It is a tactic of bullies to reframe "defense" as "aggression". Is me locking my doors "aggression" against burglars?
Of course, that is why the most common pro-NATO shilling narrative is that it is merely "defensive".
NATO is just another military organization, whose business is war. And just as any other military, it will be (and has been https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_Operations ) used as a political tool.
NATO and Russia aren't allies (at best), which makes NATO a threat for Russia, simply by definition. Pinky-promising that NATO won't be used as a threat or a political tool obviously doesn't count, since there are quite enough precedents of the contrary. These are just boringly objective risk-management calculations and conclusions that any manager would reach.
> I don't observe anybody joining a military alliance with the goal of protecting themselves from Panama or Luxembourg.
Do you really feel like Panama or Luxembourg are fair examples, instead of countries like the US, that actually has military capability?
You wouldn't deny that there are quite a lot of instances of people trying to protect themselves from the US and NATO, would you? How come?
Really, it all boils down to a dangerous supremacist idea that there is only one culture enlightened and wise enough to use its military capabilities, and it is widely accepted in the western bubble. This concept is just so desired, that it erases any kind of reflection on how one can pave the road to hell with good intentions.
The conflict in Ukraine, for example, was born out of a public push (by the US, mostly) for it to join NATO, even before all the bad stuff started. Ironic, really, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The criticism towards NATO in Lybia mostly boils down to NATO overstepping and going out of scope of the resolution. And clearly, it's not Russia, China or the US who should decide for Africa.
What about Syria? The US is relying on NATO infrastructure for its operations there. Who invited them?
What about Yugoslavia? This is an especially noteworthy case, judging by how hard the western propaganda tries to erase it from history. Just ask a Serbian whether they feel like NATOs depleted uranium munitions felt "defensive", or what they think of the narrative that current conflict in Ukraine is the first serious conflict in Europe since WWII.
Srsly, what is it going to take to drop an idiotic supremacist image of NATO as a beloved and welcomed knight in shining armor, and realize that it's just a tool of war.
Probably quite a lot, since it was born in a culture with a history of inventing supremacist ideologies, deaf to an idea that some might not really see it as a universal good, but rather as just another quasi-empire, minding it's own political and economic benefit before anything else.
Quite a lot of people in Eurasia and Africa see NATO as a threat and don't feel like being ochlos to NATO's demos. But what do these subhuman unenlightened savages understand, am I right? /s
Turkey could have provided those bases for the US to use in Syria NATO or not. Indeed, they didn't just provide them because they're NATO, the US still had to make an agreement.
I think the Syrian Kurds were pretty keen on the US being there, and the Kosovo Albanians in Yugoslavia. If I recall that one correctly, Russia also sent a peacekeeping force at the same time.
> Quite a lot of people in Eurasia and Africa see NATO as a threat
Sure, but that doesn't mean they should. They can see the US as a threat, or an actor such as France. But the Polish army is unlikely to be bullying them around.
It's also impossible to please. When Western countries didn't step in to conflicts and genocide they're criticized, when they do they're criticized. Should they have just let the Serbs do whatever in Kosovo?
> NATO as a beloved and welcomed knight in shining armor, and realize that it's just a tool of war.
I've never seen it that way. It's a tool of war and tools of war are also tools of defense. My country is not a NATO member.
It simply doesn't correlate with your worldview, that is why you are being all dismissive.
> Unlike Russia, NATO isn't invading members in order to force them to join.
Note the "in order to force them to join" clarification. Cuz one can't say simply say "NATO doesn't invade", right? Why would NATO spend additional resources, bother with citizenships, social infrastructure or take on any additional responsibilities, when they can just instill a loyal government? E.g. why would the US bother with providing Iraqis the perks of American citizenship, when they can just order the new government whatever they want.
IMO, the pattern of invading faraway states, crushing them, and then leaving without taking any responsibility, after establishing a puppet state colony, is a much more evil thing than squabbles between neighbors over who gets to be responsible for some territory and who will have to spend money on healthcare for people on it.
> Countries are begging NATO to let them in so that they have some measure of protection against Russia. > NATO is not some "supremacist idea"
Riiiiight, "begging", but its definitely 100% "not supremacist". Hard to argue with that kind of a worldview. I've linked the list of NATOs military operations somewhere above. Can you tell me how much of them have anything to do with Russia and how much seem suspiciously aligned with someone's (not pointing fingers) political and economic goals?
