Prior to the Soviet Union falling apart in 1991, the presence of NATO made complete sense. But after that, why did it grow and not contract?
Prior to the Soviet Union falling apart in 1991, the presence of NATO made complete sense. But after that, why did it grow and not contract?
Part of “The Great Game” the west has become addicted to, in which the citizens are now merely pawns.
Nothing afterwards became a deception as aged military age and fall apart as the new concept is faulty and breaking.
There is one country in Europe starting wars. Why wouldn’t countries wanting peace form a strong alliance in opposition? Weakness is a big cause of war.
scarp
“There is one country in Europe starting wars. ”
The USA isn’t in europe, and the CIA/State Department isn’t a country, try keeping FOOL.
NME666
Ukraine was shelling the Donbass since 2014.
So yeah, How come NATO was fine with that?
Nothing but warmongering lies. On par woth “Iraq has undeclared WMD and secret mobile WMD factories”. Why do you think so many countries support Ukraine? Non NATO ones too.
In 2015 my son was dating a young lady from Eastern Ukraine. A place I knew nothing about other than Ukraine had been in the news lately because of government corruption etc. I really didn’t pay much attention. On Christmas 2015 the young lady came to our place for Christmas dinner. She was a very charming lass who spoke English fluently. I asked her about Ukraine because I didn’t know a thing about its politics. She said that she had a phone call from her Mom the night before. Her mom told her that Ukraine had destroyed their house with an artillery shell. I was a bit taken aback. Ukraine was shelling Ukraine? Did that even make sense? She said yes it made sense because her family spoke Russian at home. That one got me.
Considering Russia loves false flags, how does she know it was Ukraine that fired the shell?
During the Cold War, when membership in NATO carried with it a real risk of nuclear war, it wasn’t sought after. The 5 eyes joined as a matter of course, and France joined reluctantly – doing the minimum required of them. It was in the 1990’s that it became advantageous to join. The Clinton government’s State Department was busily undermining the former Soviet Union by adding Baltic states to the alliance in the teeth of their promise not to do so, while their cronies in investment banks were systematically looting what remained of their wealth. They were determined to undermine and loot Russia, and the did so, sending it into a recession that lasted for over a decade.
To keep the new members invested, the United States armed them – and that’s when the defense industry realized what a lucrative thing NATO could be for them. US companies extracted wealth from the former Soviet Union. American taxpayers guaranteed loans to the corrupt governments of these states, and American defense companies were saved from the specter of an era of peace where no one needed weapons.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m a great supporter of the United States, but their post Cold War treatment of the Russian people was wrong, and the needless provocation and what Russia would see as a belligerent expansion of NATO were in the end bad ideas that have lead to the current sad state of affairs.
“ Don’t get me wrong: I’m a great supporter of the United States, but their post Cold War treatment of the Russian people was wrong”
I am an American and have been saying this for years. And now we’re on the verge of WWIII as a result. Thanks Deep State/CIA/State Department etc etc etc! Brilliant!
Tucker Carlson had a recent podcast with Jeffery Sachs where Sachs goes into a lot of the history of the last 30+ years concerning post-Soviet Russia, American / NATO treatment of them, and the leadup to the current mess in Ukraine. The narrative in the west is that Russia’s attack on Ukraine was unprovoked. Sachs goes into a great deal of detail to support the statement, “Unprovoked my ass!” (*) and has nothing but criticism, scorn and even contempt for the current American & NATO ruling classes.
(*) He doesn’t actually say that but he should’ve.
As an Anabaptist it’s my opinion that most, if not all wars are a result of poor or no diplomacy. Exception is naked unprovoked aggression, (envy, greed) usually in pursuit of unearned wealth – e.g., energy, and scarce resources, etc. More often than not the aggressor’s excuse is “It all started when he hit me back!” Another expression leading to war is “Let’s you and him fight.”
Jeffery Sachs should know. He was in the room with the drunk:
Four days after the conclusion of the Beijing Olympics, Vladimir Putin launched his long-premeditated war against Ukraine.
…]
Beyond Putin’s goal of remaking the Russian Empire is another long-term cause of the war which has gone largely unmentioned:
Russian and Western economists’ disastrous “shock therapy” policies of the 1990s.
This approach to remaking the post-Soviet economy produced massive economic disruption inside Russia and created the conditions for Putin to ascend to power in 1999.
The Russian and Ukrainian people are still paying the price for the mistakes made by men the West considers economic luminaries—Larry Summers and Jeffrey Sachs among them.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/%E2%80%98shock-therapy%E2%80%99-laid-groundwork-putin-and-ukraine-war%C2%A0-%C2%A0-205597
Chris
Spot on, as I also blame the same entities in my above post.
Chris — An astute reading of Eastern European realpolitik. I don’t know why people are having such a difficult time understanding the complicity of the US arms manufacturers, certain American politicians and NATO in the sacrifice of Ukraine — there’s a whole other story about the corruption of Ukraine and it’s leadership class. It’s like some people never moved beyond Rocky and Bullwinkle and Boris and Natasha.
