very sympathetic to the YPG, and I don't think they are a subsidiary... but any objective observer can see that YPG and PKK are very closely related. They have posters of Abdullah Ocalan everywhere, they have many PKK fighters in their ranks, etc. etc.

1) The PKK is considered a terrorist organistsnion in Sweden, we do not support them in any way and our police tracks PKK activity plus 2) giving in to Turkish demands would be really bad optics for Swedish politicisns so I do not think they will cave. Doing so would risk them the election. I think Turkey will fold.

Sure, but the US will probably just throw them some bone and everything will be fine.

Nah, and also Turkey (similar to when people argued that Hungary or Croatia would object) would be kicked out of NATO before Sweden and Finland would be prevented from joining.

"But how would they do that? There's no process.. etc."

They can just take a vote and then that's that. Likely Turkey will get some appeasement concessions, but there's no serious risk here.

Considering turkey controls the Black Sea, I doubt they would be kicked out

At the same time, I don’t think they would say no anyway

They'd definitely be kicked out at this point if push came to shove. No doubt about that. There's no value in a member who doesn't cooperate. Both Finland and Sweden are very much aligned with the rest of NATO and if member states object to them joining you basically set the precedent that one member state (that's not the US/UK) can hold the group hostage. There's no way that would be tolerated, regardless of the strategic importance of Turkey.

To your point, they won't say no anyway. All the speculation is, I think, just circus.

I really don't think so. Turkey is in a very strategic location. Turkey has leverage and a very good chance of getting the concessions they want. Which is sad, because I care about the Kurds, and they seemed to be one of the few good, humane groups in Syria.

Also Turkey has the best attack drones now. They beat previous-generation Russian equipment in Nagorno-Karabakh, now they're pretty effective against current Russian equipment in Ukraine. USA and our vassals don't want any of that medicine.

Yea I mean you’re free to disagree or course and we won’t really know for sure until something like this gets tested, but I’ve stated my opinion on the matter and don’t have much else to add.

Seems like they're long overdue for a true Kurdistan, and Trump selling them out enraged me.

Me too. And I fear that NATO/EU will be forced to sell them out again now.

Turks are trying to establish some diplomatic bridge with Russia; that's very good. Russian aggression in Ukraine is terrible, but I feel the US are not trying to de-escalate anything. They are in full proxy-war mode.

This can be very dangerous for Europe. France and Germany also would like to have more diplomacy, just like Turkey. Those countries have to live next to Russia - and maintaining a diplomatic relationship with Russia is vital. And this despite the fact that current Russian leadership is basically criminal.

I don't think Sweden and Finland joining NATO is sending a good signal - or it's diplomatically wise. But let's see...

The problem with de-escalation is this: what compromise is possible here?

Ukraine should just give up its independence and land and ability to seek justice for the horrific war crimes?

Russia has the power to de-escalate by withdrawing. Ukraine has the power to de-escalate by ceasing to exist.

Abide by Minsk II, officially cede crimea (according to gallup this is what 80-90% of crimeans want), disband azov and promise never to join NATO.

Theres a perfectly clear deescalation path and has been since before the war started. This war was many things but inevitable was never one of them.

Deescalation is the last thing NATO or the US wants though.

And giving up their land and independence is the last thing Ukrainians want, so it sounds like Ukraine and NATO are on the same page in terms of not appeasing a senile tyrant invading a sovereign nation.

It's what 90% of crimeans wanted according to gallup polling.

The way I see it the west either fights for empire or we fight for democracy.

If we fight for democracy then we respect votes we dont like whose results are independently verified by pollsters we trust. Particularly votes that breach the 90%+ threshold. That would match our principles.

In Ukraine neither Kyiv, the west nor Russia fights for democracy though. Everybody fights for power, territory and, ultimately, empire.

Do you believe a Gallup poll should dictate a country's borders or serve as justification for a nation being invaded by its neighbor?

No, but I believe referenda should. Ukraine gained its independence that way after all.

The gallup polls simply confirmed that the referendum that was run by Russian troops was more or less free and fair.

I believe this is a good litmus test of peoples belief in democracy as a matter of principle. Belief in democracy means commitment to voting especially when you dont like the result.

It appears a lot of people do not like democracy.

A referendum is a far cry from your original suggestion to "officially cede Crimea", though. There can be no legitimate referendum while a territory is under invasion. Suggesting a sovereign nation cede territory to an oppressive dictator who decided to invade it is antithetical to democracy, as is suggesting that said tyrant should be allowed to dictate which defensive alliance it joins.

