• Due to ongoing issues caused by Search, it has been temporarily disabled
  • Please excuse the mess, we're moving the furniture and restructuring the forum categories
  • You may need to edit your signatures.

    When we moved to Xenfora some of the signature options didn't come over. In the old software signatures were limited by a character limit, on Xenfora there are more options and there is a character number and number of lines limit. I've set maximum number of lines to 4 and unlimited characters.

Ukraine War follows decades of warnings about Nato Expansion

TheRealnz

Critical Thinker
Joined
Nov 1, 2013
Messages
345
https://theconversation.com/ukraine...to-eastern-europe-could-provoke-russia-177999
As fighting rages across Ukraine, two versions of reality that underlie the conflict stare across a deep divide, neither conceding any truth to the other.

The more widespread and familiar view in the West, particularly in the United States, is that Russia is and has always been an expansionist state, and its current president, Vladimir Putin, is the embodiment of that essential Russian ambition: to build a new Russian empire.
Edited by jimbob: 
rule 4 violation snipped and quote tags added
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Treaties don't 'expand'. More and more countries may join, or some may drop out, but the treaty itself isn't expanding or contracting. Treaties aren't countries to hold territory.
 
Treaties don't 'expand'. More and more countries may join, or some may drop out, but the treaty itself isn't expanding or contracting. Treaties aren't countries to hold territory.
Sure, but that's technical and this is more about differing cultural perceptions and perspectives.

Call it "power projection" instead. And consider that for a mixture of real and imagined reasons, membership in NATO by periphery powers does entail some subordination to the foreign policy doctrines of the larger, older members. This brings on echoes of the 18th and 19th century when Central/Western Europe would often meddle in Eastern Europe, thwarting Russian ambitions while themselves unfurling great empires across the globe. And it's not like the Poles, numerous Slavic ethnicities, or other inhabitants have a good history with either side on that time scale. They have been puppet states and buffer regions to numerous masters who march armies across them without regard for the locals for a significant portion of the nation-state era.

It is often pointed out that the U.S. was quite aggressive on the point of nuclear weapons in Cuba. This is much the same attitude Russia has when considering the member states keep getting closer and closer.

I say this not as a "Russian apologist" but that the mindset and perspectives of of various identities does reveal why some narratives and propaganda work so well. Also, I really feel like some Russia statements aren't meant to be taken at face value, but are pot-shots at our own western rhetoric about saving the poor downtrodden people of whatever place it is we're invading.

I heard a story once about British and Russian fishers sharing lunches often when ice-bound near each other, they would get along admirably. A Russian remarked "we are not so different, you know? Perhaps greatest difference: you think you are free; we know we are not."
 
The root problem of the conflict with Russia is that the West did not understand or believe that Putin thinks like a Spy, and Putin did not understand or believe that the Western Leaders think like Generals:
the West used NATO expansion to demonstrate to Moscow that Military Dominance becomes has become irrelevant, and that competition should be economic instead.
Putin, OTOH, always assumed that the West was working on Regime Change, using NATO as a cover for their clandestine operations, buying off regime-critical Russians and using foreign media to cause a political shift; and that's why Putin did exactly that in Europe and the US: working to change the Regimes to be more pro-Russia instead of working to make his country an equal trading partner with the West.
He never believed in lifting Russia up, only in bringing the rest of the world down.
 
If anything Russia's unlawful waging of aggressive war in Ukraine proves how important it was to expand NATO. Is anyone here so naive to think that anything but NATO membership is keeping the Baltic states from being the subject of unlawful war and occupation by Russia? At best the former Warsaw Pact countries would be Russian vassals instead full members of the EU and functioning democracies without NATO.

Russia has nothing to fear from NATO expansion as long as they do what nearly every other nation on Earth does which is respect its borders. Article 5 states an attack on one is an attack on all. It does not say that if one goes to war, all go to war. The argument that NATO expansion is or was a threat to Russia is the same as arguing that Russia should be able to reestablish it's Empire and sphere of influence piecemeal, invading and occupying or coercing each former subject at a time.

All NATO expansion does is tell Russia that if you want it, you have to fight them all at once.
 
