The NATO "problem" wasn't the continued existence of NATO after the collapse of the USSR, but rather the expansion into traditional USSR/Russian areas of influence (Slavic areas). That's what they resent. Of course, given economic realities, many of those areas would prefer to have better ties with the West than the kleptocratic alternative, but that's neither here nor there.
Sure, but two things. No one is contesting their Central Asia client states that's in their pocket --we're not trying to expand NATO there... and two they have a special affinity to Slavic peoples due to culture. (they treat them like an "ex-" with a certain amount of jealousy.
Central Asia, no (although China is actively making inroads there).
But there's still Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia to consider. These aren't Slavic, but they are of interest to both NATO and Russia. Well, Armenia is pretty firmly aligned with Russia for historical reasons and some semblance of security against Azerbaijan and Turkey. But the other two are already Western-oriented, and Georgia has applied for NATO membership in the past.
As far as Slavic affinity, it's a bit more complicated. For example, Bulgarians are Slavic, and Eastern Orthodox even, but being on the wrong side of WW1 and then WW2 vis a vis Russia/USSR overrides that. OTOH with Ukrainians, many Russians outright deny that they even are a separate nation or ethnicity, and claim that it's just a sub-branch of Russians who speak a dialect of Russian. From that perspective, occupying Ukraine is described as "re-unifying" Russia.
I wouldn't make it about ethnicity. Making it about former Soviet republics and members of the Warsaw pact is the problem, from Russia's point of view. A problem that, in hindsight maybe, is so obvious and so guaranteed to come (Russia complained about NATOs eastern expansion for decades) that it seems surprising that NATO doesn't seem to have an answer. Hell, when Russia annexed the Krim and tried to annex parts of Georgia one would think NATO would have gotten a clear wake up call.
Germany makes deals with Russia to get their gas (NS1 and NS2) and only recently they declined NS2.
Basically we (EU) are giving Russia money to create army, instead of ditching their gas, oil etc. and buying one from Scandinavia and US (now when Russian gas prices are higher than the ones form the mentioned countries). And destroying NS1 and 2.
Russia considers NATO's presence at its borders a national threat.
On one hand - NATO protects its members from our possible aggression, on the other hand Russia sees NATO's assets (lets say AA systems) as means to degrade country's capabilities to respond in case of attack from the West (no matter how are the chances of such an attack).
Russia is a like an abusive man with PTSD - always expecting an attack that doesn't come and victimizing himself while abusing others.
Has Russia perhaps thought for a moment why are countries making an alliance to defend against Russia? Why aren't countries in NATO worried about being attacked by other countries in NATO? Because *all the countries there don't want war*.
NATO is not to attack Russia, but to defend against it. The idea of protecting against counter attack from the West is like saying "I can't leave my house to protect against the possibility of a meteorite against my head."
> Has Russia perhaps thought for a moment why are countries making an alliance to defend against Russia?
Yeah, there's a lot of rhetoric coming from Russia denouncing "NATO expansion". NATO isn't some belligerent expanding force, annexing territory; countries are actively asking to join NATO. Perhaps Russia should ask themselves why all these countries feel safer being aligned with NATO and the West than with Russia.
What Putin actually considers casus belli isn't important for the moment - it could be anything, reasoned or not. Can we, here, present arguments that the desire of Russia to be able to attack neighbor countries should be honored? Do we extend MAD doctrine to non-nuclear matters - that is, everybody should refrain from defense, as defense reduces their neighbors' abilities to fight back in case those neighbors are attacked? Is it reasonable - for the moment - to think that countries, improving their defenses, actually offend neighbors?
Does Russia really think the West will attack them? Russia has nukes. The West doesn't want a nuclear war with Russia.
The West isn't even defending Ukraine from a Russian attack. Did Russia think the West would defend Ukraine? If so, why did Russia still attack? If not, then why would Russia think there's any chance the West will attack Russia unprovoked?
so the bottom line is that russia (or more correctly, putin) is unable to accept that their state cannot and would not be allowed by the west to become a superpower.
I think the inevitable result is war. I think the west should've decisively defeated the soviets when they broke apart, and prevented this, but instead, the optimism that an autocratic state would not do so is the true reality. But of course, it doesn't have good optics at the time to do this. I guess the future will tell if this war escalates.
> I think the west should've decisively defeated the soviets when they broke apart,
That wouldn't have been feasible given military realities (nukes, the total impossibility of invading and occupying Russia), and even if it had been what would it have achieved? The age of imperialism is over. The west has won allies by respecting the right of their populations to self-determination. (And when it hasn't respected self-determination, it has often lost ground.)
