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Comment by throwoutway | Hacker News Reader

> “huge part”

That’s fairly doubtful. There’s some proponents of the NATO-provocation theory but geopolitics is way more complicated than than a single indicator.

Putin would still have invaded if the US was an inept backwater that had no foreign policy

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How do you know that Putin would still have invaded? For this you first have to know why he invaded. The most plausible reason - at least to me - is what Putin himself said over and over again, Ukraine becoming a NATO member. There are certainly other things to be gained - Ukraine's oil and gas resources, Crimea with the strategically important naval base in Sevastopol, water supply for Crimea, easier to defend borders, protection of the Russian minority and probably more - but I don't think they carry as much weight as Putin's security concerns.

This is not too different from the Cuban Missile Crisis. How would the USA react today if Russia attempted to put missiles on Cuba, for defensive purposes of course? Or better, how would they have reacted 15 years ago so that we keep the Ukraine conflict out of this thought experiment?

In no way do I want to defend this war, I want to see Putin defeated as much as everyone else, but unfortunately this is what you get if there are incompatible interests and no one backs down or tries to reach a compromise.

> How do you know that Putin would still have invaded? For this you first have to know why he invaded.

While I think it does play a part, that's not what their propaganda is even using as a reason. This indicates a multitude of reasons and not any one "excuse", which is my point

Okay, fair point, why not be open about that reason? Maybe the people would not see this as sufficient reason, not perceive the NATO as a threat and back a war. In the west we have, for example, surveillance where the judgment between the state and the people do not really agree.

> if there are incompatible interests and no one backs down or tries to reach a compromise.

It is not only incompatible interests. Both groups of actors weigh the case of Ukraine differently. While Putin (et al) are ready to go to for for it, it does not seem to have the same level of priority for NATO countries/USA. One might even say that to a degree, USA is not aligned with the EU in this case (oil imports made by USA, Nordstream 2).

I am not sure why NATO wanted Ukraine as a member, is there any strategic interest? Or was this more like whoever wants to join NATO can join, they are a sovereign state after all and can do what they want?

US and EU are certainly aligned in some aspects, they oppose war in general and the resulting humanitarian crisis, they want to uphold international law, they want sovereignty respected, they do not want further escalation, but I would agree that the US could potentially profit from the situation when the EU adjusts its resource dependencies, especially oil and gas. But I am not sure if gains in specific areas are not offset by the consequences of the entire situation in general.

Nobody tried to install nuclear missiles in Ukraine and there are plenty of European countries that haven't joined NATO despite much closer ties to the west than Ukraine like Sweden and Finland. I think Ukrainians wouldn't even have considered that their ethnic brothers would attack them (and most ordinary Russians are probably still in denial about it) before Donbas in 2014 and last week which makes their joining NATO an absurdity, you don't need protection when you don't fear someone. Your neighbours joining NATO can be perfectly avoided if you stop invading them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas

And what happened now that Finnland and Sweden pondered joining NATO? Putin warned them. Ukraine wanted to join NATO and Putin has always said that this is unacceptable but NATO did not back down. And you can easily say that there would be no big NATO presence or even nuclear missiles in Ukraine, but you have to convince Putin that this is and will remain true. But NATO already promised to not expand eastwards after the end of the cold war and then did it anyway, so it is not surprising that there is a lack of trust on the Russian side.

All Russian attacks in Georgia and Ukraine followed the Bucharest declaration from April 2008 which states that Ukraine and Georgia will become NATO members. Under Yanukovych Ukraine decided to not go ahead with the NATO membership and remain unaligned. After that the situation escalated again in 2014 as Ukraine started again to seek NATO membership.

You are assuming Putin would be the president of Russia if "The US was an inept backwater that had no foreign policy".

What were Russias wars since ussr collapse?

- Chechnya (internal hence doesn't matter)

- Georgia 2008 (after they aligned with the US and decided to join nato)

- Ukraine 2014 (pretty much the same reason)

- Ukraine 2022 (once nato-ukraine relationships were intensifying at unprecedented rate in 2021)

All of these actions were reactions to what putin considers to be crossing of "the red lines" made clear like 20 yrs ago.

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