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dominoeffect posted:Putin wanted to join NATO in the early 2000s. IIRC he asked Bush and other western leaders what needs to be done to join NATO and was ignored on multiple occasions. I believe this was the turning point for Putin where he realized he wasn't being welcomed into the western world. All evindence of the last 20 years point that Putin might not have been a good faith actor. Like not ever. West might have done things differently, but strongman Putin was always going to be strongman.
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Feb 23, 2022 08:42
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Conspiratiorist posted:It's also American exceptionalism to assume everyone pointing towards Western culpability in engendering the conditions that allowed Bad Guys to get into power to be self-flagellating Americans. American exceptionalsm isn't confined to Americans. Also, the guy I responded to literally said he was an American, and was talking about Americans... DeadlyMuffin fucked around with this message at 08:46 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 08:43
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MikeC posted:Included in everything except for the most powerful alliance in human history that continues to expand towards the Russian border. As Putin rhetorically asks, who exactly is this alliance supposed to be in opposition of? Russia in the past 30 years has been robbed of the strategic depth that it has enjoyed since Catharine the Great partitioned Poland with Prussia in the 1760s. That strategic depth is what allowed it to survive 2 existential wars with Napoleon and Hitler. If Ukraine was allowed to join NATO, it would bring it right up to what would be the 1942 frontline with the Nazis sans the area controlled by Belarus, and US nuclear forces could potentially base themselves as close to Moscow as Cuba was to Washington. This frontline took 6 months of campaigning and a million Axis dead to reach and the space in between was what arguably saved Russia front total defeat. I don't entirely disagree about NATO--it could possibly have been better managed, but it's also hard to see how Russia has an innate right to dominate and control its neighbors in the interests of its own security, much less countries in the Balkans, which don't border Russia at all. Sir John Falstaff fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 08:46
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dominoeffect posted:I’m not saying that the west was or is the problem, but I personally think the west and the US could have done more after the collapse of the Soviet Union. That also seems to be the modern hindsight view of people involved in the process at the time. We can always do more. You can point to any country with bad governance or a poor standard of living and at some point there was opportunity to invest in its institutions or people and today things would be less bad. Ultimately nation states are mainly concerned with internal politics and not the well-being of other nations so it's not obvious there would have been the political will or popular support to do more. It doesn't seem like economic collapse in other nations are generally of particular interest to electorates so we probably shouldn't expect that to change.
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Feb 23, 2022 08:46
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If NATO didnt exist do you think Putin would be more or less aggressive? Also its not 1812 anymore, Russia has the worlds second largest military and the second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. Fears of invasion are a joke.
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Feb 23, 2022 08:54
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defense in depth, buffer states, and all other conventional military concerns mean nothing to a great power in the age of the nuclear triad. concerns like the us stationing anti-icbm batteries in poland, or the lapse of the inf treaty, or the new arms race involving hypersonic weaponry, have real implications for the balance of power and existential security. for some reason none of these real issues seem to be a focus in negotiations if nato started rolling armored divisions across the russian border it doesn't matter one bit whether they have enough depth to allow general winter to join the battle, because every military formation and most population centers around the world would be nuclear ash 15 minutes after first contact imperialist powers often put forward bullshit justifications for why their actions are righteous self-defense. very few on this forum would humor the merits of domino theory or the monroe doctrine, why should spheres of influence be any different
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Feb 23, 2022 08:57
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Putin is so terrified of the encroaching NATO behemoth that he keeps starting provocative wars right on top of its borders and never faces any consequences beyond a strongly worded letter.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:02
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Despera posted:If NATO didnt exist do you think Putin would be more or less aggressive? Also its not 1812 anymore, Russia has the worlds second largest military and the second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. Fears of invasion are a joke. Yeah, if they would just stop being aggressive dicks, nobody would pay them the slightest regard. But perhaps their reason for being aggressive dicks is that otherwise the people would notice that the entire ruling class are shamelessly robbing the people with both hands.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:05
