Of course part of the goal was to give Russian rocket scientists a more peaceful task to work on than spreading out to Iran, North Korea etc, but it was also a great chance for Russia to integrate further with the West and expand their historical prominence in space technology.
Instead, they've done everything to ensure that they never get such a deal again, and have allowed their space industry to atrophy significantly.
There's talk about how if Russia had been allowed into NATO they'd have been able to channel their energy into more constructive pursuits, but they were given an opportunity to do that for space technology and did not do so.
Absolutely false. We cannot prevent wars if we refuse to engage with reality as it is not as we wish it to be. https://twitter.com/battleforeurope/status/17000929447142730...
In any case, the full quote with the missing section emphasized in italics is:
> Then lastly on Sweden. First of all, it is historic that now Finland is member of the Alliance. And we have to remember the background. The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that.
> The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.
> So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite. He has got more NATO presence in eastern part of the Alliance and he has also seen that Finland has already joined the Alliance and Sweden will soon be a full member. Because at Vilnius Summit, we agreed a statement where it was clearly expressed how Sweden will do more, follow up the agreement we had in Madrid on fighting terrorism, and also address issues related to export of military equipment, and then Türkiye made it clear that they will ratify as soon as possible.
For those who don't see the problem with removing military infrastructure from every former satellite state that fled the USSR it's this: throwing your allies back to the wolves who hunted you is as about as morally bankrupt as it comes.
And just to really make it clear which countries Russia wanted put back to the wilds, it's Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Finland.
For anyone who is interested, the full speech is available at https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_218172.htm
We know this is true from a map the dictator of Belarus was seen in front of showing more conquest after Ukraine, specifically of Moldova. We know President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called the collapse of the Soviet empire “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” His desire for a return to the days of empire is obvious from every aggrandizing speech he makes.
His intentions have been obvious for a very long time for anyone who wants to see them.
The recent Tucker Carlson interview confirmed that Putin has an uncontrollable obsession with a made up version of history, and he gets visibly upset when his long rants about Ukrainian statehood being an anti-Russian conspiracy by the Austrian General Staff and the Pope get interrupted. Nazis running Ukraine is only a small part of that persecution complex.
Putin's speeches deserve as serious consideration as Hitler's. Until tanks started rolling, his speeches were also dismissed as rhetoric.
Fyi, EU is economic union not NATO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unified_Protector
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_71867.htm?mode=pre...
On Thursday morning at 0600 GMT, NATO took sole command of international air operations over Libya.
However, it does not change how the Russians perceived NATO expansion which matters in todays conflicts:
> "The final assurance was Clinton’s agreement (despite Russia’s brutal Chechen war and multiple domestic pressures) to come to Moscow in May 1995 for the 50th anniversary celebrations of the victory over Hitler. In Moscow, Yeltsin berated Clinton about NATO expansion, seeing “nothing but humiliation” for Russia: “For me to agree to the borders of NATO expanding towards those of Russia – that would constitute a betrayal on my part of the Russian people."
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2021...
The Russians see the developments of the early 1990s as humiliating and as the spark of the modern conflict. It became much more serious in the late 2000s under Putin but the developments of the mid-90s already set things on a rotten path regarding the relationship between the West and Russia.
Your point would have been better made without weaseling in a Mearsheimer apology for authoritarian states. Russia snatching Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with NATO's expansion. Indeed, had NATO expanded earlier, we wouldn't have found ourselves in this mess, with Ukraine left to fend for itself.
NATO grew because of the desperation of former USSR satellites to shelter themselves from their abuser.
As to the other bit here about rejecting Russian integration as a cause for war: I think that point has been proven quite wrong with Merkel's absurd fantasy that trade with Russia would bring peace.