OK, if we can dictate terms, let's tell both sides to be at peace... and while we're at it, Russia should join NATO, and let's get a side of Freedom Fries. ;-)
I understand that you are joking, but part of the problem with how people talk about this issue is that they are either not serious (you) or are imagining that this conflict is similar to things they have seen in a Marvel comic book movie (most of the rest of this thread).
I feel like that's how most people talk about most issues these days. I blame the comic book movies. Alongside a host of other innocuous looking factors that add up to the total disempowerment of the individual. The hell can any of us do, other than...?
It's exactly for those reasons. Just google Putin's speech in Munich's security conference. First, note in what year it has happened and then just listen to his speech, it isn't even long.
I will listen to it, but first tell me - are you suggesting that Russia is an autocratic oligarchy where any dissent is immediately crushed because Russia wasn't allowed into NATO? If it was in NATO, it would suddenly have fair democratic elections?
No, I'm not suggesting that at all, but oligarchy and lack of democracy mostly hurts the country in internal politics, not external. The war would just not have happened. As for how bad the oligarchy in Russia is now / would be (if it joined NATO) - it's no one's business but the Russians'.
The thing is - you might be right. Or you might be completely wrong - these discussions happened almost 30 years ago - even if Russia was allowed into NATO when it was originally planned, its descent into autocracy might have caused it to be kicked out, or it might have left on its own accord. Or it might have decided to attack Ukraine anyway, even while itself still in NATO. I wouldn't be so hasty to declare that if only Russia was let into NATO 30 years ago this war wouldn't have happened - we don't know.
I'm sorry, but that makes no sense to me. An attack has to have very strong reasons, as any attack is very costly, no oligarch would spend money for no reason.
So they would seek some gain then, right?
What could an oligarch possibly gain from starting a war with an allied neighboring country?
And why doesn't U.S. attack other NATO members now?
Surely it has (and had) as much oligarchy (if not more) as Russia has. (I hope you won't argue it doesn't? Since even something as ridiculous as the fact of having lobbying being absolutely legal - just can't coexist with the lack of oligarchs quite by nature/definition).
> And why doesn't U.S. attack other NATO members now?
They are. Commercially first. Through technology second (the dependance of the world upon US software and hardware technology is the perfect kill switch - and the scale and pace at which we are going to need to get out of it is immense now that it is intimately tied to our professional and personal lives... but we have no choice).
And they might go further if those firsts are not enough.
It is not a matter of concurrence. The European market is going to be a closed, dead market to US technology.
We in Europe would never have invested so massively to rely on USSR or post-2008 Russia software/hardware tech, for obvious reasons
But we did on USA tech, for obvious reasons too (common history and values, democracies, multiple war allies, cooperation, and... US used to be the beacon of progress and freedom), that have all been brutally thrown out.
"An attack has to have very strong reasons, as any attack is very costly, no oligarch would spend money for no reason."
So why did this current attack start? It's been 3 years and there's a dozen theories as to why exactly, there is no "strong reason" anywhere to be seen.
"What could an oligarch possibly gain from starting a war with an allied neighboring country?"
Again, why is Russia in Ukraine then? They went from being brethren to portraying Ukrainians as fascist scum that need to be exterminated. Why is that?
"And why doesn't U.S. attack other NATO members now?"
Because it has more to gain by not doing so.
Again - I really can't see how you can confidently say that if only Russia was let into NATO 30 years ago this current situation wouldn't have happened.
> So why did this current attack start? It's been 3 years and there's a dozen theories as to why exactly, there is no "strong reason" anywhere to be seen.
> Again, why is Russia in Ukraine then?
The strong reason for this attack was Russia's security concerns got ignored and stepped on by a military alliance (NATO).
The military alliance that claims Russia to be their most probable enemy and thus a military alliance AGAINST Russia.
The military alliance first broke some spoken agreement with Russian of non-expansion of said military alliance. Then did that again and again to the point where NATO wanted to advance in its expansion so much far as to the neighboring country to Russia.
This is simply not acceptable for Russia, so it had to prevent that expansion, which it did. It could only be done by force, if the other side refused to drop possibilities of joining NATO. They didn't drop them - they got invaded for demilitarization. They resist - they die. The ones who don't resist (civilians) - aren't targeted at all (however, in a war there are always casualties among civilians).
> They went from being brethren to portraying Ukrainians as fascist scum that need to be exterminated. Why is that?
Because that's what Ukrainian officials policy was towards Russian natives living on their land and daring to speak their native Russian language.
