On Monday, February 27, 2023 at 6:28:10 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 12:12:06 PM UTC-7, Johnny1A wrote:
>
> > America should not want Ukraine to joint NATO, either, though _saying_ that
> > officially might be impolitic. Committing to unlimited defense of a state right
> > next door to a hostile nuclear power would create a flash point for potential
> > catastrophe.
> 1) Estonia. Latvia. Lithuania. The horse has already sailed through that
> barn door.
>
> 2) Had Ukraine been in NATO in 2014, in my opinion exactly nothing would
> have happened. No invasions, no World War III. It's the current situation, where
> Ukraine was _not_ in NATO that led Putin to think, mistakenly, that he could get
> away with the invasion and conquest of Ukraine, thus bringing the world close
> to war.
>

> John Savard

In theory, yes. In practice, probably not.

One of the reasons Putin and his supporters believed they could take Crimea was precisely that the Western elites discounted the possibility in the first place. That kind of thinking would likely have bene in place with or without NATO membership.

I can still remember the befuddlement of many commentators at the time about Putin's actions in Crimea, the usual response tended to be something like "Doesn't he know what year it is?" or "Doesn't Putin understand that we've left that kind of thing behind?"

I have no particular use for Putin, but at the same time I can recognize that he has outplayed his counterparts in the Western elite class repeatedly. They don't look at him and see _him_, they map their own preferences onto him and then are shocked when he doens't follow them.

(I'm old enough to remember when the Western media and political and academic elites talked about Putin as a modernizer who would remake Russia into a modern Western-style nation-state, and even specul.ation about NATO and EU membership for Russia. There was willful blindness at work.)

In article <d08cca79-c2f0-428f-b0bb-1b1bec425fd9n@googlegroups.com>,
Johnny1A <johnny1a.again@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Wednesday, March 1, 2023 at 11:06:00 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Tue, 28 Feb 2023 10:02:13 -0800, Robert Woodward
>> <robe...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>>
>> >In article <9t9rvhp9p7lop698s...@4ax.com>,
>> > The Horny Goat <lcr...@home.ca> wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Wed, 22 Feb 2023 21:51:23 -0800, Robert Woodward
>> >> <robe...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >In article <rqInv...@kithrup.com>,
>> >> > djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >> In article <5e6feffc-f92c-4230...@googlegroups.com>,
>> >> >> Johnny1A <johnny1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> >> >America should not want Ukraine to joint NATO, either, though _saying_
>> >> >> >that officially might be impolitic. Committing to unlimited defense of
>> >> >> >a state right next door to a hostile nuclear power would create
>a flash
>> >> >> >point for potential catastrophe.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> (Hal Heydt)
>> >> >> Estonia, Lativa, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey. Soon to add Finland
>> >> >> and Sweden. What's one more?
>> >> >
>> >> >You skipped Norway (BTW, Sweden doesn't border Russia).
>> >>
>> >> Presumably because he was talking about newer members of NATO and
>> >> Norway was a charter member back in the stone ages when Stalin still
>> >> ruled the Soviet Union.
>> >
>> >While Turkey wasn't a charter member, it joined in 1952 while Stalin was
>> >still alive.
>> Good catch.
>>
>> But the original claim (that Ukraine joining NATO would somehow ignite
>> Global Thermonuclear War because it would put NATO right next to
>> Russia) is clearly wrong. NATO has been next to Russia a long time
>> now.
>
>Yes, but adding _more_ places where the two sides abut directly is still
>a bad idea. Especially when Ukraine is more likely than most to find
>themselves embroiled in war with Russia.

(Hal Heydt)
How would Ukraine's membership in NATO be likely to affect
Russia's choice to attack, knowing that Ukraine could invoke
Article 5 and bring *all* of NATO into the conflict?

On Mon, 6 Mar 2023 22:44:38 -0800 (PST), Johnny1A
<johnny1a.again@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Monday, February 27, 2023 at 6:28:10?PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 12:12:06?PM UTC-7, Johnny1A wrote:
>>
>> > America should not want Ukraine to joint NATO, either, though _saying_ that
>> > officially might be impolitic. Committing to unlimited defense of a state right
>> > next door to a hostile nuclear power would create a flash point for potential
>> > catastrophe.
>> 1) Estonia. Latvia. Lithuania. The horse has already sailed through that
>> barn door.
>>
>> 2) Had Ukraine been in NATO in 2014, in my opinion exactly nothing would
>> have happened. No invasions, no World War III. It's the current situation, where
>> Ukraine was _not_ in NATO that led Putin to think, mistakenly, that he could get
>> away with the invasion and conquest of Ukraine, thus bringing the world close
>> to war.
>>
>
>> John Savard
>
>In theory, yes. In practice, probably not.
>
>One of the reasons Putin and his supporters believed they could take Crimea was precisely that the Western elites discounted the possibility in the first place. That kind of thinking would likely have bene in place with or without NATO membership.
>
>I can still remember the befuddlement of many commentators at the time about Putin's actions in Crimea, the usual response tended to be something like "Doesn't he know what year it is?" or "Doesn't Putin understand that we've left that kind of thing behind?"

The very /existence/ of the alt-right shows that we have not, in fact,
put this sort of thing behind us. Well, not /all/ of us have, anyway.

>I have no particular use for Putin, but at the same time I can recognize that he has outplayed his counterparts in the Western elite class repeatedly. They don't look at him and see _him_, they map their own preferences onto him and then are shocked when he doens't follow them.

This is because elite modernist/liberal types are as detached from
reality as alt-right types. I have often noted that there are wingnuts
on all sides. The same applies to moonbats.

>(I'm old enough to remember when the Western media and political and academic elites talked about Putin as a modernizer who would remake Russia into a modern Western-style nation-state, and even specul.ation about NATO and EU membership for Russia. There was willful blindness at work.)

IIRC, Ivan the Great was going to do the same thing. Russia is still
waiting, whether it knows it or not.

And, actually, incorporating Russia into the EU and NATO would solve a
lot of problems ... despite the example of Greece vs Turkey, both NATO
members. But Russia isn't ready yet.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."