quote:

''I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,'' said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ''I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.''

''What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was,'' added Mr. Kennan, who was present at the creation of NATO and whose anonymous 1947 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, signed ''X,'' defined America's cold-war containment policy for 40 years. ''I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.

''And Russia's democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we've just signed up to defend from Russia,'' said Mr. Kennan, who joined the State Department in 1926 and was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow in 1952. ''It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are -- but this is just wrong.''

quote:

To be sure, ousted president Viktor Yanukovych was corrupt and incompetent and the United States and the European Union didn't create the protests that rose up against him. But instead of encouraging the protestors to stand down and wait for unhappy Ukrainians to vote Yanukovych out of office, the European Union and the United States decided to speed up the timetable and tacitly support the anti-Yanukovych forces. When the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs is on the streets of Kiev handing out pastries to anti-government protestors, it's a sign that Washington is not exactly neutral. Unfortunately, enthusiastic supporters of "Western" values never stopped to ask themselves what they would do if Russia objected.
There's plenty of room for finger-pointing and blame casting here, but the taproot of the debacle in Ukraine was a failure to distinguish between power and interests. Power is a useful thing to have in international politics, but any serious student of foreign policy knows that the stronger side does not always win. If it did, the United States would have won in Vietnam, would have persuaded India, Pakistan, and North Korea not to test nuclear weapons, and would have Afghan President Hamid Karzai dancing to our tune. In the real world, however, weaker states often care more about the outcome than stronger states do and are therefore willing to run more risks and incur larger costs to get what they want.

quote:

For Russia, however, the situation vis-à-vis Ukraine is quite different. Russia is much, much weaker than the United States -- in every significant dimension of national power -- and its long-term demographic and economic prospects are not bright. That is why any prudent Russian leader would want friendly regimes on its borders and would be sensitive about any area where ethnic Russians are a significant fraction of the population. Ukraine is right next door, there are deep historical ties between the two countries, and ethnic Russians account for about 20 percent of Ukraine's population and nearly 60 percent of the population in Crimea. Add to that mix Russia's naval base in Sevastopol and you can see why Putin sees the retention of Russian influence there as a vital interest indeed.
Moreover, Russia has spent the last 20-plus years watching the United States and its European allies expand NATO eastward and deploy ballistic missile defenses there, to boot, with near-total disregard for Russian interests and complaints. Because Americans never see themselves as potential aggressors and haven't had a great power in their own hemisphere for over a century, they have trouble imagining how these acts looked from Moscow's vantage point. But any good realist could have told you that Russia would regard these developments as a long-term security challenge. Imagine how Washington would react if a powerful China were one day to cultivate close security ties with Canada or Mexico, and you'll appreciate Putin's perspective a bit more.
Not only is Ukraine much more important to Moscow, its geographic proximity made it easy for Putin to act as he did and makes it hard for us to do anything about it. News flash: Ukraine and Russia share a long border, and Crimea is thousands of miles from the United States. Russia may not be a global military power (its defense spending is about one-sixth the size of the U.S. defense budget), but it is strong enough to occupy Crimea. The United States and NATO aren't going to assemble an expeditionary force to push them out, so don't expect to see a replay of the 1991 liberation of Kuwait. The bottom line: Putin was never going to see Obama's warnings as more than just a hollow bluff.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

The EU, by simply starting preliminary talks with Ukraine, helped trigger what Russia saw as a major crisis, simply because the (supposed) values of the EU looked really loving good to a lot of Ukrainians. The Russian brand simply isn't worth jack poo poo to a lot of people in Eastern Europe, and neither is what the Russians are selling, apart from gas.

quote:

Maybe it didn't manifest itself because Russia's leader was a drunken idiot, and everyone else was focusing on internal matters, such as looting the country and trying to grab as much political power as possible?

Gantolandon posted:

A guarantee of neutrality is completely worthless if the guaranteed nation can be immediately steamrolled, whenever a stronger nation "feels" that someone else violated it. Aggressive states have a nasty tendency of feeling threatened whenever it's convenient to them.

quote:

Your analysis is dishonest, because you just assumed Russia feels threatened

Majorian posted:

Not only have I read a lot about the subject, but I've posted several things on the subject as well - all saying that NATO expansion has contributed to tensions between NATO and Russia. Nobody's denying that the EU agreement also played a role. The confusion lies with you, for believing that it can only be one issue or the other.

Majorian posted:

It's not an assumption; I've posted several articles corroborating my claims. Do you think those articles are wrong? If so, why?

Job Truniht posted:

What's disimilar to NATO's reaction during the war over South Ossetia? Regardless of what NATO does/doesn't think, I think Putin knew they were overreaching their influence over areas that close to Russia.

quote:

Responses from governments in Western Europe and North America indicated that the relations with Russia are considered too important as to risk a worsening relationship over “tiny and insignificant” Georgia.

Lawman 0 posted:

Ground floor on a good thread.
Can someone refresh me on the combat readiness of the eastern european NATO states?

Dilkington posted:

Thanks for making this thread. Unlike a lot of people here I agree that Russia perceives the expansion of NATO as threatening their interests, and that the perception matches reality.

