[teatree]

I am not aware of Russian / European geopolitics so pardon my ignorance, but isn't NATO reaching Russian borders a threat?

Hypothetically, wouldn't the US would have serious concerns if Mexico decides to join a Chinese alliance.

(I am not justifying a war, just wondering what could have been done on both sides to prevent it)

[awb]

Yes and no.

Yes, countries prefer weak neighbors. A powerful alliance on your border is a potential threat (or deterrent to expansion).

No in the sense that the US only has 90k troops in NATO countries, or about 10% of Russia’s standing military. So it’s not like troops are messing at their border or enough to threaten an invasion. It’s very much a deterrent.

Also no in that the US, Russia and China are nuclear powers. The US should have little concern of a Chinese ground assault from Mexico as it could trigger a large scale nuclear war, defeating the purpose of the invasion. Similarly with Russia, their nuke arsenal means that no one will consider attacking them or invading their borders.

[hef19898]

Well, the Cuban Missile Crisis might have word regarding enemy troops close to the US mainland.

[techdragon]

Yea, but you have to factor into your analysis the fact that at the time Soviet nuclear weapon design was leaning more towards inaccurate but with enough boom it doesn’t matter, so their weapons were on average larger and this limited their effective ballistic missile ranges. So Cuba, while a provocative encroachment, was from the Soviet side a necessary escalation of their military forces to counter things like the deployment of intermediate range ballistic missiles, such as the Jupiter, in Turkey and Italy.

Also … While the “Cuban” part of the crisis can be viewed as instigated by the Soviets, it would be awfully foolish to ignore the fact that they were reacting to the US/NATO moves to deploy missile forces in Europe… by accepting the request from Cuba for nuclear weapons to defend their country from America, which they only asked for after the failed invasion effort in the Bay of Pigs.

It’s never just as simple as “they started it”…

[hef19898]

True. Also interesting that part of the de-escalation was the quiet withdrawal of US missiles from Turkey. More often than not, there is no side starting something (WW2 is one example). The whole cold war was, it seems, a tit for tat between two nuclear powers, sometimes led by old seniles and drunks, over ideological differences. There was no Good vs. Evil.

[CamperBob2]

NATO is a defensive alliance made up of many independent sovereign nations, all of whom freely asked for and were granted membership. Don't want conflict with NATO? Easy, don't attack any of their members. Seems simple enough.

Cuba was a Soviet client state, and installing missiles there was clearly an offensive act.

[hef19898]

Well, not that Germany had much to say when the US stationed patriot missiles. That's a tangent so. Don't forget the fact that, before the USSR sent missiles to Cuba the US had mid-range missiles in Turkey. And those were, by the way, closer to the USSR than the missiles in Cuba were to the US.

Reality isn't easily divided into good guys and bad guys...

[glogla]

That was before modern ICBMs were a thing. Nowadays it doesn't matter where the missiles are.

[hef19898]

Oh, it does a lot. The closer you are the less time your enemy has to react. ICBM launches are detected, buying at least enough time to shoot at least back.

[xdennis]

> isn't NATO reaching Russian borders a threat?

No. NATO is a defensive alliance. Easter European countries are in NATO specifically to protect against the kind of aggression you're seeing in Ukraine now.

Russia used to regularly invade neighbors: Poland 1939, Romania, Baltic countries, Finland 1940, Everywhere 1944, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968. None have been invaded since joining NATO.

NATO expansion is removing threats, not creating them.

[glogla]

The context for Ukraine wanting to be in NATO is that everyone in the region has been under constant thread by hostile nation looking to rebuild its empire.

If US attacked and annexed several Central American nations over last two decades, except the ones who are part of pre-existing "defense against the US" alliance, Mexico wanting to be in it would be perfectly rational and normal.

[alde]

Latvia and Estonia are already in NATO and they border Russia.

[usrme]

An above comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30452129) seems to rebuke this: "Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania are all NATO members. If Putin takes Ukraine, and redraws his borders, he's just adding 4 NATO members. Wouldn't make much sense."

[vincnetas]

So instead of NATO reaching RU borders, Russia will preemptively do that and come closer to NATO border first. Much logic.

[jollybean]

No, NATO is not a threat to Russia.

NATO is not organised well enough to conduct offensive operations on that scale, moreover, there is no state on earth, including US and China that could take parts of Russia and hold for long.

But that aside, the very real political and economic situation in the world would make it unfathomable. There's basically no 'strategy game' where the West would have the intent let alone ability to truly invaded Russia.

The 'NATO' issue is almost entirely a canard, a very easy argument that Putin uses to cause confusion, allow other supporters (i.e. China) to make empty arguments at the UN etc.

Putin is literally using the 'UN Charter' to as cover to legitimise his invasion of Ukraine.

Putin has used the term 'genocide' constantly in the last decade to refer to what is happening in Donbass even though this is obviously not the case.

Putin's implication that 'he's invading Ukraine to stop fascist country, to protect Russian speakers and to 'keep peace'' is basically rubbish, as are his arguments with respect to NATO.

There's a grain of truth in it, of course there is violence in Donbas, but amplifying the issue is the very obvious ruse.

Their playbook is wide open - we know their doctrine, we know how they use misinformation, we know how they argue, we know their intentions. It looks pretty bad on us to allow any of this to happen.

FYI - Western Media has been making a lot of money arguing in public lately, and it's appalling what we're seeing on some of the news outlets, and some of the statements by US public officials. Some people are 'taking a stake' in the situation as they would any other news item, i.e. 'jockeying for position' on the issue. It's disgusting.

[jacquesm]

> There's a grain of truth in it, of course there is violence in Donbas, but amplifying the issue is the very obvious ruse.

The only reason there is violence in Donbas is because of the previous undeclared Russian invasion of that territory as well as fomenting unrest there and elsewhere in Ukraine. Not to mention shooting down a commercial airliner.

It's about as truthful as Hitler arguing there is violence in the West of Poland in October 1939.

[amcoastal]

I feel like its a lot to ask when the people of the U.S. can't even see through propaganda about what is happening in our own backyard. Why would you expect the average american to understand Putin is lying about genocide when half the country believes a caravan of invading Mexicans is attacking the country anytime an orange moron says it?

[foxfluff]

Neighbors of Russia joining an alliance to defend themselves is no more a threat to Russia than Russia defending themselves is a threat to their neighbors. One the one hand, the (comparatively) small European countries clearly need that defense because otherwise Russia is big enough -- and willing -- to invade.

I think the real problem is that NATO is a threat to Putin's imperialistic dreams.