Yep, it’s a real mystery alright, given that former KGB agent Vlad Putin now runs Russia as a one-party state and sends his military into nearby countries to fight Nazis. So different from the USSR. Well smaller (for now).
You know why Vlad Putin is the leader of Russia? Here’s the condensed version. The UK and USA (the main antagonists to Russia and later to the USSR) made promises to Yeltsin, the president of non-communist Russia, that NATO would only expand to take in E. Germany and not go any further. A couple of years later, NATO (at the urging of the USA and UK) went into Yugoslavia, which was a country historically considered within Russia’s sphere of influence (that’s why WW1 started the Russians backed the Serbs against Austria). As NATO jets were bombing Belgrade, Yeltsin realized that he had been made a patsy by the West’s promises and marked Putin as his successor, because Putin had lived in the West for a number of years and understood it best. Putin was to ensure that the West didn’t break up Russia in its weakened state after the demise of communism like it did to Yugoslavia. Knowing what we do today about the CIA antics in eastern Europe, one could surmise that it had a hand in Yugoslavia’s disintegration.
Fail.
The comment about “not one inch east” was Bakers comments in the 80s regarding reunification of Germany. Before the split of the USSR was even thought of.
He was talking about stationing NATO troops in East Germany. Nothing to do with NATO expansion. Even Gorbachev agreed in the 90s, no promises were said or implied that NATO could not expand.
Besides, a single bureaucrat would not have the ability to discuss NATO expansion. It’s another Putin myth.
You’re right. Nothing was ever written down…but stuff was said and was taken at face value–that old American BS about “agreements were made with giving your word and a handshake”. The West used the fact that there was nothing signed, therefore, there was no agreement not to expand further eastward–so they did. Hence, the reason Yeltsin felt snookered–and decided to put in place the KGB guy who could thwart Western domination of Russia. Furthermore, Russia (Yeltsin) wanted to join NATO way back in 1991, and was ignored tells me that there were some nefarious designs on Russia emanating from the West and NATO.
You’re making up lies. No verbal promises were made. In fact, the 1997 NATO-Russia founding act says the opposite:
“respect for sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all states and their inherent right to choose the means to ensure their own security”
The NATO Russia founding act was the first step of Russia joining NATO.
So … NATO helps slaughter hundreds of thousands of human lives and smash Yugoslavia into a half dozen ethnic States … yet defends Ukraine from losing a part of its Russian ethnic East by sending another half million people to slaughter? FU NATO!! FU Bill Clinton!! And FU Hillary Clinton for your NATO excursion into Libya. NATO has become an evil political weapon wielded indiscriminately.
Yeah … NATO has run its course, and as a taxpaying American … I’m sick and tired of funding a dozen European nations Defense budgets. Let em all build their own damn militaries … and defend themselves.
My thoughts exactly. We’re running up one trillion in new debt every 90 days and can no longer afford this stupid meat grinder war!
Russia did not need to invade Ukraine.
Ukraine didn’t need to shell Donbass for a decade.
Soros/Nuland didn’t need to foment a coup in the Ukraine in 2014.
Putin still didn’t need to invade Ukraine.
joke FO!
NME666
Gym
I’m sure a smart guy like you could figure out other options for Putin.
Nobody believes your warmongering crap.
Who leveled Bakhmut? Avdiivka? Soledar? Mariupol?
Both are a matter of historical record, easily verified with a wee bit of research.
Get your tongue out of Jessica’s Colon.
Doesn’t take much to Google Satellite view completely intact Donetsk which is a few mere km from the front line for 10 years and all the towns and cities Russia has destroyed.
“Ukraine didn’t need to shell Donbass for a decade.”
Why not? It was a civil war. Putin told me that. The bullets weren’t going one way.
Warsaw Pact collapse should have led to NATO dissolution or stagnation. Promises that it would not expand one inch eastward were lies, as soon as expansion started war was inevitable.
Progressive leaders are not only very nasty but stupid too if they think they can rally people into another big war, regardless of how clever they were at getting it started.
Europeans and canadians would not mind having Vladimir Putin as their leader if that were possible because everyone knows he’s straight up nasty, no sugarcoat, no bull, he’ll kill you if you get in his way.
Liberal authoritarians in our countries have moist words and kill you with medical experiments or euthanasia.
If you don’t know someone who has died suddenly with a strange form of very aggressive cancer or cardio-vascular illness, you will. Unless the government has encouraged them to be euthanized first.
In Russia, if you commit treason, you go to jail or get killed.
In Canada, the UK or the US, if you commit treason, you get to stay in office, and the gov’t will collude to hide the treason from the people, while implementing further crimes against their own people.
Not members of NATO:
The Ukraine.
Libya.
Syria.
No NATO actions in any of these countries had or has anything to do with protecting NATO countries.
Canada should not be a member of NATO (proxy for US failed foreign policy adventures) nor the UN.