Why would a defensive pact be involved in a military operation many thousands of miles from the land that that pact is deigned to defend?
Why? In 2003, NATO took command of anti-insurgency combat operations *at the request of the Afghanistan government and the United Nations*
Read that back a couple of times.
The second Iraq war was not a NATO operation. NATO participation was strictly non-combatant (capacity building, training and advisory) and very small in scale at that.
And you think that you you or anyone else has a right to sniff around in someone's country?
We've seen the evidence in Syria , probably explains why they couldn't find isis 😂😂😂😂,
Must have been a russian bank holiday ?
You have a problem with a country making their own decisions?
Looking from the news footage putin has a bad case of small man syndrome.
An EXCELLENT question.
And I commend you for asking such.
NATO, allegedly, serves to defend Western Europe from the terrible menace from the East.
Why have the the attack on Afghanistan and Iraq been effected under the auspices of NATO? I never thought that NATO had to defend me from Pashtuns.
According to you, Russian fighter pilots have to go to a shop and get a cheap GPSthingy, gaffer tape it to the dash of their fighter jets. If that is the case, then what do we have to worry about??
"Russia has been a great power for centuries, and remains so. It has always had and still has legitimate zones of interest ... We should not drop our guard in this respect, neither should we allow our opinion to be ignored," he said.
His domestic policy was to restore stability, to end what he called the "revolutions", that had brought Russia low. His foreign policy was to regain Russia's place in world affairs.
Those two core aims have driven everything he has done since. If only people had been listening, none of his actions would have come as a surprise to them".
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/10/vladimir-putin-russia-rehabilitating-stalin-soviet-past
Putin wants the old USSR back but now the Communist bit, he and his mates will pocket all the dosh.
He does? Really?
You have proof of that? You know what he wants to do? Putin exposed and shut down a coup in 1991 to hold the USSR together. He blocked and exposed a plot by several generals.
If he was such a virulent proponent of the USSR then why would he expose and scupper a coup?
Are you backward?
Something that's gotten little or no mention is Romania is buying 32 + F16s from Norway who are switching to the new F35 jet ,nato countries operate 500+ F16s ,one of the best fighter jet of all time
I can see why putin is so scared of nato definitely some bold moves there 😂😂😂
Take it easy...give the man a chance, as soon as the Ukraine / Crimea fuss dies down a bit, I'm pretty sure that Kazakhstan is on the to-do list, Just presently its not on the priority list.
Just on NATO surrounding Russia, here are the places where NATO countries border Russia:
There was no agreement that nato wouldn't move one inch east ,the agreements the then Soviets wanted was no new nato bases east of Berlin,it was never actually discussed in which way ,it was apparently raised once during a meeting 25 years ago,
Yes nato has increased memberships but no new nato bases have been built in the last 2 + decades anywhere in Europe,
All this nato surrounding Russia is nonsense , Russia has weapons and so does America and NATO ,and yet America is still currently the only country who can strike any where in the world 24/7 .
Russia makes bold claims about its weapons but they are bold claims to give them an element of fear ,
The latest I see here is the Russian Gov't has asked (demanded) a meeting to discuss weapons installed by the USA in the old USSR countries bordering Russia in Europe. This means Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan. The Russian proposal is that the US remove all offensive weapons capable of reaching major Russian cities. The justification is that NATO which the US declared would not move one inch East is now right up to Russia's border. Why now you might ask, because Russia now has weapons capable of reaching the US homeland against which the US has no defence. If the US does not respond favourably the Russians promise to encircle the US as close to the US as NATO is to Russia. The US pulled out of all the US-Russian treaties that would limit the number, power, range and precision of weapon systems in each country. The balance of power has now shifted and it will be interesting to see how Biden-Nuland measures up to Putin-Lavrov. On Russian TV there is an ex USSR military officer Andrei Martyanov (Google) who comments occasionally on US-Russia matters, he is interesting in that he reflects Russian thinking.
And the actual annexation of Crimea. I don't know how the poster that you were responding to could not know these things.
