This is great news. I don't think Turkey will be able to stop this considering how pissed off other members are at Russian genocide and belligerence. Seems Turkey doesn't mind that...
Genocide? Really?
Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership
191–200 of 310 posts
Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with de-escalation is this: what compromise is possible here? Ukraine should just give up its independence and land and ability to seek justice for the horrific war crimes? Russia has the power to de-escalate by withdrawing. Ukraine has the power to de-escalate by ceasing to exist.
Abide by Minsk II, officially cede crimea (according to gallup this is what 80-90% of crimeans want), disband azov and promise never to join NATO. Theres a perfectly clear deescalation path and has been since before the war started. This war was many things but inevitable was never one of them. Deescalation is the last thing NATO or the US wants though.
And giving up their land and independence is the last thing Ukrainians want, so it sounds like Ukraine and NATO are on the same page in terms of not appeasing a senile tyrant invading a sovereign nation.
Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. They are the most indepedentest of the independent. They only serve one lunatic dictator and his family. And developed nuclear weapons against the wishes of US, china and russia. Can't get more independent than that. It's a country that literally starved itself to stay independent.
NK exists at the behest of China. China wants a buffer between it and South Korea. If that wish were to change, I'd expect NK to be either gobbled up by China or allowed to rejoin with SK.
China wasnt at all happy about NK developing nukes. If they were a vassal they would have stopped that.
They have influence but they dont control it.
Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
NATO is not just about Russia. To me, suggesting that Sweden is somehow more strategically important than Turkey is foreign policy illiterate. Turkey brings a military ~30x the size of Sweden, they are actively involved in being a buffer for conflicts in the Middle East, and they have an advanced military manufacturing capability that they have used to supply Ukraine and others with military drones. They also have su…
They also occupy with 40000 soldiers one third of Cyprus, an EU country, thus essentially European territory.
Well isn't this comment completely disingenuous and devoid of context..
Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
> South korea is a vassal. A vassal of the US. It has american troops occupying it. North korea is opposite of what south korea is. They have no foreign troop occupying it. That's one of your many misunderstandings. The presence of troops does not imply an occupation. If you mistakenly think it does, then (among other things) you'll be unable to perceive alliances.
> The presence of troops does not imply an occupation. 70 years "presence" of troops does. > If you mistakenly think it does, then (among other things) you'll be unable to perceive alliances. That's a nice way of saying vassalage. If it was china occupying south korea for 70 years, we'd call that occupation. If it was russia occupying south korea for 70 years, we'd call that occupation. Somehow, when we do it, it's a…
Is the US occupied by France?
Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership
#196If you have a neighbour that invades sovereign countries, it makes sense to seek strong allies. This is a direct result of Russia invading Ukraine, it doesn't matter how much Russia complains now.
This whole thing has made me reevaluate the way the Cuban Missile Crisis is portrayed in the U.S. It's usually held up as an example of great presidential leadership, with almost no push back. But if you look at the history it's fascinating. The U.S. launched an invasion to try to overthrow the Cuban government during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Then it moved nuclear missiles up to the USSR's border in Turkey (the…
Yeah what often is missed is that as part of agreement the missiles from Turkey were removed, effectively increasing US security and lowering European one. That's why to me it is being quite concerning the fact that in the current scenario the interests of US establishment are matched by the idea of European interests while it is not like that and can't never be, if anything because you can't really get around geography and if we get to the point where each ones has nuclear warheads pointed at each other, despite the way it could look, it would be very bad, so I hope that Zelensky, Johnson and Biden get isolated by Europeans, and countries like Italy (I hope) chose to get out of NATO
Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership
#197If you have a neighbour that invades sovereign countries, it makes sense to seek strong allies. This is a direct result of Russia invading Ukraine, it doesn't matter how much Russia complains now.
This whole thing has made me reevaluate the way the Cuban Missile Crisis is portrayed in the U.S. It's usually held up as an example of great presidential leadership, with almost no push back. But if you look at the history it's fascinating. The U.S. launched an invasion to try to overthrow the Cuban government during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Then it moved nuclear missiles up to the USSR's border in Turkey (the…
Is that how the Cuban missile crisis is taught in the US? It certainly is different than what I learned in school ( ex-communist country). It was presented with much more nuance, starting with the backstory that the US had missiles in Turkey and Italy, so them blowing off due to missiles in Cuba was highly hypocritical.
Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
This whole thing has made me reevaluate the way the Cuban Missile Crisis is portrayed in the U.S. It's usually held up as an example of great presidential leadership, with almost no push back. But if you look at the history it's fascinating. The U.S. launched an invasion to try to overthrow the Cuban government during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Then it moved nuclear missiles up to the USSR's border in Turkey (the…
Yeah what often is missed is that as part of agreement the missiles from Turkey were removed, effectively increasing US security and lowering European one. That's why to me it is being quite concerning the fact that in the current scenario the interests of US establishment are matched by the idea of European interests while it is not like that and can't never be, if anything because you can't really get around geogra…
> effectively increasing US security and lowering European one
Not really, there were still missiles in Italy and maybe Germany? It made little real difference to European security.
> Zelensky, Johnson and Biden get isolated by Europeans, and countries like Italy (I hope) chose to get out of NATO
Russia invading Ukraine, showing that European peace and security aren't as guaranteed and certain as most people thought is only bringing NATO and more specifically European NATO members together. Italy isn't on the frontlines, but is also impacted by Putin's idiocy. Why would it abandon one of it's two security guarantees (EU being the other one) now? Before the invasion, EU countries moving to a NATO independent military cooperation and defense pact would have made great sense ( and certain EU leaders were pushing for it), but now? No way.
Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
The very concept of a nuclear country being "pushed" (what does that even mean?) to wage a war against a country, which is more than 3x smaller in population and around 5x weaker economically, is simply delusional. Russia attempted to wage a 19th century style conquest : brutal and open territorial grab including the subjugation and repression of the local population.
The military funded think tank that prescribed all of our actions leading up to this point and accurately predicted Russia's responses disagrees with you.
No one wants direct nuclear war, but they do want to skirt around the edges and expand their power. The US has been in multiple hot proxy wars with Russia, the biggest being the attempted overthrow of Syria.
US leadership from both parties have publicly described Ukraine as a proxy war between the US and Russia. If you're still in the early days of the propaganda where Russia invaded Ukraine totally out of the blue with zero provocation from anyone and the US is just doing their best to protect the innocents, you're way behind.
Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
So instead of affirming your sovereignity and your ties to the West, you would cut your ties? I think it has proven useful to have those ties when the invasion is on. If it doesn't come to an invasion, Russia kills you slowly with a strong embrace.
Being neutral means having ties with everyone, not just the West. Austria is a good example for this, we decided to be neutral and were between East Bloc and West during the cold war and all related tensions, yet never worried due to strict neutrality and good relations with both sides.
Finland and Sweden did the same, until now. Easy for Austria to keep it that way now that they are a member of EU and completely surrounded by NATO countries.
And in Ukraine we see that this strategy does not work when your neighbor is murderous.