“ We have not made any decisions and any discussion of this is premature,” said one administration official. “The president is absolutely firm that he will not be sending US troops to Ukraine.”
It appears the other way around. NATO has expanded, contravening the guarantee that led USSR to give up its rightfully owned territory in Germany and has been knocking on the doors of Russia.
It is evidently a critical national security interest for Russia, given the track record of unilateral regime change operations by NATO that have left millions dead and millions more displaced.
You are absolutely right about NATO, but wrong about Russia.
At the end of the day American hegemony has essentially produced the most peaceful, prosperous period ever and America is pretty open to any country joining this hegemony as long as you play by its basic rules.
This does not mean giving up your culture. American hegemony is able to allow such disparate economies and societies as Saudi Arabia and Norway to operate in fairly peaceful markets.
At the end of the day, it is in the best interest of everyone to basically do what America says.
Unlike previous regimes, America has not completely run roughshod over anyone other than people that were already doing extremely questionable things. And it doesn't matter because if your leaders kowtow enough to American demands, you can be pretty sure we will leave you alone.
So basically, Russia is going to lose and will make a fool of themselves as they already have, and America will come out of this relatively unscathed. At the end of the day, America has no real competition. The Pax Americana is substantively different than Pax Brittanica and Pax Romana, in that Americas is worldwide and there is no country able to threaten America in any meaningful way. We are blessed to be surrounded by two very friendly countries that play well with us.
Moreover all the countries that might threaten us are literally dying out.
> allow such disparate economies and societies as Saudi Arabia and Norway to operate in fairly peaceful markets.
While the US operates at an arms length from KSA with none of the usual theatrics about human rights violations, LGBTQ rights, etc, it has not adopted the same approach to China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, etc. It aggressively meddles in them in cultural and political spheres, not allowing such disparate actors to operate in the same peaceful markets. The recent animosity towards China is mind boggling.
I remember Wolfowitz’s PNAC and full spectrum domination from 2001. The US seem to have lost plenty of its power projection since then. But for its vassal states, most countries do not seem to care about its sanctions on Russia.
People don’t mind a just thug keeping peace and offering protection for a reasonable sum though. The US did that role well.
> It aggressively meddles in them in cultural and political spheres, not allowing such disparate actors to operate in the same peaceful markets. The recent animosity towards China is mind boggling.
As I said... If the leaders of those countries simply kowtowed to american demands, you bet they would. In particula,
China -- institute free market reforms; officially announce the truth, which is that they're not communist (they haven't been for years).
Russia -- not have Putin
Iran -- not have the Ayatollah
Cuba -- not be communist
At the end of the day it is very easy to acquiesce to American demands. You simply have to not try to undo a coup they did and then never ever ever say you're communist. You can go ahead and be a dictator, but America has decided communism bad, so just don't go there and you will be okay with the US. Then let the US operate military bases on your country's soil, and voila, you will be America's friend forever. Recall that Pakistan is still an ally of the United States despite harboring its most wanted terrorist.
in other words, there are very clear paths for all these countries to not feel the full force of American sanctions. And this is what I mean by the US doesn't really care. Even with China, you can say all you want about it, but America's embrace of China has made it what it is today, despite the cold tensions.
Just flat out false. There's less international conflict today than ever, thanks to Pax Americana .
Are there some rogue states that do not play well with American hegemony? Yes
But these states can easily make good by simply following America's terms. There are few grudges being held. No one is going to kill all their men and enslave their women. American demands are not so gruesome. They're relatively mild and would likely improve the standard of living of everyone there. I don't make this claim vacuously. Broadly speaking, everywhere that has adopted American hegemony has done incredibly well for themselves and their populace. Rationally speaking, there's no reason not to.
Is Soviet Union and Russia the same? BTW, Ukraine and a bunch of other now sovereign Eastern European countries were part of the "invasive behavior" that you allude to. I hear Stalin was a Georgian.
If you really did go back 200 years before NATO, you might be surprised to learn about the conflict ridden European history. The French were prolific invaders, for example. They still run colonies in far away places.
Russia is controlled by people with the same worldview as the people who controlled the Soviet Union. So in a sense, yes.
That worldview to be clear is "Russia is destined to be great, but the entire world is conspiring to bring it down". Stalin had been using the phrase "capitalist encirclement" since some point in the 20s. Nowadays it's "NATO encroachment". It's not an argument to be engaged in good faith by anyone who's paying attention.
The "Soviet Union" was a tool invented by Stalin to bring under his control the people that he couldn't assimilate into Russia directly. Yes, they're the same thing.