You said you posted evidence that there's a strong causal relationship between NATO expansion and Russian entrenchment in the near abroad. I don't mean to sound dismissive, but could you give us some more? I went back through your posts and couldn't find the "Princeton" thing.

quote:

Fundamentally, this is a government that has what the German philosopher Carl Schmitt called a presupposition of conflict. It sees itself as threatened on all sides. I have, in a study that’s coming out…a threat assessment that essentially NATO and the U.S. are advancing, are creating threats to strategic stability — that’s missile defenses — and that the likelihood of war in an around Russia’s frontiers is growing. And they’ve been saying those kind of things for about five or six years now. It’s not just a new wrinkle in Russian thinking.

quote:

Further, Putin said, at the same time we see methodical attempts to undermine the strategic balance in various ways and forms — missile defense. The United States has essentially launched now the second phase in its global missile defense system. There are attempts to sound out possibilities for expanding NATO further eastward. That tells me that they have bought an intelligence assessment that doesn’t exist, that is basically fabricated. There is nobody in this town or in Brussels talking about expanding NATO. It’s not going to happen anytime soon. Yet Russian intelligence and the government obviously believe this. And that’s already a sign of something dangerous.

quote:

What obscure sources could the Russians be using to come to such a wacky conclusion? How could their intelligence analysts have possibly determined that NATO is going to expand?

Well perhaps they went to NATO’s website where under a section helpfully titled “NATO expansion” it notes that ”Georgia and Ukraine – which were already engaged in an Intensified Dialogue with NATO – will become members in the future.” Or, perhaps, the Russians took note when the United States’ Secretary of State, in a meeting that included representatives of the Georgian government and other perspective members, said “I believe this summit should be the last summit that is not an enlargement summit.” Or maybe the Russians read the op-ed by Estonia’s defense minister in which he berated them for not understanding that Georgian NATO membership was inevitable: ”Did Russian officials not hear when on two recent occasions, most recently at May’s NATO Summit in Chicago, that Georgia was assured of admission into NATO?”

quote:

The fact is they are going to intervene until they are certain that there is no prospect of Ukraine becoming a member of NATO. And all of the threats by NATO and so on to sort of increase defenses elsewhere is simply provocative to the Russians. Now, I’m not saying that’s right, but I am saying that’s the way Russia is going to react. And frankly, this is all predictable. And those of us who helped negotiate the end of the Cold War almost unanimously said in the 1990s, “Do not expand NATO eastward. Find a different way to protect eastern Europe, a way that includes Russia. Otherwise, eventually there’s going to be a confrontation, because there is a red line, as far as any Russian government is concerned, when it comes to Ukraine and Georgia and other former republics of the Soviet Union.”

Cliff Racer posted:

They're combat ready to be pushed to the floor and raped by Russia if thats what it comes down to. Its not so much a matter of combat readiness as it is that Russia is militarily advanced and so much bigger than them that they wouldn't stand a chance at defending themselves or even really slowing Russia down for long. Poland and Romania should be relatively easy for NATO to defend but I still can't figure out a way to defend the Baltics from a hypothetical invasion without having actual bases there to assemble troops in before it gets to that point.

My Imaginary GF posted:

We must hold the Carpathian passes, from the Wista to the Danube, we must hold off this slavic migration for the gloey of Pax Americanum.

Or, we could just let Russia see what life is like as a Chinese puppet and then pst them on the head when they come back to us. If anyone in Europe knows about beating your wife to show her how much you love her, it'd certainly be Russia.

Ps youre still joining us for the war on ISIS, right? Dont take Ukraine so personally bro, you got dealt a bad hand and we won the pot.

Cliff Racer posted:

They're combat ready to be pushed to the floor and raped by Russia if thats what it comes down to. Its not so much a matter of combat readiness as it is that Russia is militarily advanced and so much bigger than them that they wouldn't stand a chance at defending themselves or even really slowing Russia down for long. Poland and Romania should be relatively easy for NATO to defend but I still can't figure out a way to defend the Baltics from a hypothetical invasion without having actual bases there to assemble troops in before it gets to that point.

My Imaginary GF posted:

You forgot NATO. NATO is the strongest military power in Eastern Europe by a wide margin.

Omi-Polari posted:

Sure, Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East right now. But it used to face a serious threat from the combined Arab armies until 1973, which outnumbered it. Switzerland doesn't have to worry about an invasion today, but it has survived for centuries surrounded by large, central European land empires.

Omi-Polari posted:

I think the United States might have elements of this tradition, though we don't really practice it today. But post-9/11 you could say we basically went into this mode as a de facto response to air hijackings. If you attempt to hijack an airplane today, you have to expect the entire passenger section to mobilize into a little army. So what the Baltic states need to do is think about how to equip their citizens into a force that can respond without central direction in both violent and non-violent ways against Russian "non-war" provocations. You might not be able to resist a giant Russian attack, but you can resist a small unofficial Russian attack led by privatized mercenaries and the like. That means if Russia wants to take you over, it must blatantly trigger Article 5, which it will be inclined not to do. So it's a strategy that checks Russian aggression.

