Yeah like bring invaded. Which joining NATO protects Them from.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
- Start date
Yeah like bring invaded. Which joining NATO protects Them from.
There is a problem here? You went to two different outcomes with the same answer. If joining NATO protects them from an invasion, then deciding to join doesn't lead to an invasion.
The problem is not joining NATO. They should be free to do so. But as you say the consequences of joining it becomes problematic for your neighbour because the rules say that they could position NATO weapons in your country including nuclear weapons. Why do people keep forgetting about Cuba? Why didn't the Cubans have the right to position nuclear weapons in their country?
Buddy you may want to read up a history book to see exactly what the US has done to it’s neighbouring states.
In it’s modern format it doesn’t annex states per say. It learned from the mistakes of British colonialism and instead they prop up regimes that will protect their interests. All sorts of atrocities were carried out in Latin America to protect US capital.
Russia aren’t any better. This is basically a conflict over what Russia’s global standing is in 2022. The US is open in that it’s #1 priority in foreign policy is maintaining global hegemony with Russia and China specifically named as potential competitors that must be opposed. Russia have higher ambitions which may prove disastrous for it’s neighbours. I actually doubt any major war will break out but this is essentially a pissing contest between a great power and a historical one with Ukraine caught in the middle.
I agree that the problem is not joining NATO per se. And I also agree with the rest of your post, as a french my position is predetermined as it is for most of us, I'm on the side Russia isn't because in case of conflict that's where I would end up. But we need to acknowledge that we are on a side that is openly hostile to Russia, that is generally aggressive everywhere and that no one with an ounce of sense would like to have the likes of NATO/US increasing its presence at their borders when they are not allies.
If both sides weren't assholes they would have agreed to leave Ukraine out of it and make them a no go for everyone. Instead NATO/US wants to provoke Russia and Russia wants to provoke NATO while Ukrainians are worried about what may happen to them regardless of the decision they take.
If NATO states wanted to help defend Ukraine from invasion there's nothing stopping them. They don't want to because the consequences are not worth it to them nor would they let Ukraine join NATO any time soon.
Ukraine has a long way to go before they'd be accepted into NATO.
They don't decide it.
They have an opinion which is the correct one as it happens and the reason they are entitled to that opinion is that through NATO they fund the protection of Europe. Weakening that alliance is dangerous and what is happening in Ukraine shows that the US is right about the strategic cost of Nordstream2. It isn't the US's fault that Germany is dismantling its nuclear energy apparatus or that Germany decided to trust its economy on Russian gas on the promise that Russia would never blackmail Germany with cutting supplies the way they did in Ukraine. These are Germany's choices which have led them to this point.
I think we can now all see the consequences of that very poor thinking.
Germany can't fudge the issue if push comes to shove. Will they sell out Ukraine which the EU/Germany was at the forefront of building a new relationship with. If so, be warned Poland and NATO will have to factor in German weakness in the future. Or will they pay the economic price of their democratic principles and deny Russian pressure? In which case their economy will suffer far worse than it otherwise had to.
Germany dug it's own grave here, don't blame the US, it warned Europe over and over again about this exact predicament.
I might be mistaken but I thought earlier in this crisis that the German leadership had stated it would not use Nordstream2 if Russia attacked and this is what Biden is restating or am I wrong on that?
For historical reasons (Stalin's 1932 famine, WW2, and the off-and-on Russian identity of the USSR) many of the ex-Soviet migrants to the west are not exactly hostile to the Nazis, and this means, for example, monuments to brutal SS divisions in Canada, or the West and Israel arming Neo-Nazis as the best bulwark against Russia.
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/canada-nazi-monuments-antisemitism/
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...top-arming-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-1.6248727
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/far-ri...about-canadian-training-report-says-1.5631304
I'd rather an EU/Ukraine/Russia trilateral resolution than anything involving NATO. In fact, NATO should be allowed to die.
With the contextual deficit that Germany/France/Ukraine are trying to weaken the rhetoric of inevitability and the US is trying to push it at every turn. And that the Chancellor was handling it diplomatically whilst the President made him look like a vassal/client leader. It's the first question fielded which Biden usurps.
Biden: (Usurping the first question, knowing the Chancellor wants to sidestep the issue) I promise that it will not happen, we won't allow it.
Journalist: How will you be able to do that, when the project is under German control?
Biden: Uh.... I promise.. we'll be able to do that.