What does that have to do with literally anything?
Stalin was born in Georgia, hid his accent, had the state photographers airbrush his Georgian features (arched nose, chin, and brow) to look more Russian, personally ensured that Georgia was absorbed into Russia, and made Russian the only allowed language in Georgia.
So what? What's your point? You're just trying to distract from the point that matters, which is that the people currently in power in Russia had exactly the same worldview as the people in power in the Soviet Union, which is that "Russia is destined to be great, but the rest of the world is conspiring to bring it down". This applies to Putin, Stalin, and anyone who has any power in Russia.
"but but but stalin was georgian". Fucking ignoramus.
Excellent question. Let's ask the person who justified Russia's invasion by saying that NATO contravened its non-expansion guarantee to the Soviet Union.
Nonsense. Don't invade your friendly neighbors, and peace is simple. Ukraine gave up their nukes and signed the Budapest memorandum with Russia. Russia turned around and invaded Ukraine. So, sob stories about torn up security "agreements" with Russia are just crocodile tears.
Nato doesn't "expand." Countries join it for protection from predatory nations like Russia. Russia is NATO's greatest salesperson. Seriously.
> Ukraine gave up their nukes and signed the Budapest memorandum with Russia
For a moment, let's take your highly simplistic statement at face value. USSR gave up East Germany and voluntarily dissolved itself on the agreement that NATO won't expand east of Germany and Russia will be "admitted" into the West. What do we do about that now?
> It is pretty well established now that this was indeed the case.
It is not. The title of your linked article is "What Gorbachev heard" - why speculate instead of asking him? Gorbachev, Shevardnadze, Yazov and other top USSR officials have all said that there was no such thing. Gorbachev even went on to explain why it couldn't have been even in theory: democratically elected leaders can't give any promises beyond their term limits. Shevardnadze, the foreign minister of USSR at the time, gave a lengthy interview[1] where he described how the soundbites you quote were related to German reunification and have been taken out of context. His successor Kozyrev, the first foreign minister of the Russian Federation, has been even more direct and called people who keep pushing this narrative idiots. In 1990, nobody in USSR's leadership expected the USSR and Warsaw Pact to collapse in such a short time, let alone negotiate how Europe would look like afterwards. It simply does not fit the timeline nor the way diplomacy is conducted. It's a textbook example of a hoax.
Beyond that, whatever happened in 1990 was superseded by a written treaty between NATO and Russia in 1997, before anyone from Eastern Europe was admitted, in which Russia reiterates the "respect for sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all states and their inherent right to choose the means to ensure their own security".[2] Back then, Russia was still receiving food aid from the US, and was in no position to make any demands. The rewritten version of history that has that fictional promise at its core was invented in mid-2000s.
Can you point me to this treaty? Russia had admittance into the West. It wasn't serious about it. There was excitement to welcome Russia into commerce and brotherhood with the West. Russia wasn't considered an enemy after the fall of the Soviet Union until it chose to be, by becoming an expansionist power under Putin. An easy way to tell is to look at American movies in that time period--Russians stopped featuring as the default villain in American movies--no more "Ivan Drago" as foreign antagonists. The opportunity was there.
NATO doesn't threaten non-expansionist powers as a defensive treaty. Read the treaty. Being "admitted" into the west is easy--don't invade other countries, send little green men army invasions or make bellicose nuclear threats, and focus on business-first and the red carpet rolls itself out.
> For a moment, let's take your highly simplistic statement at face value. USSR gave up East Germany and voluntarily dissolved itself on the agreement that NATO won't expand east of Germany and Russia will be "admitted" into the West. What do we do about that now?
Of course it's all BS. Putin was stationed in Dresden, the GDR in 1989 and he probably shit his pants when the Wall fell and the KGB was too busy with other stuff to extract him. That's why he made up this childrens' story that the US promised not to expand NATO Eastward: misundertanding + whisful thinking + PTSD.
You do know that this "defence alliance" already attacked 2 countries, which were not attacking any NATO member, right?
And even if the alliance really were just defensive, you realize that this means that all it takes to use it against someone is a successful false flag attack?
All i know is that they bombed Serbia, which did not wage war on any NATO country, for 78 consecutive days and more recently, destroyed Syria and Libya, which again did not invade any of the NATO countries.
Also it seems that NATO rebuffed Russia's attempt to join it. With Russia in NATO would have been the strongest defense alliance. I wonder why they wanted to keep Russians as perpetual enemies!
