It adds a lot of nuance actually. They can't say to the public that NATO proactively wants a country to join, as that would sound as an expansionistic move, so what more probably happens is that NATO first reaches out to countries that are considered strategically useful offering them a deal. Then the public is sold the narrative of the free country wanting to join NATO, that generously welcomes them under their protective wing against the evil villains. There is no other way to sell to your electorate joining NATO.
> Where do you get this interpretation from, honest question. In Bucharest 2008 France and Germany voiced opposition against a NATO membership of Georgia and Ukraine. Despite that resistance the declarations of the summit says the following.
These are just nice words for consolation. At the same summit in Bucharest, NATO decided not to offer Ukraine and Georgia a Membership Action Plan, which is the procedure for joining NATO. NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia in any forseeable future was off the table. The prospect was from time to time dangled in front of them to encourage reforms and modernization, but that was it. The prospect of Turkey joining the EU has been of similar nature for many decades with little actual progress.
> Also article 10 says that new members must be in a position to contribute to the security in the treaty area. Depending on how one understands that sentence, a NATO membership of Ukraine - or even just its consideration - arguably achieved the exact opposite, at least for the moment.
That is generally understood as a requirement to maintain a capable fighting force and not to freeride on the backs of others in the alliance (see Article 3; Article 10 establishes the same requirement for new applicants). I don't think any reasonable person would call Ukraine freeriders. At the moment, they are one of the most capable fighting forces in the world, and will no doubt invest heavily in armed forces after the war.
> In December 2021 Russia made a final attempt to get a political resolution of the conflict, sending letters to the US president and NATO demanding an agreement. The response came in January 2022.
Russia demanded that the country I live in should be kicked out of NATO. The last time they made such ultimatums, my government chose to satisfy their demands in an attempt to use all means possible to avoid confrontation. In the end, Russians demanded military bases on our soil as forward posts against possible attacks from Central Europe (Napoleon and all that, 2023 isn't the first time around seeing that narrative). Tens of thousands of soldiers, countless tanks and artillery guns were brought in. Those bases were used as a staging area for taking over our national institutions and installing a puppet government that immediately asked Russians to officially occupy us. Widespread terror against the population followed, including deportation of tens of thousands of women and children in cattle cars to die in Siberian gulags. For half a century that followed, until 1991, they did all they could to suppress our language, culture and identity. They replaced a third of the population in the country with Russians, in an attempt to destroy our identity and merge us into an indistinguishable and unseparatable part of Russia. We were literally becoming a minority in our own country.
But by sheer luck, that Russian empire of shit collapsed due to chronic mismanagement and internal rotting. We were able to restore independence. Sweden helped immensely in getting Russian occupying force to leave in 1994. In a decade, we were able to crawl out of the shithole Russians forced us into, and satisfied all requirements needed to join the EU and NATO. Modern military with civilian oversight, a modern government with separation of powers, rule of law and high level of protection of human rights, high quality of life, some of the highest press freedom, economic freedom and other rankings in the world.
Why should we abandon all that, isolate ourselves internationally, and make ourselves a juicy target for Russians to invade again and force us back under their boot?
Finland, I stress, took the other route the last time around. Facing Russian ultimatums, they chose war. While they lost Karelia and Petsamo, they managed to keep their independence. After the war, they chose political neutrality and stayed out of NATO, but spent decades building up one of the largest armes in Europe against any future Russian invasions. Seeing the genocidal nature and the immense scale of Russian war against Ukraine dashed any hope of fighting off another Russian war alone. Finland abandoned the strategy of neutrality and chose to step into alliance with other European nations, as did the Swedes.
So despite quite different paths our countries took in the 20th century, we've all now reached the same conclusion that strong international cooperation is the best way to maintain our independence and security in the 21st century.
Are we all dumb and wrong? Should we cut ties and put our hopes on prayers that we won't become the target of the next war Russia decides to launch?
If you are the prime minister of Finland, Estonia or Poland, what is the responsible choice here that serves the interests of your people the best?
