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Most would not agree with you. From Chomsky to Kissinger, political analysts and historians have been ringing alarm bells for decades on NATO expansion eastward

Most would not agree with you. From Chomsky to Kissinger, political analysts and historians have been ringing alarm bells for decades on NATO expansion eastward. TL;DR: we had a west-friendly Russian government at the fall of the wall - but pushing east allowed hawks/imperialists to rise to power Edit: I see a lot of you really struggling with this idea. The good news is you don't have to take my word for it! Please read analysis from both of the mentioned authors and more. They're much better sources than me and other hackernews posters

vimy 5y ago
To be fair, NATO was initially opposed to expansion but the ex-Warsaw pact countries really pushed for it. They were afraid of Russia.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  They wanted the money and prestige
- chess_buster 5y ago
  Rightfully so, as it seems now.
rjzzleep 5y ago
Stephen cohen also mentioned the military doctrine of Russia and how irresponsible and provocative obamas comments were when the whole Ukraine conflict kicked off. Someone posted the following leaked cable here a while back from 2008 > Comment > 12. (C) Russia's opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia is both emotional and based on perceived strategic concerns about the impact on Russia's interests in the region. It is also politically popular to paint the U.S. and NATO as Russia's adversaries and to use NATO's outreach to Ukraine and Georgia as a means of generating support from Russian nationalists. While Russian opposition to the first round of NATO enlargement in the mid-1990's was strong, Russia now feels itself able to respond more forcefully to what it perceives as actions contrary to its national interests. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
unpopularopp 5y ago
>have been ringing alarm bells for decades on NATO expansion eastward Do these historians have an answer that what should those countries in east Europe do? Just accept the fate that you will always be a vassal of Russia because you are at the wrong geographical place? - Option 1: NATO - Option 2: Vassal of Russia - Option 3: "buffer state" which means you are free to be destroyed by both the NATO and Russia, see Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia There is a reason people wants to have a life like "the west" and not like Russia.
- rastignack 5y ago
  > "buffer state" which means you are free to be destroyed by both the NATO and Russia, see Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia Can you elaborate on former Yugoslavia ? Who has destroyed it ?
  - yorwba 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia
    - rastignack 5y ago
      I have lots of family there, some of them took bullets in that war. I’d say it’s mostly the death of Tito who caused this breakup. And the schismatic history. They don’t blame nato or Russia for that.
      - yorwba 5y ago
        From your preceding comment I got the impression that you didn't know about Yugoslavia and might benefit from a Wikipedia link, but apparently I was wrong about that. Apologies.
- throckmortra 5y ago
  You're assuming that Russia would feel like it needed to conquer its neighbors in a peaceful world. Again, analysts argue that we propped up the imperialist ideologues of Russia and created the current climate Edit: I think most of you aren't really engaging with the substance of my comment. The idea being that all this bloodthirst that Russia currently has is due to conditions that we knew about and could have avoided. Also, Russian government of 1991 =/= Stalin
phantomathkg 5y ago
On the other hand, what's the option? By not pushing eastward, meaning allowing Russia to install puppet head at those countries?
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>TL;DR: we had a west-friendly Russian government at the fall of the wall - but pushing east allowed hawks/imperialists to rise to power I guess I would like some source arguments as to how it was the pushing east, i.e. allowing Nato membership in former eastern bloc countries, that allowed hawks/imperialists to rise to power.
usrusr 5y ago
Do you honestly believe that elections in Russia (if they were elections, and not just a show with predetermined outcome) were decided by NATO expansion? (which never happened without being signed off by Russian governments anyways) Yes, NATO expansion has been used as an excuse by hawks/imperialists. But given recent experience there is absolutely no base for assuming that they would have had any trouble making up others.
PedroBatista 5y ago
All those people grew up in a time where the US had the rights to own the west and the Soviets the east and all their beliefs are forged to not trigger a direct war. Everything they say has the undertone of “don’t make the Russians mad” so I would acknowledge that put don’t put them in a pedestal, also since many of these “great minds” are among the worst death salesmen of the 20th century. Putin has been playing this game since day one, he belongs to the group that wants Russia to be imperial again, ie. Right before the bolcheviques. The only “innovation” is he doesn’t see full on invasions alone as a viable option to accomplish that.
thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
