91–100 of 613 posts
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Previous World Wars were not one-sided. Pretty much the majority of the developed world (probably all of the developed world?) is against Russia right now.
I think China is still pretty neutral about the whole thing. Putin payed respects to China (e.g. at the Olympiads), while (at least afaik) no western nation tried to get China onboard with sanctions -- or at the very least, they didn't send their presidents over to talk to Xi.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Previous World Wars were not one-sided. Pretty much the majority of the developed world (probably all of the developed world?) is against Russia right now.
I think China is still pretty neutral about the whole thing. Putin payed respects to China (e.g. at the Olympiads), while (at least afaik) no western nation tried to get China onboard with sanctions -- or at the very least, they didn't send their presidents over to talk to Xi.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 to "enforce peace". Same with Crimea in 2014. Then Luhansk and Donetsk a few days ago. Now the rest of Ukraine. Discussion with Putin is futile. When Russia started sending troops next to the Ukraine borders, NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev. It's too late now.
> NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev And Russia would've been scared and retreated. Sarcasm aside, all that would've done is accelerate the whole invasion procedure. And then the 2000 troops would be killed by Russia. Then America/NATO will retaliate. That'll be the endgame.
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What makes Russia position understandable? What gives them right to occupy Ukraine?
Suppose canada tried to join china and north korea in some kind of military pact. USA would not possibly tolerate that.
While yes, Putin very much wants his old USSR back, it seems he's doing this in response to potentially having more NATO missiles on his borders.
He's basically been saying "fuck around and find out" since 2008 when we said Ukraine would have the option of joining NATO.
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The consultation is what triggering article 4 means. Article 5 is collective defense. Article 4 The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.ht...
So Article 4 is talking - I am very sure lot's of talking within NATO happened in the last couple of months already - what does this change?
Talking now: which of the plans we have discussed before are we going to enact? Formal meeting, in that a member state has declared it's intent to bring a topic to the table and that the body is obligated to discuss and determine a course of action - which is allowed to be "no action".
Basically, before now everyone figured out what to do on paper, now the Treaty Organization has to make a decision about next steps.
Non-error-message link: https://birdsite.xanny.family/EstonianGovt/status/1496728085... Text, 57 minutes ago: "#Estonia unequivocally condemns #Russia's military attack on #Ukraine and we have decided to launch #NATO consultations under Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty with Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and other Allies." Crepuscular photo of some buildings and link to https://valitsus.ee/en/news/estonian-governmen…
That's rather hyperbolic. Article 4 has been invoked six times since 2003 (including in response to the Crimean invasion.) None of those cases triggered World War III.
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Sorry I didn't realize that. There are actually a lot of people shouting loudly who never read history. I thought the salami slicing pattern was obvious for everyone to see now. Since it is not point is that to me and many others the situation looks very similar to what happened just before WWII.
The difference between now and WW2 is that all of Europe west of Ukraine ( excluding Switzerland), and most of it north, are in a single military alliance, which has nuclear weapons ( and France also does, not under the NATO chain of command).
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Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 to "enforce peace". Same with Crimea in 2014. Then Luhansk and Donetsk a few days ago. Now the rest of Ukraine. Discussion with Putin is futile. When Russia started sending troops next to the Ukraine borders, NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev. It's too late now.
>> NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev And when those American soldiers are killed by Russian missiles, do you then declare full on war on Russia, and we basically all die? Because like....there is no other good option out of this you know. By placing American(or NATO) troops and assets in the harms way, you need to be prepared for what you are going to do if those…
You are assuming here that Russia would be willing to cause a World War by attacking those American soldiers.
> as a Pole the risk of actually being involved in military operations is making me extremely uncomfortable right now.
But the alternative, to let Russia have Ukraine, will become very uncomfortable in the long term. It's naïve to assume that by giving Putin what he wants he will be satisfied and not invade any other countries in the future. The analogy with 1938 is striking.
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World War 1 started because a guy was assassinated, for one. The tension was there, but the assassination was what set everything into motion.
The assassination was a pretext. Austria-Hungary had been thinking about invading Serbia for decades. I dislike this historical view where the little guy is blamed.
OP's point is that an act can seem small on the surface ("a guy got assassinated") but triggered a larger war because there are greater tensions and forces at play ("Austria-Hungary had been thinking about invading Serbia for decades").