11-09-2024, 11:52 AM
(11-09-2024, 11:13 AM)Kurokage Wrote: NATO as you well know was originally set up purely as a defensive arrangement, with no intention of attacking anyone and its independent members agreeing to defend each other against attack. During the Cold War it was used as a detterant against the USSR nuclear threat. After the USSR loss of the cold war and following collapse, many previously 'occupied' states believed that membership of NATO was a way of protecting against any future Russian aggression. After Putins invasion of Ukraine, I'd say it was a good idea.
Russian Troll in his many threads on ATS and now here has always said Russia wasn't fighting Ukraine but NATO, if that was true then why did Putin invade in the first place? Why would Putin want confilict with NATO? It's just out right fabrication.
Respectfully, your post makes me think of things that might seem to challenge your assertions...
Of course, the institution of NATO had a purpose to counter what was the gigantic 'fear fodder' of the day... that communism and "the Reds" would sweep the world as an economic and social dominator. All things "Red" were to be at least ostracized, at worst destroyed outright, insofar as Western leadership was concerned. NATO's existence was rendered moot with the fall of the notional Soviet Union, and very soon after, their new 'marketing' began... repopulating the menace with every and any communist nation, and even disparaging socialism as it's "cousin."
It was never clear that "Russia" was strategically driven to expand. But every Russian effort made to restore some semblance of their previous prosperity was so designated. These are political contrivances, not ideological. NATO was a clearing house for billions of dollars... mostly American... I believe some in America find it's future to be 'suspect'... (hence the DHS who became the de facto "new" clearing house for funneling taxpayer money to private commercial enterprise (the supranational MIC?)...
Why would NATO become so intimately involved with 'controlling' the governance of Ukraine? Why would they risk international blow-back by antagonizing the very neighbor they were seeking to 'defend' themselves against. And what is NATO? A nation? A state in and of itself? How is it so empowered as to be able to engage in the way it did? And did no "member" state object, or cast a deciding vote? I think not... NATO has been digging its own grave for decades.
Why two nations clash is always centered on who 'steers' that nation...
NATO played the game of international political chess... badly.
Then
Russia responded... badly.
Ukraine's leadership tried to exploit the situation... badly.
The three wrongs ended up killing hundreds of thousands, destroying lives and livelihoods, resources, and infrastructure... for what?... so NATO could engender yet more military expenditures for "defense"? Russia committed to destruction for what? So Russians could "have Ukraine back" and fill it full of military equipment and people?
This is a war of 'disguised objectives.' No one wins, and no one gains... and for what? Freedom from fear?... that's a long wait for a train that's never coming.
No, this is a money thing... it's for the sale of weapons and the enrichment of the black market.
By the way, I don't speak of individual members as "functionaries" of agendas.
Each member is always free to have an agenda of their own crafting...
If we start exchanging definitions of each other the tit for tat would never end.
"Defense" is always the claim of those who start modern wars... always.
"Defense" is always the reason that nations spent money to buy offensive weapons.
This version of "tit for tat" seems to always end in death... and "the people" for whom it is all "done" are to stand in the rubble... installing new weapons for defense.
Sorry for the long response...
While I lack the devotion to NATO's honorable sanctity, I fault Russia's continuing practice of applying destructive military force for "show"... This conflict is literally idiotic.