Propaganda mostly works by highlighting the convenient facts and omitting the inconvenient. Reading western media, one would get the impression Ukraine is a country inhabited by nothing but immaculate saints and heroes, who would never hurt a fly In reality, every month of Zelenskyj's rule, the country moved further and further away from democracy and closer to autocracy. This is an annoying feature of western geopolitics - despite all the talk about democracy, we always prefer a western-aligned autocrat to any anti-western democratic outcome Just an excerpt of Zelenskyj's rule: * banned opposition's TV channels * urged Apple and Google to remove apps related to those TV channels from app stores, as well as fairly innocuous Russian apps like Yandex (search engine) and vkontaktu (facebook-alike) * an already atrocious state of minority rights turned even worse in many aspects * refused Russian COVID vaccines despite having no alternative (this plummeted his approval ratings) * after seeing Russia-aligned parties leading in the polls, he bypassed the judicial system and froze assets of his main political opponent by a presidential decree, and put him under house arrest * casually throwing people to jail with accusations of treason, including previous president of Ukraine (democratically elected ethnic Ukrainian), opposition politicians, as well as diplomatic negotiators and there's much more. As a citizen of a Western country, it's really difficult to get a good picture of the situation. Putin is lying lunatic directly responsible for this war. Zelenskyi is a lying lunatic indirectly responsible for this war. Why are we acting like one of them is a saint?
- haunter 5y ago
  There is also the extremely oppressive language law that punished both the polish and hungarian minority (even though the main target were the russian speakers).
  - HyprMusic 5y ago
    Zelensky himself is a native Russian language speaker. I do not condone the laws but they should be challenged through a democratic response, not a military response from a nuclear power.
- throckmortra 5y ago
  I don't like these kinds of comments because the intent behind them always seems to be some sort of justification for the deaths of Ukrainians and annexation. The spirit of my comment, that I hope is captured by the reader, is that NATO/USA could have avoided war and loss of lives by being more careful in the past. But we have the present and must deal with the immediate consequences with our best foot forward. The Ukrainian people are blameless and deserve our help - more so because we are partly to blame for not exhausting every option of diplomacy available to us. Please don't try to throw them under the bus. Let's confront this tragedy while acknowledging context so that we don't make the same mistakes again
will4274 5y ago
> we had a west-friendly Russian government at the fall of the wall - but pushing east allowed hawks/imperialists to rise to power That's not accurate at all - the arrow of cause and effect cannot point backwards in time. The current powers in Russia are largely a result of privitization in Russia in the 90s. This privitization was deeply unfair to the average Russian, and was largely driven by the West's desire to turn Russia away from Communism. The result was the oligarchs and Putin (in charge since 2000). There's still blame for the West here, but NATO expansion came after Russia turned against the West; it wasn't the cause of it.
jollybean 5y ago
"Most would not agree with you. " Don't agree. 1) The 'NATO' expansion issue is actually a distraction. This is absolutely not about 'NATO on Russias Borders'. While there is a kernel of truth there, it's used as propaganda. 2) Russia, specifically Putin, has been trying to grab Ukraine back for 20 years. There is 100% legitimacy in the fact UKR/RUS have a special cultural relationship - but - that's skewed through Russian Imperial Chauvinism in that they view Ukraine basically as a vassal. That Chauvinism is probably a couple centuries old. More recently, we have the Soviet Dystopian Unreality machine, in which the Truth can be manufactured. Putin is using this to great effect, literally making his bid for Conquest into an issue of 'victimhood'. It's all a bit 'Mein Kampfy'. Putin has been 'very directly intervening' in Ukraine with his laughable stooge Yanukovich for a very long time - rigging elections, killing journalists and protesters, supporting corruption. The West has definitely been intervening and more or less on 'one side' but it has been a lighter touch - and most importantly - the West will ultimately accept the choice of Ukranians. Here's the Paradox: Putin is ex-KGB/Soviet counter intelligence - cynical, repulsive, fearful, skittish + nationalist + authoritarian. But imagine of Putin was a charismatic man. A great speaker. Someone who talked about 'hope' and 'people'. Putin has a giant advantage vis-a-vis the West in Ukraine! Ukranians see Russians as 'bretheren'. If Putin were to have created a 'Positive Russia', messages of hope, clamping down on corruption ... then in 2014 he may literally have been able to give a speech to protesters instead of shooting them. I have peers in Belarus that can flee to Canada - but they don't want to. They are going to 'Georgia or Latvia' - because it's closer to home. This speaks to their natural cultural ties and choices. The 2014 'Revolution' was bloody and a lot of young people were just killed. Police can sometimes get really, really out of hand and that indiscriminate shooting of protesters is something Ukranians will not forget. When the Russians invade, that's what they know is in the future. I honestly think that if Dimitri Medvedev came to power, Ukraine would have joined a 'Eurasian Economic Union', Belarus would have dumped Lukashenko. Literally Putin could have had the Eurasian Union and a more united 'Rus People' by just retiring and shutting his fat mouth.
- throckmortra 5y ago
  I appreciate this comment. I understand that there is a lot I'll never know or understand because I'm on the other side of the wall. I agree that much of the blame lies with Russia/Putin but I still feel that there is more that the West could have done to prevent disaster. Putin is a mad dog with nuclear capabilities and there's no telling where the future is headed now

vimy 5y ago

To be fair, NATO was initially opposed to expansion but the ex-Warsaw pact countries really pushed for it. They were afraid of Russia.

