[dragonwriter]

> It is all about NATO expansion into Ukraine and entirely avoidable.

No, its not.

> After hot debate, NATO declared that Ukraine would eventually become part of NATO in 2014. This led to Russia taking Crimea to send a message.

That’s a very nice theory, except it has nothing to do with the facts. The declaration that Ukraine would “eventually” become part of NATO was not made in 2014, it was made at the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest when NATO also bowed to Russian pressure and declined to offer Ukraine and George Membership Action Plans to serve as near-term on-ramps to membership. After that:

1. In 2010 Ukraine adopted a law prohibiting joining any military bloc, abandoning efforts to join NATO

2. Russia invades Crimea in March 2014

3. Russia invades eastern Ukraine in August 2014

4. In response to (2) and (3), Ukraine’s government in 2014 announced it would seek to have the non-bloc status law repealed and restart efforts to join NATO

. . .

n. At the NATO Brussels Summit in 2021, while again not granting Ukraine a MAP, NATO “recalled” the 2008 statement that Ukraine would eventually be a member.

[s1artibartfast]

You are absolutely right that I misremembered the Bucharest summit as 2014, not 2008, and it was Georgia that Russia invaded 4 months after the NATO secretary-General said the two countries would have eventual membership.

I think it would be only fair to include serval things on your timeline. Between 1 and 2 of your list you have the revolution ousting of the pro-Russian government that passed the 2010 NATO laws.

You also have a number of escalations following #4. In 2016, Ukraine was granted the Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP), comprising the advisory mission at the NATO Representation to Ukraine as well as 16 capacity-building programmes and Trust Funds. In 2018, Ukraine was officially given an aspiring member status. In 2020 Ukraine was given the Enhanced Opportunities Partner status, Which is that status formerly held by Finland and Sweden, and currently held by Australia.

>> It is all about NATO expansion into Ukraine and entirely avoidable. > No, its not.

Do you seriously think that we would be in the current situation had NATO flat out told Ukraine "no", or if the US had backtracked in the 2020s, instead of pushing forward?

[dragonwriter]

> Do you seriously think that we would be in the current situation had NATO flat out told Ukraine "no", or if the US had backtracked in the 2020s, instead of pushing forward?

No, we’d be in a situation where Russia was firmly in control of Georgia, Ukraine, and probably Moldova, and was actively pressuring, e.g., the Baltic republics.

The way we’d be in a better situation is if NATO had told Russia to take a flying fuck in 2008 and extended MAPs and interim security guarantees to Georgia and Ukraine, and backed those guarantees up with forward deployed forces.

[s1artibartfast]

>The way we’d be in a better situation is if NATO had told Russia to take a flying fuck in 2008 and extended MAPs and interim security guarantees to Georgia and Ukraine, and backed those guarantees up with forward deployed forces.

I agree that MAPs and security guarantees in 2008 could have prevented Russian expansionism.

I agree that Russia would have significantly more control and influence in Ukraine with a "No" answer from NAT0, and be forced into many Pro-Russian positions.

I think better situation is relative to objectives. I think generally from the military strategic perspective, the current state of war is close to optimal for the USA, and far superior to either Ukraine in NATO or Ukraine in Russian control. It drains and isolates Russia, increases NATO spending, and spreads NATO influence. It does so for a tiny economic cost and no US military lives lost. It is a military strategists wet dream. However, I also think the current outcome is abhorrent from the moral, philosophical, and humanitarian perspective.

My main criticism is that I truly believe that US chose to take action to bring about this outcome over the much more humanitarian outcomes. It is easy to play chicken with Russia when the US has nothing to lose and everything to gain from a collision.

My ideal outcome from a moral perspective would have been a militarily neutral Ukraine (because I do not support extension of NATO for the sake of expansion) and some sort of autonomous Crimea and Donbas as Russian clients (because I support political self determination).

What criteria do you use to judge hypothetical outcomes, and what do you think should be optimized for? I suppose this is ultimately the crux of these disputes, and the historical chain of events is just window dressing.

[aguaviva]

Do you seriously think that we would be in the current situation had NATO flat out told Ukraine "no"

They did in fact give a flat "no" to both George and Ukraine, and that was the key outcome of the 2008 Bucharest Summit. What you seem to be missing here is that despite the nice-sounding press release you shared in the other comment, their formal application, in the form of their requests for what's known as a Membership Application Plan, was denied:

   From 2008, Russia began stating its opposition to Ukraine's membership. That March, Ukraine applied for a Membership Action Plan (MAP), the first step in joining NATO. At the April 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer declared that Ukraine and Georgia would someday join NATO, but neither would begin Membership Action Plans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#Ukraine

One can read those various press releases ("communiqués") that came later as hedges / equivocations -- but that's all secondary. At the time, it was crystal clear that their applications had been rejected, and this was really quite a bit deal at the time.

As to whether we would be in the current situation right now: that gets into hypotheticals of course, but the main point is that Putin definitely did not launch those invasions simply "because NATO", but because his disappointment with the change of government in Kyiv in 2014 (and at least one of Putin's insiders has said there had been plans to at least re-take the Crimea since way back in the early 2000s). And as a way of perpetuating the regime's power, and cementing his own legacy.

That's why the whole NATO encroachment line is basically a foil -- it's just something Putin says, but it's not the reason he launched those invasions.

[s1artibartfast]

Im not making the argument that Ukraine became a member in 2008. They were told not only that they could become a member in the future, but that they would become a member in the future, and NATO would help them get there.