[wackro]

I don't know who this Mearsheimer is, but your comment is essentially ad hominem because you haven't addressed the point. If it helps you, the same thing has been said by others e.g. Chomsky.

Could South Africa join NATO? Thailand? Russia themselves asked to join but were rejected.

[bluejekyll]

> Russia themselves asked to join but were rejected.

"In 1991, as the Soviet Union was dissolved, Russian president Boris Yeltsin sent a letter to NATO, suggesting that Russia's long-term aim was to join NATO."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations#....

A lot has happened since then.

[watwut]

Do Chomsky has much credibility on the topic of Finland, Russia, NATO and Ukraine? Mearsheimer was litigated and relitigated on HN lately a lot.

OP used Mearsheimer as argument from authority. It is ok to respond to it with "nah, that man does not have authority".

[doikor]

> Could South Africa join NATO? Thailand?

South Africa or Thailand are not in the area covered by the treaty so no. Hell even an attack in Hawaii would be outside the treaty according the the US department of defense.

This is also why Australia and New Zealand are not part of NATO.

> Russia themselves asked to join but were rejected.

Except they were not. They were told to apply like any other nation and they did and were in the program but their constant threatening (and actual use) of force against their various neighbor countries slowed and eventually stopped the process with a final severing of official relationships due to the invasion of Crimea in 2014. Again the treaty is quite clear in this as a requirement to join nato.

[andrewnicolalde]

> Russia themselves asked to join but were rejected.

https://euobserver.com/news/27890

“‘Great powers don't join coalitions, they create coalitions. Russia considers itself a great power’, the Russian ambassador stressed."

[wackro]

That was their position once NATO had expanded eastward.

Here's an extract from a NATO report[0] in 2000. The whole chapter is genuinely worth a read:

> Nevertheless, in August 1994, Boris Yeltsin again said to the reporters, that Russia could join NATO in due course. Then, during 6-7 years, this question was not raised by the Russian political elite and the mass media. The main reason for that was NATO’s expansion to the East...

Russia actually has a long history of wanting to join [1]

[0] https://www.nato.int/acad/fellow/98-00/davydov.pdf

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jun/17/russia.iantray...

[mzs]

Here's your introduction to Mearsheimer in his own words then: https://youtu.be/hH3s7MRJkAI?t=3653

"You talked about Putin targeting civilians, or the Russians targeting civilians. It’s obviously very hard to tell what’s exactly happened here."

This was just four days ago, in a closing rebuttal to another speaker, during a panel hosted by Katrina vanden Heuvel - yeah I'm thinking the civilians shot in the head with hands tied behind their backs show he is no real authority: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/11/world/europe/...

>‘They shot my son. I was next to him. It would be better if it had been me.’

>Russian soldiers set up in this school. A sniper in a high-rise fired at anybody who moved. Other soldiers tortured, raped and executed civilians in basements or backyards.

>A mother killed by a sniper while walking with her family to fetch a thermos of tea. A woman held as a sex slave, naked except for a fur coat and locked in a potato cellar before being executed. Two sisters dead in their home, their bodies left slumped on the floor for weeks.