whiterock said:
Sam Lowry said:
whiterock said:
Sam Lowry said:
whiterock said:
Sam Lowry said:
whiterock said:
Bear8084 said:
Sam Lowry said:
This is exactly the point -- we're not just trying to deny Russia control of Ukraine. We are trying to control it.
NATO's defeat will be bad for the US in many ways, but at least it will dispel this miasma of lies that the West has generated around Ukraine. For that we can all be grateful.
Words, not armies, start wars.
It's always Nato's fault when Russia acts badly.
A Ukrainian defeat is bad, but Ukrainian surrender to Russia without a fight is good.
Ukraine defending itself is destabilizing; Russia invading and destroying Ukraine block by block is good.
Europe is safer when Russian armies are stationed in Lviv rather than Rostov.
Europe is safer when Russian navies are stationed in Sebastopol rather than Novorossiysk.
And in Whiterock's world:
NATO is in mortal jeopardy without a Ukrainian buffer zone.
Therefore NATO must eliminate the buffer zone by absorbing Ukraine.
Strawman all day, every day, fortified with recto-cranial inversion.
Nato is not in mortal jeopardy over Russian control of Ukraine; Nato is in greater jeopardy than it would be with an independent Ukraine. No sensible power would stand by and let that happen without a response. The response Nato has taken has been overly cautious.
Nato did not invade Ukraine to absorb it.
Nato did not invite Ukraine to join before Russia invaded.
Ukraine had not even applied for membership before Russia invaded.
Ukraine does not have the votes to join Nato.
because Ukraine does not qualify for membership in Nato = territorial disputes.
Russia knows this. All it has to do is hold on to Donbas and Ukraine cannot join Nato (unless Ukraine gives up its claims to the region).
Russian invasion of Ukraine eliminated a buffer zone which was in no danger of being eliminated from the West.
Russia caused this crisis, not Nato......
Ukraine was already a gun pointed at Russia. Maybe the trigger hadn't been pulled, but we'd made our intentions clear.
You're right about one thing, though. No sensible power would have stood by and let it happen.
If one is convinced Ukraine could never under any circumstances defeat Russia (a centerpiece of the isolationist argument against support for Ukraine), how could one simultaneously make the case that Ukraine was a "gun pointed at Russia?"
Nato refusal to promise not to admit Ukraine is not "a gun pointed at Russia." Ukraine joining the EU was not a gun pointed at Russia. Generally speaking, it's sound policy to publicly take options off the table in foreign relations. Make everyone account for every potentiality. But in this specific case, Ukraine, Russian seizure of Crimea checkmated Nato membership for Ukraine, as it was a fairly obvious case of territorial dispute ergo a bar to Ukrainian membership. Ukraine would never have had the votes to enter. Probably still doesn't. Russia knows that full well.
Notably, Russia has never promised not to "admit" Ukraine back into Russian alliance or polity, nor to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine in any way. Quite the opposite on the latter.
No sensible power will stand by and allow its primary adversary to advance armies 500mi into the buffer zone without taking some kind of action.
Obviously Russia has promised to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine. That's what the Budapest Memorandum was all about.
News flash: Russia invaded Ukraine, and has subsequently annexed sovereign territory of Ukraine.
The answer to your question is in your last paragraph. No sensible power will stand by and allow its primary adversary (in this case the United States) to advance armies 500 miles into the buffer zone without taking some kind of action. It was the United States that was determined to undo Ukraine's policy of neutrality.
Uh, no. Nato did admit former WP countries, but did not advance armies into them. STILL has not done so. Your inference that such would happen in Ukraine is nonsense.
We hand-picked their government officials and indoctrinated them with anti-Russian propaganda.
There were elections, buddy.
We reserved the right to place nuclear-capable missiles there.
uh, we refused to say what we would or would not do, which is sound strategy.
We built and trained an army to serve our purposes there, including regime change in Russia.
LOL we did not provide any serious military assistance until AFTER the invasion. If we'd have given Ukraine hundreds of Leopards, CHallengers, and Abrahms, plus Patriot sytems, F-16s, and had already loaded up Ukrainian warehouses with millions of arty rounds....Russia might not have invaded at all.
The push for NATO membership was certainly a sign of our intentions, but the threat was growing steadily with or without that formality.
It was perceived Ukrainian weakness that enticed Russia to invade, not some looming Nato monster.
You are incapable of drafting a single sentence with any connection to reality.
Like I said, Russia promised to respect Ukrainian sovereignty and kept that promise for 20 years.
The Maidan coup was not an election. It was a takeover of the Ukrainian government by the US with the help of our neo-Nazi allies. We immediately began shipping Ukrainian officials to Germany for training in "democracy building," to include preparation for the breakup of Russia and the toppling of its regime. Ukraine since 2014 has been little more than an instrument of US policy and a de facto Western military power. Their army more than tripled in size by 2022. We provided them with more military aid than any other country with the exception of our colonies in the Middle East.
Such aid included (per
Defense News) sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, counter-artillery radars, electronic warfare detection and secure communications, night vision equipment, medical supplies and treatment, counter-sniper equipment, Humvees, tactical drones, radar systems, anti-armor weapon systems, mortars, assorted small arms and ammunition, and unspecified cyber and electronic warfare capabilities. We provided air defense and coastal defense radars, naval mine and counter-mine capabilities, coastal defense vessels, and equipment and training to counter waterborne threats. We provided advisers, parts, and training to build electronic signals intelligence, naval special warfare capabilities, and anti-submarine warfare capabilities, and to boost Ukraine's NATO interoperability, including English language labs and spare parts, sustainment, and training for US equipment.
Sound strategy depends on sound policy. In this case, refusing to say what we'd do with regard to US missiles, especially after having promising not to install them, was a sound strategy only if we were looking for conflict. Otherwise, not so much.
For years, Western experts predicted that NATO expansion would lead to war. For years, the Russians have cited NATO expansion as the paramount issue. In testimony to the European Parliament last year, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted that Putin "went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders."
Anyone who's willing to look can see the demonstrable truth of the matter. The only ones protesting are the neocon zealots and hacks who got it wrong to begin with. They assured us that NATO expansion would never backfire, and now they're scrambling to avoid the obvious explanation. Don't you believe it.
