Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

It’s not hindsight bias, that’s for sure, because the predictions and the events that led us on this path were documented and recorded.

Ted Carpenter: There has never been in history a military alliance that is directed against no one. That is a contradiction in terms. Military alliances always either explicitly or at least implicitly have an adversary, and Bill has pointed out quite clearly, the only logical major adversary for the alliance is Russia. The future of the alliance, if we’re lucky, will mean more Bosnia-style quagmires. That’s if we’re lucky. If you liked NATO in Bosnia, you love NATO's expansion into central and eastern Europe.

Jonathan Dean: I’ve been involved with NATO since the early 1950’s when I helped get Germany into NATO as a member. NATO in its present form continues useful and it provides all of the defense that Europe needs. On the other hand, the enlargement concept is a serious mistake, and the aspect of NATO’s expansion, which I think is most threatening for the United States, and which should cause greatest concern in the U.S. Senate is the boundless nature of this project. There are now twelve official candidates for NATO membership. Three European neutral countries are also thinking of joining. The Baltic states and Romania are scheduled for the next round. If the Baltic states appear to be making progress, Ukraine will want in. That gives us sixteen candidates, doubling the current membership of NATO. The central Asia Republics of Azerbaijan has also indicated interest. In fact, any membership, any member of the Partnership for Peace is eligible to apply. There are twenty seven of these in addition to present NATO members. Now, there’s literally no end to this enterprise in sight. The administration refuses to place any limits on it. Consequently, there is no end to the U.S. security commitments the project involves to its cost and its risks. In the next round of enlargement, if NATO commits to defend the Baltic states and Romania, in order to make good on these commitments then large numbers of NATO and U.S. ground, air and naval forces will have to move into the Baltic Sea in the north and also into the Black Sea in the south. This will be a gigantic military pincers movement around the heartland of Russia like the one that Hitler attempted. Unless it’s handled very differently than it’s being handled now, this project will create the conditions for a very dangerous long-term confrontation with Russia. The official Russian national security doctrine adopted last December, states explicitly that Russia considers that NATO expansion threatens its national security. This is a serious statement. It cannot be fobbed off or ignored. To make an enduring enemy of the world’s largest country with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and with the endless capacity to cause difficulties for the United States is an enormous cost. This especially the case for a project whose immediate object of securing democracy in eastern Europe can be achieved by other means without any additional cost or risk.

(Mar 20, 2022 06:34 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]It’s not hindsight bias, that’s for sure, because the predictions and the events that led us on this path were documented and recorded.

Ted Carpenter: There has never been in history a military alliance that is directed against no one. That is a contradiction in terms. Military alliances always either explicitly or at least implicitly have an adversary, and Bill has pointed out quite clearly, the only logical major adversary for the alliance is Russia. The future of the alliance, if we’re lucky, will mean more Bosnia-style quagmires. That’s if we’re lucky. If you liked NATO in Bosnia, you love NATO's expansion into central and eastern Europe.

Jonathan Dean: I’ve been involved with NATO since the early 1950’s when I helped get Germany into NATO as a member. NATO in its present form continues useful and it provides all of the defense that Europe needs. On the other hand, the enlargement concept is a serious mistake, and the aspect of NATO’s expansion, which I think is most threatening for the United States, and which should cause greatest concern in the U.S. Senate is the boundless nature of this project. [...]

Yah, it's no doubt similar to a bureaucratic department or entitlement program that utopian ideology introduces to address some issue. But like living organisms, those agencies refuse to die or diminish themselves after the problem is remedied or eased, or after the approach demonstrates itself to be ineffective slash disastrous. Some just re-invent themselves to hang around.

Yet, there's not much the US can do to protect itself from NATO's hunger other than withdraw  -- as Trump was supposedly going to do if he won re-election. But that's an extremely difficult taste for the government and the population to acquire (see footnote). In turn, the US would lose its military bases in Europe, or at best hang onto a few as merely a global partner (but that would still keep it entangled in Europe's "reproductive" urges).

With Germany now dramatically beefing up its military -- a new triumvirate of Deutschland, Great Britain, and France providing a replacement nuclear umbrella for NATO defense might stimulate members to say bye-bye to the US someday. If the latter stirred up as much uneasiness as during Trump's tenure. But a parting of ways still seems a distant development in the future.

Even then, Canada would probably remain a member, so nuclear warheads would still be on their way to a part of North America if NATO triggered WWIII. Plus, the US and Canada surely have a continent defense partnership existing outside of NATO ties, so what happens to Canada would remain the business of the US.

- - - footnote - - -

United States withdrawal from NATO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal...ted_States

Donald Trump expressed interest in withdrawing from the organization during his 2016 presidential campaign. However, after he was inaugurated in 2017, he stated that the United States would protect allies in the event that Article V is invoked.

