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Let's analyse xDaunt's doctrine of Foreign Policy here and see whether, when abstracted, we can derive some general principles from them:
Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West?
Interpretation: International Agreements are as worthless as Bethmann-Hollweg's proverbial scraps of paper. Nations which bargain on the basis of good faith with other nations are deluding themselves. To paraphrase Anthony Eden about Stalin: "You can only count on his word if the answer is no." Strike one for the Budapest Memorandum.
More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors?
Interpretation: Any nation which interferes in the domestic politics of a foreign country, regardless of cultural, historical or security interests, is exercising "Imperial control", and is "an asshole."
Fortunately, xDaunt cannot hold assholery against Russia, for:
You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality.
I am wondering though whether xDaunt's meticulous defense of Putin is not overplaying the hand slightly. Obviously, Putin is seeking to justify his behaviour with an eclectic set of appeals to international standards and norms. This is obviously an unacceptable standard of weakness for xDaunt, who insists that in the global game of Power for Power's sake, such behaviour upsets the entire balance of the board.
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On March 11 2014 04:04 Alzadar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 03:57 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Gobbling up...you mean...allowing independent democratic countries to choose to join a defensive military alliance of other democracies that has kept peace on a continent generally known for bloody warfare? NATO has been officially involved in four wars by my count, none of which involved an attack on a NATO member. So while in theory it is a defensive alliance, it has not actually served that purpose. Claiming the lack of general war in Europe since WWII as a NATO achievement is ridiculous.
You're just going to ignore his (and my own) point, aren't you?
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On March 11 2014 04:04 Alzadar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 03:57 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Gobbling up...you mean...allowing independent democratic countries to choose to join a defensive military alliance of other democracies that has kept peace on a continent generally known for bloody warfare? NATO has been officially involved in four wars by my count, none of which involved an attack on a NATO member. So while in theory it is a defensive alliance, it has not actually served that purpose. Claiming the lack of general war in Europe since WWII as a NATO achievement is ridiculous. In Europe? The only wars they've been involved in Europe were interventions to stop genocide.
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On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism.
I'm sure you can tell the difference between NATO influence and Russian influence apart here, can't you?
One of them makes the country an ally and the other one a vassal.
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On March 11 2014 03:36 Ghanburighan wrote:
Doing his work to help Russia it seems.
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The land of freedom23126 Posts
On March 11 2014 04:08 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 04:04 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:57 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Gobbling up...you mean...allowing independent democratic countries to choose to join a defensive military alliance of other democracies that has kept peace on a continent generally known for bloody warfare? NATO has been officially involved in four wars by my count, none of which involved an attack on a NATO member. So while in theory it is a defensive alliance, it has not actually served that purpose. Claiming the lack of general war in Europe since WWII as a NATO achievement is ridiculous. In Europe? The only wars they've been involved in Europe were interventions to stop genocide.
Especially 1999, right, they definitely prevented the genocide.
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On March 11 2014 04:06 Ghanburighan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 04:04 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:57 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Gobbling up...you mean...allowing independent democratic countries to choose to join a defensive military alliance of other democracies that has kept peace on a continent generally known for bloody warfare? NATO has been officially involved in four wars by my count, none of which involved an attack on a NATO member. So while in theory it is a defensive alliance, it has not actually served that purpose. Claiming the lack of general war in Europe since WWII as a NATO achievement is ridiculous. You're just going to ignore his (and my own) point, aren't you?
Sorry, what did I ignore?
On March 11 2014 04:08 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 04:04 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:57 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Gobbling up...you mean...allowing independent democratic countries to choose to join a defensive military alliance of other democracies that has kept peace on a continent generally known for bloody warfare? NATO has been officially involved in four wars by my count, none of which involved an attack on a NATO member. So while in theory it is a defensive alliance, it has not actually served that purpose. Claiming the lack of general war in Europe since WWII as a NATO achievement is ridiculous. In Europe? The only wars they've been involved in Europe were interventions to stop genocide.
I didn't say NATO wars and interventions have all been bad, but by definition they have not been defensive. It's not hard to take a Russian perspective and see the NATO that, in spite of promises not to expand eastward, has done nothing but steadily creep towards the Russian border.
