“Strength in numbers…”
this is a very weak argument actually. Strength in numbers. NATO is already far stronger than Russia conventionally speaking. Which only brings the nuclear option more to the fore for the underdog, which is not desirable for anyone surely. It also demonstrates that NATO is an anti-Russia alliance at its core, which of course makes Russia’s fears all the more understandable.
In fairness I have already answered this at length earlier in the thread. People don’t care for it because they’re blinkered, but that doesn’t matter. Putin tells people every single day why here cares. He cares for exactly the same reason that America would care if the shoe were on the other foot. We know how the US reacts when a sovereign, neighboring nation decides to ally with an enemy: we got the Cuban Missile Crisis. If Mexico or Canada tomorrow agreed to host Chinese or Russian military infrastructure on their territories — troops, tanks, attack aircraft, missile batteries, etc., the rebuke from Washington would be very swift indeed.
(BTW, whatever Ukraine feels about Russia is probably little different than what Belgium felt about Germany at one point. Look at them today. Differences can be overcome through integration not confrontation.)
@[Deleted User] One can legitimately ask why, if NATO is purely defensive, it wants to admit Georgia and Ukraine?
Strength in numbers there is also the issue that no country is actually guaranteed entry into NATO ,
The question has to be asked why Russia with its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons is so afraid of countries making their own decisions about who and who they don't Allie with .
And that peace is now jeopardized by a continuing eastward expansion. If the purpose of NATO is to deter conflict, and its expansion to Ukraine actually foments conflict or leads to a new nuclear stand-off (which it most certainly will) then NATO has overreached and undermined itself.
How this increases the security of anyone defies explanation.
We managed to have NATO and WarPact co-exist right next to each other without anyone delving into a European war. Whatever the “other side” felt, NATO members certainly seemed to feel that there was a “good side” and it was productive. Recent members like Poland or the Baltics presumably could look at the past 70 years and come to their own conclusions as to what is in their own best interests, especially since they were for a time on the opposing side to NATO. The benefit to existing NATO members is that peace on the continent of Europe is more productive for them.
It’s hardly an empty question. Do you think NATO is just being beneficent then? Just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts?
Russian aggression in the past 15 years has been driven by NATO expansion. This in turn drives other states to want to join NATO.
It is a mutually unproductive situation and both sides need to step back. There is no one good side and one bad side.
people who can’t see that are frankly blinded by ideology and liable to lead us to war that no one can win.
Why ask empty questions with obvious answers? NATO was formed to protect against Russian aggression. Counties which have repeatedly suffered under Russian rule wish to be protected in future.
Is it not up the freedom of each country to decide that themselves. Why does Putin get to dictate what a neighbouring country does or doesn't do.
One can legitimately ask why, if NATO is purely defensive, it wants to admit Georgia and Ukraine?
Both parties presumably have an interest in this. UKraine’s interest is clear.
NATO’s interest is presumably the security of its members. It is, after all, a military alliance, not a democratic political alliance like the EU. Why then would it admit a country, the entry of which actually threatens the security of its pre-existing members? How does this make NATO more secure, and more defensible?
The George Washington and Ethan Allen SSBNs were in commission for the US Navy at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, though it was a one-way street.
They didn't have nuclear armed submarines in the 60's....
Not entirely correct. If the 2nd strike makes it all irrelevant, there would have not been the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy would have said:"Ah, sure it's grand. Russkies wouldn't dare, We can retaliate."
Sure there are strategic bombers and submarines. But that is just one of the modes of ensuring retaliatory capability, and superpowers don't rely on only one or two, or three. The reason is that there is no guarantee that commanders of these units would execute order. In fact, reluctance to do so have already saved the World in a few such instances. Of course, as you say, both powers have extensive redundancies, but that doesn't mean any of them may give up on other safety measures.
No sane and responsible leader in USA or Russia would allow deployment of these systems on their border (land or sea). Neither Americans would allow for Russian missiles in Cuba, nor Russians would allow American installations in Ukraine, or elsewhere on their border.
History will judge the Russians as failures to secure their own democrat success. It's not the job of the west to install a functioning government, we've the last 20 years to see how that goes.
2nd strike doctrine makes all that irrelevant. There's little need to worry about who shoots first in a nuclear war, as both the US and Russia have extensive redundancies to protect against decapitation attempts.
Submarine launched missiles are what guarantee MAD, not the ICBMs or the bombers. Doesn't matter how many hypersonic missiles you fire, there's Armageddon floating silently all around the world.
Only a complete and utter dogmatist would fail to concede that Putin makes fair points here. History will judge the failure to make Russia an ally in the 1990s and even bring towards the EU as one of the greatest geopolitical mistakes in modern history.
And you say "it doesn't matter what they [Crimeans] wanted, there was only ever even going to be one result".
Are you reading what you write? If they didn't want secession from Ukraine then why would they ever request a referendum on the matter?
I'll try to put it in simple terms. If you were the subject of a parental custody dispute and you were quite happy to live with your mother would you come out and say "Can we have a vote as to whether I can stay with mum or go and live with dad"?
