this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025
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Nobody expects Russia to march to Berlin. They will selectively annex or invade wherever suits them if they don’t face resistance. This article seems to say we should abandon Ukraine so German industry can have cheaper power from fossil fuels. Merkel also treated Russia like a normal trading partner when it was clear they were not trustworthy.
No, Germany decommissioned its nuclear plants as an act of foolishness. Ukraine should not pay the consequences. If Germany wants less war, it would be easy to stop supporting genocide in Palestine, while continuing to support Ukraine.
Germanys economy is suffering, but it has turned the corner. Likely trade with America will affect it more than Russia.
You're just regurgitating propaganda you've memorized instead of actually engaging with the article. Why would they bother spending the effort trying to annex or invade Europe when they can just exploit political instability resulting from the self inflicted harm that militarization will cause? The elephant in the room is that European economy is already suffering, and spending 5% of GDP on NATO is going to require massive austerity. Nationalist parties are already polling sky high across Europe, and this will only further drive their popularity. All these parties are perfectly happy to work with Russia and exist the EU.
So, why did they Annex Crimea and invade Ukraine?
I don't think Europe should be spending 5% of GDP on defence. That doesn't mean Russia is not a threat. You're saying that Russia is a threat, but from a intelligence and misinformation point of view. What makes you think much of the new spending won't be on that?
These questions have been answered in detail many time by plenty of people such as John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs, and many others. Russia's annexation of Crimea was a direct response to the overthrow of the legitimate and democratically elected government by the west. The invasion of Ukraine was a response to NATO provocation. The fact that this was a provocation wasn't even hidden. It was openly discussed in mainstream US media and by US think tanks. A couple of examples for you here
In fact, entire books have been written on the subject detailing the history of the provocations that led to the conflict.
What I'm actually saying is that Europe is creating internal political instability and popular revolt against the neoliberal regime through its austerity policies. Meanwhile, Europe's own actions are the reason for the adversarial relationship with Russia. Russia will obviously continue to see Europe as a threat given Europe's openly hostile stance towards Russia, and therefore has every incentive to destabilize Europe in every way possible. Thus, European strategy becomes a self fulfilling prophecy where the actions Europe is taking ensure an adversarial relationship with Russia while destroying the foundation of economic stability that allows current political system to function.
Lol, so NATO provoking Russia is saying that Ukraine could enter at some point. Russia invaded them as in the future, they may not be able to invade them?!
At no point has there ever been any indication that NATO countries would impact on Russian sovereignty without provocation. Russia doesn't want more NATO members as it wants to invade and control their neighbours when it wishes.
Democratically elected? Do you forget that Victor yanukovich had his competition jailed. Yulia Tymoshenko was democratically elected and was pro eu. She then lost a run off to him and he had her jailed.
NATO provoking Russia with constant expansion to Russian borders since the 90s. Don't take my word for it though, here it is from the former head of NATO:
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_218172.htm
I guess he must be spreading Ruzzian propaganda. 🤣
I literally linked you an article and a policy paper above showing the exact opposite. I love how you ignore the reference I provide you with and just keep spewing propaganda talking points.
Zelensky also jails his competition, and even cancelled elections. Yet, according to eurotrolls Ukraine is the pinnacle of democracy. I guess it's not just Ukraine nowadays, Romania cancelled elections when the wrong candidate won and jailed him. So, let's not pretend cancelling elections is something that doesn't happen in European "democracies".
I don't think Russia wants to "invade and control their neighbors when it wishes", but I also don't think the expansion of NATO justifies in any way the war Russia started.
And ironically, this Russian reaction is helping NATO expand further.
Russia is playing into USA hands by behaving this way, imho. Just as much as Europe is.
Talking about justifications is just moralizing, and it's not constructive in nature. The question should be how different countries should behave to avoid conflict.