Nevertheless, the New York Times reported in 2019 that a year earlier, he had already mentioned several times privately that he wanted the United States to leave NATO. Such concerns led the House of Representatives in January 2019, to pass the NATO Support Act (H.R. 676), confirming Congress' support for NATO and prohibiting Trump from potentially withdrawing from NATO. On December 11, 2019, the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee passed a bill to be put in front of Congress which would require Congressional approval for American withdrawal from NATO.

Polling conducted by Pew Research Center in 2017, said that 62% of Americans are favorable to NATO compared to 23% who are not favorable. In terms of voters, over three-quarters of Democrats are favorable with just 48% of Republicans favorable. Also they said that a plurality of those surveyed, 47% said NATO does too little globally. In further polling in 2019 on the eve of the 70th anniversary of NATO's founding, 77% of Americans say being a member of NATO is good for the United States.

While both major parties support NATO membership, all the major third parties including the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, and the Constitution Party support withdrawing the United States from NATO.

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europ...on-fantasy

The truth about Putin’s “denazification” fantasy
The Russian president is twisting history in an attempt to justify an unjustifiable war on Ukraine.

By Katie Stallard

"Vladimir Putin is fighting an enemy that does not exist. He has invaded Ukraine and taken his country to war on an entirely fictional premise. In an address to Russian citizens from the Kremlin on 24 February, he claimed the government in Kyiv had been seized by “extreme nationalists and neo-Nazis” and that he had sent in the Russian military to save innocent civilians from “genocide” and force the “denazification” of Ukraine.

To state the obvious, this is a lie. There are no neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian government and there is no genocide. It is Russian warplanes, tanks and heavy artillery that are killing Ukrainian civilians. “How can I be a Nazi?” asked the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky – who is Jewish and whose grandfather fought for the Red Army against Hitler during the Second World War – in a direct appeal to Russian citizens on 23 February, the eve of the conflict. “The Ukraine in your news and the Ukraine of real life are two entirely different places. The difference is that the latter is real.”

Putin has crafted his grotesque fantasy over decades. Since he first came to power in 1999, he has elevated the memory of Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War, as Russians call the Second World War, to the status of a national religion. He has cast himself as the great leader of a besieged nation, defending Russian citizens against foreign threats and a phantom resurgence of fascism, which he insists is rising in Europe once again.

“When Putin used the term ‘denazification’ in his declaration of war, he was not speaking to foreign audiences, he was speaking first and foremost to his own public,” said Izabella Tabarovsky, a senior programme associate at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, Washington DC, who studies historical memory and anti-Semitism. “It was an attempt to demonise, to create a false equivalence between Ukraine today and Nazi Germany. The subtext of his message was: ‘Look, we are still the good guys here! It’s a war of self-defence! There is a genocide against our people! We are fighting a just war, just as we did in 1941-45!’”

There is a long history in Russia and in the Soviet Union of those in power exploiting the idea of a fascist threat to serve their own political needs. Rather than acknowledging the horrors of the Holocaust that were revealed in 1945, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin stoked a new campaign of anti-Semitism and co-opted the term “fascism” to insist that Hitler had attacked the USSR and the Soviet people in general, rather than any one group in particular. The American historian Amir Weiner recounts that two decades later in 1965, when researchers at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust centre in Jerusalem, wrote to the Soviet government to request information on the fate of Soviet Jews, they were told that documents “relating to the crimes of German fascism in the Second World War are not organised according to the nationality of the victims”.

Putin himself began cultivating the idea of a fascist resurgence to mobilise popular support during his first term in power, following the “colour revolutions” in neighbouring Georgia and Ukraine in 2003 and 2004. But after the Arab Spring swept a series of longstanding dictators from power across the Middle East, beginning in December 2010, and mass anti-government protests were staged in Moscow and other Russian cities in 2011-12, the Kremlin seized on the concept in earnest.

Putin’s supporters organised a series of counter-protests in December 2011, styling themselves as patriots standing up to a Western-orchestrated plot to sow unrest. They invoked the memory of the Great Patriotic War, demanding an end to the “orange plague” – a term that deliberately conflated the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the “brown plague” as Hitler’s stormtroopers, or brown shirts, were known in Russia. Where the anti-government protesters wore white ribbons, the pro-Putin crowd pinned the orange and black ribbon of St George to their lapels, a symbol of the Soviet victory in 1945 that has become popular since Putin came to power. The Russian leader wears the ribbon himself during the country’s annual Victory Day celebrations.