I guess this is our modern "Hitler was incited by the draconian and irresponsible demands of Versailles" narrative.

Nah it's an article published by a respected academic who has a different view on this issue to you.
 
I guess this is our modern "Hitler was incited by the draconian and irresponsible demands of Versailles" narrative.

Eh not really , as a student of Russian history. I can understand the Russian position on NATO expansion. I am generally pro USA and NATO myself but I don't think explanding NATO to Russia's borders was prudent.
 
Treaties don't 'expand'. More and more countries may join, or some may drop out, but the treaty itself isn't expanding or contracting. Treaties aren't countries to hold territory.

NATO expanded membership to its treaty . It accepted new members who applied to sign up. It was contested at the time. It's not a contentious point that NATO expanded.

I studided internaitonal law, I know how treaties work.

As much as I support NATO there's no dount the treaty is designed to contain Russia.

And Russia is acting in it's own self interest. Is Russia committin war crimes in doing so? It appears so.

Do I like the Russian government? No.
 
If anything Russia's unlawful waging of aggressive war in Ukraine proves how important it was to expand NATO. Is anyone here so naive to think that anything but NATO membership is keeping the Baltic states from being the subject of unlawful war and occupation by Russia? At best the former Warsaw Pact countries would be Russian vassals instead full members of the EU and functioning democracies without NATO.

Russia has nothing to fear from NATO expansion as long as they do what nearly every other nation on Earth does which is respect its borders. Article 5 states an attack on one is an attack on all. It does not say that if one goes to war, all go to war. The argument that NATO expansion is or was a threat to Russia is the same as arguing that Russia should be able to reestablish it's Empire and sphere of influence piecemeal, invading and occupying or coercing each former subject at a time.

All NATO expansion does is tell Russia that if you want it, you have to fight them all at once.
How would you feel about a Russisn base near your border?
 
How would you feel about a Russisn base near your border?

why would I care .. unless Russia had a history of attacking and occupying its neighbours.
If I lived in a suburb, and everyone around me was desperate to join the Neighbour Watch Group, it might be that they are trying to tell me something.
 
why would I care .. unless Russia had a history of attacking and occupying its neighbours.
If I lived in a suburb, and everyone around me was desperate to join the Neighbour Watch Group, it might be that they are trying to tell me something.

Yes and Russia doesn't
see the West as the USA, it sees them as the Teutonic Knights
 
why would I care .. unless Russia had a history of attacking and occupying its neighbours.
If I lived in a suburb, and everyone around me was desperate to join the Neighbour Watch Group, it might be that they are trying to tell me something.

Kind of my thoughts. It's like reading, 'local man protests the local domestic abuse shelter's threatening to include his wife, gives the wife two black eyes for even considering it.' That'll teach them to keep their distance :p
 
Last edited:
"Expansion", in this case, being deliberately used to imply a context of aggressively moving into and occupying a sovereign nation - which, as we all know, is a bad thing.
 
Eh not really , as a student of Russian history. I can understand the Russian position on NATO expansion. I am generally pro USA and NATO myself but I don't think explanding NATO to Russia's borders was prudent.

Ukraine giving up its nukes for promises of russia respecting their boarders is what wasn't prudent. If they kept the nukes this would be entirely different. It just goes to show that being a nuclear armed country it the best way to secure your borders.
 
It all boils down to who agreed the borders in the first place. Countries such as Germany and Italy (as we know them today) are relatively new. Poland used to be in a 'commonwealth' with Lithuania. Estonia and Latvia used to be Swedish, and Estonia before that, Danish (hence the former name Reval for Tallinn). The idea of 'expansion' has always been there throughout the centuries, with inevitably smaller kingdoms, fiefs and duchies swallowed up by neighbouring ones. It is a matter of time before we have a 'United States of Europe' with the odd one or two outliers, or as, in Putin's dreams, one Eurasia, controlled by Moscow, 'from Lisbon to Vladivostok'.

Problem with Russia is that it believes it 'won' WWII on merit (when really, it was deemed by Churchill and Roosevelt the lesser evil between Stalin and Hitler. Damning by faint praise.) and therefore has some kind of inherent right to invade its neighbours, the loser nazis.
 
