[The_Colonel]

Can you explain? European (NATO) countries will "provoke" Russia into invading by securing their internationally recognized borders?

So far, we have seen the opposite pattern of Russia messing with countries which didn't make it into NATO in time.

[thriftwy]

There is no good way out of the situation where both sides are armed to the teeth. The best bet is a political failure of one of the sides.

If that does not happen, these sabers will be rattling from time to time. If Russia's (and China's) immediate borders are packed with countries armed to their teeth, there would be wars.

Buffer states happen for a reason.

I believe USA kind of understands this (see how they reacted to Cuba) and EU surely understands this too (see how Sweden reacts to any signs of Russian militarization), but they have trouble projecting it on other countries or still believing they can coerce these countries into "dealing with it".

[The_Colonel]

> If Russia's (and China's) immediate borders are packed with countries armed to their teeth, there would be wars.

I like this Putin's style of passive threats like "there would be wars". Just say the threat explicitly, Russia would invade their western neighbors.

> Buffer states happen for a reason.

Ukraine was a buffer state, yet it was invaded by Russia three times in the last 10 years. People have now justified doubts about this model.

[thriftwy]

If these countries are "armed to the teeth", Russia will invade some of these countries. Both sides will point fingers at each other while some Eastern European homes burn. Eventually the prospect of horrible death while grasping the Western-provided arms will dissuade these countries from being armed to the teeth. I sincerely believe the preferred lifestyle of Eastern Europeans is sitting on a porch of their nice tiny house, not dying from a mortal wound in a ditch.

Arms do not win wars without people holding them, and even then, fighting off an agressor does not mean your country isn't ruined.

Ukraine was in the process of ditching its buffer state status by choosing a side. They bragged for a decade how they are going to do that. Needless to say it didn't go so well for them, and only them so far. Other countries in thir position turned out to be smarter as not to win the first Russian invasion target prize.

Please note that I'm not asking for a moral judgement because everybody else who may pass it has worse skeletons in their own closet than Russian Ukraine affair.

[twixfel]

There is no scenario where Eastern European countries, who had been living under Russian tyranny for several centuries, only recently to secure their independence and security as part of the EU or NATO, are going to unilaterally disarm just to please Russia.

Other countries just managed to join NATO fast enough before Putin lost his mind. Ukraine's mistake was joining too slowly. Now Russia and Ukraine both suffer for basically no reason other than the fantasies of a senile 71 year old man.

>Please note that I'm not asking for a moral judgement because everybody else who may pass it has worse skeletons in their own closet than Russian Ukraine affair.

I don't know if that is true, the Ukraine War stands out as particularly evil. Russia is guilty of particularly evil crimes against humanity in this war that they chose to start.

[thriftwy]

> who had been living under Russian tyranny for several centuries

Most of these countries Russia never touched, or fought off of Turks and then let them be. They never lived under Russia's anything. Were it Czechs live under several centuries of Russian tyranny? Because these ones are particularly obnoxious now, despite many years of feeding off of Russian statesmen in Karlovy Vary.

I don't think you even remotely understand what you are talking about, and people are going to die in great numbers before they start reading history books instead of NYT columns on the subject.

> stands out as particularly evil

I guess they just don't hand out history textbooks in the child care...

[kergonath]

> Most of these countries Russia never touched, or fought off of Turks and then let them be.

Does the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact ring any bell? Do you know what the Baltic states went through? Did you hear about the Prague spring or that glorious sister republic in eastern Germany? Fuck, do you know about the Holodomor?

It’s a bit rich to say these countries never knew Russian oppression. It may not have lasted very long, but it was particularly brutal. The first thing they did is get away at the first occasion and all of them are traumatised to this day. Ukraine and Belarus tried to play nice. Belarus is now subservient and annexed in all but name, and Ukraine is being torn apart. So tell me why those Eastern European countries would not do anything they can to stay out of Russia’s reach?

[twixfel]

Czechs were only part of the Russian Empire for about 45 years, and only in the 20th century. Could have been worse.

I think you just struggle to understand how fundamentally your country is hated by Eastern Europeans. Russia is like Germany, if Germany still was proud of its Nazi heritage. You just don't get it, it's sad, you're so hated but you have no idea why, you're just so blinded by ultranationalism. Russia could have chosen to enter the 21st century but instead decided to enter the 18th. Meanwhile most of your people outside of Moscow and St Petersburg don't even have indoor toilets. It's honestly tragic what a gigantic shithole your country is, and yet you're so proud of it being such a gigantic shithole. Just tragic.

[The_Colonel]

Good that we established who was, is, and will be the aggressor. I'm looking forward to the mental gymnastics about those who invade being actually the ones who defend themselves. As is the tradition in the Russian propaganda, invasion of Finland, Baltics, Poland etc. were all just defensive wars.

But I'm more optimistic about that and don't believe your empty threats. If the NATO strengthens its eastern border, Russia's military has simply no chance there. It's a suicide, it doesn't make sense to bang your head against the wall. Russia has many other weaker neighbors it can abuse instead.

> Ukraine was in the process of ditching its buffer state status by choosing a side.

Ukraine was invaded because it wanted to get closer to EU in the form of the association agreement.

Interestingly, the roughly analogous CIS was never a problem in this concept of "buffer state". Or does "buffer state" actually mean "Russia-aligned"?

And that's the crux of the issue. You can stay as a buffer state only as long as you're a Russian puppet.

[khzw8yyy]

All small countries are someone's puppets. The US tried to take a puppet state away from Russia and somewhat succeeded so far.

The first move was at the end of the Cold War. The drunken President Yeltsin took the existing administrative map of the USSR and created a new state that had artificially attached Russian regions. This set up the time delay fuse. Second was the US-backed coup in 2014. And third - what we have today. The US is good at playing the long game. Only China is better.

Downvote away, it seems to make you happy. But maybe before you write this off as "Russian propaganda" go read what Solzhenitsyn had to say on the subject. Yes, that Solzhenitsyn, the dissident who wrote "Ivan Denisovich".

[kergonath]

> There is no good way out of the situation where both sides are armed to the teeth. The best bet is a political failure of one of the sides.

Look, we tried normalising relations. In the end, Russia just takes what it can. It’s lunacy to believe that everything would be better if European countries just rolled over, accepted being bullied, and just gave Putin what he wants. It’s insane.

[thriftwy]

I just don't remember any of those attempts. Which year was that? I remember the disastrous Obama's great reset which caused these relations to deteriorate at greatly accelerated rate.

I also remember how bad they were during COVID time, etc.