> Even with USSR gone, they were in Russia's sphere of influence, and making those overtures would be provocative.
What is provocative about joining NATO ? It is a purely defensive alliance. They are absolutely no threat to Russia. The only reason to be against anyone joining NATO is if you were planning to invade them. And guess what happened ?
It does not. NATO membership is the initiative of Eastern European governments out of fear that Russia will invade them if they remain neutral like Ukraine, against hesitancy and skepticism of North America and Western Europe who thought until last year that this is a silly idea and a manifestation of historic trauma, and not a real danger.
> These countries don't join NATO because the USA pushes them or because "NATO wants" to expand.
Of course smaller countries with less security guarantees want to join NATO! It's the most powerful military pact and once you are in you can go around punching up against much larger countries! Who wouldn't want to?
Even Russia wanted to join NATO, an idea floated after WWII when the Russians fought against the Nazis alongside the allied forces. Of course that was dismissed as a pipe-dream because the existence of NATO was to contain Russia to the east.
> But somehow bringing NATO to Russia's doorstep should not be seen as provocation?
Nobody is “bringing NATO” anywhere. Neither the USA nor anyone else can annex other countries to NATO. Those countries apply to join the alliance, because they want to.
Educate yourself a little better on what you're talking about (in stead of listening to infamous tinfoil hatters like RKjr), then maybe you won't have to sound exactly like a Putler troll.
> You cannot even begin NATO application without an invitation.
That's a formality, which usually happens in the final stage of negotiations. EE countries that joined NATO got the invitation 1-2 years before officially becoming members, while negotiations usually took around 5-10 years. After everything has been negotiated, NATO sends a formal invitation, which is followed by signing the formal application, and the decision to accept that application is then ratified by parliaments of NATO countries (can take up to a year). It's dead wrong to depict this as existing members "expanding" NATO and dragging other countries in.
> Regardless of the initiative of non-members any member could have blocked the expansion of the alliance simply because it was a time of peace and there are no agressions by Russia.
If you saw Russia as a peaceful country, then there was no reason to oppose, because accepting EE wouldn't increase commitments in any significant way, while membership requirements like civilian oversight over armed forced made the new members more stable and contributed to peace in Europe. Opposing new members would've made more sense if you expected war from Russia, because mutual defense pact would drag you into the conflict too. So in a way, joining NATO was calling NA/WEU bluff: "If you think there's no threat from Russia, sign a mutual defense pact with us."
> As for the rest of what you said, it only applies to conventional warfare.
Nothing changed regarding nuclear weapons. In the 1997 founding treaty between NATO and Russia, it was agreed upon that NATO would not station nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe and NATO has kept that promise. Given the technological edge of western weapons over Russian arsenal, I don't think there is any difference if nukes are a thousand miles more in one direction or the other.
I believe stationing nuclear weapons in EE is important to Russia only because it would lead to very serious escalation if Russia invaded those countries and Russia took control of American, French or British nuclear weapons.
You make it sound like NATO was unilaterally pushing for this. Eastern European countries were begging to join NATO. All of them had been independent multiple times over the centuries, always ending up under Russian control. NATO offered a plausible mechanism to end the historical cycle--an historical cycle for which Russia, in 2022, is proudly nostalgic and not afraid to go to war to continue.
Moreover, national security is expensive, especially for small countries who cannot benefit from scale--they need to spend much more for even minimal deterrence. For newly independent nations, NATO provides leverage for their security expenditures. More importantly, it also motivates peaceful resolution of conflict among neighboring NATO states, which makes NATO a keystone institution for peace in Europe, Russia notwithstanding.
> [..] but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to.
This is simply not correct, and even Gorbachev has confirmed this. There has never been any agreement stating that NATO is not allowed to accept new members in any particular direction. There were statements made by western politicians but never any pen to paper. The sovereign states that have joined NATO have not done so because of some US campaign or persuasion, but by their own free will. Your statement is indirectly saying that these countries are too dumb to decide for themselves, it's incredibly condescending.