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The justification Putin has given is the Ukraine is not a state and it cannot govern itself. Maybe he actually believes this poo poo maybe not but the "they didnt let us join NATO" 20 years ago is just one of Russia's perpetual victimhoods.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:06
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MikeC posted:Included in everything except for the most powerful alliance in human history that continues to expand towards the Russian border. As Putin rhetorically asks, who exactly is this alliance supposed to be in opposition of? Russia in the past 30 years has been robbed of the strategic depth that it has enjoyed since Catharine the Great partitioned Poland with Prussia in the 1760s. That strategic depth is what allowed it to survive 2 existential wars with Napoleon and Hitler. If Ukraine was allowed to join NATO, it would bring it right up to what would be the 1942 frontline with the Nazis sans the area controlled by Belarus, and US nuclear forces could potentially base themselves as close to Moscow as Cuba was to Washington. This frontline took 6 months of campaigning and a million Axis dead to reach and the space in between was what arguably saved Russia front total defeat. Man, you'd have a fuckin point if NATO was interested in doing tanks-based diplomacy and Russia didn't have nukes, but alas. Ukraine is paying the price because Russia is acting like an abusive ex-husband. I'll Also notice that neither in 2014 or now was Ukraine anywhere close to getting NATO membership, waht was being talked about was EU stuff, which should tell you a lot.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:11
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MikeC posted:Included in everything except for the most powerful alliance in human history that continues to expand towards the Russian border. As Putin rhetorically asks, who exactly is this alliance supposed to be in opposition of? Russia in the past 30 years has been robbed of the strategic depth that it has enjoyed since Catharine the Great partitioned Poland with Prussia in the 1760s. That strategic depth is what allowed it to survive 2 existential wars with Napoleon and Hitler. If Ukraine was allowed to join NATO, it would bring it right up to what would be the 1942 frontline with the Nazis sans the area controlled by Belarus, and US nuclear forces could potentially base themselves as close to Moscow as Cuba was to Washington. This frontline took 6 months of campaigning and a million Axis dead to reach and the space in between was what arguably saved Russia front total defeat. It's not about NATO. It's about the fact that a prosperous and liberal Ukraine constitutes a direct threat to Putin's power because the average russian will start to question why they cannot have what the ukrainians are having. Putin knows well that NATO isn't an aggressive threat towards Russia. He pretends that he doesn't, but he's far, far more afraid of neighboring states with a highly similar population experiencing the prosperity he and his cronies are denying the russian people. By buying into the NATO narrative, you're letting yourself be manipulated by russian propaganda.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:15
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You know why NATO is the most powerful alliance in human history? Because people remember what having Moscow dictate their lives was like in the past and that threat hasn't gone away.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:17
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Despera posted:You know why NATO is the most powerful alliance in human history? Because people remember what having Moscow dictate their lives was like in the past and that threat hasn't gone away. only three nato members are former soviet states im sure everyone in western europe remembers moscow dictating their lives
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Feb 23, 2022 09:27
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TipTow posted:I can't see why they'd be happy about it, other than as a probe for a potential Western response to an attempt to reclaim Taiwan. It seems probable that this will cause economic and possibly even some political instability in Russia in the short- to medium term, and they already have one shaky regime with a bad relationship with the West and nukes on their border. Ukraine is also world's fifth largest wheat producer and over a third of their wheat exports go to China.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:28
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Jst0rm posted:did we give them any aa missles?
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Feb 23, 2022 09:30
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Varinn posted:only three nato members are former soviet states How many countries are there between Russia and Western Europe?
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Feb 23, 2022 09:31
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It's the West's fault that Russia's sociopolitical structure directly before the collapse of the Soviet Union directly led to super-rich oligarchs taking over thus ending up a pariah state, and should've taken greater steps to integrate them into the alliance designed to deter Russia's expansionist policies. But hands off on this border dispute, American Empire!