When protesters took to the streets of Kyiv two years later in the winter of 2013-14, in what became known as the Maidan Revolution (named after the Maidan Nezalehnosti, or Independence Square, where the crowds rallied), Putin launched into his familiar script as to who was to blame. Instead of the truth – that Ukrainians were protesting their president Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to scrap a trade deal with the European Union in favour of closer ties with Russia – he claimed that Western intelligence agencies were fomenting unrest and that fascists and neo-Nazis were taking power.


Russian state television, which 90 per cent of the population said was their main source of news at the time, screened endless footage of the violence in Kyiv, with a relentless focus on the most radical groups. There were claims of pogroms and reports that people from the predominantly Russian-speaking eastern regions would be sent to a “fascist concentration camp”. The pro-Kremlin coalition that had rallied two years earlier reinvented itself as an “anti-Maidan” movement and claimed to be standing against “21st-century fascism”, just as their ancestors had fought against Hitler.

Putin claimed that “people wearing armbands with something resembling swastikas” were patrolling the streets of the Ukrainian capital. He told a group of journalists the false story of how those rallying in Kyiv had supposedly captured one of their victims and “burned him alive”. Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations told a Security Council meeting there was “open terror” in Ukraine. It was true that far-right groups did take part in the protests, and the far-right Azov battalion became part of Ukraine’s national guard. But these radical factions were in the minority, and the idea that a “fascist junta” had seized Kyiv was a fiction created in Moscow.

Still, it was effective propaganda. When I was reporting from Donetsk, the capital of one of the self-proclaimed “People’s Republics” in eastern Ukraine, during the conflict that followed, a young boy in a bomb shelter told me that they were being shelled by the “fascists” in Kyiv. When Putin annexed Crimea in March 2014, he claimed to be defending the peninsula’s largely Russian-speaking population from the “nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites”, which he said had taken over the Ukrainian government.

The disinformation campaign reached its apogee in July 2014, when the Russian television network Channel One broadcast a report claiming that Ukrainian government forces had crucified a three-year-old boy in a public square in Slavyansk. The channel’s reporter interviewed a woman who claimed to have been there and described how people had fainted at the sound of the little boy’s bloodcurdling screams. It was a monstrous lie that was quickly debunked by other journalists, but viewers were never told that it wasn’t true. The channel merely added a subsequent disclaimer to say that it was “not able to confirm or refute the information” in the report.

Putin has doubled down on his lies over the past eight years, insisting that a fascist regime is perpetrating genocide in Ukraine, with Western powers led by the US pulling the strings. This is the foundation on which he has built his nonsensical claim that Russian forces are now engaged in the “denazification” of Ukraine, instead of the truth that they are waging an unprovoked war of aggression. He does not need all Russians to believe him – and there is good evidence that they do not – just enough of his core supporters and senior officials to go along with the pretence that his actions are justified.

“This is what makes propaganda and demonisation so dangerous,” Izabella Tabarovsky told me. “Once you’ve used a term enough times, the audiences who trust you no longer question its meaning, it becomes part of their consciousness. We can be certain that the very same words that Putin used in his declaration of war have been used to brainwash the Russian troops that are now attacking Ukraine. In this sense, demonisation kills.”

As those Russian forces now fight their way into Ukrainian cities, they will find there are no “neo-Nazis” holding the population hostage. There will be no grateful crowds throwing flowers in front of their tanks. Instead, Ukrainian citizens are lining up to fight to defend their freedom. Grandfathers are reporting for duty with hunting rifles. Mothers and grandmothers are preparing Molotov cocktails. Villagers are using tractors and sandbags to block the roads. The fiction that this is a war of liberation will be impossible to sustain for long.

“When you will be attacking us, you will see our faces, not our backs,” promised Zelensky in his address on 23 February as he prepared to lead the defence of the capital. Perhaps some of those advancing troops will come to see the lies they have been sold for what they are – and that it is Vladimir Putin, the man who has long claimed to be defending Russia, who represents the greatest threat to them all."

This is Maria. She bakes fresh bread for Ukrainian soldiers day and night.

(Mar 20, 2022 07:57 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Yah, it's no doubt similar to a bureaucratic department or entitlement program that utopian ideology introduces to address some issue. But like living organisms, those agencies refuse to die or diminish themselves after the problem is remedied or eased, or after the approach demonstrates itself to be ineffective slash disastrous. Some just re-invent themselves to hang around.

Yet, there's not much the US can do to protect itself from NATO's hunger other than withdraw  -- as Trump was supposedly going to do if he won re-election. But that's an extremely difficult taste for the government and the population to acquire (see footnote). In turn, the US would lose its military bases in Europe, or at best hang onto a few as merely a global partner (but that would still keep it entangled in Europe's "reproductive" urges).

