Time is on the side of the Russians in Ukraine and the Chinese on pretty much anything else when it comes to confronting the US empire.
But ever since the ceasefire in Lebanon and the fall of Assad I can’t help but feel that the Palestinian cause is getting worse every day. No one is lifting a finger for them except the Yemenis and it only seems that the Zionist fucks are getting closer to their objectives.
Civil war in “Israel” when? True Promise 3 when (lol)?
It doesn’t help that some of the loudest voices cheering for Assad’s fall where Palestinians and that sectarism is strong against Shia’s…
I regret spending 30 seconds skimming that article.
Key quote that I was looking for, which invalidates the whole thing:
LOLOL, be serious!
What else would you call a mutual defense treaty? The fact that Russia is the only country in Eastern Europe that poses a consistent threat to its neighbors, isn’t because NATO keeps expanding. NATO keeps expanding because Russia continues to invade its neighbors. Eastern European countries wouldn’t be seeking NATO’s protection, if they didn’t think there was a genuine threat to their sovereignty so close to their borders.
How many countries has Russia invaded since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991? How many countries have NATO members invaded since that same time? What was the reasoning behind those invasions?
Perhaps you have a different answer, but here’s mine: Russia has invaded Ukraine (for 10 years, ongoing) and Georgia (for about a week?) since that time, both for legitimate defensive/strategic reasons as I have explained elsewhere in this thread. NATO members (USA) have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan since that time, Iraq for absolutely no good reason for over 8 years, and Afghanistan as an overreaction to 9/11 for nearly 20 years, where a limited intervention to capture Osama Bin Laden would have sufficed. Maybe I have missed some items, but from my perspective, NATO looks like a bigger threat than Russia.
That’s just “whataboutism”. The US is bad. We all get that. But that doesn’t justify other countries also doing bad shit.
When the US went after Assad in Syria, I was glad that Russia stepped in and stood up to them. Why? Because regime change politics are bad. No one should have the right to unilaterally decide who’s in charge of another country. Period.
So, when Russia decides they should be allowed to just waltz into Ukraine and pull the same shit…I am equally glad that someone stepped in and stood up to them. Why? Because if it’s bad when one country does it…it’s equally bad when another country does it. Period.
How in any conceivable way do you rationalize invading other countries for “legitimate defensive / strategic reasons”? Or, do you also agree that the US can do that too, as long as they have those “defensive / strategic” excuses for being hostile towards other countries?
No, it’s directly and logically countering your argument.
Your exact quote I was responding to:
Please provide evidence to demonstrate how Russia is more dangerous to NATO than NATO is to Russia.
Regarding your other questions, I already explained my rationale in another part of this post. I would have much preferred that Russia would have found some other solution to address the existential threat that NATO poses to them, but I can understand their reasoning for doing it this way. They made the calculation that offense would be the best defense, which is valid at any level of self-defense.
I’m not making a moral argument. I’m making a realistic geopolitics argument. If you want a hypothetical involving the US, I have a perfect one that parallels what has happened: what exactly do you think the US would do if Mexico were already in a full military alliance with Russia and China expressly created to be anti-US, and Canada announced that it was planning to join that same alliance? Please answer this question.
Edit: to make the opening less confrontational.
See, this is the root of the issue…it has literally nothing to do with NATO. Russia is a threat to its non-NATO neighbors. The stock nature reason those Eastern block countries all want to join NATO is because without that protection, they are vulnerable to attack.
Chechnya. Georgia. Ukraine. They are also using coercive tactics against several others in order to cause chaos and disruptions to their societies. Of course those countries are going to look to someone for help. If Russia really wanted to prevent more countries from going NATO…all they need to do is drop the aggression. People feel safer when they aren’t being threatened with political extortion or the possibility of invasion.
And I would love to hear your rationale for why NATO even poses an “existential threat” to Russia. There have been no plans to invade. No moves to take their territory. Most NATO countries were active trade partners with Russia up until they invaded Ukraine. So, what “threat” is Russia even responding to?
Again, can you demonstrate that Russia has used more coercive tactics, chaos, disruptions, and corruption for geo-strategic advantage than the West has used since 1991? If you want to go back further than that, let’s include the much more sordid record of the US overthrowing governments left, right, and center around the world. The military dictatorships, the death squads, etc. The point I’m making is that the West, particularly the US since the end of WWII, is in no position to claim cleaner hands than Russia, and least of all use that claim to justify their actions as being more well-intentioned than Russia’s.
If countries next door to yours which are allied to a major historical foe (known for using underhanded tactics to manipulate and overthrow governments and for starting major wars) having missiles, including nuclear ones, pointed at you is not a threat, I’m not sure what you would consider a threat. For comparison, the US nearly completely lost its shit when tiny Cuba had a handful of Russian nukes located there. If you can’t see why Russia would be extremely concerned about a powerful, armed anti-Russia coalition immediately next door to them, I don’t think there’s much point in continuing the discussion.
Lol! So, it’s just a competition to you? As long as the US is bad, Russia can do whatever it wants? How does that justification not work both ways, then? It’s just a race to the bottom. All you’re really doing is arguing who’s worse, in order to give the other guy a pass.
You’re trying to twist my words into something they’re not. That part of the conversation was relating to your assertion that Russia was so threatening that it justified NATO expansion. I see that you also didn’t address the second part of my last post, about why Russia would feel existentially threatened by that same NATO expansion.