(Mar 4, 2022 01:42 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ] (Mar 4, 2022 12:17 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Ah, so it's our actual indifference (beforehand; leaving them hanging in the wind so to speak) coupled with pretentiousness that makes us the bad guys and the cause of Putin doing what he's doing. My bad. Should have zeroed in better on what the West should be wallowing in guilt and shame over as Godzilla goes about reducing towns to rubble. Just took it for granted as the usual broad range of shenanigans attributed to us. ("Just admit you're the one responsible for him behaving that way. Just admit it, you wretched little babysitter tart!")
"We’ve forced his hand. Why? Was it to weaken Russia or are we just that delusional about the promotion of democracy and/or globalism?
They already decided in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia could join NATO, but now…crickets. They put in an application to join the EU and are begging for immediate acceptance, but thus far, the words of encouragement are just symbolic.
What am I missing here because it looks to me like we’re the bad guys, and Ukraine…a sacrificial lamb?"
No, not entirely.
"Supporters of American exceptionalism may argue that it is the purpose of the United States to spread democracies to nations that are under tyrannical governments." And that we Americans are a special people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty and democracy.
Me? Not so much. I don’t think that we’re a shining city upon a hill. We’ve been the aggressors in many situations throughout history and I think we might be in this case, as well.
Professor Mearsheimer pointed out that Victoria Nuland, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, estimated in December 2013 that the United States had invested more than $5 billion since 1991 to help Ukraine achieve “the future it deserves.” As part of that effort, the U.S. government has bankrolled the National Endowment for Democracy. When Russian leaders look at Western social engineering in Ukraine, they worry that their country might be next. And such fears are hardly groundless.
He said, too, that the U.S. diplomat George Kennan articulated this perspective in a 1998 interview, shortly after the U.S. Senate approved the first round of NATO expansion. "I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies," he said. "I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anyone else." Kennan also said that it was "the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era."
I can’t really find any good reason to believe otherwise. Oh, there’s tons of emotional appeals, but no clear logical reasons. I’m open to anything that you might put forth. Got any rabbits in your hat, C C?
Well, for the moment let's stick to NATO denying Ukraine a MAP in 2008 as being what was god-awful, before switching and running the opposite direction of "NATO devouring all" being the great menace for Putin.
What I take away from below [the chunk of red at bottom] is that becoming a NATO member is usually a slow and complicated process. Most Ukrainian citizens didn't even want such until Russia made its aggressive dance moves the decade before. Popularity for NATO membership increased afterwards, but from the West it still sounds like more of the long-term, ambiguous promise stuff (with glitter glued on this time):
"Sure, pumpkin. You'll be riding a pony someday. Just give it a quarter or half century. You betcha'. Yes, I know some of boys out in the bunkhouse are a carrying-on about speedier miracles. But it's just one of their retentive episodes, due to laxatives being among the supply-chain shortages on the ranch."
Non-allegorical: "Senior Ukrainian officials have voiced concern that NATO has provided no clarity regarding Ukraine’s membership prospects. Specifically, when might Kyiv receive a membership action plan, known as MAP? Ukraine has already waited a long time. It will have to wait longer. That is unfair, but that is the reality."
Definitely seems like the kind of rapidly impending peril that would drive Putin to preempt this horror right now -- that's brewing on the doorstep of a distant-future probability land.
Elsewhere, the so-called Russian "oligarch-entrepreneurs" are said to be quietly unhappy about Putin's current war. As if it might really be a single guy here who truly wants this -- the one they gave a big stick to, and his administration, whose desires are masked behind a defensive paranoia facade, as he goads his large herd forward with electric cattle prods. But I digress into personal opinon...
Okay, now we can go alternating current and race the other way where NATO denying Ukraine a MAP back in 2008, today, and tomorrow would apparently seem a good thing. Given Russia's celebrated paranoia about NATO on its doorstep: "
And what was America's response? It was to expand the NATO cold-war alliance against Russia and bring it closer to Russia's borders".
But somehow, Putin is justified in experiencing intense dread about it not happening. He now supposedly has all the more an excuse to invade. But do those wimpy assurances from NATO to Ukraine ("
Yes, you'll be a member someday!") really warrant Putin's reaction, especially this early?
Seems like a personal judgement call... _X_ feels it's sufficient reason because Putin has delicate sensibilities and has no choice but to act; and _Y_ feels Putin ought to grow a thicker pair.
Or maybe Putin is like Jacob and Darlene Snell of
Ozark. Bitter that the dam and its ensuing lake (that the state wanted) flooded their family's land that went back generations:
"You know they'll start taking more away from us eventually, even after moving us to this rocky highland where nothing's fit to grow but poppies."
Friedman: "One only wonders what future historians will say. If we are lucky they will say that NATO expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic simply didn't matter..."
Oh, silly me. Does this war have anything at all to do with the above? Putin just intervened to stop atrocities...
Why Putin invaded: But the leaders of the two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic,” ordered their residents to evacuate to Russia, warning of an imminent attack by the Ukrainian army — which Kyiv adamantly denied. Russian state media began to deliver a flood of public reports about alleged “atrocities” taking place in the region, which Putin has repeatedly called a “genocide.” International monitors categorically deny that’s the case.
