No, Russia has been warning NATO to stop expanding for decades, so you can't say NATO expansion is an excuse for pursuing territorial ambitions.
Russia can warn about NATO expansion, just like Trump can claim that he's imposing tariffs other countries will pay to balance trade deficits - that doesn't make it true. Russia can warn countries not to join NATO, unsurprisingly that's just made them more interested in joining the defensive alliance that might protect them from a country that thinks it has the right to dictate what alliances they can join.
Russian expansion Westward is aimed at protecting itself, having been invaded by Napoleon and Germany in recent centuries.
Nonsense. Russia's expansion is trying to duplicate Napoloen and Hitler in empire-building, and warning NATO off is trying to ensure that it'll be easier when the time comes to send in the troops.
The Soviet Union, which NATO was designed to defend against, no longer exists. So why create a power imbalance that turns NATO into a threat?
Firstly, it doesn't turn NATO into a threat, that's the Russian lie that you keep regurgitating. Secondly, before the Soviet Union there was an expansionist Tsarist Russia, and in the modern day there's another expansionist Russian leadership class.
Like it or not, balance of power is a thing.
Yes. And Russia doesn't have as much of it as it wants, this is part of its attempt to shift that. Supporting Ukraine is about maintaining the current balance of power, and not letting Russia shift it. If you want the balance of power, you should be advocating a Russian withdrawal, if they get what they came for you invite further destabilisation because Russia learns that military aggression gets results.
The OSCE says so, stating that a state should not increase its security at the expense of another's security.
Ukraine joining economic or defensive alliances does not do so at the expense of Russia's security. Russian repeat invasions of Ukraine, on the other hand...
An imbalance of power creates a 'security dilemma'. This is where if one state increases its military strength, even if only for defensive purposes, a neighbouring state may see that as a threat, and take countermeasures, and so a cycle of escalation begins that can lead to war.
Russia's recent history of invasions is the destablising force - Ukraine is seeking defensive alliances BECAUSE Russia is an aggressive, expansionist neighbour that needs defending against.
NATO expansion has driven Russia and China closer together - exactly what the US was trying to avoid, according to an article by Wess Mitchell in 2018, where he discusses non-military ways to lower the risk of the US having to fight a war on both Western and Eastern borders of Asia at the same time.
Yes. Because whilst we can prepare for Russian aggression, we can't dictate terms to it - Russia is intent on expansion and military intervention, so the world becomes a less safe place whether we defend against it or not. NATO's expansion might be determining how that increase in tension plays out, but it's Russian aggression that's causing it.
He also says that it may be necessary to "firmly slam the door to Russian Westward expansion" by inflicting a military defeat upon it in Ukraine, to teach it a lesson. Well, that military defeat is looking less and less likely.
Even if it happens now, it's probably not soon enough. Russia can return home but claim that they'd already been weakened by the protracted war, and big up their sacrifice at home, making a defeat a display of martyrdom and the flat-track bully of the West stepping in when the damage had already been done. To drive home the point the military victory really needed to be done and dusted by about a year ago at least. We could send in troops and free Ukraine - personally I think we still should - but it won't have the long-term impact now that it would have done earlier in the conflict. Whether I want it or not, of course, with Trump in the White House it's increasingly unlikely that's going to happen and - more significantly - it's unlikely any NATO member country will get directly involved as things stand, as it could be the trigger Trump decides to use to pull the US out of the alliance altogether.
So it would be better if the US leaves NATO, or limits its role within the bloc to responding to nuclear attack on a member state.
No. It would be better if the US weren't led by a racist insular shit-stripe - give it a couple of years and we should be in a different situation. US relations won't recover instantly, that's a reputation that's been thoroughly shredded, but they can start.
O.