You only request a referendum/vote/consensus/plebiscite/show-of-confidence/etc if you want change. You don't do this if things are as you want.
Talk of rigged elections is akin to a guy calling a girl a whore because she refused a date with him, despite the fact that she might never have even touched someone.
We're told that the good folk of Crimea were just annexed [against their will and the slippery little trick was to rig a referendum that they had been demanding for decades].
In my experience of the world, a people who are invaded, occupied and downtrodden tend to fight back even if it's a rock or bottle against a tank. Have you seen the Crimeans agitating for either freedom from Russia, a return to Ukraine control or complete independence?
I haven't.
In fact there are very cheap flights to get to Crimea and their beautiful Black Sea resorts. Why not go and see for yourself this yoke of horror and oppression under which the Crimeans must now live?
The word is that Russia just simply invaded Crimea and took it over. Are you in agreement with that?
The next word is that Russian personnel were in the area and were unannounced. Would you agree with that? Even if that was 100% true, what's the problem? Do you have a problem with undercover agents on a foreign soil? Seems not. In fact if the CID and MI5 have no problem colluding outside their jurisdiction, if the Special Air Service can slip across the border into Cavan or Monaghan or Louth to sniff around then why the cock-ahoop about the Russians and the GRU or OGP? Don't the Russians have a naval base in Sevastopol? Why shouldn't they have security agents in the area?
But you know...that's all James Bourne/Bond stuff.
The US have a naval base is [take your pick] ....let's say Subic Bay or Okinawa or the Chagos Islands. Would you find it completely "just not appropriate" if they had "assets" [that feeble hollywood] in the general area?
You've completely avoided the question with a meaningless retort. We are talking about the people of Crimea and how they were apparently gobbled up against their will by Russia. I'll say it again. Crimea was part of Russia for over 200 years. That's before the USSR even came into existence in 1917. Less than 40 years later the Crimea was ceded by Kruschev to the Ukraine state without the consultation of the majority ethnic Russian Crimean population. If they had wanted this don't you think they should have been given the choice via a referendum if you are so hellbent on respecting people's rights and sovereignty? You're picking a point in time as if history began at that point and everything before is irrelevant and everything after happens according to your point of reference.
In 1991 the Crimeans voted by 94% to become autonomous from Ukraine. Complete independence was not an option Yet practically the entire country wanted to break from Kiev's control. Another referendum in 1994 was held to expand autonomy and was again overwhelmingly favoured.
Answer me this. If the Crimeans are so happy to be part of Ukraine then why have they consistently campaigned for separatism since they were annexed by Ukraine in the 1950's?
Another question is this. If Kiev legitimately believes that a massive part of their country was illegally invaded and occupied/annexed then why no military response to defend themselves and liberate their people?
Yanukovych stole eye-watering amounts of money from the Ukrainians. The guy had a Spanish galleon among many other things, on a salary of around 50k a year. His son, a dentist, was worth hundreds of millions at the end. He was an extraordinary kleptomaniac, is still wanted in several countries, and there's the whole scores of dead Ukrainian protesters mess but the less said about that the better. Luckily the Russians plucked him out from his predicament and are sheltering him in a lovely place just outside Moscow. Great chap altogether.
Just as an aside, the Russification of Crimea and the exile of the Tartars (though not completely successful) was part of the dark history of Stalinist ethnic deportations (managed by the sociopath Beria)
- Koreans in the Russian far East shipped in their tens of thousands to Central Asia and dumped in the middle of the steppe to die because Stalin didn't trust that an oriental race weren't Japanese sympathizers
- Jews shipped to a concocted Jewish Oblast in Siberia bordering China because again Stalin didn't trust them
- Chechens deported from the Caucuses
- Volga Germans (who settled in Russia at the invitation of Catherine the Great and were well bedded into Russian life) deported East to die
- The liquidization of the Kulak and other troublesome classes from Belarus and Ukraine
-------------
Ironically, Crimean Tartars had a safe harbour in independent Ukraine to return to the peninsula that is their homeland and rebuild their community with some success. Now it's back to Russification and Russian nationalists planting the flag (including a major influx of Russians who have been induced into moving to Crimea to bake in the annexation)
I don't see how people can do a back handed endorsement of this modern take on an ugly historical phenomenon in Russia.
Many live in denial about the sinister past of Russo supremicsim and act as if it doesn't exist. It's killed millions over the course of the 20th century - and while Putin is not Beria, he certainly flirts with Russo supremicsim in his relationship with the 'near abroad'.
There is a difference in distance and time to reach target when you're doing it from Ukraine and when you're doing it from Romania. This time is important as it is the question will the other side be able to react before enemy missiles reach targets and use their own anti missile defense, as well as to launch their own missiles. That's the basics of the whole MAD principle. USA makes the same calculations in order to keep their own territory safe.
