Problem is, the lesson of WWII is that if you let one country get annexed, then there will be more. And it makes it easier for Putin to keep on escalating, figuring we’ll back down. If you want a nuclear war, I can’t think of a better way to bring it about.
What the President did was absolutely the right thing to do: remind the world that Article 5 means what it says. If he’s bluffing, then he’s a moron, but despite my dislike for the man, I don’t think he’s a moron and I don’t think he’d piss away his place in history by selling out our allies.
If you confront Putin in the Baltics, he’ll back down. And if he doesn’t, that means he’s out of his gourd and we’ll have to fight him anyway in a few years.
Well, it’s true, but the stakes are just too high here. A bluff would be the most disastrous outcome possible if it failed. He knows that.
It would have been better to just preemptively set the redline at Poland or something and give Russia a free hand in the ex-USSR’s territory than to bluff. So I’m going to assume he means what he says.
Russia has been modernizing both its offensive weapons and the anti-ballistic missile shield using nuclear-tipped interceptors. In the era when there was massive retaliatory capbility, with the MIRV capable (ten Mk 21 RVs each) LGM-118A ‘Peacekeeper’ fleet and the LGM-30G ‘Minuteman III’ (three Mk 12A Rvs each), along with a large Trident C-4 and D-5 FBM fleet carried by the then-advanced Ohio class ‘boomers’, the AGM-86 and AGM-129 equipped B-52 fleet and the deep penetation high stealth B-2 fleets on active alert, the MGM-31 ‘Pershing II’ and BGM-109 ‘Gryphon’ Ground Launched Cruise Missile (“Glick’Em”) based in Western Europe, the hope of the A-135 system in defending even Moscow from an overwhelming number of incoming weapons was unlikely. In the current highly curtailed environment (Peacekeeper retired, Minuteman reduced and only carrying one Mk 21 RV each, the B-52 aged and the AGM-129A taken out of service, the B-2 fleet suffering attrition due to aging and maintenance costs, SLBM fleet down to a fraction of Cold War strength), a posture that Moscow might be willing to roll the dice is more plausible.
Remember, the purpose of a nuclear arsenal is not to fight or win a war–all plausible simulations in an exchange between two major powers show that both would suffer devastating consequences which would not justify initiating an attack–but to deter the opponent from provoking attack or escalating a regional conflict to the point of a nuclear exchange, as almost happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate political bargaining chip, because in the end nobody wants to go there and will do just about anything to prevent backing a nuclear-armed opposing power into a corner. Putin isn’t spending all that money to refurbish nuclear weapons and deploy new delivery systems just for show or to prime the Russian economy; he’s doing it as a show of strength and to increase the stature of Russia back to the post-WWII Soviet era. It may not be reasonable or a smart use of money from our perspective, but that is very clearly where Russia is going. Reclaiming at least some of the former Warsaw Pact territory under the guise of “cultural right” or “to prevent developing threats” is part and parcel with the history of Europe from time immemorial, and just because we’ve been nearly a quarter of a century without conflict doesn’t mean that will continue.
And yes, Putin will (likely) not directly attack a NATO member country, as NATO would be obliged to respond, and Russia simply could not maintain the necessary military forces and logistical support in the face of a comparable or superior military force. However, Russia could influence the Baltic member states, both politically and by covert action to create discord, to voluntarily leave NATO and declare themselves non-aligned, and from thence move toward forcing an alliance or otherwise essentially subsuming them. This is exactly what occurred after WWII, and while the modern conditions are not the same (I would not see Hungary, Poland, or the Czech Republic leaving NATO and rejoining a Russian-led military alliance) it is not beyond plausibility that it could occur over the next ten or twenty years.
You still need to identify the interests at stake. Standing up to Hitler was of vital interest to the rest of Europe, but they backed down and tried to appease him. How vital is America’s interest in protecting the Baltic states from Russia? Two months ago, what percentage of Americans do you think knew that those countries are part of NATO? Who remembers the Prague summit? And why should we feel bound to honor the blank checks the neocons wrote, willy-nilly, to a bunch of militarily irrelevant states in Russia’s backyard?
