[js8]

> NATO has not expanded into Russia. Russia has expanded into Ukraine.

Morally you're correct, but on a practical level, Russia didn't want the NATO to be in Ukraine. Morality (or international law) doesn't always win - look at the Cuban missile crisis.

> People join NATO in self-defence against Russia.

Yes, the motivation of the joining countries is clear. What is less clear (and you should question), why they should be accepted - if such offers pose a risk of eventual escalation into a war. (I know it's not fair, but that's geopolitics.) It was the U.S. announcing in 2007 NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia, despite Germany and France being against and no public/democratic discussion of this in Ukraine and Georgia (or any other NATO member). Is it hard to believe this is done for any reason other than imperial vanity?

> They wouldn't have to if Russia didn't keep attacking its neighbours.

U.S. have attacked unprovoked countries all over the planet, why trust them more than Russia? Seems quite shortsighted.

[AndrewDucker]

Yes, the bully who keeps attacking their neighbours didn't want anyone to protect their neighbours.

Going along with this seems like a terrible idea, if you value the bully not slowly expanding until they're your neighbour.

[js8]

It's precisely this mindset, "us vs them", that neutral states cannot exist, which is at the heart of current escalation.

[CamperBob2]

"I only burglarized your home because you threatened to join the neighborhood watch" isn't the ironclad defense of Russian imperialism you seem to think it is.

[AndrewDucker]

Nobody is forcing anyone to join the "Resist the violent bully in your doorstep" club.

It just seems to happen naturally when the violent bully starts attacking their neighbours.

[js8]

> Nobody is forcing anyone to join the "Resist the violent bully in your doorstep" club.

That kind of club might be fine, but NATO simply isn't it. Again, you're not asking the question, what is in it for the U.S. (to promise protection - with nukes - to those countries).

Look at my country - Czechia. After the end of Cold war, in the context of NATO, we have done more for American security than America did for ours. We had soldiers in Afghanistan and 11 of them died. During the same period, no American soldier has died defending Czech Republic.

> It just seems to happen naturally when the violent bully starts attacking their neighbours.

NATO continued expanding after the end of Cold war, without Russia attacking anyone. I think it was a mistake - EU should have created its own defense, and start from a clean slate.

Anyway, I don't care much about the question of historic guilt. I commented here because I think western "leaders" should be honest about their goals vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine, and they aren't.

[mopsi]

> what is in it for the U.S.

Peace and stability for about 100 million people in Central and Eastern Europe, who will in turn consume American products and services and cheaply write code for American companies instead of designing nuclear missiles for Russians to target Washington DC. All that the Americans have to do is give a guarantee that essentially costs nothing, if it's believable enough.

> NATO continued expanding after the end of Cold war, without Russia attacking anyone.

NATO is not some loaf of bread sitting on a windowsill that expands on its own. Most countries in Eastern Europe worked feverishly to join NATO. Why? Because their leaders had seen the grainy VHS tapes from the 1994–1996 First Chechen War, showing horrific Russian atrocities against civilians, similar to what many had personally seen or even experienced in the 1940s and 1950s. These images dispelled any illusion that the Russian Federation was more civil than the USSR or that it would respect the sovereignty and self-determination of other peoples.

Since the dissolution of the USSR, the Russia has been almost continuously at war, and it was only a matter of time before its attention shifted from the Caucasus to Eastern Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia#...

By the mid-1990s, Russia had already employed its strategy of setting up fake separatist movements to instigate armed conflicts in Europe, and a good chunk of Moldova remains under Russian military occupation to this day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistrian_War

Nobody wanted to become the target of the next artificial "separatist movement" that would drain resources, hinder economic development, block EU integration, and leave the country vulnerable to full-scale invasion like Ukraine experienced in 2014 and then again in 2022. In an alternate timeline, Eastern Europe could have ended up like a series of Moldovas. Very poor, stagnating countries, constantly battling Russian meddling in their internal affairs.

Even 30 years ago, this threat was obvious to anyone familiar with Russia. For example, here's Chechen president Dudayev, a former commander of a Soviet nuclear bomber base, predicting the future in a 1995 interview as the Russians were hunting him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IavEOx3hUAk

[js8]

Sorry, but what you're describing is American exceptionalism, in line with PNAC for instance.

