Yes. But we can’t have MAD without the D, and Russia wasn’t and still isn’t facing the D. Putin himself is, but not the Russian people.
ISWYDT 
But nitpick I must: Heineken.
Thanks.
A Russian nationalist, (or fascist, if you like) will not see it that way. Think of all the Trumpers in the US, and add centuries of of actual invasions. They want to build the wall, too.
No, they don’t: nobody wants to come to Russia (well, almost nobody). They want to conquer as much ground as possible, that is their kind of wall, to avert an invasion that is never going to happen. It is a fairy tale to subjugate them like the tale of the one Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. They don’t want to keep people out, like Trumpers, they want to bring them in and subjugate them. I insist: Fascism. Not Nazism.
I mean, yeah. But they are dead serious and will kill the people who stand in their way.
I am not sure you understand me, but OK. It’s late, I have to quit.
Their “wall” is control of invasion points of Russia proper. Ukraine is a major invasion point. Russia is vulnerable on all sides. Also why Russia is so interested in the conflicts in Georgia, and Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
Oh boo fucking hoo. Russia is the biggest country in the world; it’s the biggest country in Europe and most of it isn’t in Europe. I live in a country that’s barely one THOUSANDTH the size of Russia, and people still accuse it of being too big; I’m supposed to be sympathetic with Russia saying it isn’t big enough? That’s like Elon Musk complaining he can’t make ends meet.
Russia doesn’t need to conquer more land to create a buffer around itself - it already has a huge buffer zone, called more fucking Russia.
I agree, really. Nationalism leads to some pretty awful actions in any nation.
The process for joining NATO generally starts by joining the Partnership for Peace. Russia joined that on June 22, 1994 (a few months after Ukraine).
From there, if someone applies to join NATO, the member states have to unanimously agree to that country’s entry. I.e. Greece, Turkey, Finland, France, etc. all have to agree.
In 1999, NATO started a voluntary program where hopeful applicants could request a Membership Action Plan. These plans give steps that a country will need to take in order to get accepted. Effectively, they need to demonstrate preparedness for:
- Willingness to settle international, ethnic or external territorial disputes by peaceful
means, commitment to the rule of law and human rights, and democratic control of
armed forces - Ability to contribute to the organization’s defense and missions
- Devotion of sufficient resources to armed forces to be able to meet the commitments
of membership - Security of sensitive information, and safeguards ensuring it
- Compatibility of domestic legislation with NATO cooperation
As best I can tell, Russia has never asked for one.
Instead, Putin asked Clinton and George Bush II to be able to skip the admissions process. Russia basically said, “We’re not some piddling country like Latvia. We should be treated like a full-fledged partner, on the basis of our clear awesomeness, without having to go through all of these hoops and trials.”
The US President went to NATO and convinced them to create the NATO-Russia Council. (Exact agreement)
From there, NATO-Russia began to work together on cross training, world police keeping missions, like fighting terrorism and drug trafficking. See, for example:
https://www.nato.int/nrc-website/en/articles/2013-11-26-focus-on-counter-terrorism/index.html
https://www.nato.int/nrc-website/en/articles/20131106-nrc-moscow-military-conference/index.html
https://www.nato.int/nrc-website/en/articles/20131016-nrc-port-visit/index.html
https://www.nato.int/nrc-website/en/articles/20130927-russian-experts-on-afghanistan-(1)/index.html
https://www.nato.int/nrc-website/en/articles/20130627-nrc-pomor-briefing/index.html
This was in the everyday news and wasn’t some obscure secret:
To be sure, this went to shit real quick. Russia was plausibly trying to invade Georgia (though, we’ll never know since Georgia took the initiative) and they decided to back Assad in Syria, even as he started to use chemical weapons on his own people. (Note: Trump fired missiles on Assad for this and, if we can trust one thing in the world, it’s that Trump couldn’t give two turds about Syria, let alone trying to frame Assad, and let alone do so when it could anger Russia.)
I have some relatively minor disagreements with your very well researched post. I will note that some nations have been fast-tracked into NATO, and the German reunification created an anomaly. East Germany, once a stalwart ally, was now part of NATO almost overnight. That was where Putin was stationed, actually, and he was there when it happened. With regard to Syria, Russia inherited a naval base there after the Soviet collapse, the ties between Moscow and Damascus pre-date the current Russian state. It is not at all suprising that Russia backed the Assad regime, it is a continuation of a previous arrangement.
I don’t know that any of those statements are related to my post.
I did mention Assad, but I don’t know that it matters that Russia had a previous connection to him. I didn’t really say that they should have defended Assad or that they should have opposed. I simply said that they did defend him.
But, they shouldn’t have defended him.