Just days later, Putin conducted apparently staged consultations with senior Kremlin officials. One by one, they lined up to tell him that the only way to stop the alleged “carnage” in Donbas was to recognize the separatist regions as independent. Hours later Putin did just that, while also promising to send Russian troops into the breakaway republics under the guise of “peacekeepers.”
Or whatever other countless excuses he might have alternatively concocted the appearance of, along with various speculative pundits around the globe spurting out conspiracy speculations about what's going on.
Gee, for me it just seems a lot easier to regard Putin as another expanding head nut-job and sit back and watch the entertainment of his buffs and apologists mocking me.
Yes, yes, I am among the Evil Ones who is responsible for your Blessed going on his rampage of destroying and breaking things. Yes, yes, the Cult down the street also regularly mourns my abysmal ignorance and lack of enlightment with regard to their esoteric matters as well.
And yes, I am going to your special Hell for Westerners who have helped brutally orchestrate this terrible fence of NATO that's incrementally encroaching upon your beloved's Kingdom. As if it was the
New Safe Confinement itself inching over the old Chernobyl sarcophagus.
I ... just ... don't ... care.
"Oh, you pathetic blind soul. Still shunning the path of awakening, continuing with your own brands of wickedness while heaping cruelty upon the Great Leader of the Rus. Yata, yata, yata..."
- - - - - -
(1)
Is Ukraine getting closer to NATO membership?:
It’s been 13 years since NATO declined to grant Ukraine a Membership Action Plan, considered to be the next step on the way to joining the alliance. Since then, much has changed to the country, including Russia’s occupation of Crimea and proxy war in Donbas; many believe the membership plan is long overdue. During the Moving Forward: Ukraine’s NATO Track, experts discussed Ukraine’s strategic importance and the stages of its integration with NATO.
On May 6th, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kyiv to reaffirm Washington’s political, economic, and security support for Ukraine. That same day, Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, spoke to an international audience online about Ukraine’s NATO ambitions.
At a 2008 summit in Bucharest, NATO recognized Ukraine’s aspirations to join the alliance and stated that the country would one day become a member – but declined to grant Ukraine a Membership Action Plan (MAP). It was the same case for Georgia. At the time, some said that not granting Kyiv and Tbilisi an action plan would help placate Russia.
(2)
Ukraine–NATO relations:
In March 2016, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker stated that it would take at least 20–25 years for Ukraine to join the EU and NATO. On 8 June 2017, Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada passed a law making integration with NATO a foreign policy priority. In July 2017 Poroshenko announced that he would seek the opening of negotiations on a Membership Action Plan with NATO. In that same month President Poroshenko began proposing a 'patronage system', tying individual regions with European States.
(3)
What does it take to join NATO?:
However, some analysts point out that judging to what extent a country will be able to fulfill NATO's conditions is difficult, since many of the admission criteria -- barring the military conditions -- are hard to quantify, and a country's strategic importance may at times be considered ahead of its democratic and economic development.
NATO says that assessing a country's readiness to join the alliance is not a mechanical process that only implies gathering a number of points to secure admission. NATO spokesman Mark Laity said MAP criteria are rigorous but are not mathematical calculations. Laity told RFE/RL that NATO open-mindedly takes into account each candidate's situation.
"Well, I think that the membership action program is what is required of these states, and MAP is very rigorous. But I want to avoid, as I said, being mechanistic. There are a lot of things which countries need to do which are very hard to quantify," Laity said. "This is not a computer program. It is not a subjective process, but you cannot turn it into a mathematical formula. And we are fully realistic about the fact that some countries have to start further back than other countries because of the particular problems they have. But do remember: We want countries to join us, but we are not a charity."
(4)
Ukraine–NATO relations:
Relations between Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) started in 1992. Ukraine applied to begin a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) in 2008. Plans for NATO membership were shelved by Ukraine following the 2010 presidential election in which Viktor Yanukovych, who preferred to keep the country non-aligned, was elected President. Amid the Euromaidan unrest, Yanukovych fled Ukraine in February 2014.
The interim Yatseniuk Government which came to power initially said, with reference to the country's non-aligned status, that it had no plans to join NATO. However, following the Russian military invasion in Ukraine and parliamentary elections in October 2014, the new government made joining NATO a priority. On 21 February 2019, the Constitution of Ukraine was amended, the norms on the strategic course of Ukraine for membership in the European Union and NATO are enshrined in the preamble of the Basic Law, three articles and transitional provisions.
At the June 2021 Brussels Summit, NATO leaders reiterated the decision taken at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine would become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP) as an integral part of the process and Ukraine's right to determine its future and foreign policy, of course without outside interference. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also stressed that Russia will not be able to veto Ukraine's accession to NATO "as we will not return to the era of spheres of interest, when large countries decide what smaller ones should do."
According to polls conducted between 2005 and 2013, Ukrainian public support of NATO membership remained low. However, since the Russo-Ukrainian War and Annexation of Crimea, public support for Ukrainian membership in NATO has risen greatly. Since June 2014, polls showed that about 50% of those asked supported Ukrainian NATO membership. Some 69% of Ukrainians want to join NATO, according to a June 2017 poll by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, compared to 28% support in 2012 when Yanukovych was in power. 
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