Job Truniht posted:

It became the strongest military power after Kissinger argued for closer financial/military support during said war.


Russia is going to invoke its entire response on how much of a presence NATO has in the region. By presence, I mean just more than the local military garrison. It's why talks of Ukraine joining NATO are really late in the game now, as it was for Georgia after Russia had their way with them. With respect to that, there is a bit of political insensitivity here. Russia has most definitely been trying the waters these last few years, prodding NATO and seeing how it would respond, and using that to terrorize the ex-Soviet blocs.

As for the argument as to whether Russia would've gone after Crimea at some point without NATO threatening them? Absolutely. It's a historically contested region whose importance well predates the Cold War.

Runaktla posted:

Why doesn't Russia start it's own NATO, like um the International North Eurasian Protection Treaty (INEPT) and then invite its bordering countries i.e. Poland, Estonia, etc. to it and say cool you got bros that protect you if we attack we will protect you if the West double crosses you and attacks you?

They can make an Article 5 too that says we are bound like blood brats to aid each other.

Then they can put defensive missiles on their soil so the Baltics would have protection from each side.

Why isn't this a good solution? (seriously folks do my homework for me here)

Pornographic Memory posted:

they tried it, it was called the warsaw pact but like all good things reagan destroyed it

My Imaginary GF posted:

Runaktla posted:

So tl;dr is got butthurt?

And whose that pic of Rand alPaul?

Runaktla posted:

Why doesn't Russia start it's own NATO...

Why isn't this a good solution? (seriously folks do my homework for me here)

Numlock posted:

Runaktla posted:

Why doesn't Russia start it's own NATO, like um the International North Eurasian Protection Treaty (INEPT) and then invite its bordering countries i.e. Poland, Estonia, etc. to it and say cool you got bros that protect you if we attack we will protect you if the West double crosses you and attacks you?

They can make an Article 5 too that says we are bound like blood brats to aid each other.

Then they can put defensive missiles on their soil so the Baltics would have protection from each side.

Why isn't this a good solution? (seriously folks do my homework for me here)

quote:

[Russian Foreign Minister] Andrei Kozyrev called for a new security system based on the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and suggested NATO subordinate itself to this new organization - an idea NATO quickly rejected.

Runaktla posted:

So basically Russia is a corrupt shithole and it is roughing up its neighbor Ukraine for seeking protection from an entity that is less corrupt is kinda all that's going on here?

Pornographic Memory posted:

they tried it, it was called the warsaw pact but like all good things reagan destroyed it

ranbo das posted:

Since this is Clancychat, let's say the US just said "gently caress it" and left Europe to fend for itself. Is there anyone outside of the UK and France who could feasibly stop the Russians? It seems that after WWII most of Europe went "there will never be war in europe again and if there is the US will bail us out".

Someone in the non-clancychat thread mentioned Germany having 8 operational jetfighters, I'm wondering if everyone else is in that kind of shape.

Nessus posted:

It would seem unlikely that the US would do that overnight; even under the wise and beneficent direction of Dr. Ron Paul, we would if nothing else have to do heavy airlift to move all our poo poo back home.

gradenko_2000 posted:

I listed to a Dan Carlin Common Sense podcast yesterday where he talks about the Ukrainian crisis at length and I could feel my mind slipping because he basically lays it all down at the foot of the US/EU/NATO.

By throwing support behind the anti-Yanukovych movements and expanding NATO into the Baltic states, the West 'poked the Bear' and so this is all something that the West deserves because of course the US would react in a similar manner if someone did something like this in Mexico (and assuming Mexico has the same relative history as Ukraine does relative to Russia). I can understand the NATO-expanding-into-the-Baltic part, but a lot of it felt like handwaving away Putin being a bastard and now I don't really know what to think.

ranbo das posted:

Since this is Clancychat, let's say the US just said "gently caress it" and left Europe to fend for itself. Is there anyone outside of the UK and France who could feasibly stop the Russians? It seems that after WWII most of Europe went "there will never be war in europe again and if there is the US will bail us out".

Someone in the non-clancychat thread mentioned Germany having 8 operational jetfighters, I'm wondering if everyone else is in that kind of shape.

Warcabbit posted:

Ruble's gone from 36 to 38 to the dollar. Oligarchs are presented with an interesting quandary. Keep their money inside Russia and have the value vanish, or move it outside and leave it prey for freezes/seizures.

Cat Mattress posted:

So for Russia a neutral Ukraine is one that:

• is economically tied to Russia
  
• keeps Russian military bases on its territory (Sevastopol)
  
• gives privileged status to the ethnic Russian minority (Donbass)
  
• joins the Eurasian Union
  
• does not join the European Union, no way, no how
  

This is very strong neutrality here.

alex314 posted:

Since it's Clancychat thread: if Russia attacks NATO they don't really need to send armoured columns toward west, it'd be doable for them to destroy most of combat potential of baltics, Poland and whomever they pick for first strike target Yom Kippur-style. Then they could "regime change" Ukraine with massive strike and negotiate from the position of power. For example force demilitarization of baltics and eastern part of Poland.