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Feb 23, 2022 09:32
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Conspiratiorist posted:https://mobile.twitter.com/RALee85/status/1496341039849914370 I was wondering if the reason Putin had brought a sizable but still inadequate force into Ukraine was to avoid pulling internal security troops away from oppressing Russians but I guess here we go anyway.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:33
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Despera posted:You know why NATO is the most powerful alliance in human history? Because people remember what having Moscow dictate their lives was like in the past and that threat hasn't gone away. Pretty much. The NATO hasn't started denying Russia their 'strategic depth', the strategic depth has decided that they like being independent more than being a russian puppet and the easiest path to escape the russian sphere of influence was joining a more powerful alliance.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:34
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Varinn posted:only three nato members are former soviet states Dwesa fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 09:34
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:defense in depth, buffer states, and all other conventional military concerns mean nothing to a great power in the age of the nuclear triad. concerns like the us stationing anti-icbm batteries in poland, or the lapse of the inf treaty, or the new arms race involving hypersonic weaponry, have real implications for the balance of power and existential security. for some reason none of these real issues seem to be a focus in negotiations In this forum? Because they see the US as the problem in any context. In the US political conversation generally, America First autocrat-fanciers want to side with the autocrat and believe the propaganda. yronic heroism fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 09:36
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Varinn posted:only three nato members are former soviet states This is a staggering level of ignorance of even the most elementary immediate history. Have you never heard of the Eastern bloc?
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Feb 23, 2022 09:39
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Varinn posted:only three nato members are former soviet states germany/poland/estonia/latvia/slovakia/romania off the top of my head.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:40
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Wuxi posted:Pretty much. The NATO hasn't started denying Russia their 'strategic depth', the strategic depth has decided that they like being independent more than being a russian puppet and the easiest path to escape the russian sphere of influence was joining a more powerful alliance. Man if you are any prospective nuclear power anywhere the least bit unfriendly in the world, this whole saga has put the final nails in the coffin of denuclearization, and [adopting an extremely forums user voice] not even by the US. yronic heroism fucked around with this message at 10:08 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 09:41
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Dwesa posted:6 and 1/2 of 7th were in Warsaw Pact I know that you are correct but in today's world it's 8 really. Because Czechoslovakia split into two countries. And we (Czechs) still remember our Soviet overlords. Unfortunately there are still few (older) people who remember them fondly and would welcome them.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:41
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Despera posted:germany/poland/estonia/latvia/slovakia/romania off the top of my head. Lithuania, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:43
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Dwesa posted:6 and 1/2 of 7th were in Warsaw Pact And at least 2 of them had some bad run-ins with the Soviet Union while being part of the Warsaw Pact, too.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:45
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A point that's often ignored is that after the Soviet collapse, Russia refused any serious reconciliation attempts with the victims of Soviet occupation in eastern Europe. It arrogantly passed on the chance to establish trust that may have made NATO expansion less likely. Compare that to Germany reconciling with Poland after WW2. If you can re-establish trust after what the Germans did to Poland I guess it's always possible, if there is a serious will to do it.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:46
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The striking fact is not NATO expansion, it is that not a single state that transitioned to democracy chose to remain aligned to Russia.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:47
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:defense in depth, buffer states, and all other conventional military concerns mean nothing to a great power in the age of the nuclear triad. concerns like the us stationing anti-icbm batteries in poland, or the lapse of the inf treaty, or the new arms race involving hypersonic weaponry, have real implications for the balance of power and existential security. for some reason none of these real issues seem to be a focus in negotiations You know, I'm genuinely not sure what's more psychopathic: the practice of creating vassalized buffer/encirclement states, or the prospect of wholesale removal of the escalatory chain between conflict and mutually assured nuclear destruction. yronic heroism posted:Man if you are any prospective nuclear power anywhere the least bit unfriendly in the world, this whole saga has put the final nails in the coffin of denuclearization, and not even by the US. We're actually witnessing the collapse of the illusion of the rules-based international order, that by my reckoning started crumbling with the French-motivated intervention in Libya. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 09:47
