Sometimes it’s difficult to find a good argument against blindly siding with Ukraine against Russia, so I’m wondering what to say next time some NATO worshipper orders me to fulfill my daily NATO worship quota or else he’s gonna cancel me on twitter dot com or whatever. What are the facts?

For one, I don’t believe Ukraine belongs to Russia and I don’t want to be excusing Russian war crimes, let’s get that out of the way. I don’t want to make those kinds of arguments. For two, I also don’t want to say that Ukraine should cede all ground, let Russia take over (assuming that’s what they want to do), and only help the refugees who fled to us and do nothing else. (Also, I’m not sure what to make of Donbas and Crimea. It was indeed weird that NATO did nothing when the latter got annexed, but now…?)

Three, I’m wary of “future predictions”; I don’t want to predicate my stance on the matter on the possibility that Russia’s war effort will eventually falter and things will get back to normal anyways. Opinions akin to this do not seem very thought-out to me. Something similar goes regarding the Ukraine corruption and Nazis arguments. Yes, these issues are real, but it doesn’t seem to me like they justify letting Ukraine be invaded by someone who doesn’t seem to be doing it for those reasons in particular.

And lastly, if I should accept the idea that NATO is fundamentally bad because it is the muscle of the Euro-American empire, rather than just marginally bad due to whatever bad thing it’s currently doing in regards to the Ukraine war (again, highlight what exactly it is), then what about those “NATO is just a defensive pact” arguments? Who exactly can and cannot join NATO, who are its enemies, what are its motivations, etc?

I’m hearing a lot of comparisons between Russia and Nazi Germany where I live (I’m Czech). They compare the way both have expanded, were initially tolerated, but then they expanded too much and war broke out. They compare Hitler and Putin and their “Lebensraum” vs “vulnerable borders” and call both bs. BS because Germany had enough space, and because Russia isn’t the only nation with vulnerable borders, yet they’re the only ones complaining.

What do I even say? At this point, my entire opinion amounts to “war is bad and the fighting should stop”, which, despite how much I’ve learned over the past year, seems awfully uneducated.

  • Kaffe@lemmygrad.ml
    21·
    2 years ago

    And lastly, if I should accept the idea that NATO is fundamentally bad because it is the muscle of the Euro-American empire, rather than just marginally bad due to whatever bad thing it’s currently doing in regards to the Ukraine war (again, highlight what exactly it is), then what about those “NATO is just a defensive pact” arguments? Who exactly can and cannot join NATO, who are its enemies, what are its motivations, etc?

    NATO was invoked to destroy Yugoslavia, invoked to invade Iraq in Desert Storm, was a attempted to be invoked during the US invasion of Iraq again in 2003, was invoked to invade Libya in 2011. NATO is a defensive alliance, but clearly the US sees NATO as a tool in military interventions, besides, if the US invasion ends up being “illegal”, who’s going to stop them? The Hague?

    Let’s hear from a NATO founder:

    Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay was NATO’s first Secretary General, a position he was initially reluctant to accept. By the end of his tenure however, Ismay had become the biggest advocate of the organisation he had famously said earlier on in his political career, was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

    NATO was largely an Atlanticists (US + UK + France) project. It was created to incorporate Germany into a Western military alliance, against the USSR. NATO’s early members included the likes of Norway and Turkey, to box in the USSR’s access to the Atlantic ocean. NATO quickly moved American nukes into Turkey, pointed at Moscow (this was the root cause of the Cuban missile crisis, the USSR’s response, which ended in nukes being removed from Turkey and Cuba). NATOs focused on Germany, by working with the Nazis (through Operation Paperclip) to embed the former German Reich into NATO positions and Communist susceptible countries (like Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, you know the memes about Latin Americans with German names). NATO is a project of dual goals, destroy Socialism, and prevent Germany from gaining access to Russia. Why the second goal? Because the US sees a German-Russian coalition as an existential threat to US dominance. Whether Germany goes Socialist, or the Nazis conquered the East, the state or coalition in control over Germany and the East could out-compete the US, that’s unacceptable to the American elites.

    It’s no coincidence that the country most hurt by the sanctions against Russia is, in fact, not Russia. It’s Germany. German industry was heavily reliant on cheap and easily transported gas from Russia. With the sanctions, the US seeks to be the alternative supplier, but the ports necessary to import US gas don’t exist yet, and the cost of US gas is many times higher than what they paid the Russians. To fully prevent the Germans from turning the taps back on, somebody bombed the pipelines, hundreds of meters below the sea. German politicians no longer have a way out of the incoming depression, they have no political alternative to continuing sanctions in support of Ukraine.

