So what?Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:the error in your entire argument here is that talking about Nato is synonymous with joining Nato..Redbrickbear said:sombear said:Just to expand on #4 and further demonstrate how ridiculous the NATO argument it, nobody in Ukraine even wanted NATO in 2014. Politicians were uniform in openly running against it. Russia turned Ukraine to NATO by invading it. It's just that simple.whiterock said:Again, we see the war policy opponents making stuff up to fit their template.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:
lol Russia is being encroached upon only on the sense the number of countries they can invade goes down when NATO expands.
Zero chance Nato ever invades Russia, and Russia full well knows that
Had the USA lost the Cold War in 1991 and broken up leaving a rump American Federation that was 33% smaller in territory and with half the population….not to mention having to watch NATO collapse and the Warsaw pact expand to include all of Western Europe (our old sphere of influence )
DC leaders would probably be pretty upset
And they would get downright vicious if Russia then tied to expand its military alliance into Canada or Mexico and put military bases right on our borders
1) The USSR expanded alliances with states in Central America and we didn't invade them.
2) No one. Not one leader, advocated putting military bases in Ukraine.
3) For that matter, Nato had not put a single permanent base in any of the former Warsaw Pact states, specifically to avoid alarming Russia, to signal that admittance of those states was a "Russia shall not invade here" sign, not a springboard for and invasion of Russia. (And Russia knows that.)
4) on the day the war started in 2014, Ukraine was a Nato partner, JUST LIKE SWEDEN AND FINLAND.
5) Ukraine did not actually apply for membership until after Russia outright invaded in 2022.
The whole "Nato started it" is preposterously disingenuous bs, even more easily disprovable than the "Maidan was a USG sponsored coup" nonsense. Refusing to promise not to do something is not grounds for war. Prudent powers should never say what they will or will not do just to keep others happy. It's called "strategic ambiguity." Keep your opponent guessing. Make them prepare for every scenario, which forces them to disperse resources away from the more likely ones.
The premise of your argument is that we must coddle every Russian concern. How about we start demanding Russia coddle some of ours, like promising not to invade ANYT of their neighbors? Will you advocate going to war with them if they refuse to do so?
Not sure why you keep repeating that "no one in Ukraine wanted to join NATO in 2014" or before
Pretty easy to prove that almost half the country did want that.
It was a long time debate in the country....a fault line between the pro-western and pro-eastern parties
Yushchenko was saying in 2009 that Ukraine should join NATO
[Yuschenko stressed that the talks held in the frames of his two-day
official visit to Belgium have shown that Ukraine has all the grounds
to be optimistic about its chances for joining the European Union and
NATO.]
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/10159
[President Viktor Yushchenko hoped to change that. He had been swept to power during the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution, protests that were prompted by reports of electoral fraud. Yushchenko promised the protesters a future that did away with Ukraine's corrupt, Kremlin-dominated past. Much like Georgia, another former Soviet state seeking to shake off Russian influence, Ukraine saw NATO membership as one route to independence and sought membership in 2008.]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/09/04/that-time-ukraine-tried-to-join-nato-and-nato-said-no/
Plus here is a BBC article from June of 2010
[Since his February inauguration, Mr Yanukovych has wasted no time in re-shaping Ukraine's foreign policy in a more Moscow-friendly way, the BBC's David Stern in Kiev says.
In April, he agreed to extend the lease allowing Russia's Black Sea fleet to be stationed in the southern port of Sevastopol by 25 years in return for cheaper gas.
An extension of the lease, due to expire in 2017, had been opposed by Mr Yushchenko.
Moscow had made known its opposition to Ukraine's plans to join Nato,]
https://www.bbc.com/news/10229626
But I didn't
I just showed sombear that there were articles proving a desire among the Western oriented politicians in Ukraine to join NATO going back a long time
That is cited ad nauseum by policy opponents as the proximate cause of the war.
A majority of citizens preferring closer ties with a neighbor is not now, nor has it ever been grounds for war.
A series of conferences discussing the pros & cons of relationships is not now nor has it ever been grounds for war.
Diplomats sitting and talking with each other about closer ties is not now nor has it ever been grounds for war.
Nato and Ukraine did not do a damned thing to justify a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