With Germany now dramatically beefing up its military -- a new triumvirate of Deutschland, Great Britain, and France providing a replacement nuclear umbrella for NATO defense might stimulate members to say bye-bye to the US someday. If the latter stirred up as much uneasiness as during Trump's tenure. But a parting of ways still seems a distant development in the future.

Even then, Canada would probably remain a member, so nuclear warheads would still be on their way to a part of North America if NATO triggered WWIII. Plus, the US and Canada surely have a continent defense partnership existing outside of NATO ties, so what happens to Canada would remain the business of the US.

Clinton sold the expansion on the premise of securing peace and promoting democracy, if that was the case then Russia should have been included. A military alliance isn’t a good means to peddle ideological ideas. It was the Marshall Plan, not NATO that helped Germany become economically and politically stable. NATO’s expansion also allowed America to become the world leader in the arms trade. Ramping up arms, sold only to so-called friendly nations, of course, but it prompted others to add to their stockpile. The concerns over the costs of the expansion, way back when, is minuscule compared to the aid that we’ve given to Ukraine over the years and what was the latest approval…13.6 billion? The question of (what if’s) are irrelevant now. We know that we’ve undermined Russian reform and the danger that we face today trumps all the claimed benefits of NATO’s expansion.

NATO has a responsibility to prevent this conflict from escalating further. They’re discussing measures to reinforce allies, which will require a major increase in defense investment.

Russian drones keep breaching NATO airspace. They deployed two missile battalions equipped with SSC-8 missiles in February 2017, which can be armed with nuclear warheads, and have a range of roughly 1,460 miles. We withdrew from the INF treaty in August of 2019.

NATO said that we can’t underestimate the military capabilities of Russia when it comes to continuing the war including the will to use nuclear force. He said that we need to realize that we are faced with a total new security reality, which is also putting more pressure on counties that are not members of NATO at risk.

Putin wanted less NATO on his borders but now he’s getting more. They’re having a summit on Thursday the 24th to ensure that they’re united and closely aligned.

Well, there goes the hopes of 2022 being a better year.

The pejorative term is not a Putin apologist, it’s westplainers. As the story has it, westplainers are incapable of intellectually honest critiques of NATO’s expansion.

I think the term Putin hasn't used yet is перестройка(Perestroika)

(Mar 21, 2022 05:24 PM)stryder Wrote: [ -> ]I think the term Putin hasn't used yet is перестройка(Perestroika)

We assumed that Russia would remain weak, and their security concerns could be safely ignored. The whole thing turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. What do you think, Stryder? Should we have waited on the expansion until there was a genuine security threat from Russia?

Bits and pieces from the video below.

Quote:Last year, Putin said our mistake was that we trusted you too much and your mistake was that you took advantage of that. That is the situation today. Now, it may seem to you that I’m blaming the United States, I don’t want the word blame used. It was a mistaken political decision. It was not the Russians. It was this decision that finally led to this change we see in Putin’s attitude towards the west, and in particular, towards the United States, which is why I say how U.S. policy created Putin the way he is today. He does not trust the United States, which makes it very difficult to move away from where we are today. Now, we are in a new arms race and a new Cold War, which threatens all of us.
…
From someone who works in the media, I would like to say that Russian mainstream media paints America black. It shows an extremely negative picture of the Unite States, U.S. policy and so on. And much to my surprise, mainstream American media does exactly the same thing vis-à-vis Russia. Which to me is amazing because this is supposed to be a free media as differing from the Russian one. As someone who works in Russian media, I can say that it’s hard to call it a free media. There’s some opposition in newspapers and radio, but that’s not mainstream. They address a very small number of people. So, there we are, I think people who call themselves journalist, in my book, they’re not journalist. Those people have played and are playing a destructive role in creating the fear, the dislike, the distrust in both countries. And the fact that we don’t seem to question our media is really quite interesting. We just take it.

He ended it with quote from the infamous Hermann Goering.

"Naturally, the common people don’t want war. Neither in Russia nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany, that is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is the democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, people can always be to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for a lack of patriotism and exposing their country to danger. It works the same in any country."

And I think he was absolutely right. We are being led by our media and by our politicians in both countries.

He said that he hoped that what he said today, would encourage people to look into it. I don’t say to anyone, believe me, trust me…heaven forbid, just look into it. That’s all I would say.

And that's all I'm asking of you, to do your own research and come to your own conclusions outside of mainstream media.

(Mar 21, 2022 11:14 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]Bits and pieces from the video below.....

....He said that he hoped that what he said today, would encourage people to look into it. I don’t say to anyone, believe me, trust me…heaven forbid, just look into it. That’s all I would say.

And that's all I'm asking of you, to do your own research and come to your own conclusions outside of mainstream media.

Breaking my holiday just to say - well said! But.... (my interpretation of emoticon - wearing earmuffs.)