• lennybird@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      In a magical fairy-tale land, yes, defense alliances shouldn’t need to exist.

      In reality: NATO is the only reason NATO countries weren’t attacked by Putin’s act of blatant imperial aggression.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        I mean, honestly, the most anti-NATO position is “Russia shouldn’t have attacked Ukraine”, considering that there was an open question of “Why the fuck is NATO still around?” in some countries before Russia’s act of blatant imperialism.

        Russia’s attack on Ukraine revitalized NATO both in purpose and in popularity. Fucking insane what a self-defeating action that was in terms of international interests on Russia’s part.

        • lennybird@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Agreed, which leads me to believe that this wasn’t the primary motivation for Putin in the first place but just good bullshit for his gullible domestic base.

          As Naomi Klein spells out in The Shock Doctrine, such manufactured crises provide incentive to produce radical change. In this case:

          • Putin’s consolidation of power and proverbial nights of long knives (or high windows) as he kills off oligarchs and opponents.

          • Commiting ethnic genocide within his own borders by prioritizing minorities, prisoners, and impoverished to the Frontlines with no hope of survival.

          • Clamping down on domestic leftism and independent media.

          • Carrying out the playbook of neo-nazi Aleksandr Dugin and revitalizing the so-called might of the Russian empire.

          Putin did think and have fair reason to believe he could seize Ukraine for very little cost both economically and geopolitically.

          … But at this point it is all for saving face and legacy. Even if he took Ukraine in the next year (and he likely will never get more than 17% of the initial goals he had), it would almost never be worth it for the damage already done to Russia economically, intellectually, and geopolitically.

      • moshtradamus666@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Yeah cause Russia is a real danger to the world with their 50-year-old equipment, ooohhh so scaaryyy. Ukraine entering NATO was the reason Putin needed to justify his aggression, that’s the reality. USA should stop trying to be world hero, but this has nothing to do with heroism, war is very lucrative for them, specially when is very far from their territory. I’ll say it again, fuck NATO and their bullshit, is not about protection of allies, it’s about expanding power and influence as much as possible.

        • lennybird@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Ukraine never joined NATO, goofball.

          Are you high or something? Think this through for just a fucking second, will you?

          • NATO comes about as a VOLUNTARY Defensive Alliance to protect against aggressors.

          • Because a house decides to go in on a mutual pact with their neighbor that if an intruder invades their SOVEREIGN land, they both will meet that AGGRESSOR with overwhelming force…

          • … You somehow think it’s fine for the burglar to break in because they put defensive security measures in place and instead should just leave the door unlocked…?

          This is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve heard in a long time and basically means to cave to dictators outright.

          Also, did you forget that Russia once had its own equivalent called the Warsaw Pact? Given your complete lack of knowledge demonstrated here, I doubt it. So what’s stopping them? Oh, there’s no legitimate threat and Russia is a shithole that has nothing to leverage, hence its dissolution.

          Ironically, NATO strengthened because of Putin’s actions lmao.