elzbardico 5y ago
They wanted the money and prestige
chess_buster 5y ago
Rightfully so, as it seems now.

rjzzleep 5y ago

Stephen cohen also mentioned the military doctrine of Russia and how irresponsible and provocative obamas comments were when the whole Ukraine conflict kicked off. Someone posted the following leaked cable here a while back from 2008 > Comment > 12. (C) Russia's opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia is both emotional and based on perceived strategic concerns about the impact on Russia's interests in the region. It is also politically popular to paint the U.S. and NATO as Russia's adversaries and to use NATO's outreach to Ukraine and Georgia as a means of generating support from Russian nationalists. While Russian opposition to the first round of NATO enlargement in the mid-1990's was strong, Russia now feels itself able to respond more forcefully to what it perceives as actions contrary to its national interests. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html

unpopularopp 5y ago

>have been ringing alarm bells for decades on NATO expansion eastward Do these historians have an answer that what should those countries in east Europe do? Just accept the fate that you will always be a vassal of Russia because you are at the wrong geographical place? - Option 1: NATO - Option 2: Vassal of Russia - Option 3: "buffer state" which means you are free to be destroyed by both the NATO and Russia, see Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia There is a reason people wants to have a life like "the west" and not like Russia.

rastignack 5y ago
> "buffer state" which means you are free to be destroyed by both the NATO and Russia, see Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia Can you elaborate on former Yugoslavia ? Who has destroyed it ?
- yorwba 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia
  - rastignack 5y ago
    I have lots of family there, some of them took bullets in that war. I’d say it’s mostly the death of Tito who caused this breakup. And the schismatic history. They don’t blame nato or Russia for that.
    - yorwba 5y ago
      From your preceding comment I got the impression that you didn't know about Yugoslavia and might benefit from a Wikipedia link, but apparently I was wrong about that. Apologies.
throckmortra 5y ago
You're assuming that Russia would feel like it needed to conquer its neighbors in a peaceful world. Again, analysts argue that we propped up the imperialist ideologues of Russia and created the current climate Edit: I think most of you aren't really engaging with the substance of my comment. The idea being that all this bloodthirst that Russia currently has is due to conditions that we knew about and could have avoided. Also, Russian government of 1991 =/= Stalin

phantomathkg 5y ago

On the other hand, what's the option? By not pushing eastward, meaning allowing Russia to install puppet head at those countries?

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>TL;DR: we had a west-friendly Russian government at the fall of the wall - but pushing east allowed hawks/imperialists to rise to power I guess I would like some source arguments as to how it was the pushing east, i.e. allowing Nato membership in former eastern bloc countries, that allowed hawks/imperialists to rise to power.

usrusr 5y ago

Do you honestly believe that elections in Russia (if they were elections, and not just a show with predetermined outcome) were decided by NATO expansion? (which never happened without being signed off by Russian governments anyways) Yes, NATO expansion has been used as an excuse by hawks/imperialists. But given recent experience there is absolutely no base for assuming that they would have had any trouble making up others.

PedroBatista 5y ago

All those people grew up in a time where the US had the rights to own the west and the Soviets the east and all their beliefs are forged to not trigger a direct war. Everything they say has the undertone of “don’t make the Russians mad” so I would acknowledge that put don’t put them in a pedestal, also since many of these “great minds” are among the worst death salesmen of the 20th century. Putin has been playing this game since day one, he belongs to the group that wants Russia to be imperial again, ie. Right before the bolcheviques. The only “innovation” is he doesn’t see full on invasions alone as a viable option to accomplish that.

