02-25-2022, 01:19 PM
(02-25-2022, 01:00 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Of course he hasn't been innovative. He's an old hand at all of this and his moves are predictable. As for what we could've done to avoid this? Support a referendum for the separatist regions and agree to not add Ukraine to NATO. We tend to overlook our role in creating this problem. Don't get me wrong, Putin is an imperialistic oligarch and is in the wrong, here, but the US and Europe has gone back on their agreements and it instigated this. In 1990, both the US and NATO agreed to no eastward expansion beyond Germany with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. That was ignored and as the USSR fell, their former nations were added to the NATO roster. This is of concern to Russia as the distance between NATO, an organization really created to be antagonistic to them, creeps closer to their main seat of power. Ukraine was the last frontier in that regard as it provides a strategic pathway to major Russian cities from the west.
Now, this is the explanation coming from many folks that know this issue fairly well. There is probably a lot more to it, as international relations is very complex and multi-faceted. But this explanation really makes sense to me.
100% correct. This is exactly why I've said for decades that dissolving NATO and restarting the alliance under a different name and mission would have alleviated a lot of these issues. It certainly wouldn't have made Putin a better person, he's an irredeemable piece of shit, but every nation added to NATO was a thumb in the eye or a knee in the groin of Russia. As I stated earlier in this thread, Russia is a proud nation that tends to feel disrespected, when it desperately wants to be respected. They'll take respect any way they can get it, and if being a bully who is feared is the only way they feel they can get it, then that's what you'll get.
None of that excuses this war of aggression/expansion, but this all could likely have been prevented with very minimal fuss on our end a long time ago.
