[overlordalex]

The myth is that "NATO promised not to expand".

NATO made no such promise - some members of NATO informally made statements, but no treaties or agreements were ever formally put into place.

The mistake seems to be that they relied on individual leaders and general sentiment instead of codifying it into something concrete

[dalbasal]

I don't think it's a mistake as much as it is multiple parties making statements, interpreting them and/or using them rhetorically in whatever way served their purposes.

Imo, a straightforward rendering is

  A - russians strongly desired that NATO would not expand east, except maybe east Germany. 

  B - Various Western diplomats made unofficial, nonbinding  statements


  C - russian leaders knew these were not binding statements, but present the statements as commitments in order to legitimise their demands and grievances


  D - almost all russian neighbors mistrust them, want defensive alliances to help avoid russian influence in their borders.

  E - western leaders ignored russian nervousness about NATO expansion.

I think you can make a case for "US should have been less scary." NATO is an anti-russian alliance, and it means hostile troops on russian borders.

Itoh, it's disingenuous to ignore the case that russian influence has been malign. Political, social & economic disfunction are near guarantees if your country falls in thee "russian sphere." No o e wants to be Belarus.

The russian desire for estonia, Latvia, Poland, etc to be like Belarus is one hell of a demand. The people of those country certainly don't want that.

In any case, I think the "legitimate russian security concerns" discussion is a dead horse now. The Ukrainian invasion and Putin's imperialist speech moots the whole thing. Russia declared Ukrainian statehood void and Imperial Russia as the legitimate source for territorial claims. You can't declare that and also argue for legitimate security concerns.

Also, Russia assured Ukrainian independence. Where's that promise?

[candiodari]

This is how international law works: it doesn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

This is a treaty document that says that if, at any time, Russia (or anyone else) violates the territorial integrity of Ukraine (/Belarus/Kazakhstan), with Crimea specifically called out, ironically, the United Kingdom and the United States have to immediately declare war on Russia and open hostilities. France has a separate treaty with Ukraine containing the same promise, as do a number of other countries.

Putin invaded Crimea. Many countries declared openly that Russia violated the "Budapest memorandum" ... and did nothing. Minimal sanctions (especially in the case of Italy, they could have done a lot. They did nothing)

What people don't realize about president Zelensky is that he, quite a bit before the war with Russia started, commented and even partially planned the development of nuclear weapons. He's gone further and suggested previous governments agreed to denuclearization, not out of the interest of Ukraine but because they were corrupt and paid by Putin. I'm saying there's even a small chance he might see it as treason not to agree to develop nuclear weapons once this is over. I'm just saying, one of the things that's bound to be coming from Ukraine ... we might not like very much.

Ukraine has all the necessary resources and know how to rapidly develop nuclear weapons, from Uranium to nuclear physics research departments (plural), homegrown rocket engines and control systems. They probably can develop ICBM nuclear weapons (and, again, they don't have to match US state of the art weapons, they only have to match Russia. And when it comes to money, they have an economy that allows them to outspend Russia's nuclear weapons programs by a lot)

This illustrates Russia's problem: long term (think 50 years) Ukraine will win from Russia. That is essentially unavoidable.

Promises, documents, international law itself is not worth the often copious amounts of paper dedicated to them.

[antientropic]

> with Crimea specifically called out, ironically, the United Kingdom and the United States have to immediately declare war on Russia and open hostilities.

It says no such thing (as the Wikipedia article you linked points out). The most it says is that they shall seek "immediate United Nations Security Council action" if "Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used."

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ukraine._Memorandum_on_Securi...

[sofixa]

You're drastically misinterpreting the Budapest Memorandum. All the signatories agree to assurances regarding Ukrainian territorial integrity, that's all. Nobody guarantees Ukrainian territorial integrity under threat of arms ( what you're claiming), just a bunch of countries saying "Sure, i won't violate your independence and occupy your lands". There's nothing there about consequences for reneging on that promise.