> Peace and stability for about 100 million people in Central and Eastern Europe, who will in turn consume American products and services and cheaply write code for American companies instead of designing nuclear missiles for Russians to target Washington DC. All that the Americans have to do is give a guarantee that essentially costs nothing, if it's believable enough.

Precisely what led to this conflict, the idea that the Eastern Europe (or now specifically Ukraine) should be "owned" by some superpower.

I am not a fan of Russia, in fact, I work for American company and I got rich thanks to that, and I generally like Americans, but if you don't see how incredibly patronizing this is, I don't know what to tell you. (I mean, Eastern Europe aside, the idea that for example Germany (or France), one of the largest economies in the world, needs some help from Americans to defend themselves is ridiculous.)

And paradoxically, the islamophobic sentiment is so strong in Eastern Europe today that most people would actually agree with the Russian approach to the Chechen war, unfortunately. Keep in mind Russia is not that different from U.S. when it comes to waging foreign wars.

The idea that war is in any case justifiable is just something that never works out as a consistent moral principle, and that's true for NATO's support for Ukraine as well (though I don't have a problem with Ukrainians defending their country, I think it's the right thing to do).

But once you start using violence as a means to revenge, or to regain the territory, you have morally lost it (which is what NATO is being asked by Ukraine). In Palestine, most of the world recognizes that the problem of Israeli colonization and apartheid has to be resolved through peaceful means (my preferred solution would be one state), not through Palestinian violence, despite all the Israeli violence (which is more than 10x) towards Palestinians. The same principle should be applied to Ukraine-Russia relations.

[af78]

Ukraine was left out of NATO. When Russia first invaded in 2014, European leaders looked the other way. Claims that there plans for Ukraine to join NATO and that Russia felt threatened and was forced to attack are just lies to attempt to justify this war.

At the time fictions like "Russian-backed separatists" were made up to deny the reality: that it was a foreign invasion. Yet all the signs were there: for example, "separatist" leaders like Igor Girkin were citizens of Russia, not Ukraine; OSCE observers found military vehicles containing documentation indicating that the equipment had been maintained in Russia.

European leaders called for "deescalation", "political resolution"; seeing weakness and appeasement in the Minsk agreements, Putin escalated. That's the problem with aggressive leaders like Putin: if you look weak and vulnerable, they will attack you.

Russian leaders see Russia as an empire and regularly say Eurasia should extend from Lisbon to Vladivistok. Putin tries to terrorize us, stating that if we resist it will lead to "World War III" or "nuclear apocalypse". We must not fall for this, or we will gradually lose our freedoms.

[js8]

Look it up, in 2007 G.W.Bush invited Ukraine and Georgia to NATO. Also look up PNAC. Unfortunately, there was little interest from the U.S. side to end the cold war - they had to be a "world policeman".

Yes EU leaders called for deescalation, that is true. But the U.S., the most important NATO member, did not. There is a 2018 report from RAND that suggests Ukraine should be used as a tool to weaken Russia.

The Ukraine conflict, although there is a contribution from other causes (russian and ukrainian nationalism), is a proxy war between U.S. and Russia, a continuation of the cold war.

I don't disagree with you on Russia, but the US and EU (currently) is unfortunately not interested in deescalating.

[dgfitz]

Why would the US want to fight a proxy war with Russia? Before the recent Ukraine invasion, nobody really cared about Russia. They were just kind of around, cheating at the Olympics was like the big news if anyone talked about Russia.

What does Russia have that US would want to fight a proxy war over? Certainly isn’t technology or natural resources.

[js8]

The military industrial complex in the U.S. is constantly lobbying the American government to start and participate in wars. So after Afghanistan, some other place had to be found where to cause trouble, so that ḿilitary contracts can be made.

Now that Ukrainian resolve to fight is cooling off, you can see Trump administration planning more wars - in Palestine, Yemen, Iran, Venezuela..

These operations benefit wealthy class in the U.S. (the profit from government contracts) as well as a fat layer of middle class Americans who are involved in making wars.

Every country that exports weapons has this incentive, including Russia, but the U.S. is by far the largest country producing weapons it doesn't need internally. International arms trade should be IMHO completely banned, because it gives (capitalist) countries strong motivation to cause wars. It's a negative externality.