[Banyonite]

William Burns, the current Director of the CIA and former ambassador to Russia, would disagree with you.

"In 2008, Burns, then the American ambassador to Moscow, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” "

https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-w...

[dragonwriter]

Given the subject matter and year, this was almost certainly in the context of Russia's lobbying against giving Ukraine and Georgia NATO MAPs in 2008, a lobbying effort which (perhaps in part due to Burns’ advice in the letter) was successful—NATO acceded to Russia's demands in the hopes that so doing would, as Russia claimed, promote peace and stability in the region.

Russia then immediately invaded Georgia, which may go some way to explaining why some NATO leaders became quite disinclined to grant Russia the same kind of Chamberlainian accommodation thereafter.

[Banyonite]

There is an article from the Brookings institute that supports your position-

"In 2006, President Victor Yushchenko attached high priority to securing a NATO membership action plan (MAP). By summer, Kyiv looked on course to attain a MAP when alliance foreign ministers met that December. Curiously, Moscow did not come out hard against the idea. The prospective MAP derailed, however, after Yushchenko appointed Victor Yanukovych as prime minister. During a September visit to Brussels, Yanukovych said he did not want a MAP. The proposal died given the divided position of Ukraine’s executive branch.

Yushchenko called for a MAP again in January 2008, this time with the support of Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko and Rada (parliament) Speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk. Moscow came out in full opposition. When Yushchenko visited the Russian capital that February, he had to stand alongside and listen to President Vladimir Putin threaten to target nuclear missiles on Ukraine. Instead of lobbying allies to support a MAP for Kyiv, Washington waited until the April Bucharest summit, where President George W. Bush attempted to persuade his counterparts to grant Ukraine (and Georgia) a MAP. However, a number of allied leaders by then had made up their minds and opposed the idea. Concern about Russian opposition undoubtedly played a role."

There are a lot of moving parts that I find really interesting. The successes and failures of the players that led up to the war, as well as the domestic and global changes brought about in consequence (Is China doing more than "watching the tigers fight"?) affects the world.

[Banyonite]

I'm not well-versed in this area, but from what I've been reading, it doesn't look as if NATO simply acceded to Russia's demands- From the NYT in November of 2008:

"At a NATO meeting in Bucharest, Romania, in April, the United States failed to persuade NATO to offer the usual application process, known as a membership action plan, to Ukraine and Georgia. Instead, NATO leaders agreed that one day each country would join, without committing to a timetable." (Edit: I haven't been able to find much to relate the failure to convince to an accession to Russian demands.)

I get what you're saying about being disinclined to accommodate after Russia's adventure in South Ossetia / Georgia in August of that year; the Nov 2008 article focused on the US push for NATO membership:

"The United States has started an unexpected diplomatic initiative in Europe, urging NATO allies to offer Georgia and Ukraine membership in the alliance without going through a lengthy process and fulfilling a long list of requirements, NATO diplomats said."

I need to take the time to find more unbiased information on the conflicts of the region over the past 15-20 years. It's complicated, with a lot of issues in play that seem to go back at least a century. My knee-jerk, scratching-the-surface opinion is that while I believe Russia is ruled by oligarchical mobsters headed by Putin, I can understand, if not sympathize with, their reaction as Western powers have established footholds in bordering countries.

Honest question, for I don't know the answer: If NATO had dissolved 30 some-odd years ago, and the US had fallen from a world to regional power (albeit with nuclear weapons), and then the Warsaw pact had established bases in Canada and Mexico, would outcomes be more or less stable?

[rich_sasha]

> Honest question, for I don't know the answer

Probably depends where etc. In the context of Russia in Europe, I guess it would have been less stable. Ever since the 1990s, Russia has been steadily ramping up the aggressive rhetoric against Eastern Europe, even against NATO countries. This wasn't entirely some kind of "you are a threat" kind of thing, but a lot of "you are only temporarily outside the Russian sphere, don't get used to it". Russia also pushed to expand its influence by force in Georgia, Ukraine (twice now), and I'd argue Belarus, where they prop up an unpopular tyrant. So for Europe, NATO has absolutely been a stabilizing force, and it's absence would only make Russian aggression worse.

But moving away from Europe and into the Middle East, I wonder if that's true. NATO and co did various interventions, in hindsight quite disastrous, that not only failed to achieve their goals but also destabilized the region. How would that part of the world look without a strong, united and emboldened Western coalition? Possibly happier and stabler.

But who knows, the fallen Middle Eastern dictators were pretty horrid.

[mopsi]

> I can understand, if not sympathize with, their reaction as Western powers have established footholds in bordering countries.

That is a wrong way of thinking about NATO for several reasons:

1. Eastern European countries were not in the USSR or their satellites by their own choice. They were conquered and enslaved by Russians during the WWII. "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin" by Timothy Snyder is an excellent book on how Eastern European nations fared as German and Russian war machines rolled over them. Russians raped, murdered, pillaged - and then for 50 years forced to play a happy family together under USSR's umbrella.

2. After USSR's demise, the initiative of joining NATO came from the countries in Eastern Europe that had restored their independence, to prevent the return of Russian rule. Western countries were extremely reluctant to extend their mutual defence pact to Eastern Europe. Western politicians underestimated Russian threat and dismissed Eastern European fears of another Russian invasion as a historic trauma.

Eventually, NATO membership was used as a carrot to boost reforms (such as civilian oversight over military structures) in Eastern Europe to ensure internal stability and avoid potential internal conflicts overspilling into western countries. The wars in Caucasus and Yugoslavia were a cautionary tale.

3. "Western powers" do not have a single military base in any country neighbouring Russia in Eastern Europe. Acceptance of Eastern Europe into NATO was not followed by any permanent deployment of Western troops or weapons.

The military balance in Eastern Europe has always been and remains heavily in favor of Russia. They have hundreds of thousands of soldiers, countless tanks, artillery systems and missiles, both conventional and nuclear, right on the border with NATO, and even within (Kaliningrad). Facing them is only light infantry, predominanty local and consisting of non-professional conscripts (think: National Guard), with insignificant number of Western soldiers serving as a tripwire for nuclear response.

Russian apologists would make you believe that NATO has buzzing army bases on the border with Russia, with soldiers waiting for a signal to run to their tanks or launch their missiles, but there's not a single such base. None. Zero.

4. The real threat to Russia aren't tanks and guns, but prosperity without Russia. Prior to the initial Russian invasion in 2014, Ukraine was on the verge of signing a favorable deal that would've opened up European markets to Ukraine. Imagine doing the same job, but earning two, three or even four times as much. Russia has nothing comparable to offer, yet they have a delusional belief that they should dominate neighbouring countries. Since Ukraine was slipping away from their influence, they first tried to bog Ukraine down by dragging it into a frozen conflict in 2014. When that didn't work out and only pushed Ukraine closer to the EU and NATO out of sheer necessity, Russians attempted a direct full takeover of Ukraine in 2022.

That failed too, and only accelerated the loss of influence. Ukrainians will not forgive the war as long as the generation of kids that spent their formative years hiding in bomb shelters from Russian missile attacks lives. Other countries, like Kazakhstan, are also increasingly looking towards the EU or China. Russian influence is crumbling fast. They simply have nothing to offer, and lash out violently whenever they can.

Essentially, these are aftershocks of the collapse of Russian colonial empire. Putin's era is characterized by impotent attempts to subjugate neighbours and restore the former empire, but with a military that is a shadow of its former self, and an economy barely half of California's.

It's not security that they are looking for. They want domination.