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On March 11 2014 03:57 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Gobbling up...you mean...allowing independent democratic countries to choose to join a defensive military alliance of other democracies that has kept peace on a continent generally known for bloody warfare?
NATO is anything but defensive alliance. It's track record has plenty of wars that were not about defense of the members.
EDIT: And we have NATO to thank for wars leaving Europe ? Quite a new historical view.
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Sad to see the thread derailed over and over again.
It's not about where NATO helped and where not. Comparing what NATO does to what russia does needs an amount of imagination normal people should not have without being worried.
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On March 11 2014 04:13 oo_Wonderful_oo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 04:08 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 04:04 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:57 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Gobbling up...you mean...allowing independent democratic countries to choose to join a defensive military alliance of other democracies that has kept peace on a continent generally known for bloody warfare? NATO has been officially involved in four wars by my count, none of which involved an attack on a NATO member. So while in theory it is a defensive alliance, it has not actually served that purpose. Claiming the lack of general war in Europe since WWII as a NATO achievement is ridiculous. In Europe? The only wars they've been involved in Europe were interventions to stop genocide. Especially 1999, right, they definitely prevented the genocide.
He did say stop and not prevent. Obviously preventing genocide would be impossible to achieve.
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I don't think NATO's promise was legally binding. It's pointless to discuss soft law from 90s.
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On March 11 2014 04:18 Sent. wrote:
I don't think NATO's promise was legally binding. It's pointless to discuss soft law from 90s.
What does "legally binding" mean in an international sense? Plenty of reputable nations flout international "laws" without consequence, with both the United States and Russia being prime examples.
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On March 11 2014 04:13 oo_Wonderful_oo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 04:08 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 04:04 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:57 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Gobbling up...you mean...allowing independent democratic countries to choose to join a defensive military alliance of other democracies that has kept peace on a continent generally known for bloody warfare? NATO has been officially involved in four wars by my count, none of which involved an attack on a NATO member. So while in theory it is a defensive alliance, it has not actually served that purpose. Claiming the lack of general war in Europe since WWII as a NATO achievement is ridiculous. In Europe? The only wars they've been involved in Europe were interventions to stop genocide. Especially 1999, right, they definitely prevented the genocide.
Lets just say that in 1999 NATO was preventing genocide just as Russia is now protecting Crimea from fascists. Imaginary.
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The land of freedom23126 Posts
On March 11 2014 04:19 Liman wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 04:13 oo_Wonderful_oo wrote:On March 11 2014 04:08 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 04:04 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:57 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Gobbling up...you mean...allowing independent democratic countries to choose to join a defensive military alliance of other democracies that has kept peace on a continent generally known for bloody warfare? NATO has been officially involved in four wars by my count, none of which involved an attack on a NATO member. So while in theory it is a defensive alliance, it has not actually served that purpose. Claiming the lack of general war in Europe since WWII as a NATO achievement is ridiculous. In Europe? The only wars they've been involved in Europe were interventions to stop genocide. Especially 1999, right, they definitely prevented the genocide. Lets just say that in 1999 NATO was preventing genocide just as Russia is now protecting Crimea from fascists. Imaginary.
Russia isn't bombing Sevastopol though.
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On March 11 2014 04:19 Liman wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 04:13 oo_Wonderful_oo wrote:On March 11 2014 04:08 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 04:04 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:57 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Gobbling up...you mean...allowing independent democratic countries to choose to join a defensive military alliance of other democracies that has kept peace on a continent generally known for bloody warfare? NATO has been officially involved in four wars by my count, none of which involved an attack on a NATO member. So while in theory it is a defensive alliance, it has not actually served that purpose. Claiming the lack of general war in Europe since WWII as a NATO achievement is ridiculous. In Europe? The only wars they've been involved in Europe were interventions to stop genocide. Especially 1999, right, they definitely prevented the genocide. Lets just say that in 1999 NATO was preventing genocide just as Russia is now protecting Crimea from fascists. Imaginary.
