It is crazy to me that people flat out ignore or downplay the significance of NATO expansion directly provoking the behavior we see from Putin.
NATO has moved on from being a peacemaker. It is a corrupt cog in the military industrial complex. Britain and the US pressured Ukraine into declining a peace deal despite recent reports (at odds with corporate/state owned media) showing significant losses for the Ukrainians. NATO leaders (especially the US) do not want peace, war is way too profitable. And now they are allowing offensive use of NATO and US weapons against Russia with NATO coordination. All these leaders are crooked.
Very unfortunate times ahead for all of us.
Edit: Just to be clear, before someone freaks out on me, I am definitely not defending Russia’s actions. Just making some observations.
The Nato expansion issue is far to simplistic. Nato doesn’t expand itself. All Nato members join this alliance voluntarily. Finland, for example, has been committed to neutrality for 80 or so years and joined Nato only after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Neutrality is fine in a world where everyone -especially your neighbours- respect democratic values and human rights. If this isn’t the case, countries seek alliances. (We have a similar situation in the Asia-Pacific region, where countries seek to establish alliances following China’s increasingly aggressive behaviour.)
The ‘problem’ isn’t Nato -that’s indeed Russian propaganda- but the fact that Russia failed so far to develop democratic structures. The aggressor here is Putin’s dictatorship.
Maybe if we got rid of the CIA, their propaganda wings (Radio Free Asia, etc.), and all their cutouts we might have a chance at peace.
I am not specifically talking about Finland joining NATO, I am talking about the US military involvement in Ukraine that made it appear to the enemy of the US as though Ukraine were going to join NATO, which has been a loudly stated red line for Putin for a very long time. You have to at least admit that the western actions that lead up to the invasion were diplomatically “foolish” at best.
Contrariwise it is far too simplistic to look at this issue and say “russian propaganda” when there is so much western propaganda distorting the truth that goes by unnoticed. You can’t even talk about it here or on reddit without people exploding based off of previous propaganda they have committed to heart.
I just think when the US has been putting hot military bases all up and down the enemies border (both china and russia via NATO or otherwise), what the hell do we expect to happen?
Everything you’re writing is 1:1 Russian state misinformation, completely identical to lies spread by the Russian government in order to justify their imperialistic expansion.
I think you’re grossly misrepresenting what the NATO does, how it expands, Ukraines own interest, and Russias views.
NATO is a voluntary and self determined collection of states, a collection of states. States have an inherent interest in their own safety. For that reason the NATO expanded passively.
How can you say Russia needs buffer zones and NATO not “getting closer” while denying any countries closer or next to Russia any form of safety net like the NATO? It’s plainly obvious what the bigger threat is. Russia is invading neighboring countries. Not the other way around.
Can you cite regarding your claims of pressure on Ukraine to decline a peace deal - where Ukraine would have even went for it? I assume the claim that the reason is monetary profit is pure speculation?
Ukraine has had a clear position on peace talks. It’s a country that is being invaded. Even when losses increased that didn’t change much. Out of their own interest, stance, and necessity. (I don’t know if that changed more recently, I’m not up-to-date on that specifically.) Accepting loss of land and people amongst Russias atrocities and treaty violations is a hard ask when it’s your people and home.
Back to the main point and opener of your comment:
The “expansion” of NATO is a Russian narrative that Russia uses as smoke and mirrors. Like it does in any and all of their communication. Is it actually part of their reason for invasions? Maybe. But it’s not the only one, and unverifiable. Claiming that NATOs “expansion” justifies Russias activities is actively supporting Russia, and frankly, insulting to the invaded and violated people - that have a right to live without invasion and atrocities.
Russia was safe. Europe and the EU were actively connecting and supporting Russia and its people. NATOs “expansion” is a Russian narrative to mislead.
Not having the right to work doesn’t necessarily mean asylum seeker won’t work. I suspect it make them more likely to accept undeclared odd jobs. In which case they wouldn’t work less, but would pay no taxes, and have worse working conditions.
“Anna never leaves the house, she suffers from agoraphobia. But she is strong, I hope she will overcome this,” he added.
Agoraphobia is a phobic disorder involving the specific anxiety about being in a place or situation where escape is difficult or embarrassing or where help may be unavailable
The cheapest kind of pride, on the other hand, is national pride. For it reveals in those who have it the lack of individual qualities of which they could be proud, for otherwise they would not have recourse to what they share with so many millions. On the contrary, he who possesses significant personal merits will recognize most clearly the faults of his own nation, since he has them constantly before his eyes. But every miserable wretch, who has nothing in the world to be proud of, resorts to the last resort of being proud of the nation to which he happens to belong. He rests on this and is now gratefully prepared to defend with tooth and nail all the faults and follies peculiar to it.
Chinese military tech has always been and will always be decades behind. Autocratic regimes are terrible at fostering innovation - and unlike with civilian tech, China cannot make use of cooperation with Western companies in order to catch up. Their only remaining option is subterfuge, which has limited effectiveness.
Additionally, the Chinese military lacks institutional knowledge and experience - and courting Western experts won’t make up for this. They haven’t fought in any serious war since the 1970s. Against pirates and sandal fighters in and around Africa, they are performing shockingly poorly. On top of that, there’s corruption that is at least as bad as in Russia, poor quality equipment, low training standards, awful electronic warfare capabilities, etc. pp.
I’d say that its a bit too early to say that their tech will always be behind (if only because they have access to a lot of critical resources and probably will have ways to copy tech from other companies) but I can agree that their military is definitely not as experienced as the US.
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summaryThe insight the PLA gains from Western military talent threatens the safety of the targeted recruits, their fellow service members, and U.S. and allied security. The bulletin said the U.S. and its Western partners have taken steps to try to counter the threat, including imposing commercial restrictions on a test flying academy in South Africa and Chinese organizations linked to the spying operations, and prohibiting former military members from working with China. The bulletin advised current and former Western military members to be on the alert for possible approaches, including job offers from privately owned companies that hide their links to China. The warning from the intelligence partners comes amid growing concern about China’s military buildup and recent drills around Taiwan, which Beijing described as “punishment” after the self-governing island held elections. In March, U.S. Army intelligence analyst Korbein Schultz was arrested and charged with conspiring to sell sensitive defense information to China. “These arrests are a reminder of the relentless, aggressive efforts of the People’s Republic of China to undermine our democracy and threaten those who defend it,” assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division Suzanne Turner said at the time. — Saved 66% of original text.
One of the most important things in democracy is accuracy and transparency of information. That’s literally the reason why the media is being taken over by corpos all over the world.
Egregious clickbait hed. I don’t care the source, “than you might think” works psychologically on, well, more levels than you might think.
Throughout this election, and honestly, past it wouldn’t be bad, wherever you are in the world, this phrase should be a red flag that you’ve run headlong into bullshit.
That aside, Nature, are you OK? Journal articles tend to have as theses shit that isn’t somehow both obvious and vacuously true then not backed up by the passive voice, the gold standard for scientific literature. “The beaker was observed …”
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