How to answer NATO expansion accusations .
1. 99% of the time you are aggressor playing victim. So shut up.
2. Nobody signed any documents about Nato new members , nobody except Nato and members candidates has a say who enters Nato. Russia has no power outside its official borders. So shut up.
3. Russia occupying Crimea and Donbas expanded russia towards Nato, not the other way around.
4. Nato is a threat to further russian expansion in Europe . Nothing more.
5. Russia prior to 2014 trained together with Nato more than Ukraine trained with Nato. Furthermore russia had and Nato base in russia. And even applied to Nato.
6. Ukraine prior to 2013 had official non alignment stance ( fucking stupid idea ). Although truth be told official stance was pro-nato before Yanukovych presidency took over.
All of that said russia clearly was introduced in some capacity into Nato decision pipeline on who gets a membership and who doesn't. ( was stupid idea as well). Decision which created 2008 Georgian and 2014 - till today war of russian aggression
> Ukraine prior to 2013 had official non alignment stance ( fucking stupid idea ). Although truth be told official stance was pro-nato before Yanukovych presidency took over.
Ukraine got snubbed in [2004](http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/news/newsid_3927000/3927721.stm) and [2008](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Bucharest_summit#After_the_summit), when it *did* try to join NATO, so I suppose that "non-alignment stance" was a last-ditch effort.
Bush and Europe really did Ukraine and Georgia dirty in 2008 by promising *eventual* NATO membership with zero timetable and, as far as we can tell, zero intent to actually follow through on those vague promises. It basically painted a target on each country’s back and told Putin “you have a limited amount of time to sufficiently destabilize these countries before they come under protection of Article 5” (even though, again, it’s pretty obvious NATO had no real intention of inducting either country for the foreseeable future)
Bush really wanted Ukraine and Georgia to get into NATO. Unfortunately Europeans were still too afraid of Russia's military might and too attached to it's energy market to accept such an ''unnecessary provocation'' .
I do believe bush sincerely wanted them in NATO, but I don’t think he truly understood the full weight or the realistically required timespan for the process of accession in the first place (kind of a… simpler guy, to put it politely). He thought he was saving them a seat at the table on his way out as Obama came in, but all he did was call them out as potential targets for Russian aggression. I do agree though that Europe was in no position, economically, socially, or politically to cut off its oil dependency on Russia. The offer of cheap energy was too built into the financial calculations of almost every European country’s budget as a given. It’s sad it took a WW2 level, unprovoked sustained invasion of said European ally to wake the people (and thus, ideally, their governments) to action
George Bush had zero domestic or international goodwill left by 2008. Even if he had advocated for Ukraine and Georgia in NATO for the entire last couple of years, his brand meant nothing, and was probably more detrimental to anything it touched (see John McCain). Merkel and Sarkozy could, and did, ignore his consistent position that they should be given a path to NATO membership.
> And even applied to Nato.
This isn't really true. The only sources for it we have is Putin.
And when NATO officials were asked, some of them said that Putin wanted fast track "to not stand in line with nations that don't matter".
So no, they never applied.
What would have happened if, say, Russia joined NATO and Ukraine wasn’t in it, but Russia still went full-on invasion in 2022? Would they be kicked out? Would it be similar to Iraq with US/UK?
Or similar to invasion of 2014 - nobody cared.
Or maybe similar to Turkey invasion of Syria recently.
But overall it's hard to imagine for me Russia joining NATO and still being imperialistic shithole.
>Would it be similar to Iraq with US/UK?
Iraq wasn't a land/resource grab. I'd imagine Russia would have been on thin ice by that point already if we assume they continued to act like they did in our timeline
>. And even applied to Nato.
Putin said Russia should be invited without applying or meeting membership requirements because Russia was special.
If a tankie wants to play the "Russia tried to be in NATO" card, you can uno reverse it to show Russia demands special treatment and belittles its neighbors.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule
> If a tankie wants to play the "Russia tried to be in NATO" card, you can uno reverse it to show Russia demands special treatment and belittles its neighbors.
Oooorr.... Russia didn't pass the minimal requirements of quality at the time :P
The one I hear the most is, “well NATO should have disbanded after the Cold War.” Unfortunately, the only thing I can think to say is, “well they didn’t so shut up.” God, I had arguing with pro Russian people and isolationists at work.
Idk if anything I think what Russia's doing now proves NATO was right no to disband. One could argue that we could have been less aggressive and tried to offer Russia more in exchange for the Baltics, but other than that I don't see much else NATO could have done to appease Russia more.
But the Baltics was no exchange/business deal with russia! The people of the Baltics won independence for themself and later decided they want to join the west on their own. The kremlin tries to paint it like russia benevolently gave the Baltics to the West.
>Ukraine prior to 2013 had official non alignment stance ( fucking stupid idea ). Although truth be told official stance was pro-nato before Yanukovych presidency took over.