> How can a country that doesn’t control its own territory, and has some ongoing struggles, join NATO in the first place? It’s against the rules.
No, its not. Its against standards outside of the Washington Treaty that some member countries have suggested for membership, specifically to justify delaying the membership process for Ukraine and Georgia.
The present invasion seems to have shifted EU/NATO opinion among governments against Russia and toward Ukraine (and other states under Russian threat), perhaps most significantly in the places that have been most friendly to Russia and reluctant to support the countries they are threatening (Orbán’s Hungary, for instance), so that non-rule excuse may or may not continue to be operative.
> The two countries are moving into NATO together, they are practically married.
I think this is what you meant, but it could be misread: the former is a sign, not the cause, of the latter. They’ve had aligned security policy for a long time, which is reflected in their joint decision to choose to apply to NATO.
> At that time it would have been unthinkable to discuss any further expansion of NATO.
Exactly. It wasn't discussed, nothing was agreed upon or promised to anyone.
Most Eastern European countries that later applied for NATO to secure themselves from increasingly hostile Russia didn't even exist as countries at the time, nor did Russian Federation. It was a totally different time and suggestions of promises about NATO membership availability to Eastern Europe are an anachronism.
South Africa or Thailand are not in the area covered by the treaty so no. Hell even an attack in Hawaii would be outside the treaty according the the US department of defense.
This is also why Australia and New Zealand are not part of NATO.
> Russia themselves asked to join but were rejected.
Except they were not. They were told to apply like any other nation and they did and were in the program but their constant threatening (and actual use) of force against their various neighbor countries slowed and eventually stopped the process with a final severing of official relationships due to the invasion of Crimea in 2014. Again the treaty is quite clear in this as a requirement to join nato.
Nobody said they were however NATO member does mean ally and we're pretty lukewarm on that prospect. There could certainly be another alliance made outside of NATO that would make them an ally, there could be, but there isn't. We have friendly relations with Ukraine and support a faction of their government but we're pretty cagey with our military support.
> NATO that has expanded right up to Russia's borders.
NATO was formed on Russia's borders, it didn’t need to expand to reach them.
And countries near you joining a regional security arrangement isn’t a casus belli, most especially not against completely different countries that you have already succeeded in getting the alliance not to admit, thereby also quelling the country’s interest in joining the alliance.
I know Russian propagandists like to point to the renewed interest in NATO membership Ukraine developed in 2014 for the war, the problem with that is that that interest (aside from not justifying the war in any case) was a direct result of Russia launching the war of aggression.
> Arguing NATO didn't expand into the Baltic states is semantics, at best. Sure the countries have to apply to join but the current NATO members have to acquiesce. Even with this relationship the US can (and has) communicated policy prior to expansion. The act of expnasion itself is evidene of US policy since the US could veto it fif it was something it didn't want.
You talk about technicalities, but you ignore the key point here: these countries saw NATO membership being vital for their national security.
> My suspicion is you're viewing the US as a benign hegemony. The problem with this thinking is it makes it harder to see things from the other side, namely that another foreign power might reasonably perceive "benign" actions as hotile.
Perhaps it isn't, but it is benign for those countries who want to join (or joined) NATO. So, what is wrong with that?
> This is especially true of NATO, which was founded on the idea of screwing the USSR (quite literally). Well the USSR doesn't exist anymore yet NATO persists. Russia has to view that as aggressive especially with continued expansion.
If Russia would not be a dictatorship which threatens its neighbours, if it wouldn't demonstrate aggressive and coercive behaviour, then perhaps there would be no need for NATO. However, Russia did everything it possibly can to ruin its relationship with most neighbours and gave them every reason to join the military alliance. Now they blame NATO for it?
> Because there are advantages to being neutral. You can't get roped into a war you didn't consent to.
This is just absolutely not true. Baltic States were neutral before the World War II. They were invaded and occupied by Soviet Russia (and briefly by Nazi Germany). Neutrality does not guarantee sovereignty. Moreover, smaller countries which are close to large countries might simply not have numbers to resist a large aggressive neighbour. In such case, military alliances are their only option.
