The other point is that purely defensive alliances allow the contituent members to operate far smaller militaries than they would otherwise have to. This reduces the chance of wars starting.
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But NATO members have attacked plenty of non-NATO members. I donât agree that itâs a benign, defensive organisation, either militarily or politically.
Itâs the hypocrisy in the media coverage and political discourse that galls me. Iâm anti-war. Have deep hatred for what Putin is doing and compassion for Ukrainian people. We seem to have misplaced that when we consider what we did to Iraq (200k civilians killed and entire country destroyed), Afghanistan, Libya etc
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Not as NATO or because they were members of NATO, I donât think.
Are you thinking of Afghanistan and Iraq? Because those coalitions went broader than NATO nor were all members of NATO represented.
None of that. Just flipping your statement to highlight the hypocrisy of some NATO members. They have a deterrence that no one will attack them. But happy to invade other countries
Happy to give you Iraq, but wasnât Afghanistan a case where the Afghan government had harboured a hostile terrorist organisation that had already attacked one of the invaders?
Also, wasnât Libya a case where they were requested to aid in stabilising a situation that had already descended into civil war?
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Arguable that the instances you reference were authorised under UN resolutions though. But these werenât actions taken by NATO per se. You could just as easily say these were actions taken by the EU or NAFTA, or the IOC, or FIFAâŚin that they were taken by nations, some of whom happen to be members of those various multi national organisations.
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Most of the attackers were from Saudi. Even if they were Afghan, it doesnât justify murdering civilians en masse and destroying an entire country, does it?
No.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/119.pdf
And if your justifications have any logic can you explain why NATO havenât intervened in Yemen or the DRC, or previously in Rwanda or Ivory Coast?
Did it destroy the country or was that already done during their own civil war? Furthermore, it wasnât about the nationality of the attackers, although I do agree that given that the most likely source of funding was Saudi, they should have been looking much more keenly at Saudi Arabia.
Politics. After Libya and Syria, I donât think anyone had the appetite to try again. In a way, it was learning from their own mistakes.
In the case of Rwanda, it was actually more craven than youâre suggesting however, it was a case where the French had their fingers in the pie in Rwanda, so to speak, and so were not keen on taking down the government that was favourable to their commercial interests.
Iâm not sure about the DRC and Ivory Coast situations, and Iâm not going to pretend to know.
In any case, Iâm not sure any of this really belongs to this thread. It has absolutely nothing to do with Russia invading Ukraine. Drawing the parallels here is a complete distraction.
One can argue all day long whether the individual countries in NATO (as opposed to the organisation itself) have any moral grounds to be discussing this. But (a) itâs got nothing to do with the invasion, and (b) if any country with a bad history was automatically ineligible from criticising the behaviours of others, then there would be barely any country able to criticise others.
Ukraine was not a threat to Russiaâs security interests. They may well be moving forward, given the embarrassment theyâve proven to the Russian military, and the high probability that they will now, for a long time, harbour ill-feelings towards Russia.
Ukraine was at most a threat to the financial interests of the Russian governing elite. Unlike the term thrown around so much in politics these days (often at the wrong people), Russia is actually ruled over by such an elite, in their place because of the kleptocracy that developed after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Any trying to draw NATO into the conversation is at best a complete distraction from the real issue, and at worst, a cynical, ill-intentioned attempt to draw a false equivalency.
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Every intervention cited wasnât NATO but the UN.
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Back to Russia/USSR.
Itâs attacked Finland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine, launched military offences in Syria, Chechnya, propped up corrupt/despotic regimes in Belarus and KazakhstanâŚall as the instigator.
Welcome to the Ukraine thread. These conversations can be found in part1 before it hit 10,000 posts. Feel free to read it and catch up.
World politics thread is somewhere else. You can pick apart NATO there
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Yes, any action against the great glorious Putin Mother Russia is a crime against humanity, didnât you know?
Whatâs particularly facepalm-worthy about this?
The constant watering down of meaningful steps to either sanction Russia or reduce reliance upon Russian energy.
No arguments from me on that. Itâs staggeringly stupid to not try to wean yourselves off an openly hostile countryâŚ