> Ukraine did not seek to join NATO due to the US asking it to, it sought to join NATO to defend against Russia after overthrowing Putin's puppet in 2014
The US had started pushing Ukraine towards NATO much earliear than that, actually. At first it happened during Bush administration, which caused one of the first huge alienations of a newborn Russian Federation from NATO. Look it up, it's just a self-fulfilling prophesy that had been brewing for a rather long time.
Also, just note how mundanely you talk of the regime change and "puppets". You don't see how that could be related to local security infrastructure deterioration, do you?
I wonder what you make of the US politicians publicly promising Ukraine protection and NATO membership, but then declining it as soon as it became a place they'd need to actually defend, rather than a place where they can deploy their infrastructure, conveniently just after the INF treaty had been dissolved.
NATO has become a threat to survival of NATO. And Russia. And everyone.
Think very carefully and tell me how is expanding NATO to the Russian borders in the interests of original NATO members?
Can you elaborate how NATO is a threat to itself and everyone else?
It would appear Putin is the greatest threat to Russia and everyone else. He is the one ignoring Russia's own territorial treaties. He is the aggressor invading sovereign states. NATO alliances are defense pacts that are entered into voluntarily by all parties.
As for whose fault is what — honestly, would you care, if either Russia launches nukes or NATO does so preemptively, and then the other side inevitably retaliates, and our world dies in flames — would you really care whose fault it would have been? Would it really matter to you?
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-its-troops-...
Remember NATO is a defense alliance which must be invited in. And afterward doesn't grant the new inductee any power to threaten other sovereign states.
Said another way, does Putin having nukes constitute a blank check to annex neighbors?
Yes. In this case, both parties consent to threatening each other with their nuclear arsenals. They consent to gradually raising the stakes in this poker game, and eventually calling each other's bluff. It may very well turn out that one of the two is bluffing. Or it may not. I really don't care all that much to find out which.
> If someone is accosted we don't say they--as a victim--share half the fault.
> ... trespassing and destruction justified?
> ... a blank check to annex neighbors?
We are speaking different languages here. You are talking the language of ethics and apportioning the blame. I am talking the language of survival, which I think the article in the title post talks as well.
If - following your metaphor — you live next door to a neighbor who has hired a bodyguard, and in the moment of intrusion the bodyguard and the intruder start firing at each other from a rocket launcher, explode a cistern full of gas, and as a result the intruder dies, the bodyguard dies, your neighbor dies, and you die — would you particularly care in those last terrifying moments whether it was the intruder's fault, the bodyguard's fault, or your neighbor's fault? I know I wouldn't.
> Said another way, does Putin having nukes constitute a blank check to annex neighbors?
Both no and yes, depending on which way you turn the question. It doesn't give him the right to do so, but it sure gives him the means.
This is absurd. NATO is a defensive pact voluntarily entered into. Russia's neighbors want in not because of Western provocations but because of Putin.
> If - following your metaphor — you live next door to a neighbor who has hired a bodyguard, and in the moment of intrusion...
Framed this way I would be the intruder, the one deciding to escalate an already dangerous situation. And therefore I would be the foolish one, putting everyone's lives at risk for my own selfish goals.
> would you particularly care in those last terrifying moments whether it was the intruder's fault, ...
It's kind of irrelevant once the moment is reached. The world isn't there yet. And it's Putin with his foot on the gas accelerating toward destruction.
> It doesn't give him the right to do so, but it sure gives him the means.
Then every nation around Russia must have nukes or an alliance with a nuclear power. Putin is the one pushing them into doing so, and he's proven that any treaty with Russia is worthless. So there's no point trying to ally with them.
I fail to comprehend why you would say so.
The parent's (D_Alex's) thesis, if I may presume so much as to formulate it, is that (1) NATO is a threat because it is "expanding eastward", i.e. admitting countries that are more likely to have a military confrontation with Russia; in which case NATO will be obliged to come to their aid, in which case we are all dead. This is similar to how WW1 and WW2 started, only people didn't have the capacity to destroy all human life on Earth then, as they seem to have now.
Your thesis is that (2) Putin/Russia is a threat because it has nuclear weapons, which it can use, in which case we are all dead.
I am not disputing thesis 2; but it does not, in any way, undermine the validity of thesis 1. Both thesis 2 and thesis 1 may be true at the same time; and it is thesis 1 that I was responding to in the subthread started by D_Alex.