thow-58d4e8b 5y ago

Propaganda mostly works by highlighting the convenient facts and omitting the inconvenient. Reading western media, one would get the impression Ukraine is a country inhabited by nothing but immaculate saints and heroes, who would never hurt a fly In reality, every month of Zelenskyj's rule, the country moved further and further away from democracy and closer to autocracy. This is an annoying feature of western geopolitics - despite all the talk about democracy, we always prefer a western-aligned autocrat to any anti-western democratic outcome Just an excerpt of Zelenskyj's rule: * banned opposition's TV channels * urged Apple and Google to remove apps related to those TV channels from app stores, as well as fairly innocuous Russian apps like Yandex (search engine) and vkontaktu (facebook-alike) * an already atrocious state of minority rights turned even worse in many aspects * refused Russian COVID vaccines despite having no alternative (this plummeted his approval ratings) * after seeing Russia-aligned parties leading in the polls, he bypassed the judicial system and froze assets of his main political opponent by a presidential decree, and put him under house arrest * casually throwing people to jail with accusations of treason, including previous president of Ukraine (democratically elected ethnic Ukrainian), opposition politicians, as well as diplomatic negotiators and there's much more. As a citizen of a Western country, it's really difficult to get a good picture of the situation. Putin is lying lunatic directly responsible for this war. Zelenskyi is a lying lunatic indirectly responsible for this war. Why are we acting like one of them is a saint?

haunter 5y ago
There is also the extremely oppressive language law that punished both the polish and hungarian minority (even though the main target were the russian speakers).
- HyprMusic 5y ago
  Zelensky himself is a native Russian language speaker. I do not condone the laws but they should be challenged through a democratic response, not a military response from a nuclear power.
throckmortra 5y ago
I don't like these kinds of comments because the intent behind them always seems to be some sort of justification for the deaths of Ukrainians and annexation. The spirit of my comment, that I hope is captured by the reader, is that NATO/USA could have avoided war and loss of lives by being more careful in the past. But we have the present and must deal with the immediate consequences with our best foot forward. The Ukrainian people are blameless and deserve our help - more so because we are partly to blame for not exhausting every option of diplomacy available to us. Please don't try to throw them under the bus. Let's confront this tragedy while acknowledging context so that we don't make the same mistakes again

will4274 5y ago

> we had a west-friendly Russian government at the fall of the wall - but pushing east allowed hawks/imperialists to rise to power That's not accurate at all - the arrow of cause and effect cannot point backwards in time. The current powers in Russia are largely a result of privitization in Russia in the 90s. This privitization was deeply unfair to the average Russian, and was largely driven by the West's desire to turn Russia away from Communism. The result was the oligarchs and Putin (in charge since 2000). There's still blame for the West here, but NATO expansion came after Russia turned against the West; it wasn't the cause of it.

jollybean 5y ago

"Most would not agree with you. " Don't agree. 1) The 'NATO' expansion issue is actually a distraction. This is absolutely not about 'NATO on Russias Borders'. While there is a kernel of truth there, it's used as propaganda. 2) Russia, specifically Putin, has been trying to grab Ukraine back for 20 years. There is 100% legitimacy in the fact UKR/RUS have a special cultural relationship - but - that's skewed through Russian Imperial Chauvinism in that they view Ukraine basically as a vassal. That Chauvinism is probably a couple centuries old. More recently, we have the Soviet Dystopian Unreality machine, in which the Truth can be manufactured. Putin is using this to great effect, literally making his bid for Conquest into an issue of 'victimhood'. It's all a bit 'Mein Kampfy'. Putin has been 'very directly intervening' in Ukraine with his laughable stooge Yanukovich for a very long time - rigging elections, killing journalists and protesters, supporting corruption. The West has definitely been intervening and more or less on 'one side' but it has been a lighter touch - and most importantly - the West will ultimately accept the choice of Ukranians. Here's the Paradox: Putin is ex-KGB/Soviet counter intelligence - cynical, repulsive, fearful, skittish + nationalist + authoritarian. But imagine of Putin was a charismatic man. A great speaker. Someone who talked about 'hope' and 'people'. Putin has a giant advantage vis-a-vis the West in Ukraine! Ukranians see Russians as 'bretheren'. If Putin were to have created a 'Positive Russia', messages of hope, clamping down on corruption ... then in 2014 he may literally have been able to give a speech to protesters instead of shooting them. I have peers in Belarus that can flee to Canada - but they don't want to. They are going to 'Georgia or Latvia' - because it's closer to home. This speaks to their natural cultural ties and choices. The 2014 'Revolution' was bloody and a lot of young people were just killed. Police can sometimes get really, really out of hand and that indiscriminate shooting of protesters is something Ukranians will not forget. When the Russians invade, that's what they know is in the future. I honestly think that if Dimitri Medvedev came to power, Ukraine would have joined a 'Eurasian Economic Union', Belarus would have dumped Lukashenko. Literally Putin could have had the Eurasian Union and a more united 'Rus People' by just retiring and shutting his fat mouth.

throckmortra 5y ago
I appreciate this comment. I understand that there is a lot I'll never know or understand because I'm on the other side of the wall. I agree that much of the blame lies with Russia/Putin but I still feel that there is more that the West could have done to prevent disaster. Putin is a mad dog with nuclear capabilities and there's no telling where the future is headed now