I thought y’all said NATO wasn’t explicitly anti-Russia and was only defensive

Yes its defensive to Russian aggression the type thats happening as we speak

It wouldn’t make sense. Russia being in NATO would only quicken and solidify the eventual admission of the entirety of Europe into NATO

And then Russia would gracefully accept Georgia, Estonia, Ukraine, etc as its democratic and completely independent neighbors!

When did Russia apply for NATO? Can't find any info for this online

yikes

And having Russia join NATO in 2002 would’ve neutered any need for a separate Russian economic sphere and subsequent expansionism due to a guarantee of security and cooperation.

Now NATO and the G7 have lost the worlds largest natural gas reserve to China. Real smart geopolitical choices they’ve mad

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations

amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule

Bro
If you don’t understand why accepting Russia into the very organization created to counter it isnt a good idea no reason to keep talking about this

Doesn't Russia applying to nato in 2002 means they took a knee and folded?

It's not like countries can't defend itself from Russia if it is part of Nato lol

this is the wrong thread to b**** and moan about that

Doesn't say anything about him actually applying.

Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’ And Robertson said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join Nato, they apply to join Nato.’ And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”

Ah, i see the politics section thread for that.

Damn, Americana lost

Clearly Russia was gonna be completely abiding to the principles set out by the treaty

Why counter a cooperative Russia? Why should Russia invariably be considered an aggressor when they openly have wished to join NATO?

Just because the Soviets fell doesnt mean their military might just vanished
MAD never ended without NATO no telling what the Baltic's and Poland would look like today

Bro only read the headline.

Not even trying to fight him. His info of Putin wanting to join NATO surprised me and I just wanted to know more.

the a***ogy works for 1954 at least (i'm not sure about putin or yeltsin)

stalin was dead by that time though, it was actually molotov who wanted to join in 1954 with the explicit goal of disrupting NATO.

The thing is that NATO is inherently a hostile organization. It exists to push Western influence and it was specifically designated as a means to oppose a single country in every single geopolitical stage and manner. And when that country is no longer even close to the world superpower it used to be, it gets hazy. And when NATO has already outgrown its mission statement of "Oh it's just a defense force" by straight up invading other countries, it gets even hazier.

I don't think anyone is saying itt that Russia has no responsibility as being the government that actually invaded and decided to war upon Ukraine. And the context of NATO is not justification. But if you look at it from Russia's perspective, they are trapped and targeted by this worldwide organization on a constant basis.

The US benefits heavily from Russia invading Ukraine. It is an opportunity to sell a bunch of weapons to Ukraine (not caring where those weapons really go). It lets the Russian military hemorrhage a little by participating in this useless conflict. And, on the minor off-chance that Ukraine actually "wins" this war-- they now have another thorn to back Russia even further into a corner.

TL;DR in the simplest terms possible: Russia bad, yes. But US and NATO not good, and in context pretty bad too. Ukraine citizens innocent and good, Ukrainian government ehh.

For one there is 0 actual evidence of wanting to join nato so until you get some miss me with that

I’d argue that Russia is a unique situation in comparison to the rest of Eastern European countries and that unique situation should’ve been taken into count by the heads of NATO