Our disagreement started when I rejected the notion that NATO missiles on its border are a red line for Russia. I did not reject the notion that Ukrainian NATO membership might be a red line for Russia. (And I have, in the past, pointed out that such a stance would be logically inconsistent with the relaxed fashion in which Russia handles NATO troops on its border in the Baltics and Finland.)

The sources you provided, while an interesting read, do nothing to support your "no NATO missiles on our border" claim.


------------------------------------------------------------------


The first article imho misses a crucial point when it tries to pinpoint why Russia didn't react to Ukraine's NATO ambitions in 2008, but then started a military conflict in 2014: Russia was simply weaker in 2008 than it was 6 years later.
After the traumatic 90s, Russia had to pull itself out of a really fucking deep hole during the 00s. They made good progress, but it took the whole decade and then some. By 2014, they were back on track.

Also, oil and gas prices were kinda high during the first half of 2014. Russia's annexation of Crimea and the break-away of DPR and LPR took place right before the North American shale oil and fracking boom took off and sent global oil and gas prices tumbling down during the second half of 2014. Which would, in turn, also provide a possible explanation why Russia didn't escalate any further back then (say with a full-scale invasion by 2015 or so) and was seemingly satisfied with the frozen conflict/low intensity war in the Donbass.

Seriously: we all know that Russian strength is more or less directly proportional to its oil and gas revenue. Well, the price for a barrel of Urals crude oil collapsed from $109 in June 2014 to $47 in January 2015, then bottomed out at $36 in January 2016.
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/urals-oil


My personal pet theory is that Russia already planned to invade Ukraine back then, but got blindsided by the fracking boom taking all of the economic wind out of their sails. Then, covid delayed things even further.

Zelensky calls out White House over Tomahawk missiles leak — 'it was confidential'
So this means (that) between partners, there is no (confidentiality)."
According to Zelensky, Ukraine requested the missiles on the condition that it would deploy them only if Russia refused to end its war and de-escalate.
I said that this is a preventive method. I was told that it is an escalation," Zelensky said.
https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-calls-out-white-house/

Why Is the U.S. Navy Running Out of Tomahawk Cruise Missiles?
https://www.aei.org/op-eds/why-is-the-u-s-navy-running-out-of-tomahawk-cruise-missiles/

Pure desperation

I struggle to understand why you are separating Nato missiles and Nato membership, as to my mind its the same thing. If Ukraine joined Nato, it would get Nato missiles.
I struggle to understand why you cant accept that Ukraine was Russia's red line "logically inconsistent" gives me so much room to counter argue but as you wont concede on any of the basic points I just don't have the appetite to continue the debate.

We have been at this for years now. You have your opinions, carry on.

Of course it is a major difference. Turkey joining NATO didn't in and off itself cause the Cuba crisis, things only escalated once NATO tried to station a large amount of ballistic long-range missiles there.

With regard to Ukraine, the main thing they want out of NATO membership is the defense security implied by Article V, i.e. NATO troops coming to Ukraine, with air support and boots on the ground, if Russia attacks Ukraine again. Ukraine doesn't necessarily have a vested interest in hosting American bases or nukes.

This is basically what Zelensky's plan tried to get to with the proposed "defense securities": this solution would placate Russia because there would be no NATO bases in Ukraine, and placate Ukraine because of the promise of Western troops defending their territory in case of a future Russian attack. (The plan is of course dead on arrival because the West has zero appetite to commit its own troops to the defense of Ukrainian territory...)




There is no logical way to reconcile Russia being okay with Finish and Baltic NATO membership on the one hand with Ukrainian NATO membership being this huge red line for them on the other.

This war can be explained in a logically consistent way as a struggle over spheres of influence, or the attempt to secure natural resources, or irredentism (protecting ethnic Russians), or fear of a thriving democracy on the doorstep of Putin's corrupt oligarchy. Fear of NATO missiles, however, just doesn't add up as an explanation.

Well, yeah, duh, they're of course neither thriving nor a textbook democracy right now, as they're fighting a defensive war.

But imagine a scenario in which Russia would have allowed Ukraine to sign the EU association agreement which Yanukovych blocked back in 2013, so that everything which followed (euromaidan, Yanukovych fleeing the country, Donetsk and Luhansk breaking away from UA) doesn't happen to begin with: then EU money would have propped up Ukraine in return for reforms against (oligarch-style) corruption (and access for Western corporations to Ukraine's market and resources ).

It is not inconceivable that Ukraine could have gone the way of Poland, with rapid economic development and gains in the standard of living (plus the aforementioned democratic reforms). This would have turned Ukraine into a glaring counterexample to Putinism, an exhibit of how different and better things could go for the Russian people if they ditched Putin and his clique.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 1 2024 06:33am

wut

1) Large number of ethnic Russians live in Ukraine.
2) Crimea has been Russian since 1793 IIRC and was literally given to Ukraine to celebrate 300 years of good relations between Russia and Ukraine.
3) Sevastopol, home of Russia's Black Sea fleet.

It's completely clear why Ukraine is more important to Russia compared to Finland / Baltic States. you can't be serious lol

I was referring to a post-2014 situation, when Crimea had already been annexed by Russia and the two major Russian oblasts had broken away from Ukraine. Everyone understood why Russia acted the way it did back in 2014. Which is why the West let them get away with some light, mostly symbolic sanctions. What is less clear is why Russia pulled the trigger on a full-scale invasion of the rest of Ukraine in 2022. They already had what they wanted the most, and the frozen conflict in the Donbass made NATO accession unrealistic anyway.

Rapid economic development in Poland want to discuss this phenomenon here or elsewhere?

Those break-away oblasts were continuously shelled by the Ukrainian army and Crimea also couldn't be considered safe and wasn't even being recognized as Russian by Ukraine or the West, there are only six countries that have recognized Crimea to be Russian after the annexation (Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria, Afghanistan, and North Korea).

Moreover the Russians made it clear that they were serious in December 2021 and they tried to get the West at the table to negotiate and we both know the West flatly refused to negotiate.