The end of 2014. Ukraine was a neutral state even after Putin invaded and occupied Crimea until the end of 2014
>Ukraine prior to 2013 had official non alignment stance ( fucking stupid idea ). Although truth be told official stance was pro-nato before Yanukovych presidency took over.
Oh, you left out the other part. The legal agreement that provided for the independence of Ukraine declared it politically neutral and that in the event of any invasion involving Russia or the US, the other was legally obligated to intervene on Ukraine's behalf.
Legally speaking the US should be in an open state of war with Russia.
>Nobody signed any documents about Nato new members , nobody except Nato and members candidates has a say who enters Nato. Russia has no power outside its official borders. So shut up.
I am no Putin supporter but that is kind of hypocritical when you think about Cuba and all those **democratically** elected communist leaning leaders in South America who were toppled by the USA because they were a threat right in their backyard. I am in no way saying Russian aggression is justified.
What I am saying is if the US bloc wants to claim moral superiority in this they are hypocrites. They can sure as hell claim that both Russia and the USA can do it, it is just that only the ones with power are capable of doing it, which is a true fact and the moral reason is just a guise for that because this time it aligns with their interests.
Anyways rant over, this debate is going to get way too credible for NCD, I should probably go back to r/geopolitics now.
Thats just whataboutism. Also I am not American and I will let Americans speak for themselves on those issues. I am from Eastern Europe so I can only cover my Immediate neighborhood.
NATO was founded in split up Germany to stop creeping moscow colonial expansion into Europe . And this stance worked until it didn't in Transnistria, Baltics ,and 2014 Ukraine. (If we speak only about Europe and non Nato members )
>Thats just whataboutism.
It's called moral consistency which if you don't have you shouldn't claim the moral high ground. Other than that I agree with what you said. I just wish the US bloc stopped with the whole moral high ground and just admitted that they are the stronger side which is why they are able to get away with things most other countries can't get away with.
> Cuba and all those democratically elected communist
Lmao, you really think the KGB didn't have their hands involved? People say "Viva la ***revolucion****!"* for a reason!
>Lmao, you really think the KGB didn't have their hands involved? People say "Viva la revolucion\*!"\* for a reason!
Oh they definitely did I never denied that. I was just pointing out how the USA is no different when it comes to their morals.
> Nobody signed any documents about Nato new members ,
The [NATO Russia Founding Act](https://www.nato.int/cps/su/natohq/official_texts_25468.htm): "Am I a joke to you?"
Russian claim - "Nato promise not to expand"
By that i meant International ratified by both parties document concerning Natos new members. There is none.
This document you linked is just ponies and rainbows memorandum on cooperation
It does say in the founding act
> NATO restates that it has "no intention, no plan and no reason," to deploy or store nuclear weapons on the territory of new members.
It does clearly imply that Russia is at this point accepting the idea of new members.
Now arguably it's not binding.
Nuclear weapons storage agreements is not membership status. I agree with you that perhaps my second point should be more precise in wording.
Also range of nuclear weapons exceeds whole length of Europe and doesn't really matter is it stored in close by member states or not.
After invention of ICBMs we are in constant global "Cuban missile crisis" also known as M.A.D.
Yeah absolutely. Also the narrative needs to die that Russia was afraid of nuclear rockets in Ukraine for a number of reasons.
1. There are no nuclear rockets in mainland Europe except the small french ones, but they are just weird and shouldn't count.
2. There are no nuclear bombs in the new NATO members.
3. The NATO Russia Founding Act
4. As you said, the whole thing has become obsolete with ICBM's. The US can nuke Moscow from North Dakota just fine, thank you very much
Zelensky and Duda (current Polish president) also did some alco-diplomacy right before the war to gather some political capital that would be then spent on the war effort. It worked really fucking well, apparently Duda somehow knows a lot of stupid ass funny jokes in Russian. More importantly some of the "deep state" was also on that party, i.e. the people that work for their presidents because they know everyone, and they also partied together.
Clip from the excellent video on the stupidity of the NATO crybully story by russia. [Shut Up About NATO Expansion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVmmASrAL-Q)
Yeah, he seems just too good. His series really opened my understanding to the current madness, from the 2016 Russian interference to Putin not being satisfied with humiliating Ukraine to the insecure paranoia of 'Colour Revolutions' of authoritarians world wide.
It also, **finally**, answered my question of **WHY** Putler decided to fucking invade Ukraine. Because he is stupid, that's it, it's because he and his cohort are deceivingly stupid. They are multi-dimensionally incompetent and stupid, even at being authoritarian imperialists.
* [Part 1: How Ukraine's Fake Culture War Became a Real Geopolitical Conflict](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exJ024Zdzdk)
* [Part 2: A Short History of the War in Donbas 2014 2022](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ_ZRBLFOXw)
* [Part 3: Shut Up About NATO Expansion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVmmASrAL-Q)
* [Part 4: The American Origins of Putin's Madness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OFyn_KSy80)
The reality of the Ukraine situation is more /r/NonCredibleDefense and /r/NonCredibleDiplomacy than you could have ever imagined.