> I really can't see how you can confidently say that if only Russia was let into NATO 30 years ago this current situation wouldn't have happened.
How is that not clear? If Russia would be part of NATO - it would have 0 security concerns of NATO expanding up to its borders. If there would be no security concerns - it wouldn't start the special operation, there simply would be no reason to, as Ukraine would probably in that case be a part of NATO as well (as well as Belarus and probably Kazakhstan and some other ex-USSR *stans)! Just that simple.
> The strong reason for this attack was Russia's security concerns got ignored and stepped on by a military alliance (NATO).
If it were a simple individual somehow escalating to nation state level, I could understand them being initially forced to use deception, but not so for an entity that is already a nation state. Especially not so for a nuclear nation state!
Right before the outbreak of the full scale war (ignoring ~2014), Western intelligence services observed troops, tanks, military materiel amassing on the Russian / Ukranian border. In an attempt to dissuade Russia from invading the UK intelligence services decided to predict Russia's invasion publicly.
Russia repeatedly claimed "Nyet, nyet, no invasion, just some push-ups next to border!"
If a nuclear power were acting on existential security concerns, the last thing it would do is hide the connection to security concerns and pretend just doing some push-ups on border.
To me this invalidates this whole theory of yours and imcritic
>>This is simply not acceptable for Russia, so it had to prevent that expansion, which it did. It could only be done by force, if the other side refused to drop possibilities of joining NATO
Russia can't and shouldn't have any say in what pact or alliance a sovereign country on their border wants to join. They have no right to. And well done preventing NATO expansion - where now thanks to their actions NATO did expand right to their border. Really 4-dimensional chess play guys.
>>The ones who don't resist (civilians) - aren't targeted at all
Yes I'm sure all these bombs falling on Ukrainian hospitals are just targeting errors.
> The strong reason for this attack was Russia's security concerns got ignored and stepped on by a military alliance (NATO).
If it were a simple individual somehow escalating to nation state level, I could understand them being initially forced to use deception, but not so for an entity that is already a nation state. Especially not so for a nuclear nation state!
Right before the outbreak of the full scale war (ignoring ~2014), Western intelligence services observed troops, tanks, military materiel amassing on the Russian / Ukranian border. In an attempt to dissuade Russia from invading the UK intelligence services decided to predict Russia's invasion publicly.
Russia repeatedly claimed "Nyet, nyet, no invasion, just some push-ups next to border!"
If a nuclear power were acting on existential security concerns, the last thing it would do is hide the connection to security concerns and pretend just doing sonme push-ups on border.
To me this invalidates this whole theory of yours and imcritic
That's a convenient narrative but it overlooks the desire to prevent normalization of hostile takeovers.
Russia tried to pretend that its satellite states and NATO were similar arrangements (with the latter thus being under US control), because that would make it seem like they were on even ground.
To the extent it ends up being true, it will be due to Russia's influence (conveniently allied with others' authoritarian tendencies).
The strong reason for this attack was Russia's security concerns got ignored and stepped on by a military alliance (NATO).
NATO is a defensive pact. Putin invaded Ukraine because he wants their port, arable land, and because he wants to go down in history as "reuniting" the Russian empire. Also, Russia has wanted to exterminate the Ukrainian cultural identity, which they've tried to do since before the Soviet Union:
Putin's whining about NATO is pure bullshit propaganda. Just like his claims of Nazis in Ukraine. It's all fiction, where he writes Russia as the victim.
There are Russian nationals that live in almost all the countries all around the world. So that's not bonkers, the logic is sound.
Now what's important is when some region has mere fractures of a percent vs when its something like 25%. If your country has 25% Russians and you oppress them - I think Russia has obligation to defend them.
That's exactly what it is and I have no idea what sort of insane, convoluted logic you use to come up with any other idea.
but then it turns out that its arms can be used OUTSIDE of that block
Ohhhh, I see. You believe that defending from an invading force means that you can't attack anything beyond the border? So Russia could just build an ammunition factory right across the border and Ukraine is somehow morally bound not to attack it? Completely insane.
> A defensive pact provides weapons to a country defending itself. What is so hard to understand?
Whom was Ukraine defending by killing people in its own Donbass and Lugansk regions? Surely not the people living there, as the bullets and rockets were flying towards them from Ukrainian soldiers.
> Not to mention that actual NATO countries are afraid that Putin won't stop on Ukraine
It looks like it's better if they in fact fear that. Less wars that way. If only they stayed neutral, not anti-Russia. But no, they all wanted to provoke the bear for some reason.
Well, hear it roar now.