Directly on topic, I think the threat of war is over. Ukraine needs to come to some kind of agreement with Russia and that's about as good as it's going to get.
Last edited:
And that's not even considering the impact of what China might well do against Taiwan when both situations share several parallels.
No disrespect to you or @Mciahel Goodman , but that was a hard sale to Czechoslovakia in 1938. It only emboldened Hitler to attack Poland on the following year. What we are witnessing with Russia vs. Ukraine now could be comparable to what if (a hypothetical scenario, don't flame me) the UK looked to find the perfect excuse to take back some form of strong control over all of Ireland decades after losing most of it in 1922.
It's almost comical considering how the US had no problem in supplying Israel with top notch military hardware to resist potential invasions during the Cold War and beyond. Mind you, most Arab neighbors were also supplied with state of the art Soviet hardware during the Israel-Arab wars.
Last edited:
Much of the British Empire was based on forms of indirect rule, not annexation (e.g. in the Persian Gulf and Indian Princely States).
I'm sure Putin would love this, as it would allow him to continue peeling off individual European countries on an as needed basis with no threat of collective security or legal framework justifying US involvement in stopping him. That's really what his interest in degrading or ending NATO is all about.
To an extent, I agree, but when NATO is as it is, I'd take my chances with the EU negotiating and acting instead of NATO. If NATO were actually above board and on the level, I would support it. I would even support Ukraine's entry into it. But it isn't. And Russia bullying the EU is limited entirely to energy. Land invasions are dead in this day and age which is why Russia is hesitating over Ukraine. It would be a disaster for them and they know it. And the reason NATO is pulling its troops out is because it doesn't want to be in a position of direct conflict with Russia (ever) on Russia's border. I see this as NATO using Ukraine to test Russia and Russia doing much the same but limited to its border. It doesn't want what it already has. Comparisons to Hitler/Chamberlain are overdone imo even though political leaders have been trying to draw them.
Did you sleep through the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions?
Neither was a functional state with a functional army and each was a military disaster leading to civil war and an uncontrollable ground situation. They were the last salvos of the large scale American foreign ground war apparatus. Now they prefer to use drones and fund internal militias (the latter is exactly what they're doing in Ukraine).
And people wonder why Russia isn't comfortable having the US and NATO at their borders.
Unfortunately, the EU is feckless since it doesn't have the power of the US or UK behind it, and with that the collective security might required to deal with Putin, who is neither an honest broker, nor does he have any intention of honoring any agreements. He simply uses the perception of diplomacy to legitimize his coercive and predatory behavior.
Also, Russian bullying of the EU isn't just limited to energy because he's simply using energy as a way to influence European countries to advance his political goals, the biggest of which is to destabilize Democracy so that it never reaches Russia, and also thwarting or completely getting rid of NATO so he can invade at will with no threat of a collective security response. Not that it should require a reminder, but the problem is Putin. If he didn't exist the need for NATO would gradually diminish over time because there would be no authoritarian Soviet/Russian state attempting to expand its sphere of influence.
This has been going on not just in Europe, but North American and beyond.
This is a recent snapshot of election interference, cyber attacks, and disinformation campaigns launched in recent years. The problem isn't the rest of the world, its one man and his megalomaniacal vision of expanding his authoritarian sphere of influence.
I reckon, once Russia goes in, China will move on Taiwan as soon as possible, whilst eyes are distracted.
You forgot spelling. That's a problem too.
“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
Unless the typo is amusing I don't want to be the one pointing the finger at it.
“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
Unless the typo is amusing I don't want to be the one pointing the finger at it.
Amen
It would definitely set the precedent for China to follow.
I don't disagree with that (or the graphic) but my frame of reference for it all is this:Unfortunately, the EU is feckless since it doesn't have the power of the US or UK behind it, and with that the collective security might required to deal with Putin, who is neither an honest broker, nor does he have any intention of honoring any agreements. He simply uses the perception of diplomacy to legitimize his coercive and predatory behavior.
Also, Russian bullying of the EU isn't just limited to energy because he's simply using energy as a way to influence European countries to advance his political goals, the biggest of which is to destabilize Democracy so that it never reaches Russia, and also thwarting or completely getting rid of NATO so he can invade at will with no threat of a collective security response. Not that it should require a reminder, but the problem is Putin. If he didn't exist the need for NATO would gradually diminish over time because there would be no authoritarian Soviet/Russian state attempting to expand its sphere of influence.
