Noam Chomsky 'no longer able to talk' after 'medical event'

The problem is that Western media picks too easily up even the most stupid Russian narratives.

I don't have a position on 2 and 3 although they seem pretty reasonable. 4 I mostly agree with - the caveat to that is the last part. Russia's decision to invade is easily understandable and reasonable. We can see what NATO was planning on doing to them based on what is currently being done. If they didn't act now they'd lose their chance and the US would probably start setting up missile banks along the Russian border at some point. Realistically that might still happen, it looks quite bad for Russia right now.

This war has cost Russia a number of troops that, while difficult to estimate, is probably measured in 100,000s. Their opposition is entirely sustained by NATO logistics. Going in to the war Putin, on behalf of Russia, basically started the speech with "I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border" [0]. This theory that Russia was motivated by internal conditions to Ukraine and no broader strategic concerns requires them to be ignorant of the biggest military threat to them, which turned out the be on the verge of materialising, while simultaneously pretending to be motivated by it for political reasons. It is a much more reasonable view to accept that in their military action they are probably motivated by the single biggest military threat they are facing. The one they publicly identified and that is a very realistic concern given what then happened.

We have a reference here, which is the US invasion of Iraq. It was appalling, unprovoked and the US encountered no real resistance from the rest of Asia who accepted that sometimes the big players just attack the small ones. The fact that the response in Ukraine is so different is a dead giveaway that NATO was provoking the conflict. Otherwise there isn't a reason for them to be involved. We've had more than 100 wars this century [1] and the NATO involvement and escalation of this one stands out as unusual.

And on some minor points:

> For it to be a proxy war would require that NATO caused the war

I don't expect that to be correct, but it turns out that a proxy war technically requires one of the actors to be a non-state actor [2], so I can only agree that this isn't a proxy war. But the US is using Ukraine as a metaphorical club to kill Russians.

> Would you accept the US invading Venezuela because it was concerned about that country's close alliance with Russia and substantial re-armament using Russian weapons?

Something like a reoccurrence of the Cuban missile crisis? I'd expect the US to respond with extreme violence if Russia didn't back down as soon as possible.

[0] http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67843

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars:_2003%E2%80%93pre...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war

Sorry, but this plainly nonsense.

The only way you could say they were "on the verge of joining" would be if NATO had indicated that intended to offer Ukraine an official invitation to join, via a formal step known as the Membership Action Plan. But that's been famously on hold as far back as the Bucharest Summit in 2008. It was really a very big deal at the time that both Georgia and Ukraine were specifically asking to be offered MAPs, but ultimately said "no" to both countries -- largely because France, Germany and (you really won't like this) the United States were all opposed, and this in turn, out of a desire to not upset Russia.

Of course there's also been a song and dance going about Ukraine eventually, some day joining the alliance, and yes Ukraine has an article in its constitution about wanting to join some day. But the whole point of these actions is they have been second-tier, rear-guard manoeuvres. Which if anything simply underscore the fact that the fundamental decision regarding Ukraine's status was made in 2008, and that since then there have been no major motions in process to reverse that decision.

It's simply not the case that they were "on the verge of joining, if not already doing so" in 2022. Or that the Western powers were on the verge of taking any action that was an imminent threat to Russia at the time. And far from being "out of options" -- by any pragmatic assessment of the situation, Russia already had a successful containment strategy in place in regard the issue, attained by purely diplomatic means.

But of course they chose to invade anyway, for reasons that never had anything to do with NATO in the first place.

https://www.openculture.com/2013/07/slavoj-zizek-responds-to...

As the other poster mentioned, Ukraine and Georgia were both denied Membership Action Plans at the 2008 NATO Bucharest summit, meaning they weren't even on the first rung of the process to join NATO. In 2021 NATO made some positive noises but still refused to offer Ukraine a MAP, even though Russian troops were massing on Ukraine's border.

It also takes years to be able to join after a MAP starts, and most importantly a MAP is not a treaty with any legal power: Joining one doesn't guarantee membership and the process can be stopped at any point. So even while Russian troops were massing on Ukraine's border and threatening to invade NATO wasn't ready to formally move closer to a Ukrainian accession beyond some encouraging words. Nearly all of the military support to Ukraine came after it was invaded, not before, and it was committed because NATO quite understandably reasoned that if Russia was willing to invade Ukraine without legal justification or provocation it would not stop there, but would try to go for Moldova and other countries next, significantly changing the strategic picture of Europe for generations. Supporting Ukraine is a defensive action.

The idea that Ukraine joining NATO would've meant US 'missile banks along the Russian border' is ridiculous, given that none of the other NATO members that border or are near Russia received US missile banks. As I said, NATO was very careful to limit both the quantity and type of equipment that it would deploy in new members, restricting them to purely defensive measures such as the NATO air patrols over the Baltics.

Putin has also quite clearly stated on numerous occasions that he considers Ukraine statehood a myth and that it's really a breakaway province of Russia.[0]

Finally, even if Ukraine was about to join NATO, that gives Russia no right to invade it. I don't understand why you seem to believe that it would.

[0]https://time.com/6150046/ukraine-statehood-russia-history-pu...