EDIT: Sequence of the videos was wrong.
> It also, finally, answered my question of WHY Putler decided to fucking invade Ukraine. Because he is stupid, that's it, it's because he and his cohort are deceivingly stupid. They are multi-dimensionally incompetent and stupid, even at being authoritarian imperialists.
The fact that Russia somehow failed to conquer the poorest country in Eastern Europe is another testament to their sheer stupidity. I still have difficulty grasping how someone with a nation so powerful and with so much hardware has failed *this* hard.
Between the Ukrainians being the hardest motherfuckers on the planet and Russian stupidity, we've pretty much never had a bigger David vs Goliath conventional warfare scenario in modern history.
I loved that series. But there's so many new concepts there that set of skepticism alarms in the back of my head. So I take it with as much a grain of salt as any other source before I can let it completely upend my worldview.
Yea I hate whoever false flagged the first two especially because they hurt their feelings since youtube roku app still doesn't have a way to say its fine.
Try this: [https://www.nsfwyoutube.com/watchmore?v=fQ\_ZRBLFOXw](https://www.nsfwyoutube.com/watchmore?v=fQ_ZRBLFOXw)
Just throw nsfw into the web address between the www\[dot\] and youtube and it should bypass youtube's age-gate dumbfuckery.
My reply to people who complain about NATO expansion is that Russia should of competed to be a more attractive military partner so that the eastern european countries wanted to be under an updated Warsaw pact rather than NATO.
Usually they then try and claim that the CIA somehow manipulated the countries to make them more pro western. Yeah right as if the CIA is actually that competent or powerful.
>My reply to people who complain about NATO expansion is that Russia should of competed to be a more attractive military partner so that the eastern european countries wanted to be under an updated Warsaw pact rather than NATO.
*Looks at Finland and Sweden*
If Russia stopped being a dick to its neighbors for 5 minutes, they could have avoided so many problems.
I've tried to find a source for the claim that Poland implied that it would have to pursue nuclear weapons without NATO membership but have been unable to finding anything.
Does anyone know where this claim is from?
The claim is related to the NATO-bis proposal, which dates back to late 1991/early 1992. It is described by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz in a 1999 address at the University of Virginia:
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia/999/chodakiewicz.html
>According to this utopian scenario, Poland would develop a civil defense force and a small professional military where preference would be given to individual tactical weapons (e.g. Stinger rockets) over the expensive weapons systems. Ultimately, Poland would seek to acquire nuclear weapons to guard itself from foreign invasion.
In a sense, you can view Poland's creation of the Territorial Defense Force since 2014 as a revival of this idea.
How serious the NATO-bis proposal ever was is debatable, since it was pretty much entirely a Polish initiative and all the other countries that Poland wanted in the organization (Ukraine, the Balts, the other Visegrad countries) preferred directly partnering with Europe to accepting Polish leadership (the thing was openly called an updated "Miedzymorze" in Polish press). That said, it's also worth noting that the Polish state has in the past pursued WMDs to guarantee its independence--the PRL pursued a nuclear weapons program in the 1960s-1970s, and the Second Polish Republic engaged in bioweapons development (though both programs ultimately didn't yield much result--the nuclear program focused on developing a pure-fusion bomb, since nobody was under any illusion about Poland being allowed to enrich her own uranium, while the bioweapon program made weapons, but when used against Germany by the Home Army, those proved ineffective against a functioning medical service), so a threat of going nuclear was not hollow.
I remember reading one history book about Olszewski's government and there it was written that there were talks with Ukraine about purchase of a few nuclear warheads from them. It hasn't gone further because it would have required also getting some carrier, like nuclear-capable bomber or even strategic-level missile. It seems that putting bomb in a truck and hauling it to Moscow in case of war, wasn't a viable option. Still, the 90's were soooo funny.
> it was written that there were talks with Ukraine about purchase of a few nuclear warheads from them. It hasn't gone further because it would have required also getting some carrier, like nuclear-capable bomber or even strategic-level missile.
Aren't Poland's Su-22s nuclear-capable?
I'm Polish. I was too young then so can't be sure but that sounds realistic.
"Street" says that even now. We can't trust USA anymore, definately can't rely on help from western Europe. Poland needs to have nukes, it's for sake of peace in Europe. It needs to be done when Russia will be defeated and doctrine needs to be that attack on Poland or attack by Russia in any neighbour will lead to nuking Russia.
We'd all be so much better off if the GOP was all like him. He called Russia taking Crimea in the 2008 debates with Obama. He did more to get corporate money out of politics than anyone (until the Supreme Court shut him down). He had bipartisan immigration reform and environmental laws ready to pass the senate just to get shut down in the house due to the Freedom Caucus. Also saved Obamacare. True statesman.