This has been going on not just in Europe, but North American and beyond.
This is a recent snapshot of election interference, cyber attacks, and disinformation campaigns launched in recent years. The problem isn't the rest of the world, its one man and his megalomaniacal vision of expanding his authoritarian sphere of influence.
From Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention
None of this is new, which doesn't make it OK, but why is it being treated as novel? Or a "them" problem when we do it and have done it for many years. The US/Israeli cyber attacks on Iran, which you might agree with, are the counterpoint here too. Many other examples. And what is electoral interference, really? When it's limited to propaganda, it only means some people are influenced by an argument with which they agree. That doesn't nullify the argument either when the US does it or when Russia does it (2016).
But, yes, the EU is feckless and should change this. It still retains French nuclear capacity and the largest or second largest economic bloc on earth. I'm quite certain that the US has long wanted to break the EU up (the right wing in the UK, too) so there even seems an area of overlap with Russia to an extent.
So we're now at a situation where every morning when you open the news, you're anticipating a war headline?
If you were Ukraine what would you do?
Say bye to Nato and come under more Russian influence
Tell Russia to feck off and then get taken over
Say bye to Nato and come under more Russian influence
Tell Russia to feck off and then get taken over
If the choice was between Democracy and going back to a corrupt, authoritarian dictatorship, I would imagine they would choose the former, especially given that many probably remember what it was like pre-democracy.
If you keeping saying you’re definitely definitely not going to invade, and then you do, you’re the baddies.
im not sure what putin believe his legacy will be in all of this but humans are much less sympathetic to wars. He’s going to end up in The Hague and then at the end of a rope.
im not sure what putin believe his legacy will be in all of this but humans are much less sympathetic to wars. He’s going to end up in The Hague and then at the end of a rope.
Therein lies the problem. Putin only respects power and the EU doesn't have any since EU states are mostly also NATO members and want the US (and UK) on board when dealing with Putin's antics.
There's also this naive and misguided view that continues to linger that Putin is an honest broker who can be reigned in through negotiations, when he's clearly not, which means you need more power and tools at your disposal when dealing with him to affect his behavior.
Last edited:
Maybe, but the American and British states have been funding right wing and "far right" parties in Europe for at least eight years. The same thing Putin is accused of doing.
I don't think Putin is an honest broker. There's likely nothing honest about him. But he is a rational broker.
Tough question.
Try to find a mechanism to force the west to give me proper weapons. Try to get a couple of quiet Electric Subs or better still the Israeli ROV drones. Put those weapons on display and keep briefing about how I will rain hellfire on any invaders, and flood social media will imagery of coffins coming home in stacks to Moscow. Target every Russian language forum with this propoganda and how I intend to jam their war so far up their ass, that by the time they conquer their 'beauty' they will be nothing but a hollow husk. Evoke thoughts of Afghanistan, and every suffering their people have gone through. Place my SAM's in urban areas and fortify the cities with booby traps. Do the same for the railroads.
Make sure they know the war will be beamed worldwide, everywhere.
Probably a coupla months too late for that though. Half of the problem here seems to be, Zelensky is a little bitch.
Who believes that Putin is an honest broker? The problem is more that you and others don't want to accept that the US and their allies aren't honest brokers either. To be honest I wonder what people that are not american, European or Russian think about the situation.
You don't have to do any of this. The Russian military apparatus is enormous. If a war happens, and it is going shit, as you would expect, it isn't from online trolls or the West that Putin will face threats, but from the army and its hierarchy.
If you don't believe the guy is going to adhere to agreements then that undercuts the legitimacy of attempting to negotiate with him and believing anything negotiated will be honored. When his position is "Don't join NATO or else I will invade you" then there's little room for negotiations to take place, and even less inclination to believe he would follow through in honoring his commitments.
Russia, China, N.Korea vs Nato, American and UK.
I know where I'm moving to.
I know where I'm moving to.
Get nukes.
Or join a collective security bloc.
I don't believe the other side either. Truth be told, both sides are cunniving and neither will promote actual peace long term because NATO nations made a business vilifying Russia while Russia made a business vilifying NATO. We may all focus our attention on China or Iran for a while but we will be back at it whether Ukraine joins NATO or not.
Well said
Probably more associative with white supremacy for the two mentioned groups than anti-semitism. The swastika, SS, etc. plays a large part in the idolatry of WSists.