i missed your boot talk, i have never seen a person so obsessed with this shit

Like 80% of the reason why we're here is because we broke an accord in the 90s.



https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Nov 1 2022 11:23am

well said

Dance like nobody's watching

unofficial promises made under the vague premise that Russia anew wouldnt become the USSR of old. russia hasn't changed, russia hasn't moderated, russia hasn't become a real democracy.

Russia never stopped the cold war, until China recently joined the world's arms race Russia was still the only game in town developing and selling weapons other than us. They ceded some land (but desperately demanded their sphere of influence there not change) and sold off a bunch of remaining weapons to fund the next round of weapons development.

was NATO expansion westward an issue, of course. was it also in many cases warranted given that Russia has never changed and now we all understand they'll fight literal wars over their sphere of influence? yes.

i'm far from pro-NATO, but this narrative that westward expansion was some violation of an international treaty and therefore the lion's share of blame lies with the US via NATO is so tiresome and lazy. If russia bowed out and became the fuel economy and nothing more that they deserve to be they could be laughing as we build a sphere of influence around china instead of them, and selling coal/gas/etc to both sides. they feared we'd sense weakness and seek to further break them up, which may be true, but out of fear they've painted themselves into a corner.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Nov 1 2022 11:45am

Two things.

First, it doesn't matter if it's official. Promises were made, they were broken. Red lines were declared, they were crossed. The red lines are similar to red lines other large countries have, US, China, Russia, India, etc. Everyone knows what they are, no one at the upper levels of diplomacy and war is ignorant of what they are. What happened is that as per usual Westerners refuse to accept that other countries, even nuclear-armed ones, are privy to the same 'unofficial' declarations that they themselves constantly make. What is the "rules based international order" if not a direct challenge to "the rule of international law"?

Second, Russia did try to just sell gas and integrate into Europe. They asked to join the EU, they tried to join NATO multiple times. They made what appears to be serious attempts to integrate into the European side of Eurasia, and those attempts were met with disdain and even, according to Putin's recollection of his meeting with Bill Clinton, outright laughter. So did they "paint themselves into a corner", or were they pushed into one?

This post was edited by kusotarre1 on Nov 1 2022 12:00pm

and the USA just agreed to a red line with zero compensation? lol. see that's the part no one seems to ever mention. behind closed doors we just for nothing promised not to expand an inch westward? heh.

Whether Russia is a real democracy or not is irrelevant. Just like if China or any other country doesn't fit into our defined standard of what's appropriate politically internally doesn't somehow give us the right to minimize their concerns and infringe and get under their skin on their borders. Taiwan, Ukraine are exactly that.

If they wanted promises that we won't go into their sphere of influence 30 years ago, we do anyways, they warn, we continue to do so until it gets to the point that we have half a dozen countries on their border with American and NATO bases, with US missile systems pointed "defensively" in Russia's direction it's pretty easy to see their frustration. On top of that you have American NGO's sprouting like mushrooms all over in ex-soviet states which often times are just covert ways to buy influence. So then the argument evolved into "everyone is entitled to chose who they ally themselves with" which of course on it's face sounds democratic and fair and all of those wonderful things but is a hypocritical joke when you look at what we did to unfriendly democracies in South America, Iran, etc historically.

We have to live in a world which recognizes that no one country has a monopoly on setting the rules politically, economically, etc. It's not Russia or China spreading their influence in an antagonistic manner all over the globe tbh. Do either of them have military bases next to us? Are either of them trying to bring in missile systems and have standing armies in Mexico or Cuba for "defensive" reasons?

And the bold is kind of the issue at hand, you and many westerners in general have this attitude that other parts of the world should just accept how things ought to be based on what we say because reasons, because democracy, because fill in the blank. Russia is the first big domino to say no. Smaller ones tried i.e. Libya, Iraq and got smacked down but in this case idk what the results will be. It's pretty obvious though that our influence is being pushed back on with rising regional powers like India, SA, south Africa, etc. Who would of thought that the brown world through their inaction is telling us to fuck off with the dictates.

So, let me recap this real quick: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia continued to consider Ukraine a vassal, a part of its sphere of influence , governed by a Kremlin-aligned puppet. Russia was very unhappy when this puppet got overthrown and Ukraine wanted to orient itself toward the EU. So they annexed Crimea, propped up a separatist movement which seized the majority of the Donbass and thrust Ukraine into a perpetual state of (low intensity) civil war.

And now you're saying that their big "compromise" proposal was a deal in which Ukraine cedes the land that Russia blatantly stole from them and signs off on a neutrality status which limits their sovereignty and their ability to defend themselves from further Russian aggression - and in return, they get an "assurance" from Russia that Russia will not beat them into submission again whenever they act against Moscow's will?

As a side note: does anyone seriously believe that these proposed referendums in the Russia-controlled parts of Donbass would be free and fair elections without intimidation or fuckery?

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 1 2022 12:26pm

Red lines don't require agreement, they are declarations. Did Venezuela agree to the Monroe Doctrine? Did the USSR agree to it during the Cuban missile crisis, done in response to missiles in Turkey?

Of course not. You're just continuing to do what Westerners always do: one rule for me, another for thee.