> Because joining NATO requires mutual consent.
Huh? I am talking about a third country. Why should a third country, especially a potential aggressor, have a right to veto the membership? It is a matter of NATO and the applicant country.
> That's my point: this has been a massive miscalculation by Putin. But not all borders are created equal. Geography matters. A border with Ukraine is of more strategic threat than a border with Finland just because most of Ukraine is flat.
Saint Petersburg will be about 100 km from the NATO border. Yet Ukraine is nearly 500 km away from Moscow. It just doesn't add up.
> My sense is they trid to decapitate Ukraine's leadership and pave the way for a pro-Russian regime. This was a massive miscalculation.
We are in agreement on this. Militarily they just didn't even have the right numbers (let alone other spectacular failures), yet Russians still opened wide fronts and went after the capital Kyiv.
> Why would Ukraine and Georgia belong in NATO for any reason other than to piss off the Russians?
For mutual defense against outside aggressors and to coordinate regional security efforts, same as every other NATO member.
The fact that the Russians were clearly in 2008 (and have demonstrated that even more clearly since) the most likely and dangerous outside aggressors facing Georgia and Ukraine doesn't mean the purpose is to piss off Russia, though, to be fair, pissing off someone who w is inclined to aggression against you because you've made that less easy is not a bad thing.
> Should we put Uganda and Congo in NATO?
Uganda and the DRC have expressed no interest, that I know of, in NATO membership or partnership, and are rather distant from the explicit geographic focus of NATO as specified in the treaty (Europe and North America) [0], as well as having political issues (like Russia when it tried to jump ahead of the readiness process and join) that would require, at best, a long onramp leaving geography aside. They'd probably be better candidates for NATO global partner status if they decidedto pursue a NATO affiliation than membership any time in the forseeable future.
[0] Hence the language in Article 9 that, beyond the founding members which notably include some North American states, “The Parties may, by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty.”
> NATO did nothing to expand. It was those countries that wanted to join!
NATO decides whether and how to expand their membership. They decide based on strategic considerations, like whether Russia would see allowing a member to join as a threat. NATO violated agreements with Russia not to expand towards Russia's borders over the past 20 years, and Russia's paranoia and aggression made this outcome predictable. In fact, many people predicted this would happen decades ago if NATO were to expand this way.
This is not excusing the aggressor's behaviour, this is a simple recognition that if you poke a bully, he's going to punch you in the face. This doesn't mean you shouldn't stand up to him, but it does mean that if you have a fragile peace with a nuclear bully, you should be careful about how you threaten that peace. We should have learned these lessons decades ago during the cold war, but seemed to have forgotten them.
> It is Russia and its behavior, since forever, that made the neighbors fearful and desire NATO membership for protection against a vicious and aggressive neighbor.
Yes, that's a primary reason NATO was formed. Of course they want membership, that's perfectly normal and predictable. Ukraine would have joined long ago too but everyone recognized that that would have been a serious provocation, and ultimately a bad idea. It seems they thought they could incrementally creep towards Russia's borders and Russia wouldn't notice. They thought wrong.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has strengthened and expanded NATO. Historically, Sweden and Finland haven't wanted to join NATO. Now they're both joining. Finland's membership has already been ratified. Sweden's membership will be ratified within weeks:
If Putin's plan was to somehow weaken NATO then that plan has backfired. Putin has comprehensively achieved the opposite result.
> Either NATOs goal still is to fight Russia
It isn't. NATO is a defensive alliance. If Russia doesn't want other nations to join a defensive alliance then Russia must stop giving them reasons to join.
It adds a lot of nuance actually. They can't say to the public that NATO proactively wants a country to join, as that would sound as an expansionistic move, so what more probably happens is that NATO first reaches out to countries that are considered strategically useful offering them a deal. Then the public is sold the narrative of the free country wanting to join NATO, that generously welcomes them under their protective wing against the evil villains. There is no other way to sell to your electorate joining NATO.
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