You can call it what you like, Russian statesmen and elites thought of many of these territories as Russian. Ukraine above all. Lots of these regions had been part of Russian empire for 100s of years. Some still have Russian military bases and space ports in them and some speak Russian.
Russia has lots 'non-Russian' regions inside of its border that they also think are part of Russia.
> But the way you and Russia talk about it shows that they still consider that to be their territory, even though it is now a different country. That attitude leads Russia to think they have a right to meddle in their former territory.
I'm explaining wat the Russian perspective is, I'm not taking Russia side.
Yes they do. Like literally ever great or regional power does. US literally claims dominance over a gigantic region, basically half the world. See what happens when China tries to put Mexico under a nuclear umbrella.
These issues need to be considered in diplomacy.
> Second: Why did those countries join NATO? Because NATO held a gun to their head and told them they have to join? No, because Russia kept talking and acting in ways that made them afraid that they were going to get pressured, meddled with, invaded, and/or annexed. They wanted something bigger than their own military to protect them, so they pushed to join NATO.
I agree. Where did I deny that? Of course these countries want foreign protection. They are well aware of their own weakness.
But just because somebody ask me to fight for them, doesn't mean its a good idea for me to do so. Maybe they would be better helped with other kinds of support.
> All of which leaves Russia feeling surrounded and encroached upon. But the cause of that has been the Russian habit of trying to treat former territory as still their own, rather than the evil machinations of the West.
Any power would respond when you try to literally surround it with a nuclear umbrella.
The West pushed and pushed NATO further East, and that's a fine strategy for them and certainty made some amount of sense even if Russia didn't like it. But at some point you need to realize that Russia was gone respond if you take it to far.
The Russians quite strategically invaded Georgia to make it impossible for them to join NATO. The reason they did that was quite clearly to stop the Eastward expansion of NATO. They had over, and over and over again in negotiation said that extending NATO into Ukraine and Georgia was a vital interest for them. In a way that it wasn't with the Baltic's for example.
And again, I'm not 'on the side of Russia'. But when you are talking about practical diplomacy, I think the Western powers miscalculated. Georgia under NATO was a terrible idea. Giving Ukraine hope to be in the EU is an equally terrible idea. Not just because of Russian response, but for other reasons as well.
Blocking NATO expansion to Georgia and annexing Crima were simple sensible policies that should have surprised nobody. But they don't represent a massively expansionist policy on Russia part. I think Russia knows they can't really do that.
First: Russia lost the territory in 1989 (Warsaw Pact) and 1991 (breakup of USSR). It hasn't lost any Russian territory since, or was it in any danger of doing so. It was (and is) in danger of losing influence over territory that is not Russia's, but nobody was going to invade Russia to steal territory.
But the way you and Russia talk about it shows that they still consider that to be their territory, even though it is now a different country. That attitude leads Russia to think they have a right to meddle in their former territory.
Second: Why did those countries join NATO? Because NATO held a gun to their head and told them they have to join? No, because Russia kept talking and acting in ways that made them afraid that they were going to get pressured, meddled with, invaded, and/or annexed. They wanted something bigger than their own military to protect them, so they pushed to join NATO.
All of which leaves Russia feeling surrounded and encroached upon. But the cause of that has been the Russian habit of trying to treat former territory as still their own, rather than the evil machinations of the West.
1. The client states weren't client states. They were de-facto annexed polities with centuries of distinct characteristics. After Soviet Union fell these countries could resume their legitimate existence.
2. Russia has always been an imperialistic, genocidal and brutal country, incapable of creating anything of lasting value. A country on the Russia's border has no reason to be categorized under "russian dominion".
Legitimate states have unalienable right under international law to guide their own path, regardless who their neighbours are.
If your neighbour is Russia, you really want to ally with a larger party.
"Who was it pushed NATO right up against Russia's border."
Nobody PUSHED NATO. This is what is wrong about the posting above. The CCE countries, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, knew very wall what Russia was and that it had not changed.
They wanted to join NATO exactly because they knew Russia would one day again attempt to annex them.
Unless Estonia was in NATO, Russian armors might very well be now in Tallinn.
This rhetorics misses two crucial facts: first, that the eastern slavic states were eager to join NATO simply because they were worried about the Russian threat. Russian chauvinism towards ex-soviet nations is not a recent thing and Russia's attempts to coerce and pressure neighbours into submission and dependence started immediately after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. For someone like me who grew up in Ukraine where the Russian threat was an everyday topic, the narrative of "aggressive NATO expansion" is a great illustration how people pushing it are far from understanding the post-Soviet reality. And second, in the 90ties there were negotiations about Russia joining NATO as well, which ultimately broke down in the early 2000s as Russia embraced state terrorism as a regular political instrument.
