• freagle
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    1 year ago

    The US is to blame for so so so much in this conflict, but obviously not for Russia making the choice it made. National security is a relationship, not a state of being. A nation’s national security is dependent on the national security of every other nation. It’s a system. Russia attempted to work with NATO, even attempting to join it, because everyone knows that national security is an interrelational framework. The US refused to admin Russia. The US refused to do anything to advance Russian national security for decades. The US explicitly stated that Russian national security is not relevant. The US explicitly acted against Russian national security interest and explicitly refused to negotiate anything that had to do with Russian national security.

    The US worked for decades to get Ukraine to join NATO, up to and including supporting a violent right wing coup, sending its war heroes and its statespersons to support every anti-Russian movement in Ukraine. It worked hand-in-hand with Ukrainian military forces to establish anti-Russian capabilities and pave the way for nuclear capabilities owned and operated by the US to be deployed against Russia on Ukrainian soil.

    And the US knew this would trigger an attack for 30 years. Literally as far back as Clinton the US was in talks with Russia about how Ukraine must remain neutral for Russia to be nationally secure, and documents from that time show Clinton and his administration leaving those talks and immediately talking about how to get Ukraine to join the North Atlantic bloc and turn against Russia.

    Ukraine is the physical territory through which Russia was brutally invaded twice, most recently by the Third Reich. It is not appropriate to look at Russia’s decision to invade and limit your analysis to that one moment. The US has spent 30 years creating this conflict, deliberately, and it has cost the Ukranians their lives and their country. And then the US did exactly the one thing that would cause more Ukranian deaths once the conflict started - it fed them arms. Ukraine’s is tiny compared to Russia. It has no chance to defeat Russia. Feeding arms into the conflict means the proxy continues to fight and continues to draw more fire and continues to die at larger and larger numbers. Literally every conflict the US has pumped arms into shows this result. Had the US simply stopped it’s program as soon as Russia invaded, the Russian SMO would have succeeded much more quickly with far less damage. Instead, the US has shown us exactly what it’s doing - it’s building it’s own military capabilities to fight China while attempting to weaken the Russian position by sacrificing Ukraine for it’s strategic goals.

    The US had 30 years to stop this. Russia made many attempts over the years to demonstrate that the US program needed to stop because national security is non-negotiable for every single nation on the planet. But the US chose death for the Ukrainians and continued it’s program knowing full well that Russia would eventually be forced to react or be subjugated. That Russia reacted when it did was a matter of Russian strategy and military intelligence. That Russia reacted at all was the known outcome of US foreign policy in Ukraine for 30 years and every diplomat, politician, and military analyst knew it.

    • u_tamtam@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      The US worked for decades to get Ukraine to join NATO

      Why would Russia or anyone else care if someone joins NATO? Doesn’t it only start to matter if you ambition to invade a NATO country? You make it sound like Russia’s problem is that US makes it harder for them to invade foreign countries. Given Russia’s history, that seems absolutely reasonable.

      • freagle
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        1 year ago

        Why would anyone care? Are you serious? NATO is the world’s only transnational nuclear military and it’s completely unaccountable to any democratic institution and completely unaccountable to the world. It fucking dropped tons of depleted uranium on urban Yugoslavia for “humanitarian reasons”, dooming generations of children to be stillborn or born with fatal defects and doomed entire generations to virulent and uncurable cancers. It deploys first strike nuclear capabilities in every country it occupies.

        Look at it historically. The Third Reich started on the foundation of invading and subjugating Russia. It matched through Ukraine to get there. When the Third Reich fell, NATO was created by Russia’s enemies and it was founded explicit to counter the USSR and it was staffed with leaders from Third Reich. When the USSR fell, NATO maintained and revealed itself to be foundationally against Russia this whole time. And it’s been marching through Europe and is attempting to establish in Ukraine, except unlike the Third Reich, this time everyone is going along “willingly”, of course with help from the CIA and State Dept.

        It’s quite literally Russia’s existential threat.

