Comment by monocasa
6 days ago
To be the devil's advocate, I don't think Russia foresaw a situation that had Ukraine looking to join NATO right after NATO had been used offensively for the first time ever to put its thumb on the scale of a civil war that didn't involve NATO countries.
If Putin didn't want NATO getting involved if he started a war there's one special trick he could have played! He could have not started a war ...
The only reason Ukraine joining NATO is a problem is if Putin/Russia (or someone else) wants to attack them.
I know there's a real risk of peaceful trade, mutual alliance, humanity, and democracy from breaking out in such circumstances but somehow I think the risk might be worth it for the billions of us who aren't completely fucked up megalomaniacs.
> The only reason Ukraine joining NATO is a problem is if Putin/Russia (or someone else) wants to attack them.
I mean, that's objectively not true since Libya, who attacked no one, but had a NATO bombing campaign to assist their civil war.
NATO is no longer a purely defensive pact.
Who joined NATO that you're blaming the Libya military interventions on?
If your inference is true then Ukraine's membership would be entirely orthogonal to any intervention NATO took to prevent Putin from committing genocide against his own people.
If NATO would come to Ukraine's aid anyway, then again their membership doesn't matter.
All NATO membership adds is a promise of defence.
s/devil/putin/
Sure, but I think these discussions are more enlightening when we model superpowers as rational actors within their ideological system rather than just whatever propaganda is locally convenient.
> when we model superpowers as rational actors within their ideological system
But they are not. We can thus look at the people who make decisions, but not at the countries themselves. So, it’s most likely not about joining NATO, but about European integration and economic growth.
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Not much of a change, TBF.