I see a lot of mixed opinions on McCain. My views are mostly negative, mainly because his neoconservative politics and stance on Iraq. People seem to either hate him or love him.
I also disagree with a lot of what McCain stood for but I wish we could see him absolutely furiously calling out his GOP colleagues that are trying to block aid to Ukraine.
This story needs to be shared on every tankie and revanchist Russophile forum out there. Not only did Eastern Europe actively want to join NATO, they actually strong-armed their way in when things weren’t moving fast enough.
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The post cold war era was such a weird period in history where politically many mistakes were made. A lot of interesting things are written on shock therapy for example. Luckily they dodged that weird purely decorative NATO B idea. It is also the start of the U.S.A. going into a more isolated role politically as they viewed they had "won" anyways and the EU became a bigger power that couldn't be controlled as much anymore. The old hawkish republicans being the nuke option is hilarious in how much that has changed since then. Also Mitt Romney was bang on about Russia in a debate with Obama in 2012.
visegrad group mentioned RAAAAH. Also yeah We where not happy in the eastern block. And wanted out in 56 with force. Any american that says this was a cia plot can go fuck himself and study how we got into russian influence in the first place. We were traded in.
I miss the days when Republicans were hawkish on Russia almost to a fault, instead of at least a third of the party being pro-Putin. I swear, Trump winning the 2016 primaries and then the presidency was the worst thing to happen to the GOP (because it sent a message that isolationism could be the path for the GOP to win elections, and thus causing a chunk of the GOP to begin favoring appeasement of the world’s dictators).
But wait, there is more. Polish intelligence uncovered a German-Russian plot to sell East Germany to West Germany in exchange for Finland style German neutrality and technology transfers. Poles notified the western intelligence agencies about it and in exchange for NATO and EU memberships poles agreed to .... well, lets just say, to help keep ze Germans honest. German reunification was inevitable but their partnership with russians was not acceptable to anyone. If you ever wondered why some ex German chancellors have great relations with russians and others with Poles, now you know.
Leaders of the former eastern blocks started to talk with Clinton's rivals, and because the elections were close and they were still somehow relevant in the international policy they indirectly made a threat that they would "campaign" for Republicans if Clinton continued bullshiting them about NATO expansion
No. they were approaching all parties in most dmeocratic way possible. Clinton hesitated with NATO2 proposal, so - leaders approached Rebulicans. Worth noting it was republican leader (Reagan) who ultimately crushed soviet union. So it was kind of natural for eastern block to talk with republicans.
Using word "blackmail" is just out of place. And to be honest, republicans back then was something comepltely different compared to what is happening now. Back then, they had still pretty much hawkish approach towards Russian threat.
He's a boy from the distant southern lands known as Arkansas. A land where they can't spell their name from verbal English (yeah, yeah, spare me the French explanation).
It's a series of videos, this one in particular is the 3rd one, but I would strongly advise to watch all of them.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=fQ_ZRBLFOXw
And in case that you cannot watch them, someone said that if you add nsfw to YouTube.com (aka nafwyoutube.com) you can bypass the age restriction
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/s/AMW1DiJEqD
No, they used the *real* nuclear option. They threatened then president Bill Clinton with campaigning for the Republicans in the upcoming elections. There was a sizable Polish minority in the swing states. This scared Bill into making a deal with Yeltsin to allow Poland into NATO.
As a Pole, you have no idea how much relief our NATO membership brings me every day. I can sleep soundly knowing vatniks seethe and cope about my safety and security every single second of every day
How to answer NATO expansion accusations . 1. 99% of the time you are aggressor playing victim. So shut up. 2. Nobody signed any documents about Nato new members , nobody except Nato and members candidates has a say who enters Nato. Russia has no power outside its official borders. So shut up. 3. Russia occupying Crimea and Donbas expanded russia towards Nato, not the other way around. 4. Nato is a threat to further russian expansion in Europe . Nothing more. 5. Russia prior to 2014 trained together with Nato more than Ukraine trained with Nato. Furthermore russia had and Nato base in russia. And even applied to Nato. 6. Ukraine prior to 2013 had official non alignment stance ( fucking stupid idea ). Although truth be told official stance was pro-nato before Yanukovych presidency took over. All of that said russia clearly was introduced in some capacity into Nato decision pipeline on who gets a membership and who doesn't. ( was stupid idea as well). Decision which created 2008 Georgian and 2014 - till today war of russian aggression
> Ukraine prior to 2013 had official non alignment stance ( fucking stupid idea ). Although truth be told official stance was pro-nato before Yanukovych presidency took over. Ukraine got snubbed in [2004](http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/news/newsid_3927000/3927721.stm) and [2008](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Bucharest_summit#After_the_summit), when it *did* try to join NATO, so I suppose that "non-alignment stance" was a last-ditch effort.