The problem with that line of thinking is that the countries most likely to suffer the ravages of war in the near future (and which suffered them quite badly in the previous century) are those who have been applying to join NATO of late. Destabilisation is even less of an appealing concept for them than for the major NATO powers like US and Germany. Yet they are still of the belief that it is in their interests to do so. It seems that their conclusion is that the benefits outweigh the possible negatives.
I'm pretty sure both Putin and Medvedev have pretty much said about rejoining Ukraine ( in whole or in part ) to Russia ..
Theres also the small issue of Donetsk and Luhansk... You know Russian troops doing a nixer in Ukraine , using the company tools and company vans ...
Putin wants to re-establish the old USSR so any sovereignty granted back then, he just ignores, he will get round to Kazakhstan in due course but shaking up Ukraine and using it as an an example to all others will serve him well, he is a bully.
Ok who's annoyed our russian guests
Didn't Kennedy do the very same durng the Cuban Missile Crisis back in the early 60's?
If I were Putin I would be doing the very same & I applaud him for it!
Why would you think that Russia has any designs on Ukraine when they recognised the sovereignty when the USSR split apart?
If Putin wants to take over Ukraine, then why is he not trying to take over Kazakhstan? 20% of the population is ethnic Russian.
Jarring? Are the Russians not allowed to put as many soldiers or bombers or tanks anywhere they want in their own country? Nothing illegal about that. I don't see America massing troops inside their own country except on the borders of other people's countries. I don't see Russia or China invading countries and killing millions or sailing around with naval battle groups 10,000km from their countries as if it was their right.
Maybe that's great with you. Me..not so sure.
Which ones? And why would one broker a "peace deal" with ones own forces?
The history of Russian states politically has always been reflexively expansionist, I'm not sure why people are surprised that Putin carries this tradition, or even baulks at it being suggested.
Even at the kindest interpretation, it wants to develop pliant client states at its borders. Does anyone seriously consider this an attractive proposition in Eastern Europe with the fruits of the Western European markets and security guarantees as the alternative?
Let's say you're a former Eastern bloc state wondering to look to Moscow or to the West, what are the case studies?
A: Poland; whose economy has expanded by 900% since the end of the Cold War and EU & NATO accession
B: Belarus; vassal state and economic backwater chained to the Kremlin
Instead of going into a sulk and threatening war, Putin needs to get clued in that he's offering his 'near abroad' a particularly sh*tty deal given the alternative on offer.
Russian aggression has been driven by naked greed. No threat of invasion from NATO has ever been presented to it.
To say there is no good side is to ignore the evidence of the entirety of the USSR's existence, and the 10s of millions exterminated therein.
How was that ever close to being possible? The utterly filthy corruption that emerged in the new Federation IMMEDIATELY after the collapse of the USSR made it impossible.
Russia were involved closely with various projects and were courted by the US after 9-11 to join the coalition against islamist terrorism, but lets be real here, Russia always wanted to plough its own furrow (Pristina Airport confrontation, Ukraine etc), too many senior Russian figures wanted a new USSR that would serve themselves and not the people. They had no concept of the latter notion and so a new, free Russia was killed in infancy. Thats why we have Putin in the first place. Those men made common cause with the slavic ultra-nationalists in places like Serbia and Belarus and the Republics in the Caucasus, because they were their sort of people, not liberal Western European democratic socialists. Not ever. And now it pisses them off massively that an expansion of their influence has stalled and their financial might is stunted.
And thats why we are, where we are. Call me dogmatic if you will, but I'd counter that you're a fool for buying any part of what Vladimir Putin is now trying to sell.
Anti russia oh you Russophobic the term coined to explain away russian indiscretions by blaming Russophobia ,the EU and NATO doesn't fear russia and they obviously don't thrust them either with very good reason , Putin has repeatedly threatened other sovereign states from Georgia ,to Moldova ,to Poland ,the Czech's the Baltics , Finland and the Scandinavian countries ,
Why is there a defensive alliance hmmmm I wonder why ,
But remember we're not threatening anyone there on porch of course vladi
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