Quote (ofthevoid @ Feb 28 2023 09:59am)
To minimize that hand shake agreement as if that somehow makes okay our creep eastward to their border is silly, and it's one of the primary reasons why Ukraine is in an all out war currently and the whole of central Europe is destabilized. It kind of reminds me of post WW1 treatment of Germany and somehow being surprised that the specific treatment directly led to the economic and social conditions that spawned fascism.
The US won the cold war, and as the USSR was collapsing, we made these promises to make that collapse as smooth and painless as possible for everyone involved really. There really was no need to pen these agreements because the evil empire was dead and we were the victors with nothing left to fight over, both sides understanding this with the USSR in no position to ask for conditions. There also was no threat to many of these countries in central Europe, because the USSR and Communism were dead. Instead we continued to add these countries to our military alliance not because they were threatened or there was some impending war but because we wanted control. Of course they were happy to agree because there were so many economic carrots attached to this proposition. It's the equivalent of going to some back water, economically comatose town and saying hey we want to build these huge money making businesses in your town that will bring billions of dollars to your economy and every one will be given jobs making 200% more than you are now, are you in? Is it a mystery why Romania or Poland or the Baltics would want to join with their shitty reeling economies when the US/EU are coming in promising billions in investments & loans, which are obviously tied to being 'one of us' both in economic as well as military alliance terms.
So fast forward to early 2000s, Russia is still not in any position or has any appetite to dominate anyone but they see this military alliance creep, as a result they start to get more defensive and start rebuilding they military in response. As a result it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because well look the Russians are once again being militaristic therefore the 'defensive' military alliance that's continuously growing is justified for protective and defensive reasons. Never mind the fact that we were growing this alliance before they started their military buildup.
But to your point that because there wasn't some sort of binding agreement or accord therefore we were okay to do this is dishonest of how powers talk to each other. There was an understanding that we won and they lost but they will get to keep their sphere of influence mostly of its satellite ex-soviet states and then have these other central European states act as buffers. We reneged on this in the late 90s because we said fuck it we won and we run the world. Just like today we are saying it fuck it, we run the world therefore what we say is more important and goes all across the globe, weather its Ukraine, Taiwan, Syria, Iraq, Solomon Islands, etc. There are no regional powers to push back, it's just us and what we say goes.
why is it no one seems able to read?
is explicitly said it's NOT ok. i just said it's not so NOT OK that it justifies the invasion of Ukraine.
if it were listed in a 10 point discussion it would be valid context. but justification on its own for the war? puh-leeze.
meanwhile Putin was allowed to expand west into Syria, we drew a red line (stupid mistake), didn't enforce it, then entirely left the nation for him to pull into his sphere of influence.
the agreement was simple, we wouldn't march east en masse and encircle the former soviet union, we wouldn't absorb each nation and their weapon arsenals. we could have. in the wake of the collapse of the USSR these nations were in dire need of support, dire need of stable currency as hyper inflation tore through them and their national banks collapsed. and we didn't. we left them to figure things out, to sell their weapons caches to buy bread, to shift their national banks to whatever currency they could find a store of value in, and reform as they saw fit. independent of mother russia (rare) or as a proxy for russia under the guise of autocracy.
what we did was bad, but it doesnt justify the war in ukraine. period. the spirit of the agreement was never meant to last decades, and putin is using it as an excuse to shore up allies and try and send a message to other satellite states because his two most valuable resources even beyond fuel are young men and old military tech.