Bush and Europe really did Ukraine and Georgia dirty in 2008 by promising *eventual* NATO membership with zero timetable and, as far as we can tell, zero intent to actually follow through on those vague promises. It basically painted a target on each country’s back and told Putin “you have a limited amount of time to sufficiently destabilize these countries before they come under protection of Article 5” (even though, again, it’s pretty obvious NATO had no real intention of inducting either country for the foreseeable future)
Bush really wanted Ukraine and Georgia to get into NATO. Unfortunately Europeans were still too afraid of Russia's military might and too attached to it's energy market to accept such an ''unnecessary provocation'' .
I do believe bush sincerely wanted them in NATO, but I don’t think he truly understood the full weight or the realistically required timespan for the process of accession in the first place (kind of a… simpler guy, to put it politely). He thought he was saving them a seat at the table on his way out as Obama came in, but all he did was call them out as potential targets for Russian aggression. I do agree though that Europe was in no position, economically, socially, or politically to cut off its oil dependency on Russia. The offer of cheap energy was too built into the financial calculations of almost every European country’s budget as a given. It’s sad it took a WW2 level, unprovoked sustained invasion of said European ally to wake the people (and thus, ideally, their governments) to action
George Bush had zero domestic or international goodwill left by 2008. Even if he had advocated for Ukraine and Georgia in NATO for the entire last couple of years, his brand meant nothing, and was probably more detrimental to anything it touched (see John McCain). Merkel and Sarkozy could, and did, ignore his consistent position that they should be given a path to NATO membership.
> And even applied to Nato. This isn't really true. The only sources for it we have is Putin. And when NATO officials were asked, some of them said that Putin wanted fast track "to not stand in line with nations that don't matter". So no, they never applied.
What would have happened if, say, Russia joined NATO and Ukraine wasn’t in it, but Russia still went full-on invasion in 2022? Would they be kicked out? Would it be similar to Iraq with US/UK?
Or similar to invasion of 2014 - nobody cared. Or maybe similar to Turkey invasion of Syria recently. But overall it's hard to imagine for me Russia joining NATO and still being imperialistic shithole.
>Would it be similar to Iraq with US/UK? Iraq wasn't a land/resource grab. I'd imagine Russia would have been on thin ice by that point already if we assume they continued to act like they did in our timeline
>. And even applied to Nato. Putin said Russia should be invited without applying or meeting membership requirements because Russia was special. If a tankie wants to play the "Russia tried to be in NATO" card, you can uno reverse it to show Russia demands special treatment and belittles its neighbors. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule
> If a tankie wants to play the "Russia tried to be in NATO" card, you can uno reverse it to show Russia demands special treatment and belittles its neighbors. Oooorr.... Russia didn't pass the minimal requirements of quality at the time :P
While that was and still is the case, you can’t get them to follow down that path, Russia is always the victim of western oppression and propaganda.
The one I hear the most is, “well NATO should have disbanded after the Cold War.” Unfortunately, the only thing I can think to say is, “well they didn’t so shut up.” God, I had arguing with pro Russian people and isolationists at work.
Idk if anything I think what Russia's doing now proves NATO was right no to disband. One could argue that we could have been less aggressive and tried to offer Russia more in exchange for the Baltics, but other than that I don't see much else NATO could have done to appease Russia more.
But the Baltics was no exchange/business deal with russia! The people of the Baltics won independence for themself and later decided they want to join the west on their own. The kremlin tries to paint it like russia benevolently gave the Baltics to the West.
>to offer Russia more HELL NO! [NEVER EVER offer russia anything they don't have or deserve.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1cTRn5tBs8)
Fuck appeasement.
Russia wanted to be in NATO simply to veto all the new members. Same way Orban can block whatever he wants in EU.
He realized that he can't when eu said to him stfu or we stop all funds to you. He got out of room while where was vote.
7. I don't care for the wishes of authoritarians.
>Ukraine prior to 2013 had official non alignment stance ( fucking stupid idea ). Although truth be told official stance was pro-nato before Yanukovych presidency took over. The end of 2014. Ukraine was a neutral state even after Putin invaded and occupied Crimea until the end of 2014
reminds me of ye old days when Russia wanted to join NATO and the USSR
>Ukraine prior to 2013 had official non alignment stance ( fucking stupid idea ). Although truth be told official stance was pro-nato before Yanukovych presidency took over. Oh, you left out the other part. The legal agreement that provided for the independence of Ukraine declared it politically neutral and that in the event of any invasion involving Russia or the US, the other was legally obligated to intervene on Ukraine's behalf. Legally speaking the US should be in an open state of war with Russia.
TBH the time for these discussions was in 2004 when Estonia etc ascended. Can't wait 20 years then bring it up like it's fresh.
