Indeed defending yourself is not against NATO or OSCE principles, however membership requires conflicts to be settled by "peaceful means" in order to join. The Study on Enlargement clearly states that a candidate state "must settle those disputes by peaceful means in accordance with OSCE principles", it further holds that "the resolution of such disputes would be a factor in determining whether to invite a state to join the Alliance".
To join NATO the state must meet all the political, legal and military obligations and commitments of the Study, that is the requirement for joining and so is a rule. It is the collectively accepted published requirement for membership of NATO which was issued by NATO on foot of the 1994 Brussels Declaration. Similar is also stated in the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP).
And when you think about it it makes perfect sense, why admit a country when there is a dispute which could end up dragging all of NATO into that dispute?
Interesting though what does Germany spend all that cash on Remember most of there kit is badly need of was it upgrading or repair ?
Well after all is said and done, what did they expect? Thats the Mafia way.....in it for Life.
They need to get this right. It's been a failure in Kherson for a few weeks now. Something is not going well for them.
According to the Russians, Ukraine is attempting another offensive in the northern part of occupied Kherson.
Just to compare the investment the Americans alone put into this kinda thing...
And six of the others back the US, and likely a seventh.
As for Russia's military prowess so far....
Even their most ardent supporter must be wondering WTF?? at this stage.
Can we not pay for a plane trip to the motherland ?
It is not clear yet what happened in Crimea-
Well, when you go into the Russian army to do your compulsory military service, you may be teetotaler, but by the time you finish, you will have become quite fond of the "WODKA"😊
I would say that ordering a general mobilisation would be utterly devastating for Vladimir Putin. Has the partial mobilisation been popular? Has it made public approval of the war in Ukraine go up or down? Have all men called up gone off to fight enthusiastically? Have there been protests? Take these answers and extrapolate them to a general mobilisation and then ask yourself the question whether Putin's government could survive it?
Numbers keep getting bigger - not long ago they had another 2 million men ready to enter the battle, and ten thousand combat-ready tanks in storage.
While in reality they have to send press gangs to every backwater village of the federation to fulfill conscription quotas, and the tanks either don't move or were cannibalised for parts.
Despite all the criticisms of America I am glad of their war machine. If not for them we'd all be speaking Russian now.
All he's doing is packing the alcoholics closer together so every shell kills 10 instead of 1. Artillery wins wars, simpletons with AKs do not.
Ohh still plenty of idiots around to vote them back in. I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen again.
Some interesting developments in the Russian blogosphere. Been saying it for awhile, but one thing I have noticed up until now is that there has been ZERO criticism of Putin in the Russian Telegraph channels.
There has definitely been a slight shift in the last 3 weeks. People are starting to ask questions as to why things are going wrong. They are wondering how Shoigu and the Russian MOD can be so incompetent. Putin isn't quite in the crosshairs yet, but the gears seem to be very slowly getting into gear in the Russian consciousness that he's the one who's responsible for all this.
Sorry but what a crock of rubbish. The idea that Russia has shown restraint so far is farcical.
Yes, they can mobilise far more men, but modern wars are not fought with mass infantry. What matters is equipment and tech, and Russia has expanded a huge amount of both in its complete blunder in Ukraine.
What also matters is a well trained core in all branches, which Russia also does not possess.
The idea that they're almost messing around and can still pull out a "real" army or air force is a joke. They can throw a lot more meat into the grinder, but little else.
The Russian army is a rotten, bloated whale that's been badly exposed. Putin took a gamble on decapitating Ukraine on day one and it failed spectacularly. He then gambled on an actual war which also failed spectacularly.
Modern day Russia is not the Soviet Union. Their annual military budget is large on paper but bled by corruption and they don't have the industrial capability to wage a protracted war and replace the losses they are sustaining.
Their technology levels are decades behind NATO. And most importantly, they don't really have a will to fight. It's easy to say that NATO is supplying Ukraine but all of that wouldn't matter a damn if not for the resolute Ukrainian resolve. Case in point, Afghanistan's National Army, or the Iraqi military, equipped to the gills by the US, dissolving in front of an enemy with small arms and pick up trucks.
It's end game for Russia. They cannot win, short or long term.
There are some rumours in Russia....
<insert any random bullshit here>
I thought it would serve the Ukrainian cause well if the US had sabotaged the pipeline in order to take away a reason for EU countries to go easy on Putin.
But, it happened on the day the new Norway to Poland pipeline opened, and geographically very close to it.
So now I'm thinking it was a warning from Putin that the new pipeline is targetable.
Why? What difference do forced annexation announcements make? They are meaningless if not recognised by the other nations of the world. Not worth the bog roll they're written on. So it changes nothing, if Russia is going to keep digging a hole is this war, then they'll keep digging. Don't need no jizzed up paperwork.
There is some rumours in Russia, that Putin is about to declare the end of the 'special military operation'. But simultaneously make an official declaration of war against Ukraine, along with general mobilization. Which would be roughly about 25 million eligible persons to be drafted into the war.
I don't think we'll see tactical nukes anytime soon, but I do think we might be about to see the gloves come off in a big way. Putin and his generals apparently consider what they've been up to so far as a "conflict" rather than outright "war". But he is apparently coming under increasing pressure to dispense with any restraint, and go to all out war. Particularly using the full capabilities of the air force.
Hopefully both sides can be persuaded to come to the negotiating table, before anything like this is considered. It would be utterly devastating for Ukraine and the whole of Europe.
Defending yourself from invasion is not against any principle of NATO or OSCE. These principles are also _quite clearly_ referring to not taking offensive military action to resolve such issues.
The only actual rule is that every member state agrees to enlargement. That is it. They are not all going to agree to Ukraine joining for much the same reason they wouldn't have over the last 10 years. But it is not because of some technicality around them having a territorial dispute.
In our constituency and can't wait to f* him out on his arse next voting. Complete waste of space.
The Russuan calculation is that populations across Europe will lose sympathy during a cold winter with limited or no gas supply.
I don't believe they are crazy enough to use a nuclear weapon but this is a really serious situation since the annexation announcements.
You'd have to go back to the height of the Cold War to see this level of danger in relation to nukes and conflict with the west.
Hopefully this all ends soon.
And it all works, which is more than be said of the botox midgets gear
Definitely wouldn’t
Blah blah blah, conspiracy, blah blah blah.....I think.
Finglas must be lovely this time of year...
From Luke Skywalker himself, may the force be with Ukraine:-
America is damned near the land of contrasts and contradictions and here has always been a strong streak of isolationism in the American psyche and politic. All the way back to WW1 and very much so in the case of WW2, so this is no change really.
You can't beat the Ukraine Ministry of Defence Twitter handle:-
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/e050b53be62f0ae2404c620976170938.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w1.vanillicon.com/v2/1dfa17521f83716a5b701f1ba1121709.svg)
