Russia-Ukraine-NATO conflict

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Russia claims to be "threatened" by the NATO expansion to the east.
But NATO does not force any country to become a member of NATO. They choose for themselves.

Why should Russia decide the membership of organizations, unions and alliances for other sovereign nations?
Why may they not decide for themselves?

Because when nations decide for themselves, they often don't choose Russia.
And who would like to lose power? Not Russia.

Then Russia is by definition THE aggressor. The only aggressor in this conflict is Russia.

Agreed.

Whatever Russia is doing to scare or piss off its neighbors, Russia needs to stop.

Similarly, the U.S.A. needs to be a better neighbor than it is now to Canada and Mexico, especially Mexico. Otherwise, it wouldn't surprise me if Mexico ends up seeking friends elsewhere ... and we end up with Russian or Chinese troops just beyond our southern border.

Canada let the Chinese troops fly military missions or exercises last year.

I grew up in the cold war & a lot stayed with me and became a kind of bizarre aspie interest, long after most NT people forgot about it, along with the USSR, Russia & WW2, despite not being communist or wanting to live there.

Basically, this is the situation, Russia had been repeatedly invaded from the west over the centuries & suffered its own holocaust in WW2 and lost over 20million people so is suspicious at being encircled.

The US promised not to expand NATO eastward when the USSR was dismantled, the US broke that promise and started expanding eastward anyway beginning in the late 90`s long before all this crisis ever happened.

Russia taking S Ossetia from Georgia in 2008, Crimea & E Ukraine in 2014 where ethnic Russians live was partly to stop NATO expanding.

With the exception of Crimea these territories are tiny and quite useless to the largest country on the planet apart from one thing however : -

NATO has a clause where it won’t admit new members with border disputes. So despite all the rhetoric of Ukraine or Georgia Joining NATO, that would automatically mean these states would not be allowed to join unless they are willing to let these territories go, which they probably wont.

However, Ukraine can still be used by US to station strike weapons that Russia would be threatened by.

Its easy to say :-



That is just for public consumption. Nobody really believes that military alliances, the positioning of strike weapons , or hosting the army of your neighbour`s enemy next door to them don’t matter, least of all the US in the Cuban Missile crisis or Israel today when it strikes at Iranian proxies in Syria.

Or if China one day put missiles in Mexico.

Russia is demanding a so-called neutral zone around its territory which isn’t really that unreasonable.

This week there were last ditch talks between Russia & US commonly known as the “Russian ultimatum” or known in Russia as “not one step back”. These talks failed

So, expect things to get nasty soon, it looks like we`ll all be living under the bomb again.

Everyone talked about disarming nuclear weapons during the cold war.

What about this one:

Both parties should agree to ABOLISH conscription. This would put an end to all wars. Forever.

Imperialism is bad, not only for the people and nations being subjugated into a vast empire, but also to the people already living in the vast empire, whatever it might be.

I hate when Prime Ministers, Presidents and Kings/Queens alike talk about the "greatness of their nation".

What they actually mean by that phrase is to subjugate its own citizens, to create coercion, state control and no personal liberties left for the ordinary citizens, and they use conscription to achieve the "national greatness".

I tell you something: Greatness is not measured in troops of forced labor. It is measured in peace, prosperity and liberty.

Many wars have been fought between countries with volunteer armies.

historically, that's not true. And it should be said: the nations that chose Russia had their country invaded, their presidents killed and replaced by a dictator, or their islamic-fundamentalist mountainfolk equipped with heavy weapons by the US.

The cold war was weird in that in the midst of what was said to be a conflict where both sides were "Tense", both sides were also involved in friendly talks and exchanging educational information which later filtered down into the UK and other parts of Europe. The Russian educational methods shared became what we in the UK call the GCSEs which follow quite a different concept to the old O levels we had before did. (I was lucky (Or unlucky) enough to be taught in the transition stage between the two and have two younger brothers where I saw such a change during this time. The whole method of teaching had changed during this time.
It is why I can see communistic politics being pushed today as these are being pushed by the generations which have been taught under the communistic GCSE's.
One would need to have been taught under both methods like I was to notice the difference, or be a teacher under both the systems to notice. As a pupil the change was quite a change! Some things are better. Some things are worse. One thing that has made a serious impact is with autistic children because in the past, individuality was the backbone of how one was taught, but the GCSE's were all about conformity and getting everyone to think in the same ways. Very different concepts and anyone on the spectrum has a hard time under GCSE's where they may not even be "Found out" as being autistic under the O level or CSE's that came before.

But going back to the Cold War. I get the impression that it was more about keeping both the Russian and the American people (And us in Europe) in fear so we can be controlled while the governments themselves were on friendlier terms then one expected.
Charlette Isbyt confirms this theory when one traces education methods in the USA and how they changed and when and why, and that is just one aspect of a larger picture where Russia came politically closer to the democratic west and the west came closer to communistic Russia.
I am not saying that both are the same, but the gap between the two extremes became closer.

Afghanistan was a prosperous and liberal democratic country prior to the Soviet coup in 1973.

What do the names San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco have in common? They are Spanish names. Then a lot of others arrived from the other side of the continent and took over the land from the original owners. Similarily, there are still a lot of Russians living in the Ukraine, which used to be part of the Soviet Union. Even in France, where I now live, there are minority areas where Spanish, Italian, and other regional languages are still spoken.
In Europe, after WW2, a military alliance, called NATO, was created which was a primary block to further Soviet expansion. The collapse of the Soviet Union suddenly produced independent nations, most having a serious variety of nationalities including Russian nationals. These new nations share borders with the Russian government. They are generally not members of NATO but we already know that NATO has been supplying arms to Ukraine specifically designed to oppose a Russian military assault.
I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis. Google it if you want more information. The Russians were putting attack missiles only 90 miles (!) from US shores. This was as close to a nuclear war between the US and the USSR as ever in modern history. School kids would hide under their desks and curl up in a ball when the practice alarms started. Thank God Russia folded.
Now, Russia knows that we are providing military equipment to the Ukraine, including attack rockets, although they are not official members of NATO.
If you choose to not care what the "other side" is thinking and go ahead with your planning like they don't matter, thousands of years of history shows clearly that this is not a good idea.

^ I'm not sure what you want to express by this.

Some former Soviet Union states - Baltic States - are now members of EU and NATO despite having significant Russian minorities. It already happened, years ago, and everyone is living with it.
Do you want to deny Ukraine a right to choose a similar path?

My nation had our future decided above our heads, without anything to say, in Yalta. Thank you very much. Saying "oh, it's the influence zone of X" sounds well at a desk thousands of kilometers away but not when you're the one tortured for rallying for democracy.