And Ukraine reminding Russia that they will fight to the death and leave scorched earth behind, so invading will cost more than they earn isn’t a major strategic goal? I don’t have a problem with the justifications you have on Russias side of the argument, it’s just that you seem to view that as inevitable so the Ukrainians are the ones being unreasonable by providing any resistance. They both are trying to accomplish strategic goals here and Ukraine didn’t decide on war just because they were “goaded”
Essentially Ukraine has agreed to become a proxy for NATO in a bid to cripple Russian power. NATO has little lose if this fails, but Ukraine's leaders are gambling the lives and livelihoods of an awful lot of people. I do wish I am wrong and they are right, but as I said elsewhere, I don't beleive Russia will stop at anything not to let that happen.
When I say I don't think it's in their best interest to do so, and that I think they are misjudging Russia's determination if they believe they can win, I'm not taking away their agency. As such, I don't believe my leaders are doing them a service when they are supplying them with weapons and military intel, and if it were in my power, I would stop this supply (all the leadership, and the vast majority of the public, in my country is almost rabidly anti-Russian and pro-NATO, so this is an extremely theoretical exercise).
In the end, I believe NATO is playing chicken with Russia, but putting Ukraine in the speeding car instead of driving it themselves. I don't think this is wise, and definitely not good for Ukraine.
If you don't invade your neighbors, you have nothing to fear from NATO.
Edit due to rate-limiting: OK, I'll amend my comment. Don't invade your neighbors or commit genocide, and you don't have anything to fear from NATO. Better?
As for Iraq and Afghanistan, NATO activated Article 5 because the US was attacked by terrorists based in Afghanistan on 9/11, but my understanding is that the coalition forces that went into Iraq were not NATO-affiliated. Is that understanding incorrect?
You have to be kidding about this. Have you ever heard of Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan?
In fact, NATO has never defended an invaded country before Ukraine - the record is all aggression.
Edit: I should mention that the aggression against Serbia was probably morally justified - what they were doing in Kosovo was truly despicable.
I’d need to see some documentation on that as, as far as I am aware, every NATO member responded to the call and did not leave NATO
The invasion of Serbia was much more morally justified, as it helped stop a genocide that Slobodan Milosevic was committing against the Islamic Albanian minority, mainly in Kosovo.
As far as NATO is concerned another party punched a member in the face and and the defensive pact responded as they had laid out in their public treaties. If other nations want to construe that as not a real attack and the defensive pact needed to take it slow and capitulate the the internal legal demands of an aggressor state, that’s a position they can take. They are however, going to be repeatedly surprised when NATO doesn’t take that stance under advisement
NATO acquiesced to the invasion because the USA was out for blood, and their closest toadies weren't about to get in the cross hairs.
Look outside the NATO sphere and very few countries actually agree with the US justification for the war.
Even if they are planning on showing the “immoral lengths” they are willing to go, all they’ve done is drive more nations into their enemies arms.
Edit: also lol did you really bring up that countries outside NATO didn’t agree with their decision making in a thread where you’re arguing that Russia had to do this invasion and everyone should have just let them?
You must be in incredible shape with how frequently you move these goalposts
1) The issue of 'NATO Aggression' vis-a-vis Russia is propaganda.
The Russians are not 'afraid of NATO' - we know this, they know we know this, we know they know we know - and yes it goes on. Notice that they now have 1000Km of 'NATO Border' with Finland, does that change the equation?
'Oh, that's fine' Putin said a few days ago.
2) That NATO Article 5 has not been used is more or less evidence that it is working.
3) Iraq War 1, which might arguably be a NATO-driven war, was utterly justified, Saddam invaded Kuwait, it was bad.
4) Intervention in Afghanistan of 'some kind' was also justified, and initially there were hardly any serious military action, it was a mess, and therefore probably a mistake, but that's very different than Soviet involvement there.
5) Iraq War 2 was an American, not NATO enterprise.
Russia's conquest of Ukraine is blatantly Imperialist, this is Putin's quest to reclaim the USSR, it's not even something he really hides.
He says 'NATO expansion' as a convenient excuse for the 'useful idiots' (that is a term coined by Stalin for this exact situation), and of course this repulsive fantasies about 'Ukrainian Nazis' all over Ukraine.
FYI - should not that Putin was behind 'both side' of the conflict of 'football hooligans with AK47's' in 2014 Donbas, using his GRU to funnel money to the supposed 'Nazi Azovs' (many of whom were even Russian) fighting against 'victim loyal Russians'.
The 'future' of Ukrainian acquiescence to Putin is evident in Belarus as an example: a laughable stooge of a corrupt bag of lard, verbally farting his way through nonsensical press conferences, while doing the bidding of Putin, repressing those around him etc..
The Ukrainians as a whole have the right to fight if the want, so long as they want we should support them, and frankly, we should likely have a material presence on the ground, just not quite up to the point of direct face offs between NATO and Russian forces.
And the same for Georgia, and whoever else.