> I am yet to see a clear articulation of 1. What those critical interests are
The critical interest of the US is in avoiding direct war of the US with Russia when it invades Poland or Estonia. Russia _will_ invade a NATO country if it conquers Ukraine, and the US will be obliged to defend it. So if the voluntary support of Ukraine allows to avoid that scenario today, it obviously is critically interesting.
> Why they are worth pursuing at the risk of a/ destruction of European economies b/ alienating China,
Because it is much better to risk the destruction of European economy (btw, how exactly?) or alienate China than risk sleepwalking into a potentially civilization-ending NATO-Russia war.
Seriously. This is just scaremongering. Could it happen? Anything can happen. Will it happen? I dunno, but acting like it is a foregone conclusion as justification for escalation is nothing more than pro war propaganda.
You forgot to mention, if the US didn’t back Europe’s stance on Ukraine (yes Europe’s stance), then China would have a green light to invade Taiwan, and most certainly do it.
And once that precedent is set of invading neighbors like that, neither Russia nor China would stop with just Ukraine and Taiwan.
Not quite. Europe has been bullied into a war with its principal commodity and energy supplier.
Wish there were leaders like Jacques Chirac who had the balls to put their own national interests first.
No, exactly what i said: like Jacques Chirac, who was correct about the illegal Iraq war that killed a million Iraqis, and had the balls to back it up.
That is a very short-term and one sided view of the conflict that has been on since at least 2014. BTW, we had peace agreements guaranteed by France and Germany before Russia invaded Ukraine.
It is naive to think Ukraine can be "taken over". The objective of the military operation is to prevent Ukraine from joining the NATO and US building nuclear capable bases right on Russia's border.
Last I checked there’s a bunch of Baltic states on Russia's borders that are a nato members, sounds like they’re being invaded next if the concern you site is real. Which it’s not, (but if it is then that counteracts a bunch of your other points.)
And nuclear capable bases? Haha As if Russia, China, the USA would have a problem launching ICBMs targeting anywhere. Not a real concern.
Ukraine is just a territorial land grab by Putin pining for an empire.
> 2. Why they are worth pursuing at the risk of a/ destruction of European economies
Because Europe was (maybe still is) a treat economicaly for the US economy, especially automotive sector.
And the EU was trying to become also a military aliance which will be a treat to NATO, if they separate.
At the moment the US is buying a lot of politicians in EU (vdL for example) but this won't last forever.
EU people are quite reasonable, they just don't quite like being bossed around.
The Germans needed North Stream blown up and Ukraine invaded in order to understand that they shouldn't have relied on Russian gas to grow their economy. Some of Germans I've spoken to still don't get it as of today, regardless how frank the current and former US administrations were regarding this and contributions to NATO. Somehow they fail to comprehend that the US gave them protection during the Cold War and it's also US brokered agreements that led to the reunification of Germany on 15 March 1991.
The French being French like stuff done their way and knew they can't fully rely on the US since the '50s. But at least they got their shit together with Germany and are building a new tank platform, the MGCS. Some of the German aerospace industry was already consolidated into Airbus Helicopters and they've also jointly developed the Eurofighter platform with the UK, Spain and Italy.
Norway, Denmark, The Nederlands, Belgium, Poland, Romania, Greece and Turkey are buying US weapons systems, no surprises there.
> The Germans needed North Stream blown up and Ukraine invaded in order to understand that they shouldn't have relied on Russian gas to grow their economy. Some of Germans I've spoken to still don't get it as of today
This is like an abusive husband who tells the wife how the beatings are for her owm good!
No, it's like parents taking their fat stubborn kid to sports camp to get him off ponchiki, setting the ponchiki joint alight and than feeding him doughnuts. All of this because the ponchiki joint's owner used the profits to arm up and attack their neighbour, which they promised to leave alone.
(For the record, ponchiki taste way better than doughnuts, at least I'll give the Russians that)
51 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 126 ms ] threadAt the end of the day American hegemony has essentially produced the most peaceful, prosperous period ever and America is pretty open to any country joining this hegemony as long as you play by its basic rules.
This does not mean giving up your culture. American hegemony is able to allow such disparate economies and societies as Saudi Arabia and Norway to operate in fairly peaceful markets.
At the end of the day, it is in the best interest of everyone to basically do what America says.
Unlike previous regimes, America has not completely run roughshod over anyone other than people that were already doing extremely questionable things. And it doesn't matter because if your leaders kowtow enough to American demands, you can be pretty sure we will leave you alone.