As you so eloquently have not made any case whatsoever, I’m still awaiting cites of this alleged expectation that the US (or NATO) was going to rush to the aid of Ukraine.
You’re still thinking the way they did in 1938. Standing up to Russia has always been in Europe’s interest(not sure if it’s in ours), the only question is whether Putin is content to just reabsorb the old Soviet Union or whether he wants the old Warsaw Pact countries under his orbit as well.
Russia is starting to act a lot like post-Versailles Germany. They lost the Cold War and had a humiliating peace forced on them, but they are still strong and want their manhood back. Do we confront this behavior now, or wait until a vital interest is threatened?
Now obviously Crimea isn’t the right place, but if Putin shows a determination to expand Russia, that has to be stopped.
I don’t know what AK said earlier, but we did sign a treaty vowing to respect and guarantee the borders of the Ukraine in exchange for them giving up their nuclear weapons.
This did not obligate us to use military force, but we couldn’t let what Russia has done go unpunished. And so we haven’t.
Again, the President is doing the right thing here. If the pussies across the lake would grow a pair, he’d enforce even tougher sanctions.
So your case that the US has no interest in upholding the North Atlantic alliance rests on the forgetfulness of the American people?
Let me counter you with an equally powerful argument: Putin will not invade the Baltics because he’s too busy riding motorcycles and wrestling pandas. A macho billionaire just simply can’t find the time in the day to roll through any more puny countries.
Norway does not like to go to war, but we respect our commitments. And we hate losing. Norwegians were more than 60% against the war in afghanistan, but we did not leave until 2012. Norwegians have a “you break it, you buy it” attitude to war.
if Norway joins a war against Russia, America will land bombers and fighters in northern Norway unless Russia takes Norway first. and Norway is a very long country. Try racing it in tanks while under fire.
If anyone can point out where in this document any security guarantees are given or implied, I would appreciate it.
And this document is NOT A TREATY. Just look at the title, fercryingoutloud. It’s called a “memorandum.” It was never sent to the Senate for ratification. It should not be called a treaty by anyone.
And as has been pointed out, there was no treaty commitment to defend Ukraine. So I see the situation more as people who didn’t understand the terms of one treaty now going on to not understand the terms of a different treaty.
An alliance means nations work together. What NATO has become is American military might stationed on foreign bases. If western Europe is distrustful of the effectiveness of this alliance they have only themselves to blame for their particular nations poor martial preparedness.
And I completely understand why Putin would seek to undermine an alliance whose sole purpose is to confront Russia with unity. And the US isn’t to blame that Western Europe isn’t really united.
We have no interest in defending the Baltic states. Even the Baltic states know that. If they were serious about maintaining their own sovereignty, they wouldn’t be spending less than 1% of GDP on their military forces.
Estonia has 1.3 million citizens and a $29 billion GDP. Even with North Korean levels of military spending as a percentage of GDP, they’d have no chance at defending themselves from a Russian (143 million citizens, $2 trillion GDP) invasion without help from their allies, i.e. NATO.
They have no chance regardless. That’s why they don’t bother spending, it’d be wasted spending. If Russia wants to come in, they’re coming in.
And honestly, nobody here really gives a crap about Estonian freedom. Yet you think it’s vital for America to risk WWIII to defend it, all because the neocons made it their project to expand NATO east. Not for any vital American interest, but to hem in Russia and expand the list of patsies we could call on to help us with future War on Terror misadventures. These were not serious commitments. We did not stand as a nation in 2004 and pledge our sons and daughters to the defense of Estonia.
This really is a no brainer. NATO is not some average, everyday treaty – it is the major treaty since WWII. If a NATO country is attacked, and the US (and others) don’t come to their aid militarily, that’s the end of any active treaty the US has ever signed.
So there’s no way the US doesn’t honor the treaty if a NATO country is attacked.
And in light of this, I think there’s very little chance that Russia attacks a NATO country.