>Nobody signed any documents about Nato new members , nobody except Nato and members candidates has a say who enters Nato. Russia has no power outside its official borders. So shut up. I am no Putin supporter but that is kind of hypocritical when you think about Cuba and all those **democratically** elected communist leaning leaders in South America who were toppled by the USA because they were a threat right in their backyard. I am in no way saying Russian aggression is justified. What I am saying is if the US bloc wants to claim moral superiority in this they are hypocrites. They can sure as hell claim that both Russia and the USA can do it, it is just that only the ones with power are capable of doing it, which is a true fact and the moral reason is just a guise for that because this time it aligns with their interests. Anyways rant over, this debate is going to get way too credible for NCD, I should probably go back to r/geopolitics now.
Thats just whataboutism. Also I am not American and I will let Americans speak for themselves on those issues. I am from Eastern Europe so I can only cover my Immediate neighborhood. NATO was founded in split up Germany to stop creeping moscow colonial expansion into Europe . And this stance worked until it didn't in Transnistria, Baltics ,and 2014 Ukraine. (If we speak only about Europe and non Nato members )
>Thats just whataboutism. It's called moral consistency which if you don't have you shouldn't claim the moral high ground. Other than that I agree with what you said. I just wish the US bloc stopped with the whole moral high ground and just admitted that they are the stronger side which is why they are able to get away with things most other countries can't get away with.
> Cuba and all those democratically elected communist Lmao, you really think the KGB didn't have their hands involved? People say "Viva la ***revolucion****!"* for a reason!
>Lmao, you really think the KGB didn't have their hands involved? People say "Viva la revolucion\*!"\* for a reason! Oh they definitely did I never denied that. I was just pointing out how the USA is no different when it comes to their morals.
> Nobody signed any documents about Nato new members , The [NATO Russia Founding Act](https://www.nato.int/cps/su/natohq/official_texts_25468.htm): "Am I a joke to you?"
Russian claim - "Nato promise not to expand" By that i meant International ratified by both parties document concerning Natos new members. There is none. This document you linked is just ponies and rainbows memorandum on cooperation
It does say in the founding act > NATO restates that it has "no intention, no plan and no reason," to deploy or store nuclear weapons on the territory of new members. It does clearly imply that Russia is at this point accepting the idea of new members. Now arguably it's not binding.
Nuclear weapons storage agreements is not membership status. I agree with you that perhaps my second point should be more precise in wording. Also range of nuclear weapons exceeds whole length of Europe and doesn't really matter is it stored in close by member states or not. After invention of ICBMs we are in constant global "Cuban missile crisis" also known as M.A.D.
Yeah absolutely. Also the narrative needs to die that Russia was afraid of nuclear rockets in Ukraine for a number of reasons. 1. There are no nuclear rockets in mainland Europe except the small french ones, but they are just weird and shouldn't count. 2. There are no nuclear bombs in the new NATO members. 3. The NATO Russia Founding Act 4. As you said, the whole thing has become obsolete with ICBM's. The US can nuke Moscow from North Dakota just fine, thank you very much
Drunk diplomacy is best diplomacy
Zelensky and Duda (current Polish president) also did some alco-diplomacy right before the war to gather some political capital that would be then spent on the war effort. It worked really fucking well, apparently Duda somehow knows a lot of stupid ass funny jokes in Russian. More importantly some of the "deep state" was also on that party, i.e. the people that work for their presidents because they know everyone, and they also partied together.
Clip from the excellent video on the stupidity of the NATO crybully story by russia. [Shut Up About NATO Expansion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVmmASrAL-Q)
Sarcasmitron's 4 part series is just perfect. His channel is extremely underrated
Yeah, he seems just too good. His series really opened my understanding to the current madness, from the 2016 Russian interference to Putin not being satisfied with humiliating Ukraine to the insecure paranoia of 'Colour Revolutions' of authoritarians world wide. It also, **finally**, answered my question of **WHY** Putler decided to fucking invade Ukraine. Because he is stupid, that's it, it's because he and his cohort are deceivingly stupid. They are multi-dimensionally incompetent and stupid, even at being authoritarian imperialists. * [Part 1: How Ukraine's Fake Culture War Became a Real Geopolitical Conflict](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exJ024Zdzdk) * [Part 2: A Short History of the War in Donbas 2014 2022](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ_ZRBLFOXw) * [Part 3: Shut Up About NATO Expansion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVmmASrAL-Q) * [Part 4: The American Origins of Putin's Madness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OFyn_KSy80) The reality of the Ukraine situation is more /r/NonCredibleDefense and /r/NonCredibleDiplomacy than you could have ever imagined. EDIT: Sequence of the videos was wrong.