So basically, Russia is going to lose and will make a fool of themselves as they already have, and America will come out of this relatively unscathed. At the end of the day, America has no real competition. The Pax Americana is substantively different than Pax Brittanica and Pax Romana, in that Americas is worldwide and there is no country able to threaten America in any meaningful way. We are blessed to be surrounded by two very friendly countries that play well with us.
Moreover all the countries that might threaten us are literally dying out.
While the US operates at an arms length from KSA with none of the usual theatrics about human rights violations, LGBTQ rights, etc, it has not adopted the same approach to China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, etc. It aggressively meddles in them in cultural and political spheres, not allowing such disparate actors to operate in the same peaceful markets. The recent animosity towards China is mind boggling.
I remember Wolfowitz’s PNAC and full spectrum domination from 2001. The US seem to have lost plenty of its power projection since then. But for its vassal states, most countries do not seem to care about its sanctions on Russia.
People don’t mind a just thug keeping peace and offering protection for a reasonable sum though. The US did that role well.
As I said... If the leaders of those countries simply kowtowed to american demands, you bet they would. In particula,
China -- institute free market reforms; officially announce the truth, which is that they're not communist (they haven't been for years).
Russia -- not have Putin
Iran -- not have the Ayatollah
Cuba -- not be communist
At the end of the day it is very easy to acquiesce to American demands. You simply have to not try to undo a coup they did and then never ever ever say you're communist. You can go ahead and be a dictator, but America has decided communism bad, so just don't go there and you will be okay with the US. Then let the US operate military bases on your country's soil, and voila, you will be America's friend forever. Recall that Pakistan is still an ally of the United States despite harboring its most wanted terrorist.
in other words, there are very clear paths for all these countries to not feel the full force of American sanctions. And this is what I mean by the US doesn't really care. Even with China, you can say all you want about it, but America's embrace of China has made it what it is today, despite the cold tensions.
In US, yes. In the rest of the world, no.
Are there some rogue states that do not play well with American hegemony? Yes
But these states can easily make good by simply following America's terms. There are few grudges being held. No one is going to kill all their men and enslave their women. American demands are not so gruesome. They're relatively mild and would likely improve the standard of living of everyone there. I don't make this claim vacuously. Broadly speaking, everywhere that has adopted American hegemony has done incredibly well for themselves and their populace. Rationally speaking, there's no reason not to.
If you really did go back 200 years before NATO, you might be surprised to learn about the conflict ridden European history. The French were prolific invaders, for example. They still run colonies in far away places.
Yes.
Russia is controlled by people with the same worldview as the people who controlled the Soviet Union. So in a sense, yes.
That worldview to be clear is "Russia is destined to be great, but the entire world is conspiring to bring it down". Stalin had been using the phrase "capitalist encirclement" since some point in the 20s. Nowadays it's "NATO encroachment". It's not an argument to be engaged in good faith by anyone who's paying attention.
The "Soviet Union" was a tool invented by Stalin to bring under his control the people that he couldn't assimilate into Russia directly. Yes, they're the same thing.
Stalin was born in Georgia, hid his accent, had the state photographers airbrush his Georgian features (arched nose, chin, and brow) to look more Russian, personally ensured that Georgia was absorbed into Russia, and made Russian the only allowed language in Georgia.
So what? What's your point? You're just trying to distract from the point that matters, which is that the people currently in power in Russia had exactly the same worldview as the people in power in the Soviet Union, which is that "Russia is destined to be great, but the rest of the world is conspiring to bring it down". This applies to Putin, Stalin, and anyone who has any power in Russia.
"but but but stalin was georgian". Fucking ignoramus.
Excellent question. Let's ask the person who justified Russia's invasion by saying that NATO contravened its non-expansion guarantee to the Soviet Union.
Nato doesn't "expand." Countries join it for protection from predatory nations like Russia. Russia is NATO's greatest salesperson. Seriously.
> Ukraine gave up their nukes and signed the Budapest memorandum with Russia
For a moment, let's take your highly simplistic statement at face value. USSR gave up East Germany and voluntarily dissolved itself on the agreement that NATO won't expand east of Germany and Russia will be "admitted" into the West. What do we do about that now?
What agreement? Even Gorbachev (last leader of USSR) confirmed that there was no such agreement.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/did-nato-promise-not-to-e...
And it did not voluntarily dissolved itself, it fell apart. Like when your plate voluntarily dissolves itself when you drop it on the floor.