Meanwhile, the whole talk of NATO expanding is pure nonsense. NATO has been shown to be impotent in Ukraine, and the US is now actively pulling out of Europe. Without the US there is no NATO because Europe lacks industrial capacity to pick up the slack. Even with the US in NATO, Russian military industry is outproducing it by a large factor according to a no lesser person than Rutte:
All the NATO wunderwuffe failed to turn the tide of war in Ukraine, and now NATO stocks are running dry with no clear way to replace them because NATO is not capable of pumping weapons out at the rate they're consumed in Ukraine.
Not really, the most likely scenario here is that Russia and the US will make a deal over the heads of the Europeans. They've already reestablished diplomatic relations, and when it becomes clear that Russia won the war, the US will make the best of it by throwing Europe under the bus.
Then why do you moralize Europe's reaction? Or are you saying that you don't think wasting money in military is bad?
"Moralizing" just means "making judgments on whether it's good or bad".
Are you saying that we should not judge whether the decision to start a war was good / bad?
Can you explain what you mean by "this whole talk"? which talk? is this something I said?
I don't see how this challengues anything I said (if this was your intent).
"NATO provoking Russia with constant expansion to Russian borders" is something you said, not me. I was just following up from that.. I didn't say anything about the power of NATO in Ukraine.. you are making up your own straw man....
And you think this will not benefit the USA?
Europe also does deals with USA over the heads of the Russians.. this is not benefiting Russia either.
Point out where I make any moral arguments regarding Europe. What I'm actually saying that Europe is acting in an irrational and and self harmful way that's at odds with its own interests. The key is that strength is multifaceted, and it’s important to understand what type of strength is called for in any particular situation.
I'm saying that we need to consider the context that led to the decision to start the war, and talk about what could've been done differently to avoid the war.
I'm referring to you saying: "And ironically, this Russian reaction is helping NATO expand further."
I didn't say it wouldn't, but something benefiting the USA isn't contrary to it also benefiting Russia. It's not a zero sum game.
If by does deals you mean gets brutally exploited then sure. The US is now selling Europe energy at 5-10x times that Russia was charging, it's actively poaching European industry that can't survive on high energy prices, and it's insisting on Europe spending an astounding 5% of GDP to pay US military industrial complex.
Ah, and don't you think that's bad? ...or you just don't think that acting in a way that harms the population should be "moralized"?
Do you think Russia is in a better position now than after the war? I don't think Russia's attack on Ukraine was a rational response to NATO's expansion or beneficial to the Russians. If you don't like the word "justified" then you can think of it in those terms.
Ok, what should Russia have done differently to avoid the war? or is this exclusively Europe's responsibility? Is Russia like a wild animal that simply reacts mechanically, taking only reactionary action, even when the decision can hurt them more than it can benefit them?
Do you really think that NATO's expansion was such an existential threat for Russia that waging war was "rational"? Because a moment ago you were saying that "NATO expanding is pure nonsense", that it can't really keep up, etc. So was NATO a threat or not?
Yes I said that. Is it wrong? you mean the war has not triggered several countries to start having interest in joining NATO?
And this article is even about European members of NATO wanting to spend more in military... I think this is the opposite of what Russia wanted, which is why I find it ironic.
I didn't say it's a zero sum game. The fact that this whole thing is forcing everyone to make deals with the US is quite telling, imho.
Same for Europe, the deal was brutal, but the pressure was high due to the breaks with Russia. Losing European business was a hard blow for Russia too, and they are overall in a much worse position now, imho.
I'm not surprised at Europe's stupidity, but Russia is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, to put it mildly. Both Russia and Europe are best when they work together... and they will destroy themselves if they continue this way.
I've explicitly and repeatedly explained what I think. If you have trouble understanding what I wrote then please let me know what part of it you need explained to you further.
Absolutely, the World Bank just reclassified Russia as a high income country, and the IMF forecasts that Russian economy is set to grow faster than all the western economies. Russia has also demonstrated that it is able to take on NATO militarily, and given that it is winning the war, it will dictate the terms in Ukraine.