>A referendum is a far cry from your original suggestion to "officially cede Crimea", though

The referendum already happened. My original suggestion was "respect the result" - what 90% or crimeans also want according to gallup - a western pollster.

What you want is for their votes to be "corrected" to fall in line with strategic imperialist objectives. This is a position Putin would understand and respect.

>There can be no legitimate referendum while a territory is under invasion.

Actually I believe there can under three conditions:

* The population want the referendum.

* The referendum wouldnt have happened without invasion.

* No vote coercion happened as a result of the invasion.

All three conditions held for Crimea, as well as certain other places. These conditions held for Iraq also, for example.

Once again: if you want to anull the results of a referendum because you dont like the result where there is no uncertainty about a free and fair result then you can only pretend to respect democracy.

"What 90% of Crimeans want" does not set the agenda for all of Ukraine.

If you dont think the future of crimea should be determined by what crimeans think then you cannot pretend to have any respect for democracy.

There is a tension between the concepts of self-determination and territorial integrity that makes the question not so obvious. However the concept of territorial integrity has advantages for weaker nations. If self-determination were absolute then for example the U.S. could get any territory it wanted by using its immense wealth to buy off local residents. I'm sure there are some villages along the Russian border who would be happy to see their land turned into a U.S. military base in exchange for U.S. passports and big piles of money.

>If self-determination were absolute then for example the U.S. could get any territory it wanted by using its immense wealth to buy off local residents.

I mean, yeah. Thats how panama was born for example. Colombia was kinda mad about it at the time but of all the things the US gets shit for its not even in the top 10.

The US also tried to do something similar (and failed) to Kaliningrad. Only Russia objected.

Theres a pretty long history of the US doing this and nobody really minding.

>I'm sure there are some villages along the Russian border who would be happy to see their land turned into a U.S. military base in exchange for U.S. passports and big piles of money.

I wouldnt be so sure. Argentina tried the same thing with the falklanders and it didnt work. Likewise Trump with Greenland.

Villages also wouldnt survive if they were severed economically.

Crimea wasnt bought, anyway. It's just 90% ethnically Russian and objected vociferously to the maidan.

The U.S.'s historical strategy has been to find or create some credible faction wherever it wanted to meddle and then support it using any means necessary, ethical or otherwise, and coerce other countries to go along with it. In purely internal matters such as against the Native American populations it sometimes bothered with some fig leaf legal cover but other times it would just take what it wanted in the most brutal ways possible. I don't think it's ever actually fairly bought off a population though, so that's not really the same thing.

You framed your earlier comment as being about democracy without qualifications. I'm wondering how far you'd go with that. Is every border territory only a 50.1% vote away from changing countries? How often can these votes be held? Do they require international observation?

>You framed your earlier comment as being about democracy without qualifications. I'm wondering how far you'd go with that. Is every border territory only a 50.1% vote away from changing countries?

I dont know if 50.0% deserves to be the threshold but whatever the threshold is Im damn sure it's below 90%.

>How often can these votes be held?

Not sure if theres a clear answer to that. If enough of the population wants a vote i guess there should be one.

If there is one and 90% arent voting for the status quo there clearly needed to be one.

>Do they require international observation?

Ideally. I'd love to see international observers in all elections. Would be great if e.g. Venezuelan election observers got to monitor US elections.

If observers are absent and theres no evidence of fraud or coercion though thats not a good enough reason to reject a vote, especially when the result isnt close.

In crimea i find the "international observers" argument especially disingenuous though. The two sides were "referendum without western observers" (Russia) and "no referendum at all, ever" (Kyiv/West).

Ive heard hundreds if not thousands of people reject the idea that the crimean referendum was valid because of a lack of western observers. Not a single one of them rejected kyiv's position that there shouldnt be a referendum at all.

> I dont know if 50.0% deserves to be the threshold but whatever the threshold is Im damn sure it's below 90%.

The normal legality is that a state is governed by a national constitution that requires some supermajority to make major changes. Participating in a government formed by that constitution implies consent to it. If Ukrainian Crimea wanted to leave Ukraine then they could have looked for national support according to both regular and constitutional law. If they couldn't get the national votes then that's all there is to it. Democracy in action.

There are areas in the U.S. that heavily favor one party or the other, including rural border counties that went for Trump well over 80% in 2020. If one of these counties voted to secede after Biden won, that vote would simply have been illegal under laws they themselves had previously consented to. If prior to the secession vote some other country had sent passports and then troops to seize government buildings and "secure fair elections" or whatever, that would have been both ridiculous and hostile.

> Ideally. I'd love to see international observers in all elections. Would be great if e.g. Venezuelan election observers got to monitor US elections.