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Varinn posted:only three nato members are former soviet states Did the fifty years of Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe and the Warsaw Pact just not occur to you when you wrote this? What about Hungary in 1956? Czechoslovakia in 1968? The Berlin Airlift? Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 09:52 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 09:50
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Young Freud posted:And at least 2 of them had some bad run-ins with the Soviet Union while being part of the Warsaw Pact, too. Warsaw Pact a military alliance that excelled in fighting its own members
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Feb 23, 2022 09:51
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aba posted:I know that you are correct but in today's world it's 8 really. Because Czechoslovakia split into two countries. And we (Czechs) still remember our Soviet overlords. Unfortunately there are still few (older) people who remember them fondly and would welcome them. And yeah, counting only ex-Soviet Union states is simply a sign of ignorance, there were "advisors" from Moscow that dictated the will of Moscow to their vassals and no WP country was allowed to leave or change its political course Sadly, even Putin's regime is quite popular among some people, it's not limited to older people that venerate USSR
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Feb 23, 2022 09:53
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yronic heroism posted:Man if you are any prospective nuclear power anywhere the least bit unfriendly in the world, this whole saga has put the final nails in the coffin of denuclearization, and not even by the US. Outside of the immediate impact the war will have on Ukraine, Russia proving that giving up your nukes for concessions is pointless is the biggest downer of this. I hope Russia gets a nose so bloody that smaller states realize that they don't need nukes to deter aggression. Or maybe the international pressure will amount to something. I doubt it will, but I hope it does something.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:53
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Conspiratiorist posted:You know, I'm genuinely not sure what's more psychopathic: the practice of creating vassalized buffer/encirclement states, or the prospect of wholesale removal of the escalatory chain between conflict and mutually assured nuclear destruction. There is something to be said for the idea that MAD should be seen as both the first and final escalation of a conflict between nuclear powers. If you have a theory that you can keep the conflict limited and "win", it makes conflict more likely while not guaranteeing the nuclear escalation won't happen anyway, regardless of the predicted model that justified starting the supposed limited conflict.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:55
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Dwesa posted:I counted 6 NATO/ex-WP states (Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria) and half of Germany Albania is the 7th, for a certain value of ex-WP.
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Feb 23, 2022 09:59
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It's one little historical curiosity to wonder if the Warsaw Pact would actually fight if WWIII started. Would the Red Army keep enough control over the populace to force them to fight NATO?
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Feb 23, 2022 09:59
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Despera posted:It's one little historical curiosity to wonder if the Warsaw Pact would actually fight if WWIII started. Would the Red Army keep enough control over the populace to force them to fight NATO? this is getting a little Clancy
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Feb 23, 2022 10:05
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Despera posted:It's one little historical curiosity to wonder if the Warsaw Pact would actually fight if WWIII started. Would the Red Army keep enough control over the populace to force them to fight NATO? My geography teacher was a former Colonel in the communist army, he served with rapid deployment units that would have been first on the frontlines, before even the Soviets. He always said that the Warsaw pact armies were never much more than ablative armour to eat the brunt of the NATO response and let the Soviets get to their positions with fewer losses; and that the population of the vassal States was never part of the equation. If the armies did their job (to die in nuclear fire), the will of the non military population would be of no consequence. Nonetheless, despite being entirely Cognizant of his role as a forlorn hope unit in the case of a war, he said he was ready to follow orders.
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Feb 23, 2022 10:05
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Despera posted:It's one little historical curiosity to wonder if the Warsaw Pact would actually fight if WWIII started. Would the Red Army keep enough control over the populace to force them to fight NATO? One wonders which computer game it would most resemble, Microprose's F-19 Stealth Fighter or Fallout.
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Feb 23, 2022 10:10
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