I think you might have to reveal a little bit of your ancestry here because your objectivity seems a little questionable at best. Comparing the Kosovo war to what is ongoing in crimeria seems a little uhhh off...
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On March 11 2014 03:58 Ghanburighan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Err, the difference is very simple. NATO has had countries join voluntarily, while Russian imperialism concerns the ambition to annex countries near it border. In fact, the reason why NATO has expansion is because countries want to protect themselves against Russian imperialism. There is no coercion from NATO (or any NATO member) to join the organization.
How many countries has Russia recently annexed ? Also for example we entered NATO even though popular will was far from clear, decided purely by politicians without the public approval.
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On March 11 2014 04:05 MoltkeWarding wrote:Let's analyse xDaunt's doctrine of Foreign Policy here and see whether, when abstracted, we can derive some general principles from them: Show nested quote +Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? Interpretation: International Agreements are as worthless as Bethmann-Hollweg's proverbial scraps of paper. Nations which bargain on the basis of good faith with other nations are deluding themselves. To paraphrase Anthony Eden about Stalin: "You can only count on his word if the answer is no." Strike one for the Budapest Memorandum. Show nested quote +More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? Interpretation: Any nation which interferes in the domestic politics of a foreign country, regardless of cultural, historical or security interests, is exercising "Imperial control", and is "an asshole." Fortunately, xDaunt cannot hold assholery against Russia, for: Show nested quote +You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. I am wondering though whether xDaunt's meticulous defense of Putin is not overplaying the hand slightly. Obviously, Putin is seeking to justify his behaviour with an eclectic set of appeals to international standards and norms. This is obviously an unacceptable standard of weakness for xDaunt, who insists that in the global game of Power for Power's sake, such behaviour upsets the entire balance of the board.
Putin is merely using the language of morality to accomplish his goals. That's not a weakness. That's solid strategy. No one in their right mind believes that Putin has any interest in actually adhering to the international standards and norms to which he appeals for his own purposes.
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On March 11 2014 04:26 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 03:58 Ghanburighan wrote:On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Err, the difference is very simple. NATO has had countries join voluntarily, while Russian imperialism concerns the ambition to annex countries near it border. In fact, the reason why NATO has expansion is because countries want to protect themselves against Russian imperialism. There is no coercion from NATO (or any NATO member) to join the organization. How many countries has Russia recently annexed ? Also for example we entered NATO even though popular will was far from clear, decided purely by politicians without the public approval.
De facto annexed as it will in Crimea (I predict Russia will not accept the referendum, just keep Crimea under de facto control), well, we get three: South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria. I'd say Crimea is already in the list as I doubt anything will dislodge Russia from where it is now.
Edit:
You're Czech, right? Well, your people elected the politicians who joined, didn't they. It's called a representative democracy for a reason. But even then, membership of NATO is vastly more popular than the alternatives. Here's a study from 2000:
Agree: 49
neither agree nor disagree: 19
disagree: 26
don’t know: 6
So, 26 percent of your people disagreed with membership in NATO, well, there were nearly twice as many who agreed.
The fact that you don't agree, doesn't mean that `the people' don't agree.
Source
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On March 11 2014 04:03 Nyxisto wrote:
Also this isn't just one country annexing some other country. This is the guy who called the fall of the soviet union the "biggest tragedy of the 20th century" who tries to invade a country which has suffered millions of deaths during the Holodomor.
Just imagine Germany being lead by someone who would call the fall of the third Reich 'the greatest tragedy of the 20th century' and then proceeds annexing a part of Poland. Would we be discussing the pro's and cons of that?
Why do people have such problem with calling fall of Soviet Union a tragedy (the "biggest" is clearly nonsense) ? I am not saying that Baltics should have been kept in Soviet Union. And possibly others. But in general dissolution of Soviet Union was a great tragedy that caused untold suffering in economic collapse that followed. I always thought that tragedies are measured by suffering they cause, but apparently if that happens to "them" it is all ok. I am sure that Putin might have had slightly different reason to call it that, but the phrase itself is not without merit.
