Imagine a room full of NATO representatives. “Ukraine has asked to join NATO”. “All in favor say aye.”
Because they aren’t members. If NATO “stepped up” for everyone who wasn’t a member, what incentive would anyone have to join?
Zelensky hasn’t been getting much sleep and it’s currently a very intense time. Once this is over and he’s gotten some sleep, I would expect that he’d be more willing to look at things from NATO’s standpoint.
There are…and were before any of this happened…plenty of thing’s NATO could have done that wouldn’t involve NATO getting directly involved. That’s what he’s talking about. As for incentive to join…well, I’m unsure what more Ukraine could have done to try and get into NATO that they didn’t do. They have been trying since 2014 after all and have been basically eligible since 2019.
This showed yet another picture of Putin in a conference setting where he sits far away from everybody else. It reminded me of a bowling alley where Putin was the ball and the other people in the room were pins to be knocked down.
A reporter asked the Russian Foreign Minister what country they’re going to invade next, and he said, “We haven’t invaded anybody.”
Excellent! So since there are no Russian armed forces in Ukraine, Ukraine can invite international police forces to help capture any terrorists roaming about.
I’m presuming you’re serious, but the calculus behind it seems infinitely more complex.
Putin has drawn a very few bright lines. One definitely seems to be NATO expansion. I presume he holds a special place in this argument for Ukraine.
Bringing them into NATO under these circumstances, and then invoking Article 5 seems to be one of The Most Escalatory Moves that anybody in the world could make right now, no ?
[If this is a threadjack, I’ll happily end it here.]
Didn’t stop NATO from intervening in Bosnia in 1995 or Kosovo in 1999. Or Libya in 2013.
Was Russia the other party. In those?
He certainly did. The key question, however, is…why did or should NATO have cared? I mean, just because Putin thinks NATO shouldn’t ‘expand’ (by which he means ‘those former Soviet puppets shouldn’t be allowed to decide for themselves what they can or can’t do…they are OURS!!’), why did that affect NATO’s decision whether or not to allow a country that obviously wanted to join, that is a democracy, and who’s people obviously wanted to join…well, join?
I think all the (non-Russia) policy makers in this situation are acutely aware of what’s to gain. I think they’re doing everything in their power to read the tea leaves, and try to determine what could be lost.
Would you want to be one of the few that effectively gives the green light to “calling Putin’s bluff ?”
Now, at this point? Definitely not. At this stage the west and NATO are doing what they can, though I’d still say we should be upping weapons shipments and clearing red tape or worries about transferring aircraft from Poland to Ukraine. But a year or so ago? Sure, I’d take that challenge and call his bluff, even just knowing what we knew at the time. For a lot of reasons, but mainly because, again, why should NATO care that Putin thinks they shouldn’t ‘expand’? His reasons are and were bullshit, and they should have been called. A lot of people who have been killed wouldn’t have been, IMHO, if we had let them into NATO as they asked. Even if we didn’t do that, when Russia started yet another round of build ups and threats, more weapons transfers or even sales earlier would have been a huge help.
That’s what I always thought about the Crimea takeover. If Russia is ready to denounce their folk, we’re free to label them whatever we want to and start shooting.
Reparations will soon be an important requirement to end sanctions. Russian withdrawal is step 1 and then reparations.
The cost to Ukraine will probably be in the billions. Far more than Russia could pay. But, they should be required to pay some of the cost to rebuild Ukraine.
That could be a path towards restoring Russia’s place in the international economy.
Someone from the Ukraine said about 100 billion so far, which should be doable.
Putin may be utterly paranoid, but he is not clinically insane. It is clear at this point that he is unable to use his alleged modern SAMs and airplanes without having them destroyed. How do I know that? Because if he were able to use them, he would have by now. But instead, the Ukrainian air force is still a threat to Russian forces.
CNN reports that the much-ballyhooed 40-mile convoy has dispersed and scattered into the woods.
We’ve no idea to what extent Ukraine is actually using their air force.