Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> A "moral" act by NATO, etc., before the war would have been to listen to the advance warnings and concede on some minor points like NATO membership

NATO did that when Russia demanded that NATO not offer Ukraine and Georgia Membership Action Plans in 2008, complying with the Russian request. Russia responded almost immediately by invading Georgia, this is also a factor in why Ukraine, even after deposing Yanukovych, did not renew its bid to join NATO until after the Russo-Ukrainian War started with the Russian invasion in 2015. To quote a famous American statesman: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool my twice... can’t get fooled again.”

> (remember that NATO membership means eventual bases in Ukraine, and questionable status for Russia's lease on Sevastopol)

No, it doesn't mean foreign bases in Ukraine (not all NATO members have foreign bases), and Russia's invasion on 2014, largely carried out from and in violation of the agreements governing the bases it had in Ukraine, pretty much guaranteed that their use of those facilities was gone if and when Ukraine regains control of Crimea.

> NATO did that when Russia demanded that NATO not offer Ukraine and Georgia Membership Action Plans in 2008, complying with the Russian request.

That is not my understanding of the historical record, and I don't think it's the understanding of the US, French, or German leaders at the time either. The 2008 agenda report states "NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO", emphasis mine.

> No, it doesn't mean foreign bases in Ukraine

This is fair, and I thought about clarifying the point myself. The reason I left it as is, is that regardless of whether there would be a literal NATO/US base in Ukraine, there would be a highly effective level of military command and equipment synchronization, such that NATO ally troop/materiel movement into Ukraine would be vastly more fast and simple to accomplish. It would certainly vastly expand the risk profile of that section of Russia's border. Of course, since 2014 Ukraine became a NATO-lite member and most of this synchronization began anyway.

> The 2008 agenda report states "NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO", emphasis mine.

Both countries were hoping for a formal onramp to membership via a MAP at that summit, Russia demanded that they not be given MAPs, saying that doing so would be a provoication and destabilizing, NATO acceded to the Russian demands and papered over the denial of a concrete onramp with the no-process, no-timeline language you quote, and Russia immediately invaded Georgia.

Yes, Russia’s demands 8 years into its subsequent war on Ukraine were somewhat greater (including permanently ruling out all further NATO expansion—not just for Ukraine—and withdrawing all alliance troops from Eastern flank members of the alliance), but the 2008 experience weighed heavily against consideration of acquiescence, even in part, to Russia’s demands of this kind.

In the annals of diplomacy, it would not be strange for Russia to have interpreted the near invitation and late-stage downgrade to a "will join" statement as something far from acquiescence. I think it was taken as quite provocative, just less so than an invitation. By analogy, I think a statement from the USSR that "Cuba will join our nuclear military defense pact" would not have been taken as acquiescence during the Cuban missile crisis.

> In the annals of diplomacy, it would not be strange for Russia to have interpreted the near invitation and late-stage downgrade to a "will join" statement as something far from acquiescence. I think it was taken as quite provocative, just less so than an invitation. By analogy, I think a statement from the USSR that "Cuba will join our nuclear military defense pact" would not have been taken as acquiescence during the Cuban missile crisis.

I think it didn't matter what happened at the NATO conference Russia was looking for an excuse to invade and they were going to find one regardless of what was said.

The reason Russia invaded soon after was because NATO blinked when Russia dared them to, if NATO had given Georgia and Ukraine a MAP I think the situation would be very different today.

NATO clearly justifies its existence largely as an anti-Russia organization as it denied entertaining the idea of Russia as a member, has an offensive first-strike nuclear doctrine, the US pulled out of the ABM and the INF, installed missile defense systems in former Warsaw Pact countries that are clearly part of a strategy to mitigate Russia's capabilities (when Russia has no aggressive first-strike doctrine and only has a defense of Russian territory first-strike doctrine). Almost all of which happened when Russia was a relative "friend" to NATO when it was doing worse things in Chechnya as part of "GWOT" than it is currently doing in Ukraine, and what it is doing in Ukraine is appalling enough.

A good offense is a good defense, but you leave yourself more open to losses when your opponent is able to effectively fight back. In this case, NATO was perfectly happy to accept those losses because they would be Ukrainian. The world is far worse off as a result.

Edit: I'm going to stop responding to this thread now, as it really is a huge tangent from the original "disinformation" topic. At this point, nobody is arguing about Ukraine/Russia/NATO in order to dispute my points about the use of "disinformation" by VoxUkraine, we're just arguing about Ukraine/Russia/NATO.

> NATO clearly justifies its existence largely as an anti-Russia organization as it denied entertaining the idea of Russia as a member

False. Russia was on a track toward membership, with some additional special treatment, but then Putin demanded immediate membership without readiness criteria ahead of any other former Warsaw Pact countries, NATO balked at that demand, and Russia abandoned its pursuit of membership and became antagonistic to the expansion process it had previously been part of.

> I'm going to stop responding to this thread now, as it really is a huge tangent from the original "disinformation" topic.

Disinformation was never the topic (though you keep repeating Russian disinformation), this whole discussion about Ukraine/Russia/NATO history was in response to your separate claims in the same post as the disinformation ones about justification of the war.

I was referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37447928 which was clearly about "disinformation", and how one must actually debate the merits of the subject, instead of doing alignment tests. Obviously that means I have to debate the substance of the issue, but at this point, I think I've done enough to show that there is room for debate (you attacked one plank of my argument, even if I were to concede that point, it would not be a critical blow), i.e., this thread is a kind of existence proof for abandoning alignment tests. Ironically, you are now disputing all of that and tarring me with an alignment brush. I consider my point made, regardless.

> NATO clearly justifies its existence largely as an anti-Russia organization as it denied entertaining the idea of Russia as a member

To clear this up. Russia tried to join by bypassing the typical application process, was told pretty much, no you join like everyone else and then decided they didn't want to join anymore.

> has an offensive first-strike nuclear doctrine, the US pulled out of the ABM and the INF, installed missile defense systems in former Warsaw Pact countries that are clearly part of a strategy to mitigate Russia's capabilities (when Russia has no aggressive first-strike doctrine and only has a defense of Russian territory first-strike doctrine).

Russia also has multiple different agreements / treaties / etc where they promised to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine.

Great good they did.

Russia not having a first use policy would be great if I trusted them to not make up an excuse to nuke someone if they think it would benefit them.

Like how they just chuck out international agreements / etc when it benefits them.

> Almost all of which happened when Russia was a relative "friend" to NATO when it was doing worse things in Chechnya as part of "GWOT" than it is currently doing in Ukraine, and what it is doing in Ukraine is appalling enough.

NATO is currently helping Ukraine defend itself from a country which is trying to subjugate it.

> A good offense is a good defense, but you leave yourself more open to losses when your opponent is able to effectively fight back. In this case, NATO was perfectly happy to accept those losses because they would be Ukrainian. The world is far worse off as a result.

Im confused by this statement.

Russia is the one on the offence and Russia is the one who invaded, Ukraine is the one invading itself.

With the help of NATO.

I think the world is far better of with Russia losing the current war in Ukraine.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com