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Attack in Ukraine

Attack in Ukraine

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@shavixmir said
I'm also quite sure if there was no NATO, then Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine.
No?
Then you're an idiot. It's not about NATO. NATO is just the excuse Putin uses for his aggression, but if it was about NATO, Putin wouldn't have invaded Georgia. NATO was no threat at all there, but Putin behaved just the same.

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@shavixmir said
I'm also quite sure if there was no NATO, then Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine.
No?

And what is NATO doing exactly? Except wanting partipating nations to spend heaps of money on weapons?
What did NATO do in Crimea?

Nothing. It's just a lobby for the arms industry. And a threat to anyone who disagrees with the US.

It's obviously not much of a bloody deterent.
Have you been eating them conical mushrooms again. What a fantastical outlook you have. If it wasn’t for nato they would never have left the Ukraine or Poland or East Germany and they would have rolled up West Germany and France too get a grip on reality.
They lost their empire and Putin quite clearly resents that and blames the west for it because he had to skadaddle out of east Germany in a borrowed LADA. Now he wants back and you think disbanding nato would be a good idea.

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@sh76

Just to add to your statements (which I completely agree with): NATO has existed now for 73 years. In those 73 years (not counting 9-11 or Falkland Islands) no NATO country has ever been attacked. Not once. Considering that it is fundamentally a collective defense agreement I'd say that it has been hugely successful and arguably the best bloody deterrent in the history of the world. It's no wonder that so many nations in Europe have been eager to gain membership.

Now one can try to argue that if NATO did not exist then Ukraine wouldn't have been invaded. That is pure speculation. To suggest that Putin, of all people, would not launch an invasion against a neighbor for this reason is laughable. One thing I would hang my hat on is that if Ukraine were a member of NATO then Putin would not have launched this foolish invasion against it.

Edit: And one other thing I'll add. Criticism of NATO because the USA is the dominant member is amusing. In order to have a meaningful defensive alliance it really helps to have some teeth.

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@ullr said
@sh76

Just to add to your statements (which I completely agree with): NATO has existed now for 73 years. In those 73 years (not counting 9-11 or Falkland Islands) no NATO country has ever been attacked. Not once. Considering that it is fundamentally a collective defense agreement I'd say that it has been hugely successful and arguably the best bloody deterrent in the hist ...[text shortened]... f Ukraine were a member of NATO then Putin would not have launched this foolish invasion against it.
Exactly. Call me old fashioned but I prefer a reasonably free press and the right to stand in elections without getting imprisoned for some generic financial crime because I was a threat to the regime that stripped Russia of everything it has and now it wants everything Ukraine has.

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@shallow-blue said
Then you're an idiot. It's not about NATO. NATO is just the excuse Putin uses for his aggression, but if it was about NATO, Putin wouldn't have invaded Georgia. NATO was no threat at all there, but Putin behaved just the same.
Did not the Bucharest Summit in 2008 declare that Georgia, like Ukraine, were going to be part of NATO?

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@ullr said
@sh76

Just to add to your statements (which I completely agree with): NATO has existed now for 73 years. In those 73 years (not counting 9-11 or Falkland Islands) no NATO country has ever been attacked. Not once. Considering that it is fundamentally a collective defense agreement I'd say that it has been hugely successful and arguably the best bloody deterrent in the hist ...[text shortened]... er is amusing. In order to have a meaningful defensive alliance it really helps to have some teeth.
But plenty of other countries have been attacked ..................... by NATO countries.

Some "defensive alliance".

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@no1marauder said
But plenty of other countries have been attacked ..................... by NATO countries.

Some "defensive alliance".
By countries being member of NATO (USA, UK, France) or by the alliance?

As far as I remember, Bush was quite taken aback, by the German resistance to his war in Iraq, but since it was not an act of being attacked, the had no leverage to force the alliance members into that war ...

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@sh76 said
Your first assumption is dubious and probably false. In any case, blaming NATO for Russia invading Ukraine is farfetched, even for US-hating keyboard warriors.

That Russia successfully swallowed the Crimea and it invading Ukraine, a non-NATO member, is hardly a sound line of attack on NATO. If the Russians invade Latvia or Poland and NATO does nothing, then you can attack NAT ...[text shortened]... ing attention to your own posts? Why would NATO be a deterrent to the invasion of a non-NATO member?
Perhaps NATO shouldn't be declaring that nations not in it will eventually be in it and/or stating it has an "open door" policy to admission.