Venezuelans or most anyone else are free to come into the U.S. and observe voting stations from the outside like any other private person who isn't actively casting a vote, and conduct whatever exit polls they can convince people to take.

Even if you accept that votes can be taken by anybody and whenever, yes, you need international observer. Otherwise the vote will go the direction of whoever can coerce the locals the hardest. That's not democracy, that's not "the will of the people", that's a sham.

Gallup asked crimeans were asked if they believed it was a sham and 90% said no.

85% agreed with the result.

Russia didnt run that poll. We did. No troops were standing behind the answerers. It agreed entirely with the result of the referendum.

If we hypothesize coercion or fraud in crimea the poll would have disagreed with the results. It didnt.

Coming up with ever thinner pretexts for rejecting the result of this referendum is simply a rejection of democracy - that thing we are supposed to be fighting for.

It’s possible to respect democracy without believing that the majority of any given population should automatically get whatever they want.

If the majority want to exterminate a minority, sure. Democracy doesnt mean that they should be allowed.

If "whatever they want" means independence and self determination then yes, either you believe they should have it or you give democracy the middle finger.

Theres no middle ground there.

Some people think ukraine should be run from Moscow and fuck what anybody in ukraine thinks. Some people think crimea should be run from Kyiv and fuck what anybody in Crimea thinks. They both hate democracy.

It’s entirely possible that, as Ukraine’s democracy matured, Crimea could have changed hands peacefully.

It’s also possible that, as Ukraine’s democracy matured, Crimea would have no longer wanted to leave.

Russia short-circuited that by force.

It's not in the slightest bit possible. Ukraine has not offered a vote, it would not conduct a vote and Ukraines constitution prohibits such a vote.

You cannot respect democracy and want crimea returned to Ukraine.

The two positions are fundamentally incompatible.

A lot of words to say “give up their independence”.

And Putin says the Minsk agreements no longer exist.

(Updated to fix autocorrect typo)

The de-escalation is simple, Russia leaves all parts of Ukraine that is has occupied since 2014. It return they stop losing troops and armour at a rate which will end their armies existence entirely before the end of the year.

UA would appear to be losing troops and materiel rather quickly as well, with a smaller population and economic base.

But what do you mean by de-escalate? Give territorial concessions to Russia?

I suspect is exactly what they want.

You know what country also lies next to Russia? Ukraine. Maybe ask them what they think of using diplomacy here.

What kind of de-escalation is possible when it's Russia attacking the Ukrainian territory? Also it's not like RF can be trusted to stick to agreements, so what's the point in talks?

Previous attempts of de-escalation have gone nowhere: Russia continues to attack its neighbours and annex their territory, or create puppet separatist states (Moldovan Transnistria in 1992, Georgian South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 1990s and 2008, Ukrainian Crimea and Donbass in 2014 and now the entire territory of Ukraine).

If the Russians had succeeded with Ukraine, Lithuania or Poland would be next. Or Finland, or Sweden, or any other neighbour Russia deems weak enough to conquer with direct military force. You get my point.

Russian territorial expansion is a recurring pattern, and no amount of western self-humiliation via "de-escalation" was going to end it.

It had to end somewhere. As a Ukrainian who had to spend several weeks in evacuation in Lviv this spring, I'm glad it ended in Ukraine. (At least the new US Lend-Lease Act gives us hope that the wave of Russian territorial expansion will end in Ukraine.) Otherwise we'd have mass executions of civilians, as we had in Bucha, all over the 40 million country. A new Holocaust. For Ukrainians, as a nation, US Lend-Lease Act, military equipment aid from UK and other western nations who participated in Ramstein defence conference is the real salvation. And the day the Russian invaders are expelled would become a second Independence Day, as in the history of Kuwait and Iraq.

If you don't want a hegemonic superpower to gain additional power through protection rackets, then don't invade sovereign nations because you have cancer and want to feel better about yourself.

> protection rackets

Yeah, I wonder about that. Suppose Russia nuked some allied target. Is the USA willing to escalate to global nuclear war over that? Something tells me they won't come to anyone's aid.

All the US wants is for Russia to get out of Ukraine. They have not been there in decades. It's an easy request. France and Germany know that if Putin gets anything out of this he'll just attack Ukraine (even if he pulls out today) again until he gets what he wants.

There was no problem having diplomatic relations with Germany after WW2. Relations were poor with nazi Germany and they are poor with Putin’s Russia.

He is likely worried that Ukraine's fierce resistance to the genocide of her people will cause him mild inconveniences. Of course, admitting that would make him look bad so he tries to warp it into some sort of moral principle. I've seen it an awfully lot recently and I think it is pathetic.