Last edited:
Not sure what the connection would be in any case. I mean, yeah, Russia defended itself against an invasion by another country once. Let's say even on merit. Fine. What does that have to do with Russia invading another country, 70 years later?

Like, if I defended against the school bully trying to beat me up way back... now what? Does it mean I've joined the club who's entitled to punch other kids? Does it mean I can show up to our school reunion 20 years later and punch someone?
 
Last edited:
There's a certain degree of strategic amnesia at play here whenever people freak out about criticizing NATO expansion.

Everyone rightly understood only a few decades ago that extending NATO membership further into Eastern Europe would rightly be seen as a provocation with Russia.

Hell, then Senator Biden said as much in the late 90's, though that never stopped him from being a unwavering advocate of doing exactly that:

Video of Joe Biden Warning of Russian Hostility if NATO Expands Resurfaces

Avideo of Joe Biden speaking about the dangers of NATO expanding in 1997 has resurfaced and gone viral on social media.

In the video, Joe Biden warns that the Baltic states, namely Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, joining NATO could result in hostility from Russia. He did insist that he did not mean military retaliation, however.

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-resurfaced-clip-russia-baltic-states-1997-video-1685864

Let's not play dumb. NATO is the anti-Russia treaty organization. It was organized in mutual defense, mutual defense from the USSR. Expanding an anti-Russia organization all the way up to the borders of Russia, including previous USSR states, is wildly antagonistic. Some negative response was inevitable.

The clip comes from a longer interview video, but the whole thing is worth watching.

Counterfactuals are impossible to know. Would Russia have invaded Ukraine if it had become a NATO member sooner? Would Russia have invaded at all had NATO not expanded eastward starting in the early 2000's? It's really hard to know. It strikes me as overly simplistic to try to paint NATO expansion as the sole variable, but I definitely think it played a big role in the current posturing of Russia.

In general, it strikes me as pretty obvious the West really, really botched the opportunity that was the collapse of the USSR. It was a once-in-a-century opportunity to create lasting peace between deeply antagonistic centers of power on the globe and it was totally squandered. Rather than create real peace, the West created a huge source of aggrievement by looting Russia down to the copper wires, propping up a deeply corrupt kleptocratic government, and expanding aggressively to their doorstep. Now we're standing back in horror of the monster we created.
 
Last edited:
Eh not really , as a student of Russian history. I can understand the Russian position on NATO expansion. I am generally pro USA and NATO myself but I don't think explanding NATO to Russia's borders was prudent.

You are quite incorrect.

Considering the several of the nations who quickly joined NATO when they had a chance to do so was quite prudent considering that these same nations had a long, and very recent, history of Russian oppression.

Also, by Russia attacking non-NATO nation like Ukraine, then Russian has very amply demonstrated the need for a nation to be in NATO in order to avoid a possible Russian invasion.
 
There's a certain degree of strategic amnesia at play here whenever people freak out about criticizing NATO expansion.

Everyone rightly understood only a few decades ago that extending NATO membership further into Eastern Europe would rightly be seen as a provocation with Russia.

Hell, then Senator Biden said as much in the late 90's, though that never stopped him from being a unwavering advocate of doing exactly that:



https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-resurfaced-clip-russia-baltic-states-1997-video-1685864

Let's not play dumb. NATO is the anti-Russia treaty organization. It was organized in mutual defense, mutual defense from the USSR. Expanding an anti-Russia organization all the way up to the borders of Russia, including previous USSR states, is wildly antagonistic. Some negative response was inevitable.

The clip comes from a longer interview video, but the whole thing is worth watching.

Counterfactuals are impossible to know. Would Russia have invaded Ukraine if it had become a NATO member sooner? Would Russia have invaded at all had NATO not expanded eastward starting in the early 2000's? It's really hard to know. It strikes me as overly simplistic to try to paint NATO expansion as the sole variable, but I definitely think it played a big role in the current posturing of Russia.

In general, it strikes me as pretty obvious the West really, really botched the opportunity that was the collapse of the USSR. It was a once-in-a-century opportunity to create lasting peace between deeply antagonistic centers of power on the globe and it was totally botched. Rather than create real peace, the West created a huge source of aggrievement by looting Russia down to the copper wires, propping up a deeply corrupt kleptocratic government, and expanding aggressively to their doorstep. Now we're standing back in horror of the monster we created.