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On March 11 2014 04:14 Alzadar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 04:06 Ghanburighan wrote:On March 11 2014 04:04 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:57 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Gobbling up...you mean...allowing independent democratic countries to choose to join a defensive military alliance of other democracies that has kept peace on a continent generally known for bloody warfare? NATO has been officially involved in four wars by my count, none of which involved an attack on a NATO member. So while in theory it is a defensive alliance, it has not actually served that purpose. Claiming the lack of general war in Europe since WWII as a NATO achievement is ridiculous. You're just going to ignore his (and my own) point, aren't you? Sorry, what did I ignore? Show nested quote +On March 11 2014 04:08 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 04:04 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:57 Sub40APM wrote:On March 11 2014 03:53 Alzadar wrote:On March 11 2014 03:03 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:55 Warfie wrote:On March 11 2014 02:40 xDaunt wrote:On March 11 2014 02:21 Banaora wrote:Maybe you would trust this site http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners . For me it's clear Russia fears the expansion of NATO into Ukraine on the long run. I don't know if this is common knowledge but the soviet union has been given garanties by the western allies in the 2+4 treaty of the German re-union that NATO will stop expanding at the German border. This was mentioned lately in a German talk show with Egon Bahr the founder of Germany's new eastern policy in the 70s. Sure you can argue legally that the soviet union does not exist anymore so all treaties with it are not binding. Well as we know NATO expanded into Poland and the Baltic States and is now planning to build a missile defense system there to prevent terrorist attacks from muslim countries (it says). I don't believe this. What Russia is doing in crimea is against international law but countries like the U.S. or Russia only care about this law when it suits them. For example see Grenada intervention by the U.S. in 1983. Please, this is a farce. Who's Russia to say who can join NATO or otherwise ally themselves with the West? More to the point, why exactly should Russia care unless they intend to be assholes and impose imperial control over their neighbors? It's not like NATO has any intention of attacking Russia. While the idea behind this way of thinking is nice enough, that's not how politics work, and probably never will. In west vs east politics the assumption is always worst case scenario it seems. Of course NATO has no intention to attack Russia we might say, but then Russia has no intention of attacking NATO countries, so let's just remove all missile defenses in positions more or less obviously intended to detect strikes from Russia early? So we can argue back and forth whether Russia should care or not, but if we want to keep in touch with reality and facts of today we can be damn sure Russia will care who joins NATO and not, and where NATO places its 'anti muslim' missile defenses - and I don't think it'll change in a very long time. You're talking to the guy who has argued that foreign policy should not be dictated by considerations of morality. Of course Russia cares who joins NATO. Russia has every intention of reestablishing dominance over its former Soviet client states. It can't do that if those client states join NATO. The root problem is that Russia won't relinquish its imperial ambitions and join the West. Russia still wants to be the asshole of the world. Thus, Russia's adversarial relationship with the West is of its own creation. So they can go fuck themselves if they're going to complain about NATO's expanding influence into their backyard. It's Russia's own fault for driving its smaller neighbors into the big wide open arms of Uncle Sam. It's pretty impressive that you are able to acknowledge that NATO has been gobbling up eastern European nations one by one while simultaneously denouncing Russian imperialism. Gobbling up...you mean...allowing independent democratic countries to choose to join a defensive military alliance of other democracies that has kept peace on a continent generally known for bloody warfare? NATO has been officially involved in four wars by my count, none of which involved an attack on a NATO member. So while in theory it is a defensive alliance, it has not actually served that purpose. Claiming the lack of general war in Europe since WWII as a NATO achievement is ridiculous. In Europe? The only wars they've been involved in Europe were interventions to stop genocide. I didn't say NATO wars and interventions have all been bad, but by definition they have not been defensive. It's not hard to take a Russian perspective and see the NATO that, in spite of promises not to expand eastward, has done nothing but steadily creep towards the Russian border.
Only if you create the false equivalency that NATO and Russia are antagonists, which of course the elite around Kremlin has
re-asserted in order to create a foreign enemy to wave in front of the common people to foster a nasty form of nationalism while forestalling dirty Western ideas like rule of law or independence of the media.
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EPT
