Comment by camhart | Hacker News Reader

Comment by camhart | Hacker News Reader

Russia shouldn't be allowed to force decisions like this on any country. Let them join.

We kicked the can down the road with Ukraine and look where that landed Ukraine. 2008 and 2014 we gave in and allowed Russia to do what they wanted. 2022 and Western countries are allowing it again. Its despicable. I don't want war. I don't want to go to war. But when someone approaches you and says "I own you" you either fight back or give in to being owned. Ukraine is facing that decision now, and they're fighting back. We should be doing more to help Ukraine. Other countries will face the same fate eventually if we don't put a stop to it now. Our responses since 2008 have failed in the long term. We need to do something different.

I don't claim to have the right answer. I don't want to send our troops off to die. I don't want to get nuked or have to nuke anyone. But I honestly feel sick to my stomach right now over this. I know this isn't the only atrocity to occur without sufficient response from the Western world... but it's the one that's hit home for me for some reason.

Note that it has been the choice of Sweden and Finland not to be a part of NATO. NATO would be more than happy to let them join, and the process would probably be quite quick as well. I think this is quite a significant difference from the situation with Ukraine.

By kicked the can you mean denied their pleading to allow them to join after they threw out the Russian backed government like the USA Clinton State Department encouraged them to do resulting in current events happening to them while the West looked on?

Replace Ukraine and Russia with Ireland and UK, and apply the same events that happened since 2000, you will end up with UK invading Ireland in 2022.

I think this lecture (2015) explains the situation very well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

Huh? I've lived in the UK and Ireland around those times and there is no interest in anyone invading or problems with them being part of this or that alliance.

I watched that lecture but I still don't understand the situation. He explains that since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia made very clear that they did not want NATO to expand beyond Germany. And yet NATO did expand into Poland and the former Soviet states Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia etc. So why is Putin responding now when he already ensured Ukraine wouldn't join NATO in 2014 by invading the country's western region?

Secondly the lecture doesn't explain why Russia is so concerned about having a NATO member on their border. The treaty is a defensive one, not offensive. I don't think the lecture does a good job to help westerners understand the way in which the east mistrusts the west.

He did mention in the lecture that Russia was too weak at the time to step up against neighboring countries joining NATO.

The whole thing is really sad indeed. I believe any country should have the freedom to choose its security and financial alliance, but my point is that isn't how it works with geopolitics. Any major power would do the same if they were in Russia's position.

Who are your troops?

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