Literally today, the Kremlin was threatening the 'End of Human Existence' if NATO continued to interfere with Russia's genocidal murder [1]. These are psychopaths with nukes, and we probably cannot afford to exist with them, something likely has to be done, or, they can be little hermits like North Korea.
The Russians don't bother to hide their real ambitions, they can do this because when asked in a public forum, they give the 'NATO' and 'Denazification' excuses willy nilly out of the other side of their mouths - because our system of information isn't competent enough to call it out for what it is contextually.
We far too often just take their words at face value. We know what their foreign policy textbooks require, and in their purview 'public communications' don't have to have any bearing whatsoever on reality, ergo, we should assume that whatever they are saying is just a constructed lie with the truth occasionally thrown in.
Read Putin's own words on how 'Ukraine is not a country or a people' and how that area of people 'naturally belongs under his power'. [2]
Russia has nothing to say about Ukraine - either from a 'security' or 'cultural' perspective - they are the antagonizing force in all of this, and have been for 20 years.
[1] https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1636688/putin-russia-uk...
NATO is a hostile military alliance to Russia - one that is far more powerful than it in every way. To claim that Russia doesn't fear NATO, or that it has no reason to, is simply absurd.
NATO has a habit of involving itself anywhere the USA has an interest. They were "justified" in intervening against Saddam in his war with Kuwait, but of course when Saudi Arabia invades Yemen, that's not our problem, and we can still sell them "defensive weapons". When a group of 20 terrorists led and financed by a Saudi noble attacks the USA, it's the country where he was staying at the time that NATO must invade, and remain in for 20 years.
Even for Iraq 2, while NATO itself wasn't involved, several NATO states were, not just the USA - even ignoring the fact that, given their overwhelming military superiority, the lines between the USA and NATO are quite blurry.
So yes, the claims that Russia is denazifying Ukraine are utter bullshit. The claims that Ukraine has no legitimacy as a nation are utter bullshit. The claims that Russia has Ukrainians', or even Russian ethnics' best interests at heart are utter bullshit.
But so are NATO's claims that it is a purely defensive alliance and that Russia has nothing to fear from them.
It's also important to note that, had territorial expansion been the biggest aim for Putin, he has much easier, and richer, neighbour's to attack. Ukraine is impossible to hold after a hostile invasion, and Putin can't be idiotic enough not to understand that he can't control a country of 50M people. Why not attack Mongolia if he really wanted more land?
And if you think it's absurd for Russia to fear NATO, hearing NATO countries like Poland and my own Romania fearing a Russian invasion is truly comical.
It is clearly absurd for Russia to fear NATO because both parties have peacemakers aka nuclear weapons. The threat of nuclear retaliation keeps both in check. Any agreement on the NATO side to not use nuclear weapons is a defacto dissolution of NATO for countries that do not have nukes.
Russia has nothing to fear because NATO is a loyal customer of fossil fuels. There is no political, cultural, economical basis for attacking Russia. Really the only argument in favour of getting rid of Russia is to get rid of an enemy with nuclear weapons and that can't be done through conventional warfare, you're going to need to slowly let the economy crumble over decades until it loses nuclear capabilities. If those things are happening right now, you should be complaining about the man in charge e.g. Putin he ran the country to the ground. At best this could mean that Putin is a NATO puppet. The more we assume that NATO is a threat to Russia the more absurd the reasoning must become. If Putin is a NATO puppet then why does he start a war against a NATO aligned country (by that I mean Ukraine wants to join NATO)? We are now running into a irreconcilable contradiction. NATO could either bait Russia into war with Ukraine to justify expanding NATO or it could bait Russia into fighting a conventional war with the expectation that Russia loses the war and then hopefully loses its nuclear capabilities from the damage caused to the economy.
The problem with imagining that NATO is a threat is that it would be winning so hard, it is unbelievable how well things have been going for NATO as if they were orchestrating the entire thing from start to finish. I don't believe in such a coincidence that is effectively a conspiracy theory.
No, it is much easier. Russia doesn't consider NATO a threat which is why they believe they can get away with openly fighting a war in Ukraine. Western countries denied the war until the last minute. If anything they were too soft and lenient, maybe even submissive towards russian interests. The German Energiewende for example was a strategy that is utterly dependent on russian natural gas to get to 80% renewable production as gas is easier to throttle than coal and more flexible and emits less CO2. Putin is inflicting a lot of pain to Europe.
>hearing NATO countries like Poland and my own Romania fearing a Russian invasion is truly comical.
What? That just means NATO isn't a threat and Putin isn't a NATO puppet. I personally think that Putin being a NATO puppet is comical.
Stopping this expansion at Ukraine, and reminding their people the immoral lengths they are willing to go to when their interests are threatened, is a major strategic goal for Russian leaders.
> By that logic wouldn’t the Russians be much better off if they had worked with the international community to avoid this war as their industrial base is crumbling around them and they are losing massive amounts of manpower?
Absolutely, and what I'm saying is not justification for this disturbing invasion. The invasion obviously puts Putin and other Russian elites' interest above those of their citizens, as can be expected from an authoritarian oligarchy.