Furthermore, NATO is now in a state of complete chaos. There is infighting between Europeans internally, as well as growing ideological fractures across the Atlantic. It is not at all clear that NATO will survive the next few years. Don't take my word for it though, here's The Times describing the last NATO summit as Potemkin in nature.
Russia did try to avoid the war for 8 whole years. That's what the Minsk agreements were about. The ones top European leaders have now admitted were never intended to be implemented faithfully and were used to buy time to arm Ukraine.
Perhaps what Russia should have done differently was to not wait as long as they did to intervene in the ethnic cleansing that Ukraine was conducting in Donbas with western help.
I do think that, and plenty of western experts think that as well and have been warning about this since the 90s. This only became controversial to mention after the war started. Here's what Chomsky has to say on the issue recently:
https://truthout.org/articles/us-approach-to-ukraine-and-russia-has-left-the-domain-of-rational-discourse/
https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/
50 prominent foreign policy experts (former senators, military officers, diplomats, etc.) sent an open letter to Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion back in 1997:
George Kennan, arguably America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia" back in 1998.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"
Even Gorbachev warned about this. All these experts were marginalized, silenced, and ignored. Yet, now people are trying to rewrite history and pretend that Russia attacked Ukraine out of the blue and completely unprovoked.
Yes it is wrong, and I've explained in detail why it's wrong already.
You seem to have this infantile notion that simply adding NATO members makes it stronger.
Russia isn't forced to make any deals with the US last I checked. It's the US that's trying to make deals with Russia right now, not the other way around.
It's not because it opened up domestic niches that are being filled by local businesses, and China was able to redirect its trade towards BRICS. For example, trade with China stands at over 200 bln now. And of course, Russian oil and gas revenues soared 41% in first half of the year, as the data shows
Russia is now largely insulated from the economic chaos in the west because it's mostly cut out of western economy. This alone is a huge benefit because it will insulate Russia from the economic crash that's unfolding in the west. Russia is still able to sell its commodities to the world, and it's no longer reliant on the western financial system to do that. It managed to strengthen relations with friendly countries. China in particular has become a strong ally for China, and its economy already surpasses the US in terms of PPP. It's also where pretty much all technology is produced.
Russia has other options and it has proven over past three years that it does not need Europe. Meanwhile, Europe cannot function without Russian energy.
Sorry, but if you truly don't think that decisions that lead to suffering should be "moralized", and you really think that it's "rational" and in the "own interests" of a country to wage war in order to grow the economy, then I think we simply disagree on what should be the goals of a society and where its interests should lie.
From the article you linked:
Chomsky even uses the word "unjustified". He's saying pretty much the same thing I said.
Note how what I was asking is whether NATO's expansion was a threat for Russia, not whether the expansion of NATO was a good decision. (or if you don't like the word "good" then... "rational and under our own self-interest").
I can perfectly agree with NATO's expansion being a "bad" (sorry... irrational / self-harming) decision by the West, but that wasn't what I asked.
hahaha... infantile? Mr. ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ the adult.
You seem to have the delusion that I was talking about "strength" when I said "expansion".
Is it true or is it false that the war has motivated NATO's expansion (ie.. adding members)? because that's all I said, ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆.
You're just putting words in my mouth at this point. What I said is that it's rational for a country to respond militarily to an aggressive military alliance surrounding it. Given that NATO would be able to place nukes in Ukraine that could hit Moscow under 5 minutes, it would be insane for Russia not to respond to that.
Nowhere did I suggest that Russia started the war to grow its economy. What I said, is that Russia managed to restructure its economy away from the west, and it is not harmed by the war the way Europe is.
Chomsky can use whatever words he likes, but the provocations are well documented. Again, as I've already explained to you repeatedly, talking about justifications is not constructive. You're back to doing moralizing here.
The question is how to avoid conflicts like this going forward. The argument about whether it's moral for Russia to start the war does the opposite of that because it implicitly ignores the role the west played in starting the conflict.
Since people in the west have little influence over Russian actions, it is the most productive to focus on what their own governments are doing. That should be obvious, yet here we are.