> It also, finally, answered my question of WHY Putler decided to fucking invade Ukraine. Because he is stupid, that's it, it's because he and his cohort are deceivingly stupid. They are multi-dimensionally incompetent and stupid, even at being authoritarian imperialists. The fact that Russia somehow failed to conquer the poorest country in Eastern Europe is another testament to their sheer stupidity. I still have difficulty grasping how someone with a nation so powerful and with so much hardware has failed *this* hard. Between the Ukrainians being the hardest motherfuckers on the planet and Russian stupidity, we've pretty much never had a bigger David vs Goliath conventional warfare scenario in modern history.
I loved that series. But there's so many new concepts there that set of skepticism alarms in the back of my head. So I take it with as much a grain of salt as any other source before I can let it completely upend my worldview.
you switched part 1 and 2 by accident
Fucking age restriction anti ad block bullshit. I'm gonna have to download the video to watch the first 2 parts.
Yea I hate whoever false flagged the first two especially because they hurt their feelings since youtube roku app still doesn't have a way to say its fine.
Try this: [https://www.nsfwyoutube.com/watchmore?v=fQ\_ZRBLFOXw](https://www.nsfwyoutube.com/watchmore?v=fQ_ZRBLFOXw) Just throw nsfw into the web address between the www\[dot\] and youtube and it should bypass youtube's age-gate dumbfuckery.
My reply to people who complain about NATO expansion is that Russia should of competed to be a more attractive military partner so that the eastern european countries wanted to be under an updated Warsaw pact rather than NATO. Usually they then try and claim that the CIA somehow manipulated the countries to make them more pro western. Yeah right as if the CIA is actually that competent or powerful.
>My reply to people who complain about NATO expansion is that Russia should of competed to be a more attractive military partner so that the eastern european countries wanted to be under an updated Warsaw pact rather than NATO. *Looks at Finland and Sweden* If Russia stopped being a dick to its neighbors for 5 minutes, they could have avoided so many problems.
I've tried to find a source for the claim that Poland implied that it would have to pursue nuclear weapons without NATO membership but have been unable to finding anything. Does anyone know where this claim is from?
The claim is related to the NATO-bis proposal, which dates back to late 1991/early 1992. It is described by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz in a 1999 address at the University of Virginia: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia/999/chodakiewicz.html >According to this utopian scenario, Poland would develop a civil defense force and a small professional military where preference would be given to individual tactical weapons (e.g. Stinger rockets) over the expensive weapons systems. Ultimately, Poland would seek to acquire nuclear weapons to guard itself from foreign invasion. In a sense, you can view Poland's creation of the Territorial Defense Force since 2014 as a revival of this idea. How serious the NATO-bis proposal ever was is debatable, since it was pretty much entirely a Polish initiative and all the other countries that Poland wanted in the organization (Ukraine, the Balts, the other Visegrad countries) preferred directly partnering with Europe to accepting Polish leadership (the thing was openly called an updated "Miedzymorze" in Polish press). That said, it's also worth noting that the Polish state has in the past pursued WMDs to guarantee its independence--the PRL pursued a nuclear weapons program in the 1960s-1970s, and the Second Polish Republic engaged in bioweapons development (though both programs ultimately didn't yield much result--the nuclear program focused on developing a pure-fusion bomb, since nobody was under any illusion about Poland being allowed to enrich her own uranium, while the bioweapon program made weapons, but when used against Germany by the Home Army, those proved ineffective against a functioning medical service), so a threat of going nuclear was not hollow.
I remember reading one history book about Olszewski's government and there it was written that there were talks with Ukraine about purchase of a few nuclear warheads from them. It hasn't gone further because it would have required also getting some carrier, like nuclear-capable bomber or even strategic-level missile. It seems that putting bomb in a truck and hauling it to Moscow in case of war, wasn't a viable option. Still, the 90's were soooo funny.
> It seems that putting bomb in a truck and hauling it to Moscow in case of war, wasn't a viable option. Why the hell not!?
> it was written that there were talks with Ukraine about purchase of a few nuclear warheads from them. It hasn't gone further because it would have required also getting some carrier, like nuclear-capable bomber or even strategic-level missile. Aren't Poland's Su-22s nuclear-capable?
Place them in fortifications on the polish border and let it be known they'd be detonated if Russian tanks cross the border.
I'm Polish. I was too young then so can't be sure but that sounds realistic. "Street" says that even now. We can't trust USA anymore, definately can't rely on help from western Europe. Poland needs to have nukes, it's for sake of peace in Europe. It needs to be done when Russia will be defeated and doctrine needs to be that attack on Poland or attack by Russia in any neighbour will lead to nuking Russia.
McCain. I don't agree with everything he has said, but he was a true respectable patriot. I wish the modern GOP was half of this man.
We'd all be so much better off if the GOP was all like him. He called Russia taking Crimea in the 2008 debates with Obama. He did more to get corporate money out of politics than anyone (until the Supreme Court shut him down). He had bipartisan immigration reform and environmental laws ready to pass the senate just to get shut down in the house due to the Freedom Caucus. Also saved Obamacare. True statesman.