It is not. The title of your linked article is "What Gorbachev heard" - why speculate instead of asking him? Gorbachev, Shevardnadze, Yazov and other top USSR officials have all said that there was no such thing. Gorbachev even went on to explain why it couldn't have been even in theory: democratically elected leaders can't give any promises beyond their term limits. Shevardnadze, the foreign minister of USSR at the time, gave a lengthy interview[1] where he described how the soundbites you quote were related to German reunification and have been taken out of context. His successor Kozyrev, the first foreign minister of the Russian Federation, has been even more direct and called people who keep pushing this narrative idiots. In 1990, nobody in USSR's leadership expected the USSR and Warsaw Pact to collapse in such a short time, let alone negotiate how Europe would look like afterwards. It simply does not fit the timeline nor the way diplomacy is conducted. It's a textbook example of a hoax.
Beyond that, whatever happened in 1990 was superseded by a written treaty between NATO and Russia in 1997, before anyone from Eastern Europe was admitted, in which Russia reiterates the "respect for sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all states and their inherent right to choose the means to ensure their own security".[2] Back then, Russia was still receiving food aid from the US, and was in no position to make any demands. The rewritten version of history that has that fictional promise at its core was invented in mid-2000s.
[1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-e...
[2] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_25468.htm
NATO doesn't threaten non-expansionist powers as a defensive treaty. Read the treaty. Being "admitted" into the west is easy--don't invade other countries, send little green men army invasions or make bellicose nuclear threats, and focus on business-first and the red carpet rolls itself out.
"Myth," Gorbachev said. "Had we had an agreement, we would've written it down," he added: https://x.com/splendid_pete/status/1650735533826375680
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-06-15/russia...
And even if the alliance really were just defensive, you realize that this means that all it takes to use it against someone is a successful false flag attack?
> successful false flag attack
Classic Russian. “AKSHUALLY IT’S PROVOKASHION”
Also it seems that NATO rebuffed Russia's attempt to join it. With Russia in NATO would have been the strongest defense alliance. I wonder why they wanted to keep Russians as perpetual enemies!
The critical interest of the US is in avoiding direct war of the US with Russia when it invades Poland or Estonia. Russia _will_ invade a NATO country if it conquers Ukraine, and the US will be obliged to defend it. So if the voluntary support of Ukraine allows to avoid that scenario today, it obviously is critically interesting.
> Why they are worth pursuing at the risk of a/ destruction of European economies b/ alienating China,
Because it is much better to risk the destruction of European economy (btw, how exactly?) or alienate China than risk sleepwalking into a potentially civilization-ending NATO-Russia war.
That's why we're supporting Ukraine and sanctioning The Russia (well, the sanctions could be even harsher, but it is what it is).
Europe also remembers how appeasement went for Europeans before wwii when another country though it would be cool to take over some neighbors.
I think you’ve advocating for Neville chamberlain’s appeasement policy.
That is a very short-term and one sided view of the conflict that has been on since at least 2014. BTW, we had peace agreements guaranteed by France and Germany before Russia invaded Ukraine.
It is naive to think Ukraine can be "taken over". The objective of the military operation is to prevent Ukraine from joining the NATO and US building nuclear capable bases right on Russia's border.
And nuclear capable bases? Haha As if Russia, China, the USA would have a problem launching ICBMs targeting anywhere. Not a real concern.
Ukraine is just a territorial land grab by Putin pining for an empire.
Because Europe was (maybe still is) a treat economicaly for the US economy, especially automotive sector. And the EU was trying to become also a military aliance which will be a treat to NATO, if they separate. At the moment the US is buying a lot of politicians in EU (vdL for example) but this won't last forever.
EU people are quite reasonable, they just don't quite like being bossed around.
The Germans needed North Stream blown up and Ukraine invaded in order to understand that they shouldn't have relied on Russian gas to grow their economy. Some of Germans I've spoken to still don't get it as of today, regardless how frank the current and former US administrations were regarding this and contributions to NATO. Somehow they fail to comprehend that the US gave them protection during the Cold War and it's also US brokered agreements that led to the reunification of Germany on 15 March 1991.
The French being French like stuff done their way and knew they can't fully rely on the US since the '50s. But at least they got their shit together with Germany and are building a new tank platform, the MGCS. Some of the German aerospace industry was already consolidated into Airbus Helicopters and they've also jointly developed the Eurofighter platform with the UK, Spain and Italy.
Norway, Denmark, The Nederlands, Belgium, Poland, Romania, Greece and Turkey are buying US weapons systems, no surprises there.
This is like an abusive husband who tells the wife how the beatings are for her owm good!
(For the record, ponchiki taste way better than doughnuts, at least I'll give the Russians that)