This discussion is seriously ahistorical; the USSR loosened its grip on East Germany and other States in Eastern Europe because, in part, it was assured by Western leaders that NATO would not expand eastward. Now posters are claiming that NATO was always inevitably going to incorporate those countries to stymie Russian power. Much has been made of the 1994 agreement for the Ukraine to give up nuclear weapons stationed there (though not under their operational control) but the assurances given to that country were made with the prior understanding (at least on Russia's part) that it would not become part of a Western military alliance against Russia.

This isn't about "blame" exactly; the invasion is clearly unjustified. But a discussion of actual facts rather than fairy tales revolving around the black hats of Country A and the white hats of Country B-Z would be more fruitful.

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@ponderable said
By countries being member of NATO (USA, UK, France) or by the alliance?

As far as I remember, Bush was quite taken aback, by the German resistance to his war in Iraq, but since it was not an act of being attacked, the had no leverage to force the alliance members into that war ...
Both.

Most of NATO, including virtually all the countries that joined after the fall of the USSR, deployed troops to Iraq to support the US occupation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-National_Force_%E2%80%93_Iraq

NATO deployed "advisors" there starting in 2004. Some are still there. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/nato-iraq-not-surge

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@kevcvs57 said
Have you been eating them conical mushrooms again. What a fantastical outlook you have. If it wasn’t for nato they would never have left the Ukraine or Poland or East Germany and they would have rolled up West Germany and France too get a grip on reality.
They lost their empire and Putin quite clearly resents that and blames the west for it because he had to skadaddle out o ...[text shortened]... st Germany in a borrowed LADA. Now he wants back and you think disbanding nato would be a good idea.
Are you a fukking retard or something?
I said: AFTER THE USSR AND THE WARSHAW PACT WAS DISMANTLED.

You’ve got your head so far up Boris’ arse you can’t even read anymore.

2% of GDP per country in NATO.
And NATO does nothing. Except spend that money on weapons.

Moron.

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@no1marauder said
But plenty of other countries have been attacked ..................... by NATO countries.

Some "defensive alliance".
That has nothing to do with NATO. That the US (and UK, etc.) invaded Iraq is not about NATO. NATO didn't require its member countries to join in the attack (and most did not). As upset as some people were with France for opposing the 2003 Iraq invasion, I don't recall anyone arguing that France was violating its duties under NATO (and if anyone did, they were clearly wrong).

Of course NATO is about defense. That its members also engage in offense has nothing to do with NATO.

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@shavixmir

"If men want to oppose war, it is statism they must first oppose...*"

(* continues)

Wise words, can't think where first I read them.

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@no1marauder said
But plenty of other countries have been attacked ..................... by NATO countries.

Some "defensive alliance".
NATO countries or NATO alliance?
I take your fine with what Russia is up to in Syria. Why the sanctimonious BS about NATO? If everyone is bad I’ll take the bad guys that are the least likely to attack me. The idea that we leave the Eastern European’s to the tender mercies of a man that has invaded a relatively defenceless neighbour is surreal.
Given the attitude that trumps base and the dems left have toward nato the UK and EU should massively expand their defence spending including their nuclear stockpile.

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@no1marauder said
But plenty of other countries have been attacked ..................... by NATO countries.

Some "defensive alliance".
I understand that but that is a fair criticism of those countries individually not of NATO itself. Being a member of NATO doesn't mean that said member nation will not be embroiled in war elsewhere on the globe outside of NATO action. I'm not trying to argue that the US or any other NATO members are choir boys.

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@sh76 said
That has nothing to do with NATO. That the US (and UK, etc.) invaded Iraq is not about NATO. NATO didn't require its member countries to join in the attack (and most did not). As upset as some people were with France for opposing the 2003 Iraq invasion, I don't recall anyone arguing that France was violating its duties under NATO (and if anyone did, they were clearly wrong).

...[text shortened]... f course NATO is about defense. That its members also engage in offense has nothing to do with NATO.
NATO itself engages in "offense". In Serbia, Libya and Afghanistan, for example; it put "advisors" in Iraq in 2004, just one year after the invasion, to help train an army to prop up the US-installed puppet regime.

Let's talk facts for a change.