Not to mention that Russia has had a land border with NATO since 1948.
NATO is absolutely zero threat to Russia, and Russia knows it. Finland joined and Russia shrugged, and has since even removed many troops from that border because it knows NATO will not attack.
What matters is the national security interests of Ukraine.
Russia is a massive threat to the national security interests of Ukraine, and Ukraine really wants to join NATO to be safe from Russia. Russia knew that if it wanted to invade and conquer Ukraine, a souvereign country, it would have to do soon because it would not be possible anymore after Ukraine joined NATO.
Russian security interests, fuck off. Neither Ukraine nor NATO is a threat to Russia.
Ukraine's security interests, those are very obviously threatened.
They've removed them because they need to avoid any possibility of a provocation. The merest hint of a wrongful look at Finland will not go well for them.
We’re talking about the US here, not Ukraine.
Yes, if you are a third-party citizen and observe a woman as well as a group of men who you suspect to be absolutely predatory scumbags, you can make predictions about what might happen.
Yes, if you are a third-party citizen and observe ...
This is just spin and narrative to suggest that the war isn't really Putin's fault.
Mhm.
The whole topic here is about how America could/couldn’t have anticipated the invasion. The very comment that you replied to says “The Pentagon should have”… that’s not Ukraine.
Not my problem that you are off-topic.
The topic here, at least where it started to veer way off course from the original thread, is the essentially pro-Kremlin narrative in the GGGP comment and its GP ("The proxy war started in 2014 with Euromaidan"). In this context - US calculations as such are a red herring. What matters here is the clear (and basically rather crass) implication in these comments of core Western responsibility for Russia's military actions.
Which implication your words definitely seemed to be (if obliquely) echoing and supporting. Or at least playing footsie with, for some reason known only to you.
I’ll note that you can’t even accuse me of doing anything even remotely concrete. “Seemed to.” “If obliquely.” “Playing footsie.” All just accusations of association. Not a leg to stand on at all.
Take your control round over who is batting for the correct team elsewhere.
> US calculations as such are a red herring.
Then just say that. My God. No one cares.
Probably because you're throwing up such an ink cloud that it's difficult to see what point you're trying to make. Let along for which "team".
> The Pentagon should have recognized that the Eastern expansion of NATO
This is your mock-quote:
> "The so-called victim must have realized that going out dressed like that
Clearly you are mocking this statement on what the Pentagon “should have realized”.
Then I come along and point out that the mock-quote doesn’t apply since The Pentagon is not the victim in this war.
It’s not my fault that you want to find my spooky ulterior motives.
What matters as far as planning is concerned is analyzing likely outcomes given your own actions. We can for the sake of the argument just take as a given that the Russian government is bloodthirsty and expansionist and wants Ukraine.
Event: Euromaidan
Likely long-term outcomes: ?
There’s not more to it than that. No need to moralize over who did what or who is culpable. This is all about one entity (America) analyzing likely outcomes given a series of events.
No, actually. I do not think it should have been taken for granted that Russia would be stupid enough to do this invasion.
The fact that they were willing to make such insane strategic bludders is a bit of a surprise.
Should have been: given any kind of event.
Considering Us behavior when the Soviet Union installed assets on Cuba, there isn’t a whole lot of ethical ground to be found here. Just Great Power politicians playing stupid games with innocent lives.
If the US had put nukes in Ukraine and pointed them at Russia, and did so before the Crimean invasion, your comparison might be more fair.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-protest_laws_in_Ukraine
No one in Ukraine believes this narrative. Why do you?
None of this is true, what happened in reality and not in the fever dreams of FSB, GRU and SVR agents is that there where protests when Yanukovych went back on a number of election promises and started aligning himself with Russia instead of joining the EU Like he promised he would.
After that happened he was removed from his seat of power by the parliament and he fled back to his handlers in Russia.