RecordAceFromNew
Member
I am sorry - conflating those two questions is the least of your problem - think much of what you say is non sequitur.
For example, you say you struggle with whether NATO is '"to blame" for Putin's actions' because:
"It strips away agency from nation states and citizens, or it assumes that Putin's actions are in defense of Russia's borders which is nonsensical. At worst it justifies Putin's actions."
Apologies in advance for the long response:
1) Why must blaming NATO justify Putin's actions? Can't both be guilty of their respective actions? This is not a team sport, or Hollywood production.
2) NATO's complicity is clear irrespective of Putin's subsequent actions. NATO leaders giving, and then betraying the "not one inch" assurance, which would have provided Russia a significant security buffer and sphere of influence (which you admit US secure and guard jealously for themselves) is proven by declassified records.
3) Ukraine's "agency" to join (as opposed to apply to join) NATO was not fundamentally compromised by Putin as you say, but by NATO leaders' assurances in 1990s that it won't happen. If Ukraine's agency was that important to NATO, such assurances wouldn't have been given in the first place.
4) Separately and importantly, those assurances were made to facilitate Russian acceptance of the reunification of Germany and the end of USSR, giving NATO easy victory of the Cold War, and Ukraine their independence no less - i.e. both NATO and Ukraine have been major beneficiaries of those assurances. Sure, since Ukraine never gave those assurances, they are free to apply to join. But, and it is a big but, by US inviting Ukraine to join in 2008, and then refused to keep their end of the bargain by confirming never to accept Ukraine joining meant US/NATO must bear a major responsibility for the results - even a child should understand why the Russians feel cheated, and why numerous Western diplomats/officials, entirely reasonably, predicted and warned against NATO expansion, and blamed US/NATO for the resulting mess.
Can you give a cogent reason why US shouldn't have confirmed to Russia in early February that Ukraine will not be accepted to join NATO, given it would have been morally correct to keep to their end of the bargain, likely avoided the bloodshed and destruction, and the starving and chaos around the world that are still to come?
As an aside, what would you have done, if you were Putin, to stay US's hands in the Feb 2014 coup resulting in a hostile Ukrainian government, to stop NATO members arming them since, and to make NATO stick to their end of the bargain?
5) The most serious problem with your argument is actually crystalised when you say 'playing the game of "who has been the bigger bastard" is not massively constructive.' That might be true in many situations, but not this, when the biggest bastard on the planet happens to be knee deep in causing and indeed sustaining/prolonging this proxy war (not to mention a long history of other wars), from literally the opposite side of the planet, so unlike Russia's, their national security was never even remotely threatened.
Yet, the US are cast in the West on the side of the "good", for no better reason than they are seen to be on the side of victims on the ground, while in reality without their complicity the victims most likely wouldn't be victims in the first place. The end result, is as if realpolitik (or the law of the jungle) is accepted while exercised by the biggest bastard and their poodles, but not by Russia and Russian actions must be morally and severely judged. In case you are unaware, this sentiment is not generally shared outside the West (which represents only c12% of global population) - they could hardly not notice the blatant hypocrisy of "Team USA".
Does it really matter to be a 24-carat hypocrite in this case? Using the same playbook of insidious actions and demonisation and mass media, the biggest bastard's principal foreign policy objective, notwithstanding this war, remains the containment of China, which not only is an ocean away, they have not fired a single shot across or beyond their borders for over 40 years. Does China have plans to invade US? Or indeed any other sovereign state on earth? Being already the world's largest economy in PPP terms, China being so "contained" is widely considered the biggest risk by far for WW3 - not satisfied with China's genuine desire for increasing trade/integration for ultimately a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, and well aware Taiwan independence being China's firm red line (Taiwan being a province of China is a fact officially accepted by Taiwan, US and 177 other national governments), the biggest bastard is arming Taiwan despite Chinese protests. How is that different to Russia arming Ukrainians in Donbas? What can possibly go wrong?
Instead of answering your questions on Finland/Sweden, which are probably moot given Turkey's objection plus Russia likely doesn't consider Finland/Sweden hostile, what I would suggest, is if one must bring morality into great powers discussions, it is necessary to consider carefully what if the shoe was on the other foot. After all, it is immoral to be a hypocrite.