> Dude you need to lay off Russian propaganda for a minute. But you know what really happens? Russia forcibly issuing native Ukrainians with Russian passports to say "look these are russian citizens now, we need to defend them!" and kidnapping Ukrainian children to forcibly integrate them into Russian society. Not to mention all of the murder and rape, but that's standard fare for the Russian army.
Dude, you need to lay off Ukrainian propaganda for a minute. But you know what really happens? Russia gives money, homes and jobs to the people that voluntarily agree to relocate to it. No one is forces to. And there are lots of reports from those people being thankful to Russia and condemning Kyiv and Zelensky, because what in fact happened is that it was Kyiv that either targeted those civilians or used them as a shield (lots of videos of Ukrainian combatants taking positions right next to houses full of civilians).
How can anyone forcibly issue a passport to someone? Just try to think from time to time. Children get evacuated to safe zones. Of course the safes zones are in Russia now, but no one is held prisoner/captive - they are free to move wherever they like whenever they like. You just painted a humanitarian mission as terrorists kidnapping children. That's just disgusting.
> Yes, Azov batallions were a huge problem in Ukraine.....and they got completely eliminated and people put behind bars before the original 2014 invasion.
Lol what? Who eliminated them? Could you give a few links to the news where Ukrainian officials imprisoned any Azov combatants for their nazism and nazist swastika tattoos?
As far as I know - they were mostly killed in battles between 2014 and now by separatists and Russians. Ukraine never reprimanded any of their nazi battalions for wearing swastikas. They never prohibited their 'trezubets' (trident) SS nazi symbol of that battalion and nazi 'black sun' symbol (that is just quite common among nazis, not especially Ukrainian ones).
Please don't cross into personal attack, no matter how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Also, if you could please avoid name-calling and flamebait in your posts here, we'd appreciate it - you've been doing quite a bit of that as well, unfortunately.
>>But no, they all wanted to provoke the bear for some reason.
Maybe the bear should stay within its borders. No one provoked Russia to do anything.
>>How can anyone forcibly issue a passport to someone? Just try to think from time to time.
You deny them any services until they apply for a Russian passport as again, we know happened.
>>Russia gives money, homes and jobs to the people that voluntarily agree to relocate to it. No one is forces to. And there are lots of reports from those people being thankful to Russia and condemning Kyiv and Zelensk
You're free to gaslight yourself into believing this along with the rest of complete lunacy in your post.
>>Children get evacuated to safe zones.
If you think this is what happens you're drinking the Russian cool aid swallowing the straw along with it.
Could you please stop posting in the flamewar style like this (in addition to not posting personal attacks, as I've asked elsewhere - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43224164)?
It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
1. NATO, while being openly hostile towards Russia (you may read the current NATO's doctrine where Russia is named as the #1 probable enemy of NATO), attempted to expand to Ukraine, which is just not acceptable (to Russia) at all.
2. Russian nationals (and Russian speaking Ukrainian nationals) got oppressed in Ukraine, but that happened mostly as a result of the division of country into two parts where one was pro-Russian and the other was pro-West (EU, NATO).
I don't think the 2nd reason would even occur, since if Russia was in NATO - it would rather even seek Ukraine then joining it too. There would be no 'maidans' (coups) in Ukraine, there would be no division of the country and thus the oppression of Russian nationals (and Russian speaking Ukrainian nationals) just wouldn't have taken place then.
I think the conflicts concerning Russia then would rather shift towards Middle East (like Turkey having some beef with Russia over who supports whom in Iran, Palestine, Israel and so on) and maybe towards China/India.
> NATO, while being hostile towards Russia attempted to expand to Ukraine, which is just not acceptable at all.
That literally didn't happen. Ukraine and Georgia sought NATI membership, and in the 2008 NATO summit were (largely at Russia’s urging) rebuffed from being given Membership Action Plans; Russia immediately invaded Georgia, and Ukraine abandoned pursuit of NATO membership.
Then, in 2014, the Ukrainian people threw out the pro-Russian leadership that had come to power in the interim. Russia invaded large swathes of the country and, after that, Ukraine’s government again started seeking NATO membership.
There were no approaches by either side being made before the invasion. Pro-Russian propagandists like to pretend the 2022 escalation was the initial Russian invasion, ignoring most of the time the war has been being fought, so that they can blame the war starting on Ukraine’s response to the invasion by which Russia actually started the war.
Nobody gave the slightest fuck about Russia. Even the annexation of Crimea and the proxy war in the Donbas was mostly ignored.