No, you are making the mistake of believing that western Europe has been unfriendly towards Russia, when it could have been friendly and avoided Russia's current delinquent behaviour. Yes, it is true the USA and CIA had an active part in ensuring the Baltic States were teflon-plated against the camel that is Russia getting its nose back in the tent door, so to speak, once it recovered from the exigencies and exiguousness of the USSR downfall. However, the Russians never forgot. Putin, in particular, as been brooding on this humiliation ever since he packed up his suitcase and moved out of East Germany, his job as a stasi agent redundant and back to St Petersberg, where, ironically enough, Putin's mother was found in the street in the Siege of Leningrad in a state of looking dead from starvation but miraculously - or tragically, one might say - recovered to go on and give birth to Damien Putin. Putin has a massive chip on his shoulder and is extremely secretive about his humble roots. Some believe he is actually a Georgian, like his idol, Stalin. In any case, the idea that the west upset Putin when it could have offered to play nicely with its toys is laughable. Russia has always been a hostile country. Narcissistic, envious, revelling in victimhood and a massive inferiority complex over the wealth of the USA.

Unlike Third Reich Germany, USSR/Russia never had its war crimes brought before a war tribunal. It got away with killing 100,000,000 of its own people, including in purge after purge, sacrificing millions of motley crew poorly trained soldiers in pointless wars, displacing millions of people from their homes in the former north German states, raping and murdering millions after the Battle of Berlin: we don't need to compare Russia with Nazi Germany, we can compare Russia with...Russia, itself, for a history of brutality and profligate abuse, corruption and criminality against its own people, never mind its western neighbours, whom it has cheated and swindled for decades, extending a hand of friendship which was really a poisonous cup of polonium as we are no discovering and western politicians, especially in the UK and Italy, have now been caught out, embarrassed by having fallen for the deception hook, line and sinker.

So, was it devious of the Americans to sneak in to former Soviet states with a well-crafted and carefully named North Atlantic Treaty? Probably but when you get a glimpse of the devil that is Russia, then as Churchill said in the House of Commons when he sided with the USSR against Hitler, " If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons."

The devil being the USSR.

And now we know, it never changed its nature.
 
Eh not really , as a student of Russian history. I can understand the Russian position on NATO expansion. I am generally pro USA and NATO myself but I don't think explanding NATO to Russia's borders was prudent.

NATO was always at the border of the Warsaw Pact states. It was always at the boundary of Russia's outward expansion.

Putting NATO at the boundary of Russian expansion has always been prudent. That's why Ukraine wanted to join. Not because of some imperialistic impulse on NATO's part, but because of the obvious prudence of having the boundary of a mutual defense pact between them and Russian expansion.

Russia is the expansionary imperialist here, not NATO. It is perverse to the point of obscenity to try to portray those who hedge against Russian expansion as the real expansionists.

The bully is the bully. The prospective victim who prepares to fight back, and who deters the bully with threats of violent retaliation, is not the bully.
 
NATO was always at the border of the Warsaw Pact states. It was always at the boundary of Russia's outward expansion.

Putting NATO at the boundary of Russian expansion has always been prudent. That's why Ukraine wanted to join. Not because of some imperialistic impulse on NATO's part, but because of the obvious prudence of having the boundary of a mutual defense pact between them and Russian expansion.

Russia is the expansionary imperialist here, not NATO. It is perverse to the point of obscenity to try to portray those who hedge against Russian expansion as the real expansionists.

The bully is the bully. The prospective victim who prepares to fight back, and who deters the bully with threats of violent retaliation, is not the bully.

