Kev The Rat
Player Valuation: £70m
Same old crap being repeated
With no acknowledgement or understanding of the very specific cultural and historical issues that relate to Ukraine.
They don’t care about Finland in NATO for example
Current Affairs Ukraine
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With no acknowledgement or understanding of the very specific cultural and historical issues that relate to Ukraine.
They don’t care about Finland in NATO for example
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
… a blackened pot writes
Kev The Rat
Player Valuation: £70m
I do think the nato question is less important than is made out.
But Putin and others around him have repeatedly said Ukrainians and Russians are one people which I think is probably closer to the main reason for intervention.
You will say ‘Ukraine must be allowed to self determine’ but that self determination does not apparently extend to the areas that themselves wish to reunite with the Russian Federation.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
There's some bewilderingly benign views here on the nature of NATO and what it's there for. It's a competing gang just as it was in the Cold War against the Warsaw Pact but now it's got the Russia/China axis in its sights.
NATO is funded primarily by Washington but the struggle is not ideological anymore - it's not capitalism v communism/Stalinism anymore it's a struggle over profits and scarce resources and spheres of influence that secure those. It's a capitalist vs capitalist struggle. I see these two pacts as equal in their culpability. How can anyone not see what's happening geo-politically as anything differently? Crazy to me.
Dont support any of them. They dont represent us. They represent only elites, whether they're Russian oligarchs and Chinese state capitalists or western billionaires and their political poodles.
NATO is funded primarily by Washington but the struggle is not ideological anymore - it's not capitalism v communism/Stalinism anymore it's a struggle over profits and scarce resources and spheres of influence that secure those. It's a capitalist vs capitalist struggle. I see these two pacts as equal in their culpability. How can anyone not see what's happening geo-politically as anything differently? Crazy to me.
Dont support any of them. They dont represent us. They represent only elites, whether they're Russian oligarchs and Chinese state capitalists or western billionaires and their political poodles.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Which of coursen isn't imperialist expansionism is it?
A pox on both of them I say.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
EU membership is a different kettle of fish.
Of course those people in undeveloped eastern Europe logically want to get in on the EU. They're not daft, they want a decent standard of living. Joining NATO though is a national elite priority.
Of course it’s imperial expansionism. If you know yer history you’ll find that Peter the Great grew the Russian empire by capturing ports on the Black Sea and invading and capturing the Baltic states.
It’s obvious that Putin sees himself as a modern day Tsar and aspires to return Peter’s empire to its former greatness.
Why do you think the Baltic states with their large ethnic Russian populations jumped at the chance of joining NATO?
If they hadn’t then they’d be next on Putin’s list.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
My point is not to deny that Putin is a would be imperial expansionist, and the grab for land in Crimea and now in southern Ukraine and the east is proof that he would like that. He wields power on the basis of fulfilling that national chauvinism.
But you dont see that there's another imperial grab for power. You dont allow for that. I dont know why.
Hmmm NATO listening posts 80miles from their nuclear sub base at Murmansk and their strategic bomber bases at Arkhangelsk.
NATO intel aircraft flying missions 45 miles from Saint Petersburg
I’d say they care very much about Finland being in NATO
But it’s not a power grab at all. Nations apply to join NATO of their own free will. They’re not forced at the barrel of a gun.
These former Soviet block countries made their own choices
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Those nations are not the people. The leaders of those countries make a choice that being inside NATO will assure them of being part of a geo-political order that's attempting to secure more of the world's material resources and they back them to achieve it over Russia / China and want protection too.
Look at the grief those BRIC national leaders get for not jumping to it and backing NATO's stance in Ukraine. They havent done it because they want to leave themselves open to triangulate and get the best outcome for their international group...they get to do that because they're so economically powerful and cant be cajoled by the west to throw in with them and come under their miltary umbrella....that's not the case with those nations who've fallen into line since 1999.
In short: there's a compulsion here. Those national elites in northern and eastern Europe feel the pull of NATO, yes. But they also cant really do anything other than fall in with the growing bloc.
Check out this link - some interesting statistics on whether PEOPLE OF NATIONS wish to remain as part of NATO
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1282208/opinion-on-staying-in-nato-in-cee-by-country/
I’d say that the majority are happy to be part of NATO.
Cool_Blue
Player Valuation: £35m
Tennessee Blue Mike
Player Valuation: £50m
No doubt in anyone's mind. They, especially the mouthpiece Dmitry Medvedev have stated on more than one occasion that there would be retribution if Finland joined. They are really struggling on that one as they would have been next along with Poland to have caused havoc. Cut that one off at the pass before it started.
Kev The Rat
Player Valuation: £70m
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