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Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

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Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#211

Post by NmAmDa »

sofixa wrote: post #55
watwut wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes Russia position understandable? What gives them right to occupy Ukraine?

The position is understandable because Russia is playing a Grand Strategy Game in the past, and doesn't want the enemy ( NATO) to be at all their borders. Justified? Right? Humane? Absolutely not.

Then invading Ukraine wouldn't make Russia getting more borders with more NATO members whose now would be very angry about russia and will do whatever they could to make things difficult?

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#212

Post by HL33tibCe7 »

wiz21c wrote: post #118

Why does Putin try to invade parts of Ukraine ? What's its interest ? Is it economical ? is it for interior politics ? is it to destabilize Europe ? does someone can conjecture a bit ?

IMO (I’m no expert by any means): I think this is about Putin wanting to leave a legacy. He’s getting long in the tooth now, and wants to be remembered for reshaping Russia’s borders.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#213

Post by hef19898 »

sofixa wrote: post #51
darebak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that any of the world wars started out of small things, can you clarify?

The original "world war", the Seven Years War, started over some useless land in North America and then became global over Silesia, both of which are rather small things. WWI started over an assassination that barely happened, and WWII over a city ( Danzig, although it's fairly certain Hitler wouldn't have stopped there, like WWI would have happened anyways).

WW1 was a war everyone wanted (partially due to the dismantling of Bismarck's complex systems of alliances). Austria-Hungary wanted Serbia (and looked for an excuse), Prussia thought war against Russia was inevitable (no idea if that's true or not) and that such a war couldn't be won by Prussia once Russia started to modernize (kind of true, as Prussia utterly defeated Russia in WW1 and Germany was utterly defeated by Russia in WW2) and thus wanted a war against Russia now. Some French wanted revanche for the war 1870. Italy had some territorial interests against Austria-Hungary. And everyone came from a world were those wars were normal (as bad as the Napoleonic wars were, they were mostly fought between armies and less severe on civilians, and decided by decisive battles with treaties after those). Everyone thought they could easily win, and fast. The trope "it's over by Christmas" comes from that period.

WW2 so, was different. That was, from the beginning, Hitler's idea. He wanted it, he took what he could without a war, and then with a war. All with the goal of defeating Russia and exterminate the Jews (and all other undesirables). Everything else was just excuses, and thinly vailed ones at that.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#214

Post by jacquesm »

jollybean wrote: post #133
winrid wrote: post #95

I'm curious, do folks here think Putin would have still invaded if Ukraine didn't consider joining NATO? 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.

It would have changed the course but not the objective. The Kremlin apologists in American politics are really disturbing. Putin's objective is to re-integrate Ukraine into the 'Russian Empire', he's taking the 500-year view and so 'Nord Stream 2' is irrelevant. NATO acquiescence to his demands would have just changed maybe the nature of Putins' actions, or not but he would have continued. The big issue is obviously…

> In hindsight, I actually kind of blame the Germans a lot for this. Germany has been very successfully sucking in business and talent from the rest of Europe, building their economy while completely avoiding the 'responsibility' that comes along with that power. Partly military, but definitely geostrategic issues of security.

The complete lack of historical awareness is impressive.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#215

Post by cm2187 »

jl6 wrote: post #121

https://oec.world/en/profile/country/rus Russia’s exports are >50% oil and gas products. The biggest retaliation the West can make right now is a commitment to a rapid exit at unprecedented speed from the oil economy, in favor of renewables.

How do you do that? The reason europe needs russian gas is precisely because renewables are very intermittent, and they use gas to compensate. More renewable means more reliance on gas, unless you build nuclear plants. And if you do, you might as well not build renewables because the cost of nuclear is pretty much the same whether you use it or not.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#216

Post by hef19898 »

pyuser583 wrote: post #129
chrischen wrote: post #58

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.

Even China isn’t happy.

I'd say not for the fact, but rather they don't like the timing.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#217

Post by HL33tibCe7 »

jl6 wrote: post #121

https://oec.world/en/profile/country/rus Russia’s exports are >50% oil and gas products. The biggest retaliation the West can make right now is a commitment to a rapid exit at unprecedented speed from the oil economy, in favor of renewables.

Unfortunately countries like Germany have made completely idiotic moves in the past months in the exact opposite direction.

Hopefully other sanctions will also help. Cutting them off from the international banking system, for example.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#218

Post by hnbad »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #184
wiz21c wrote: post #118

Why does Putin try to invade parts of Ukraine ? What's its interest ? Is it economical ? is it for interior politics ? is it to destabilize Europe ? does someone can conjecture a bit ?

He's trying to protect the russian speaking communities in Luhansk and Donetsk. There would be no point to him occupying mkre than that.

The problem with this analysis is that it's not 24 hours ago any more and Russia has started shelling Kyiv, which only makes sense if Russia is planning to take control of the entire country.

Also let's drop the propaganda line of "protection". Luhansk and Donetsk may have declared independence but we generally don't tend to recognize such claims unless they are affirmed by the host nation. It's also an open secret that the separatists include a significant presence of Russian soldiers posing as Ukrainian "volunteers".

Would you be okay with France attacking Spain to "protect" Catalonia? Ireland invading the UK to "protect" Scotland? A shared language and culture does not grant the right to annexation either, or are you arguing Germany and Austria should reunite and annex parts of Switzerland?

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#219

Post by 2143 »

mopsi wrote: post #114
2143 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> And Russia would've been scared and retreated. Yes. Without sarcasm. This happened several times with Trump, who despite all his faults, was a master bullshitter and master at seeing through other bullshitters. A notable episode was an attack by Russian Wagner group on a small outpost held by 30-something US special forces soldiers guarding a gas plant in Syria. Signals intelligence was later able to capture a few…

> modern army and it was a total massacre

You don't get it.

Look, nobody has any doubt that USA is very powerful. But that doesn't mean they must annihilate the world.

And Russia is no slouch.

Diplomacy is the need of the hour.

As somebody who lives far far away from Europe and North America (in a country that's supposed to have no skin in this game), I don't want to get killed because Uncle Sam wants to show who's boss.

Re: Estonia, allies to trigger NATO Article 4

#220

Post by vmception »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #2

https://valitsus.ee/en/news/estonian-government-requests-con... People are minimizing this, based on the word "consultation". Don't be fooled, this is grave news, even though it is not Article 5. Article 5 invocation under these circumstances have substantial risk of full scale thermonuclear exchange.

Article 4 was done in 2014 too and it was hardly news while again in reaction to Ukraine which was experiencing its own civil war against a pro-Russian puppet leader that resulted in regime change aannnnnnd.... nothing else.

The military operation by Russia is alarming.

The Article 4 invocation is not.

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