The point is very simple: NATO or not NATO, Russian fascism and Russian imperialism would still be there. Without the NATO expansion however the Baltic states would have probably been annexed a decade ago.
This is just ends in a circular argument because in the end NATO has expanded into the areas bordering Russia precisely because those countries (the Baltics, mainly) have a history of having their sovereignty violated by Russia, and continue to have serious and probably legitimate worries about that happening again.
So you have to ask exactly why Russia protests so strongly about NATO expanding? And why countries on Russia's borders were so eager to join it?
The only way Russia gets "invaded" by the "west" is by redefining its borders to include chunks of Ukraine... and now Ukraine defending itself and its internationally recognized borders is an "invasion" of "Russian sovereignty." Preposterous.
The NATO part seems curious. I was under the impression that NATO does not generally accept membership from nations that don't currently control their claimed territory, and that part of the reason Russia seems to like biting off small chunks of neighboring countries was thought to be that those nations couldn't reasonably join NATO as long as the Russians were there.
I do not see how contemporary Russia is "desperate in acquiring more territory".
My
interpretation is as following -- please correct me if I'm wrong. Note: I am not endorsing (nor criticising) Russian policies here, just trying to understand and learn. In order to learn, I try and give as clearcut an explanation as possible of my current understanding, so as to make it as easy as possible for others with more expertise to point to where I am wrong (if indeed I am wrong).
My take is this: contemporary Russian policy is a variation on "spheres of influence"
[1], and Russia treats its neighbours as being in its "sphere of
influence", and does not accept them becoming part of NATO. I think
the implicit deal with "sphere of influence" neighbours is: as long as you don't
join NATO, you can do whatever you like but as soon as you try to
join NATO we will stop this, including with force. Currently, Russia has borders with the following NATO countries:
Norway,
Estonia and
Latvia. The latter two joined NATO in 2004, when Russia felt too weak to do anything about it, especially since they are not land-locked, so could be easily be defended by western Navies.
A clear example of this was the Russian-Georgian War in 2008. Russia
withdrew after a couple of days (but left some "Frozen Conflicts" [2]
in place that it can 'turn on' at will, as a power-lever: South
Ossetia and Abkhazia). Who would have defended Georgia if Russia had decided to stay, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey? Probably not.
Likewise, Russia could easily invade an keep the 'stans. Take land-locked
Kazakhstan: huge, rich in resources, nearly empty, and, thanks to Stalin's policy of
mixing ethnic groups, about 1/4 of the population is ethic Russian anyway (in 1989 it was
nearly 40%). Who would defend Kazakhstan? Mongolia, Uzbekistan , Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan?
Probably not.
Ukraine is an interesting special case, and the annexation of Crimea
can be interpreted in this way: Ukraine came too close to NATO,
and Crimea is important for the ability of the Russian navy to
project power in the Mediterranean Sea. Crimea is > 2/3 Russian from
the POV of ethnic groups and Russia has a higher standard of living than Ukraine, so the majority of the Crimean population would probably have been ok with the policy anyway.
Russians are brainwashed into believing they have the right to decide what people in nearby countries do. You can see it even in comments here.
"NATO expanded towards Russia" is used as an excuse for invading Ukraine.
Doesn't matter that NATO expanded because these countries wanted to be in NATO. And that's PRECISELY because Russia routinely threatens them. NATO is hugely popular in Eastern Europe (with the exception of Balkans), much more than in the Western Europe.
Why should Russia have a say in what defensive organizations a country can belong to?
Maintaining a buffer is exactly why the Soviets annexed half of Europe after WWII, and spent the next half century brutally oppressing the populations therein. That's the whole point. But regardless, this is such a silly semantic quibble. Who cares why Russia wants to reassemble its empire? The international community is understandably alarmed by Russia's actions, and naturally care little about Putin's justifications.
> Crimea is also part of an ongoing proxy conflict between NATO and Russia, where NATO seeks to encircle the latter.
Fuck, this again? Go ahead and connect the dots for me. Explain what specific actions on the part of NATO, or the countries that have requested membership in NATO, were responsible for Russia suddenly invading a neighbor country that posed no threat to it, forcibly annexing a large part of it, and maintaining a ruinous and deadly guerilla conflict in much of the rest.