I'm sure NATO states are pretty happy to have adversarial powers expanding their sphere of influence up to their doorsteps. :rolleyes:
 
No, you are making the mistake of believing that western Europe has been unfriendly towards Russia, when it could have been friendly and avoided Russia's current delinquent behaviour. Yes, it is true the USA and CIA had an active part in ensuring the Baltic States were teflon-plated against the camel that is Russia getting its nose back in the tent door, so to speak, once it recovered from the exigencies and exiguousness of the USSR downfall. However, the Russians never forgot. Putin, in particular, as been brooding on this humiliation ever since he packed up his suitcase and moved out of East Germany, his job as a stasi agent redundant and back to St Petersberg, where, ironically enough, Putin's mother was found in the street in the Siege of Leningrad in a state of looking dead from starvation but miraculously - or tragically, one might say - recovered to go on and give birth to Damien Putin. Putin has a massive chip on his shoulder and is extremely secretive about his humble roots. Some believe he is actually a Georgian, like his idol, Stalin. In any case, the idea that the west upset Putin when it could have offered to play nicely with its toys is laughable. Russia has always been a hostile country. Narcissistic, envious, revelling in victimhood and a massive inferiority complex over the wealth of the USA.

Unlike Third Reich Germany, USSR/Russia never had its war crimes brought before a war tribunal. It got away with killing 100,000,000 of its own people, including in purge after purge, sacrificing millions of motley crew poorly trained soldiers in pointless wars, displacing millions of people from their homes in the former north German states, raping and murdering millions after the Battle of Berlin: we don't need to compare Russia with Nazi Germany, we can compare Russia with...Russia, itself, for a history of brutality and profligate abuse, corruption and criminality against its own people, never mind its western neighbours, whom it has cheated and swindled for decades, extending a hand of friendship which was really a poisonous cup of polonium as we are no discovering and western politicians, especially in the UK and Italy, have now been caught out, embarrassed by having fallen for the deception hook, line and sinker.

So, was it devious of the Americans to sneak in to former Soviet states with a well-crafted and carefully named North Atlantic Treaty? Probably but when you get a glimpse of the devil that is Russia, then as Churchill said in the House of Commons when he sided with the USSR against Hitler, " If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons."

The devil being the USSR.

And now we know, it never changed its nature.

Man this Putin guy sounds like a bad dude. I wonder where he came from.

It's not like he was the hand selected successor of the West's golden boy Yeltsin or anything.
 
TLet's not play dumb. NATO is the anti-Russia treaty organization. It was organized in mutual defense, mutual defense from the USSR.

Yes, let's not play dumb by omitting the crucial aspect: membership is entirely voluntary. Nobody invaded anyone to make them join.

People are still free to ally with Russia instead, if they so wish. Indeed even before the USSR fell, countries could and did occasionally ally with the USSR or at least get close to the USSR, if they feared the USA or USA's allies more. Not just communist countries overrun by the USSR in the Eastern Europe, but also countries like:

Algeria (1962–1991)
Bangladesh (1971–1975)
Burkina Faso (1983–1987)
Cape Verde (1975–1990)
Egypt (1954–1973)
Ghana (1964–1966)
Guinea (1960–1978)
Guinea-Bissau (1973–1991)
Equatorial Guinea (1968–1979)
India (1971–1989)
Indonesia (1959–1965)
Iraq (1958–1963; 1968–1991)
Libya Libya (1969–1991)
Madagascar (1972–1991)
Mali (1960–1991)
Nicaragua (1979–1990)
Peru (1968–1975)
Sao Tome and Principe (1975–1991)
Seychelles (1977–1991)
Sudan (1968–1972)
Syria (1955–1991)
Tanzania (1964–1985)
Zimbabwe (1980–1991)

Some of them not even communist. India for example was a democratic and non-communist country who decided it would rather have the USSR have its back against the USA-backed Pakistan, than the other way around.

But that's not what we're seeing happening in Eastern Europe. Quite the other way around, in fact.

A whole bunch of countries in the Eastern Europe, on their own judgment and volition, felt more of a need to be defended against Russia than to be defended by those 'evil' NATO countries who are now at their doorstep. Like, after Hungary joins NATO in 1999, we don't see Romania (which still viewed Hungary as a kinda historical rival) do the India thing and ally with Russia. Instead it asked to join NATO too. Russia was seen as a bigger threat than the NATO backed rival on its doorstep.

And that tells you all you need to know, really.
 
Last edited:
Yes, let's not play dumb by omitting the crucial aspect: membership is entirely voluntary. Nobody invaded anyone to make them join.