        • u_tamtam@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          Why would anyone care? Are you serious?

          Yes, NATO is a defence treaty. It only matter if you plan on attacking. NATO won’t attack you (perhaps some NATO nations would, but not NATO as an organization).

          It fucking dropped tons of depleted uranium on urban Yugoslavia

          I need evidence to believe that.

          NATO was created by Russia’s enemies

          you mean, war-winning allies? The Treaty of Dunkirk was signed by France and the United Kingdom.

          revealed itself to be foundationally against Russia

          even if so, NATO’s power against Russia extends only as far as to prevent Russia from attacking/annexing sovereign nations who requested themselves to join the organization. Easy-enough for Russia to ignore, isn’t it? Unless Russia wants to invade sovereign nations, but that makes them the baddie, so this is a non-sequitur, right?

          • freagle
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            1 year ago

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia - 7 instances of depleted uranium in that article alone.

            Yes, NATO is a defence treaty.

            No, it’s not. It’s a military alliance to produce an active duty transnational nuclear military without accountability to an electorate. This military alliance has been used aggressively and unprovoked multiple times, all to advance US strategic aims.

            you mean, war-winning allies?

            No, I mean enemies. Both historical and contemporary. Just because they were fighting the same enemy doesn’t mean that they were real allies, as proven by the fact that as soon as the war ended, all of the North Atlantic aligned against the USSR, and most of them were totally cool with the Third Reich’s plan to attack the USSR until they realized what it would cost them.

            even if so, NATO’s power against Russia extends only as far as to prevent Russia from attacking/annexing sovereign nations who requested themselves to join the organization.

            No, it does not. You clearly don’t understand anything about nuclear strategy. NATO’s primary strategic role is deploying nuclear first strike capabilities in Europe under a single coordinated strategic plan.

            Easy-enough for Russia to ignore, isn’t it? Unless Russia wants to invade sovereign nations, but that makes them the baddie, so this is a non-sequitur, right?

            This is just swallowing propaganda whole. What you believe about NATO is what NATO propaganda says about itself. It’s simply not true. This is the source of your confusion.

            • u_tamtam@programming.dev
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              1 year ago

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia - 7 instances of depleted uranium in that article alone.

              So, you were being hyperbolic. But I am with you on that, I do not condone the use of depleted uranium, by NATO or anyone (even though it is not banned).

              Yes, NATO is a defence treaty.

              No, it’s not. It’s a military alliance to produce an active duty transnational nuclear military without accountability to an electorate. This military alliance has been used aggressively and unprovoked multiple times, all to advance US strategic aims.

              I cannot find any NATO engagement that isn’t instructed by a UN Security Council resolution or the application of Article 5 (attack on one member), which happened exactly once (following the 11 September attacks). NATO had no case for engaging in Irak and couldn’t force its members to get involved, even with all the weight (and BS) of the USA pushing for it. I think you were a bit oversold the image of a bunch of friends with guns using the world as their range practice.

              No, it does not. You clearly don’t understand anything about nuclear strategy. NATO’s primary strategic role is deploying nuclear first strike capabilities in Europe under a single coordinated strategic plan.

              Can you explain to me what you find revolting here? Nuclear deterrence (mutually-assured destruction) has been a core doctrine of every nuclear-capable nation.

              Easy-enough for Russia to ignore, isn’t it? Unless Russia wants to invade sovereign nations, but that makes them the baddie, so this is a non-sequitur, right?

              This is just swallowing propaganda whole. What you believe about NATO is what NATO propaganda says about itself. It’s simply not true. This is the source of your confusion.

              I must admit that I don’t know everything, but you are not helping me find where my logic is flawed. The list of ex-soviet countries who joined NATO, the recent engagements in Chechnya, Tajikistan, Dagestan and Georgia, the “special military operation in Ukraine”, should they not be making an unequivocal argument that Russian military expansionism is very real and that countries bordering Russia are seeking protection from Russia?