The NATO expansion angle seems like a distraction. The rambling speech Putin gave at the outset of the invasion outlined his pet theory that Ukraine is part of broader Russia and that he doesn't see them as a separate people. He's long said that the dissolution of the USSR was the greatest catastrophe in Russian history. It's pretty clear that his aim is a revanchist restoration of historical Russian territory.
It is also worth noting that NATO does not expand by invasion or recruitment. Member nations all have to apply to join and be democracies, meaning that at least notionally their people have to want to be in NATO. And why would former Soviet Republic want to be in NATO? Most of them say it's because they're afraid of Russian invasion. It's worth noting that Russia has recently invaded Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine. Those fears don't spring from a place of pure paranoia.
It also seems unrealistic that there will be long term alignment between Russia and China, they're natural rivals. Russia still holds contested territory that used to be part of China. Even under the Soviet system they tolerated each other at best, and entered into armed conflict in 1969. China officially calls that conflict an act of Russian aggression, even after hammering out a deal with Lavrov in 2008.
There is a deep inconsistency in your argument. Countries bordering Russia should not join NATO as doing so would be a provocation. Yet Russia has shown that they are happy to invade bordering countries (who are not in NATO) and blow their people to bits. How do you think the people in Finland, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine view this situation? What is their right to self-determination worth?
But two prominent NATO member states, France and Germany, have famously invaded Russia. Another NATO member state, the United States, along with the UK spent the latter half of the 20th century waging a cold war against Russia. I'm a Cold War kid and a U.S. Marine to boot but damn! Russia definitely has legitimate reasons to be concerned with NATO expansion. I know, I know - we believe we're the good guys. The problem is Russia doesn't believe that and they have credible concerns we can't simply hand-wave away. Understanding that is important to making international politics work.
Those countries are not Russias to play with as Putin pleases and, if they can be encouraged to join NATO and the west, that is because of the way they were treated by Russia. If Russia didn't want them to be part of NATO they shouldn't have abused them.
Russia is burthurt on this, that cannot and should not be the concern of the rest of us.
Russia's neighbours wanted to join NATO because they were afraid of being invaded by Russia (again) --- and Putin's invasion of Ukraine shows they were exactly right to be thus afraid.
I can offer Russian statements spanning more than two decades consistently demanding that NATO stops expanding eastwards as evidence that this is what Russia cared about. What evidence do you have to the contrary? Why did they invade?
Russia has lots 'non-Russian' regions inside of its border that they also think are part of Russia.
> But the way you and Russia talk about it shows that they still consider that to be their territory, even though it is now a different country. That attitude leads Russia to think they have a right to meddle in their former territory.
I'm explaining wat the Russian perspective is, I'm not taking Russia side.
Yes they do. Like literally ever great or regional power does. US literally claims dominance over a gigantic region, basically half the world. See what happens when China tries to put Mexico under a nuclear umbrella.
These issues need to be considered in diplomacy.
> Second: Why did those countries join NATO? Because NATO held a gun to their head and told them they have to join? No, because Russia kept talking and acting in ways that made them afraid that they were going to get pressured, meddled with, invaded, and/or annexed. They wanted something bigger than their own military to protect them, so they pushed to join NATO.
I agree. Where did I deny that? Of course these countries want foreign protection. They are well aware of their own weakness.
But just because somebody ask me to fight for them, doesn't mean its a good idea for me to do so. Maybe they would be better helped with other kinds of support.
> All of which leaves Russia feeling surrounded and encroached upon. But the cause of that has been the Russian habit of trying to treat former territory as still their own, rather than the evil machinations of the West.
Any power would respond when you try to literally surround it with a nuclear umbrella.
The West pushed and pushed NATO further East, and that's a fine strategy for them and certainty made some amount of sense even if Russia didn't like it. But at some point you need to realize that Russia was gone respond if you take it to far.
The Russians quite strategically invaded Georgia to make it impossible for them to join NATO. The reason they did that was quite clearly to stop the Eastward expansion of NATO. They had over, and over and over again in negotiation said that extending NATO into Ukraine and Georgia was a vital interest for them. In a way that it wasn't with the Baltic's for example.
And again, I'm not 'on the side of Russia'. But when you are talking about practical diplomacy, I think the Western powers miscalculated. Georgia under NATO was a terrible idea. Giving Ukraine hope to be in the EU is an equally terrible idea. Not just because of Russian response, but for other reasons as well.
Blocking NATO expansion to Georgia and annexing Crima were simple sensible policies that should have surprised nobody. But they don't represent a massively expansionist policy on Russia part. I think Russia knows they can't really do that.
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