People are still free to ally with Russia instead, if they so wish. Indeed even before the USSR fell, countries could and did occasionally ally with the USSR or at least get close to the USSR, if they feared the USA or USA's allies more. Not just communist countries overrun by the USSR in the Eastern Europe, but also countries like:

Algeria (1962–1991)
Bangladesh (1971–1975)
Burkina Faso (1983–1987)
Cape Verde (1975–1990)
Egypt (1954–1973)
Ghana (1964–1966)
Guinea (1960–1978)
Guinea-Bissau (1973–1991)
Equatorial Guinea (1968–1979)
India (1971–1989)
Indonesia (1959–1965)
Iraq (1958–1963; 1968–1991)
Libya Libya (1969–1991)
Madagascar (1972–1991)
Mali (1960–1991)
Nicaragua (1979–1990)
Peru (1968–1975)
Sao Tome and Principe (1975–1991)
Seychelles (1977–1991)
Sudan (1968–1972)
Syria (1955–1991)
Tanzania (1964–1985)
Zimbabwe (1980–1991)

Some of them not even communist. India for example was a democratic and non-communist country who decided it would rather have the USSR have its back against the USA-backed Pakistan, than the other way around.

But that's not what we're seeing happening in Eastern Europe. Quite the other way around, in fact.

A whole bunch of countries in the Eastern Europe, on their own judgment and volition, felt more of a need to be defended against Russia than to be defended by those 'evil' NATO countries who are now at their doorstep. Like, after Hungary joins NATO in 1999, we don't see Romania (which still viewed Hungary as a kinda historical rival) do the India thing and ally with Russia. Instead it asked to join NATO too. Russia was seen as a bigger threat than the NATO backed rival on its doorstep.

And that tells you all you need to know, really.
Austria held several nations under its sway. Some of them "voluntarily" did so (to gain protection from Turkey). Austria's role was as benevolent protector of these blocs. Certainly they didn't use their role as dominant partner to their own ends.

*cough*

And in many of those cultures this has been true for so long, it is just how it is, you make alliances out of pragmatic consideration to minimize risk, not because of mutual intercultural admiration.
 
Last edited:
Eh not really , as a student of Russian history. I can understand the Russian position on NATO expansion. I am generally pro USA and NATO myself but I don't think explanding NATO to Russia's borders was prudent.

If Russia takes over Ukraine Russia will be moving its borders to NATO countries.
 
And in many of those cultures this has been true for so long, it is just how it is, you make alliances out of pragmatic consideration to minimize risk, not because of mutual intercultural admiration.

Which is exactly the point I was trying to make, really. If everyone is trying to get in a defensive alliance against X (whether that X is Russia now, or the USSR before it, or the Ottomans in the 16'th century) it's generally a sign that they're seeing X as a threat. If that even looks more pragmatic to them than pursuing historical friendships and rivalries, even more so. It's saying, X is getting quite the bad boy reputation and it's making others feel threatened. (Think, Europa Universalis.)

Trying to put it as the tail wagging the dog, or in this case that no, see X is the one being victimized by everyone making defensive alliances against them (as some people on the internet would have you believe), is IMHO just silly.
 
Last edited:
Also, am I the only one who remembers that Russia does already have "a border with NATO" since 1952, when Turkey joined?
 
Last edited:
Also, am I the only one who remembers that Russia does already have "a border with NATO" since 1952, when Turkey joined?

It was seen as quite the aggressive move then, and it's not like the 50's and 60's were a time of serene peace concerning East-West relations. Turkey would shortly become a big sore spot leading to the missile crisis, in which removing nuclear arms from so close to Russia was a concession to avoid cataclysmic war.

One might wonder how Turkey is "North Atlantic" in any sense of the phrase.
 
Also, am I the only one who remembers that Russia does already have "a border with NATO" since 1952, when Turkey joined?

Yes, it was still open but in the process of closing when I was at Pirincirlik (near Diyarbakir) in 1991. We seemed to get through the Cold War with it there. I forget what it's official name was because everyone just called it the Rock.

I'd also point out the the Air Force has a deployment base in King Salmon Alaska in close proximity to Russian bases in Siberia. We seem to manage.
 
Back
Top Bottom