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by rectang 1575 days ago
> I think the west should've decisively defeated the soviets when they broke apart,

That wouldn't have been feasible given military realities (nukes, the total impossibility of invading and occupying Russia), and even if it had been what would it have achieved? The age of imperialism is over. The west has won allies by respecting the right of their populations to self-determination. (And when it hasn't respected self-determination, it has often lost ground.)
1 comments
hef19898 1575 days ago
The West (I live in a Western country by the way) did not respect self determination of people when it didn't suit the Wests interests. Not before WW1 (when there was no West), not between WW1 and WW2 (Austria wanted to join Germany and wasn't allowed to, the whole former Russian Empire as engulfed in a civil war over that very question, not to mention the colonial empires) or after WW2 (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Arab Spring, Syria,...).

The war that is on the horizon is not about the "good" vs. the "evil". It is about one revisionist, power hungry leader going toe-to-toe with another power-hungry block over territorial dominance. And about those people just wanting to live in peace caught in the middle.

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rectang 1575 days ago
You're thinking of all the times the West waged war, while I was thinking of the times that it didn't. First in my mind were the countries joining NATO after the end of the Cold War: Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Albania.

Those countries became allies, not through force, but because we were able to devise a mutually beneficial relationship.

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hef19898 1575 days ago
Personally, I'd attribute that more to the European Union. But yes, NATO certainly helped. Only shows that there are no simple answers. I only want to point out that NATO, and the EU for that matter, despite all the good the did in Europe are by no means the "good" benefactors in other countries. Also, just because I think some of Russia's actions are understandable, I don't think they are even remotely justified or acceptable. Same goes for the war on terror, the EUs handling of refugees, basically all NATO interventions with the possible exception of Yugoslavia (not the Kosovo) when they tried, and kind of failed, to prevent genocide.
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