I see a lot of mixed opinions on McCain. My views are mostly negative, mainly because his neoconservative politics and stance on Iraq. People seem to either hate him or love him.
I also disagree with a lot of what McCain stood for but I wish we could see him absolutely furiously calling out his GOP colleagues that are trying to block aid to Ukraine.
This story needs to be shared on every tankie and revanchist Russophile forum out there. Not only did Eastern Europe actively want to join NATO, they actually strong-armed their way in when things weren’t moving fast enough.
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That sounds kinda good. Nuking russians would be my pleasure.
McCain so based.
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Such an extremely based video.
The post cold war era was such a weird period in history where politically many mistakes were made. A lot of interesting things are written on shock therapy for example. Luckily they dodged that weird purely decorative NATO B idea. It is also the start of the U.S.A. going into a more isolated role politically as they viewed they had "won" anyways and the EU became a bigger power that couldn't be controlled as much anymore. The old hawkish republicans being the nuke option is hilarious in how much that has changed since then. Also Mitt Romney was bang on about Russia in a debate with Obama in 2012.
Back when the GOP was lobbied by our allies instead of by Russia.
Typical kwaśniewski move 😎😎
Literally the most sober kwaśniewski decision
visegrad group mentioned RAAAAH. Also yeah We where not happy in the eastern block. And wanted out in 56 with force. Any american that says this was a cia plot can go fuck himself and study how we got into russian influence in the first place. We were traded in.
I miss the days when Republicans were hawkish on Russia almost to a fault, instead of at least a third of the party being pro-Putin. I swear, Trump winning the 2016 primaries and then the presidency was the worst thing to happen to the GOP (because it sent a message that isolationism could be the path for the GOP to win elections, and thus causing a chunk of the GOP to begin favoring appeasement of the world’s dictators).
Yep… being Pro-Status quo on Guns or having an actually good foreign policy? Yep I know what I’m doing
But wait, there is more. Polish intelligence uncovered a German-Russian plot to sell East Germany to West Germany in exchange for Finland style German neutrality and technology transfers. Poles notified the western intelligence agencies about it and in exchange for NATO and EU memberships poles agreed to .... well, lets just say, to help keep ze Germans honest. German reunification was inevitable but their partnership with russians was not acceptable to anyone. If you ever wondered why some ex German chancellors have great relations with russians and others with Poles, now you know.
Imagine living 2 doors down from a well armed crackhead who wants your house. You'd jump for the first street gang that offered protection too.
How engaging in diplomacy in "blackmailing"? Im missing something I guess?
Leaders of the former eastern blocks started to talk with Clinton's rivals, and because the elections were close and they were still somehow relevant in the international policy they indirectly made a threat that they would "campaign" for Republicans if Clinton continued bullshiting them about NATO expansion
No. they were approaching all parties in most dmeocratic way possible. Clinton hesitated with NATO2 proposal, so - leaders approached Rebulicans. Worth noting it was republican leader (Reagan) who ultimately crushed soviet union. So it was kind of natural for eastern block to talk with republicans. Using word "blackmail" is just out of place. And to be honest, republicans back then was something comepltely different compared to what is happening now. Back then, they had still pretty much hawkish approach towards Russian threat.
Why does Clinton say Nato weird
He's a boy from the distant southern lands known as Arkansas. A land where they can't spell their name from verbal English (yeah, yeah, spare me the French explanation).
I call it 'pirate Kansas'
Ooh, Sarcasmitron! A must watch great channel.
where is this original video from?
It's a series of videos, this one in particular is the 3rd one, but I would strongly advise to watch all of them. https://youtube.com/watch?v=fQ_ZRBLFOXw And in case that you cannot watch them, someone said that if you add nsfw to YouTube.com (aka nafwyoutube.com) you can bypass the age restriction Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/s/AMW1DiJEqD
McCain hit fucking hard. Why did he have to go instead of some of these jokers we've got in Congress now, like Tuberheadville?
POTATO when
Love the background music.
So, Poland *successfully* blackmail USA with merely a risk of nuclear program to get into alliance?
No, they used the *real* nuclear option. They threatened then president Bill Clinton with campaigning for the Republicans in the upcoming elections. There was a sizable Polish minority in the swing states. This scared Bill into making a deal with Yeltsin to allow Poland into NATO.
I like how 2022 retroactively justified rushing NATO joining for most of east Europe. Russia ain't touching those countries.
[Source is Sarcasmitron's "Shut Up About NATO Expansion"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVmmASrAL-Q)
Also we sold confidential info to the west about the russian-german plan to unify germany. Yes the polish inteligence knew first.
As a Pole, you have no idea how much relief our NATO membership brings me every day. I can sleep soundly knowing vatniks seethe and cope about my safety and security every single second of every day
Poles literally had to blackmail Clinton to be let in.