One may say that at the moment there are no plans to install any NATO facilities, let alone missile launchers etc in Ukraine. However, there is a history of these plans. It started with Bush Jr., who wanted to install defense shied in Czech Republic and Poland. Explanation was to protect from missiles from Middle East. That wasn't met with enthusiasm in Europe. Obama scraped those plans and then they built this new system with complicated name.
You can say, there it is, no missiles in Ukraine. But here is the thing: when you plan your country's security, you must assume worst case scenario and you can't go with "nah, they probably won't do that." Simply put, every Russian general, or president must assume possibility that if Ukraine becomes NATO member, USA will bring in missiles and check mate Russia. Not taking such possibility into account would be irresponsible and frankly - stupid. Add to the mix that every now and then some idiot from American establishment mention nuclear first strike against Russia, and the fact that Americans proved they can elect ... well, let's say "unstable characters" into the White House. There you have enough for Russia to not tolerate possibility of Ukraine becoming NATO member.
This is not about propaganda, just simple military and security logic. To take it out of the heated debate about Russia, let's make a comparison to how Israel behaves about Iran's nuclear program. Iran doesn't have missiles with nuclear warheads. There is an international effort to deal with it. Yet, whenever Iran makes any advance with the program, Israel launch attack: air or cyber. The reasoning is simple: the cost of a scenario in which Iran has a nuclear bomb is so high, that even a very small probability of it being successfully launched against Israel, some day in the future is not worth a risk. Hence, preemptive attacks.
Crimea has been home to Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Germans, Russians, Jews, Ukrainians, Cossacks and above all Tartars throughout its history.
It was and is an entropot peninsula. Even under Russian dominion in the Tsarist days (a function of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth collapsing) , Russians were a minority and Tartars a plurality on the peninsula. The history of the peninsula didn't begin in 1954.
A short couple of decades before hand, the the NKVD pulled hundreds of thousands of Tartars from their beds and homes and sent them on sealed trains to the Central Asian steppe, and moved in ethnic Russians in their stead. The Russian majority was engineered by ethnic cleansing. So spare us the idea that Mother Russia has some moral claim on the peninsula from time immemorial. It's not holy land, it's strategically important to Russia and that's why they covet it.
Russians in 1954 likely didn't give a hoot that they were suddenly in the Ukrainian SSR, it made no difference to their lives as they were ruled from Moscow in any case. And Russians living in Crimea up until 2014 (see poll I posted) didn't feel all that bothered about being part of Ukraine. The situation in Crimea was astroturfed and a small minority foolish Westerner edgelords buy Putin's carefully curated propaganda. It's a bit silly but there we are.
Kind of sad to see people endorsing Russia's arguments here. One poster above even hoping for a "stymied" and "castrated" NATO (presumably by Russia).
Maybe such views come of living in a neutral country with not much of a military, little real need for one, and the nasty outside world kept very much at arms length most of the time. The US (who we're on good terms with) across a big ocean as neighbour to the West. 2 friendly UN security council members who also happen to be armed to the teeth and members of the "sinister" NATO club as neighbours to the East.
Maybe an angel should visit them "It's a wonderful life" style so they can wake up this Christmas morning in that ideal NATOless world with Ireland plonked down where Estonia is!
It doesn't matter ,
Russia lost the cold war and the world and Europe has moved on ,all except putin and the troll factory ,
Interesting that no one wants to discuss the signing of a piece of paper in 1954 by that great democrat Nikita Khrushchev .
The Russian population of Crimea went to bed Russian and woke up in the morning as Ukrainians ... very democratic it has to be said.
Obviously I’m not going to get an answer how Russians in Crimea are under Russian occupation.
Not an absolute majority 54% but that somehow turned into 110% of the population and yet for years you denied it
The same one Which they got Ukraine's nuclear weapons and a treaty of friendship ,
Russia is a your friend 🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂
Ukraine is a unitary state, with internationally recognised borders (including by treaty with Russia). Russia (or any other country) has no right to hive off parts of a state because any part of it happens to have an ethnic majority in one of its constituent parts. Endorsing that behaviour is utter madness, a recipe for war and the dismantling of the peace Europe has largely enjoyed since the end of WW2. It's mystifying you can't see this because of a hard on for Kremlin strongman tactics.
You've hit the nail on the head, it can't and won't happen to Estonia because they are party to a defence pact with big boys that keep Putin on his toes not because Putin wouldn't chance his arm with Estonia if he saw a window.
A legally binding agreement...kind of like...a *treaty*, deposited at the UN...like the 1997 Ukraine-Russia Treaty providing for mutual recognition of the inviolibity of each country's borders...
Now there's a thought
Rambling nonsense, Estonia is in NATO so spare me the ‘little green men’ fairytales.
The reality is Crimea is Russian majority so could you explain to me how Russians are living under Russian occupation?
Only about 60/80 million of them others are produced under licence in former Soviet states and the likes of Pakistan and China ,the absolute majority of the ones seen in every major conflict since the 50s were produced in Russia
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/e050b53be62f0ae2404c620976170938.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w3.vanillicon.com/v2/3694d3d768784d2dd89108859b666f01.svg)
