Not OP, but I wonder is he is having the same feeling I am on this whole Ukraine situation.
Below is a paste from a conversation I had with a close group of friends:
I feel sorry for Ukrainians. I can't help but shake the feeling that they are being used as a pawn for the US to drain the military resources of Russia.
I would guess that, the optimal outcome from the neocon/neolib perspective is for Russia to rubblize Ukraine over a period of months to a year, all they while the west says "woe is me", and supplies equipment to decimate Russian armor and aircraft.
This makes Russia the indisputable bad guy for the atrocities committed against Ukraine, all the while the west has clean hands in decimating Russia's military power.
The end result is hundreds of thousands to millions of dead Ukrainians that the neocons will shed crocodile tears over.
Only cost them a few hundred million dollars to do hundreds of billions of dollars in damage to Russia.
If there was any legitimate desire to have Russia back off, they would be offering terms such as guaranteeing that Ukraine would never enter NATO as part of a treaty, lifting of sanctions, etc, contingent on a full withdrawal.
Russia was invited to NATO in the Partnership for Peace program.
And invading a country without provocation and which was elected democratically is kind of the reason for a defensive alliance in the first place.
Furthermore with Russia being a defacto dictatorship it becomes hard to deal with the actual position of the Russian people (who aren’t allowed to protest or have free media or vote)
After all that, there is still the Russia–NATO Council that was established in 2002 for handling security issues and joint projects.
I believe you, yet western countries refused to discuss that very topic few weeks ago when Russia demanded that NATO was not extended further. Frankly, as a mere western Europe citizen, arguably living far away from russian borders, I could not care less about NATO extension. I feel more threatened by the war mongering in the west than by the russian army, and I suspect many other people feel the same. Yet this opinion is not represented at all in the western "democracies".
There are several layers of propaganda, and you point to only one of them.
1) The propaganda for West is that "power balance" shit story. US citizens are distant enough to believe this is rational PoV. (it is not)
2) The propaganda for russians is that Ukraine is a failed state, has no legitimate govt, makes undercover nukes and nazis use ukrainian people as hostages. (all of this is lie)
3) The propaganda for Ukraine is that Russians and Ukrainians are literally "brothers", more "brothers" than ukrainians and poles. Everyone speaking russian language is part of Russia. (clear manipulation)
We Ukrainians don't like this propaganda and don't want live under Putin's (or any other non-democratic) regime. If US (and Europe) feels we can help them achieve their goals, we are fine with that. Because it aligns with our national goals -- make Russia weak, or even make it disappear from global map.
Not arguing that point. He made the decision to invade, he has agency of his own and is responsible for his actions.
My point is that if people think his Nazi and NATO talk is bullshit, call it by offering terms that completely neutralize those points.
It's one thing to say, "Ukraine was never going to be in NATO, trust us." It's a completely different thing to say, "Ukraine will never be in NATO, here is a legally binding treaty stating so, contingent on X actions by Russia."
> It's one thing to say, "Ukraine was never going to be in NATO, trust us."
No one ever said that. Ukraine is going to be in NATO if they want to be in NATO. The claim that Ukraine would eventually be admitted to NATO is not the bullshit.
The bullshit is that NATO is offensively directed at Russia; the only reason Russia isn't in NATO and covered by its defensive shield (Russia joined the onramp Partnership for Peace program in 1994) is that Putin decided he didn't want it to be, made known-unacceptable demands to bypass the accession process, was rebuffed as he knew he would be, and used that as a reason to stop any work toward joining.
Those aren’t anything new afaik, and I don’t understand the connection to how the West will become more authoritarian because of that.