    NATO and the EU in general, want a few things from Ukraine. The Sevastopol port, which was leased by Russia, and which the renewal of that lease broke into a brawl in the Ukrainian Parliament, was renewed to Russia for another 25 years. The US was interested in leasing this port for its own military, a deal made easier by Ukraine joining NATO.

    Who isn’t allowed to join NATO? NATO has strict requirements for joining, including a unanimous vote from current members. Russia only really cares about Ukraine and Belarus staying neutral. These territories were used by the Nazis to invade the USSR, it’s very easy land to move massive armies on, attackers have generally had advantages on that territory. Belarus’s history allows it to be quite close to Russia still. Ukraine’s history is complicated, with enough historical anti-Russian sentiment (particularly in Galicia) to allow for a coalition government in Ukraine to seek NATO ascension. NATO seized the opportunity for such a situation in 2014 by supporting the far right before they took power, and legitimizing their claim afterwards. NATO state elites were planning such a takeover for decades following the collapse of the USSR. The NATO camp was however split, with many of the “realist” camp saying that the Ukraine to NATO plan would provoke a civil war in the country, one likely to cause Russia to get involved, as predicted by the “realist” Mearsheimer.

    • Kaffe@lemmygrad.ml
      17·
      2 years ago

      Honestly I have more to say about Putin’s Russia (though, I’m not actually a believer in Dictator Putin, he inherited a constitutionally inflated presidency from Yeltsin’s government, and he’s very adept at building coalitions and staying in control of government). He spoke to the British about joining NATO:

      Vladimir Putin wanted Russia to join Nato but did not want his country to have to go through the usual application process and stand in line “with a lot of countries that don’t matter”, according to a former secretary general of the transatlantic alliance.

      George Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary who led Nato between 1999 and 2003, said Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he said.

      The Labour peer recalled an early meeting with Putin, who became Russian president in 2000. “Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join Nato, they apply to join Nato.’ And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”

      This didn’t work out, why would the US not want Russia to join NATO? Doesn’t it make sense to add an economic and military power such as Russia on your side? See, the Russians thought they were going to become partners with the US in being the two big players in the West, this is why they willingly gave up their own power in opposition to the US in the USSR. The American Oligarchy (Ruling Class, Deep State, etc.) did not see things this way, their view was of horror: Germany and Russia united in a military and economic partnership, alongside the US! This means they would be safe from the US! NATO only works as a coercive “defense pact” if the other members fear an enemy (coincidentally - or not, this is how the US justifies the occupation of Korea as well). Putin soon realized what was going on, having supervised the Second Chechen War, he had experienced first hand what Operation Gladio was doing, and how these terrorist groups all over the world seemingly share the same interests with the US Ruling Class. The Orange Revolution of 2004 in Ukraine must have been very unsettling, Ukraine is Russia’s sibling.

      Putin was beloved in the West(ern media, the planners saw him has a temporary roadblock in the way of further looting the country, somebody with too much ambition) before a specific moment in 2007, his speech at the Munich Security Conference. I think the description is quite good:

      Vladimir Putin’s landmark speech on February 10th 2007 at 43rd Munich Security Conference where he openly criticized the US for its striving for a unipolar world, its unrestrained use of force and its disdain for international law. For the first time since the end of the Cold War he made clear that Russia does not intend to fit in this kind of world order. Despite his criticism, Putin didn’t seek confrontation but called for a new partnership on a fair basis.The Western mainstream media, however, distorted his speech and portrayed it as a malicious attack. Watch and judge for yourself.

      Putin called out the US for seeking dominance in the world (reference to the Project for the New American Century, responsible for planning the invasion of Iraq). This speech is great, and the Americans present (like McCain, PNAC signer) are red hot with scoffed smiles, Merkel looks absolutely embarrassed. This is the speech that made Putin equivalent to Hitler, in the eyes of the West, because he dared to challenge the Entente’s authority. Everything else is embellished facts or outright lies to retell the Nazis’ seizure of power. To explain Putin they resort to Tsarist ambitions or a search for Lebensraum (even though Russia’s agricultural output is significantly larger than Ukraine’s, the Donbass is mostly depressed industry). They won’t explain their actual problems with him, because that gives up the inner workings of NATO and the US security state.

      Coincidentally after this speech, the Russo-Georgian War began.