If my dad was a member of the KKK, I’m not obligated to become KKK. History is history, not some roboticized exoskeleton that forces us to take on and continue the bullshit of earlier people. If that was so, we’d all still be out attacking towns, to take battle slaves and people to sacrifice. And if Russia had a connection to Syria, that doesn’t say that they have to maintain the connection when the boss of that place starts gassing people.
Russia has signed agreements against chemical weapons. They’ve signed agreements on war crimes. They’ve signed up to programs that say it’s illegal to try and conquer territory. They created their own program and got others to sign up to it that says it’s illegal to conquer territory.
If you have a friend who does bad shit, but you’re a guy who spent a half century writing and approving measures aimed towards shutting down bad shit, you might want to give a serious think about which connection is more important. Our children and grandchildren are going to live in this world so it doesn’t make sense to choose to defend the guys who are gassing civilians. They’re lower rank than our descendants.
I was not aware of how long it took to join NATO, and how strictly the organization follows its own guidelines with regard to new members. Very strictly, it seems, my mistake. NATO does have a habit of stretching its mission, though. And with regard to Assad, Russia will be his friend regardless of his war crimes because he provides them a naval base outside of the Black Sea. It isn’t because their father did it, it is because they face the same geopolitical realities as the USSR did. Turkey can close off Russian access to the Mediterranean at any point, although they are bound by treaty not to. Treaties are easily broken when they are no longer convenient. The US has had odious allies, due to its strategic interests.
There’s an argument for carrot and stick handling of bad actors. I don’t begrudge anyone for saying, “Let’s try to offer incentives to move this group towards better behavior.” But that’s different than turning a blind eye to bad behavior, for personal enrichment.
The US has done both and, the latter, we shouldn’t have. Having done it once doesn’t mandate us to do it again. The US having done it doesn’t give others license to do it.
If a kid gets in trouble for punching someone, and he tells his mom, “But Billy did it and no one said anything.” Mom’s going to give zero shits about Billy. When you choose to do bad things, it’s just bad. Making excuses only makes you lower.
Russia has nukes. They don’t need to have bases in all sorts of places for personal defense.
If everyone likes you, you won’t have enemies who want to attack you.
Everything else is excuses.
“The US having done it, does not give license to others to do it.” Any other nation will disagree, rightfully. That is up to every nation. No need for analogies about little kids, the US violates the rules that it pretends to uphold. And with regard to bases, well, the US has a global system of bases. They have nukes as well.
And that’s bad. GW Bush should be handed over to be judged for crimes against humanity for allowing torture and making up reasons to invade Iraq. Trump should be handed over for killing Soleimani. Clinton should be handed over for violating the UN Security Council veto, and attacking Serbia.
That we haven’t done so, however, doesn’t give anyone the right to go and do likewise as they did. Individuals are to be blamed for their choices, not the people who happen to have been born in the same general geographical zone.
And it’s silly to try and say that Russia is trying to conquer Ukraine as some sort of artsy act of protest against American misbehavior. That’s just rubbish.
Even in the above, Trump was taking out a guy who he, likely, believed was plotting terrorist attacks and Clinton was trying to stop a race war. It’s arguable that Bush, himself, felt like he was trying to do something good in the world (Dick Cheney, maybe not) and Iraq is now a mostly independent state with a popularly elected government who felt comfortable enough to ask us to get out of their country. We didn’t turn it into a colony.
None of that is ideal but it’s not a simple land grab. Whereas, I don’t know that there’s any reasonable argument in favor of Putin’s attack on Ukraine.
To the extent that there are neo-Nazis in the country, there are neo-Nazis and racists in every country - including Russia. No one likes them but, if they’re just hanging out in the countryside, sleeping with their cousins, that’s a local policing matter for those instances where they actually do something violent against Jewish/Romani/homosexual people. And if there was some genuine fear of them, I don’t know that anyone would complain all that much if Russia sent in a covert group to clandestinely hunt down and assassinate the leaders of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi movement. Israel would probably offer to add some people to the mission, and others might as well.
Russia is already surrounded by NATO and we could run a submarine right up to St Petersburg and nuke Moscow in a few minutes. We don’t really need Ukraine. It’s nonsense to say that NATO is unmovably anti-Russian - they were a partner of the organization up to the point that they started invading Ukraine in 2014.
And these are both excuses added after the fact. The 2014 attack was undertaken without any particular reference to Nazis nor NATO. Russia simply denied involvement at all and the separatists don’t seem to have had any larger complaints than feeling like - as the industrial center - they were running the economy of the nation but being sidelined by the central government, because of the language difference and being a national minority.
I’m not aware of any plausible sounding argument for Russian involvement beyond, “I want it to be mine”. That’s not sufficient.
Bad is bad but some bads are worse.