There was ZERO chance of Ukraine joining NATO. Do you really think that Hungary, Germany, Slovakia..... would vote for Ukraine membership while there are still disputes in the Donbas and about Crimea?
@2) Sure, and Hitler also only saved the Sudetendeutschen.....
Putin himself said 2002 that he would have no problems with Ukraine joining NATO:
“I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision [on Ukraine joining NATO] is to be made by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.”
Considering that Trump now, all but disbanded NATO there should be no more reason for further Russian attacks, no?
But really, just read and watch Russian media, listen to their politicians. The aggressive imperial aim is very open, transparent and also accepted by the people.
It really is tiring listening to the Russian apologetics coming from other posters in this thread.
"Russia felt threatened"
No. Nobody wants to invade Russia.
The deal since the end of the cold war has been this: Russia can do whatever the hell it likes inside its own borders. Its oligarchs with Putin at the front can rob and pillage the country to their hearts content. Putin can use his loyal FSB to suppress the opposition, rig elections, and dominate the domestic media and brainwash his population to believe whatever he want them to believe. The rest of the world will do no more about this than hand out tiny wrist slaps, while holding their noses and trading with Russia. They kept their seat in the UN security council. They were invited into G7. They were treated as an equal to larger, richer, liberal, democracies.
The only reason there is war in Ukraine is because this incredibly generous deal was not enough for Putin and his ilk, they wanted more. More influence, more power, more vassals. They want to restore the mythical glory of the Russian empire, or the Soviet empire, or both. They want all the territories that Russia has ever held dominion over. Getting control over Ukraine would have given that dream a big territory, population, and economical boost.
Are you Russian top military executive or a president of Russia?
No? Then don't speak what Russia did or did not feel.
> No. Nobody wants to invade Russia.
Then don't name Russia as the most probable enemy in your militaristic charts in your military alliance that keeps on expanding beyond reasonable limits.
And don't expand your military alliance that close to Russia's borders.
> The deal since the end of the cold war has been this: Russia can do whatever the hell it likes inside its own borders.
The other side of the deal was NATO not getting any expansions packs. But oh, shoot, it just slipped and happened to expand to... how many countries since Soviet Union got dissolved? ah?
Destroying Soviet Union was not enough for the West and so it wants a piece of Russia now? If you think so - then come and die in Ukraine, you are welcome there.
“I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision [on Ukraine joining NATO] is to be made by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.”
Why should nations be beholden to verbal agreements that were never ratified by their elected officials, between parties that didn't exist any more in the case of the Warshaw pact and whose legal successor nation official stated they had no problem with it.
Thats silly.
Should NATO have never had any talks with Russia about a possible NATO membership because of that verbal agreement with the leader of the Warshaw Pact Gorbachev?
That was in 2002, when it looked like after years of cold war U.S. and Russia can finally become good allies. That was before U.S. along with a group of other (mostly NATO) countries invaded Iraq in 2003 without any mandate in U.N. and which Russia has opposed to and before the invasion of Libya in 2011, before U.S. carried out Arab Spring in 2010-2012 and before U.S. carried out colour revolutions, especially Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and... Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004.
It is not a secret at all that U.S. carried those out and then it became quite clear that U.S. installs marionette regimes here and there and one of the places was... Ukraine.
Right after all those Russo-American relations going up, up and up merely some years ago.
Russia didn't like being stabbed in the back at all.
You can't really bring non binding, non serious agreements that were never put in writing or ratified and that all parties declared no longer relevant back from the dead and feign moral outrage. That's ridiculous.
What does "legally binding" do good at all? There are no other laws other than the rule of the strength.
U.S. was strong for a long time. It did whatever it liked.
Now Russia restored some of its strength to the point it can show others that sometimes you have to listen to when a bear warns you (quite calmly and nicely first).
Many people (even Americans) claim U.S. is not a democracy. Every country has corruption to some degree. The only backing and staying power there is - is the force a country has and its willingness to use it to defend something.
Easily imaginable: every country with big enough nuclear arsenal could be viewed as a country holding the fate of the world in its hands.
But since there can be multiple such countries at the same time and since no one has stopped developing arms/tech even further - I wouldn't call it a paradox when one nuclear country feels threatened by another group of both nuclear and non-nuclear countries coming closer and closer to its borders.
The difference between a rational person and a narcissist is this: one recognizes the sufficiency of world-destroying power, the other will always demand more, regardless of the absurdity.
NATO is the "Keep Russia At Bay Club". Why on Earth do you think it would welcome Russia into it!? That's like the Neighbourhood Watch letting the local criminal gangs join.
There's a reason Sweden and Finland joined NATO recently.