I love how you're trying to be clever here, but let's reason through this using your adult brain Ferk. Explain why would NATO expansion be a problem for Russia if the alliance isn't becoming stronger?
So you are saying that if there was a bordering country (let's say... Belarus.. for example) that decided to strike a military alliance with Russia (let's say they decide to call it "Union State Treaty"... or maybe for example "ODKB"), then do you really think this should be seen as a "provocation" and that it'd be a "rational" reaction for Europe to wage war?
I don't think war is the answer to a defense treaty. NATO was a defense treaty.. a weak one (by your own admission) without a lot of military investment, specially by Europe. I disagree that it was really a threat.. the same way that I would not have seen it as a threat if Russia started making some NATO-equivalent treaties with countries in the Europe-Russia border. If the roles were reversed and Ukraine joined a treaty with Russia, China and other big powers, I would be against Europe waging war. Would you not?
Ah, so the economic boom has nothing to do with the war? Because what I wanted to ask is whether the war caused self-harm or benefit.
In your last bit there it seems you are hinting that Russia was harmed by the war, even if it wasn't harmed "the way Europe is".
So.. which one is it? was the war a rational benefitial thing for Russia that resulted in them being better off? or was it an irrational self-harming thing (even if not "the way" it was for Europe)?
Chomsky is too. I believe that if you don't have morals in regards to which decisions are beneficial for a society then is when discussing these topics does become "not constructive".
I have no problem accepting the role of the West. I agree that NATO's expansion was a "morally bad" (irrational / self-harm) decision because it should have been the better person and realize earlier that Russia would end up behaving the way they did (irrationally).
My point is that Russia feeling entitled to wage a war was also "morally bad" (irrational / self-harm). I'm saying this because I feel that your comments imply that Russia was completely rational in waging war.
hahahaha thank you! I'll try to explain it clearly Mr. ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆! :D
Huh? That's not what I said.
My point is that NATO expansion was NOT a real threat/problem for Russia. That's why I think the attack was (to use Chomky's words): "unprovoked and unjustified".
I'm saying that when USSR put nuclear weapons in Cuba we know what the reaction from the US was. This is not a hypothetical debate.
NATO is not a defense treaty. It's an aggressive organization that has been invading and destroying countries for decades now. Go read up on Yugoslavia and Libya as two examples. Meanwhile, the key member of NATO has been at a state of continues war all around the world.
It's entirely irrelevant what you think. What matters is how Russia perceives NATO. The fact of the matter is that NATO should have been disbanded when USSR dissolved. Yet, for some reason it was not. Then Russia offered to join NATO and create a joint security alliance on equal terms, but was rebuffed by NATO.
You keep trying to paint this as a neutral situation, but the facts are against you. NATO is the organization that has been expanding towards Russia despite giving guarantees to the contrary in the 90s.
Russia did not invade Ukraine for economic reasons. The economic boom is the result of Russian being much better at restructuring its economy than Europe.
Where was I hinting that?
The elephant in the room is that the west is not able to impose its morals on Russia. We can control what we do in the west, and the question becomes whether we should take actions that lead to war or to peace.
Avoiding a war requires empathy. The west has to honestly acknowledge that Russia has legitimate interests of its own, and security concerns that the west has been trampling over. Then the rational thing to do is to find a compromise that both sides can see as being preferable to open war. That's how diplomacy works.
Instead, the west tried to impost its will on Russia while disregarding Russian concerns, and that led to a conflict that the west is now losing.
Can you demonstrate in what way this was irrational self harm on the part of Russia? I gave you concrete examples in this thread showing that standard of living in Russia has improved during the time of the war, Russian economy has grown, Russian military has become far stronger, and Russia has become a much more important geopolitical player in the world. In what way has Russia irrationally self harmed itself?
I literally provide you with many quotes and references from top western academics, diplomats, and politicians who disagree with your bold statement mr Ferk. I love how you cherry picked a single line from Chomsky while ignoring all the rest to make another straw man. Very mature of you.