The West (I live in a Western country by the way) did not respect self determination of people when it didn't suit the Wests interests. Not before WW1 (when there was no West), not between WW1 and WW2 (Austria wanted to join Germany and wasn't allowed to, the whole former Russian Empire as engulfed in a civil war over that very question, not to mention the colonial empires) or after WW2 (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Arab Spring, Syria,...).
The war that is on the horizon is not about the "good" vs. the "evil". It is about one revisionist, power hungry leader going toe-to-toe with another power-hungry block over territorial dominance. And about those people just wanting to live in peace caught in the middle.
You're thinking of all the times the West waged war, while I was thinking of the times that it didn't. First in my mind were the countries joining NATO after the end of the Cold War: Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Albania.
Those countries became allies, not through force, but because we were able to devise a mutually beneficial relationship.
Personally, I'd attribute that more to the European Union. But yes, NATO certainly helped. Only shows that there are no simple answers. I only want to point out that NATO, and the EU for that matter, despite all the good the did in Europe are by no means the "good" benefactors in other countries. Also, just because I think some of Russia's actions are understandable, I don't think they are even remotely justified or acceptable. Same goes for the war on terror, the EUs handling of refugees, basically all NATO interventions with the possible exception of Yugoslavia (not the Kosovo) when they tried, and kind of failed, to prevent genocide.
In what way did the West not decisively defeat the soviets? Communism died, the Warsaw Pact disbanded, and several former Russian client states joined NATO. The current crisis is a revanchist attempt to revert that defeat.
Cold war is much more likely than hot war, I’d expect.
Russian grand strategy is defensive. Their primary threat is a large-scale invasion. It happened once in the 19th century and at least twice in the 20th century. Maybe three times if you count Russian Civil War.
To counter the threat of a potential invasion, Russia tries to maintain a buffer zone of friends, puppets, and occupied territories. This is a continuous process, as politics change. Today's friends may be tomorrow's enemies, revolutions may overthrow puppets, and the costs of military occupation may prove too high. Russia fights wars and organizes coups to maintain the buffer zone. The rights of their neighbors don't matter to them when national security is at stake.
Russia fears NATO, because NATO has the capability to project power. They fear that NATO could be the next invader. The fact that NATO has no intention of doing so is irrelevant to them, because politics change. It's the military capabilities they are afraid of.
If there is going to be a change, it must come from inside. Russia must stop being afraid and become a member of the international community connected by trade. There was a chance of that in the 80s and 90s, but the chance was lost. Another chance may come after Putin, or the next leader and the next regime could be more of the same.
Why would a country that has so many nukes be afraid of invasion? Genuine question, maybe I am missing something but I see this kind of explanation (Russia afraid of massive land invasion) often and it does not make any sense to me. It feels like applying pre-WW2 logic to world that has fundamentally changed after WW2. Also, if I am mistaken, before Russia attacked Georgia, NATO had like 4 battalions close to Russia and military spending in Europe was going down to ridiculous levels.
Nuclear powers are afraid of invasion because there is a lot of territory between conventional war and the use of nuclear weapons. And because they know that the only real threat of invasion comes from other nuclear powers, meaning once the nukes are fired, the other side fires back and all of a sudden there isn't anything left to defend anymore.
NATO had the local armies of the Baltics, Poland, Slovakia and so on the Russian border (by definition). NATO had the US forces in Germany reasonably close to the Russian border. NATO had the forces supporting the war in Afghanistan on Russians southern border None of that was, as far as anyone not informed about secret NATO planning, can tell geared against Russia. If your neighbor patrols his fence with a huge axe while your children are playing in the backyard, so, you would be worried I assume. Even if it was just to cut wood. Especially if you have bad history with that neighbor.
During the cold war, both NATO and the Warsaw pact conducted war games about invasions of the other side. War Games, because they needed something build their defensive strategies on. As it turned out, both sides, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, never had any real invasions plans for Europe, instead both side focused purely on defense against such an invasion. Turns out that this fear of the other side never died.
Since all that lies in the past, the question where we (as in the West) draws the line. NATO, and the US, kept a ton of unresolved territorial disputes in check since the end of the cold war. Most of those conflicts have the potential to turn really, really bad. If Russia gets away with their attack on Ukraine, others will, potentially rightly so, think they can do the same. And then the World-as-we-know-it might pretty much just end. Well, it might as well if NATO goes to war with Russia over Ukraine as well. Only bad choices it seems.
This is the difference between strategy and grand strategy. Russia is planning not only for 2025 or 2030 but also for 2050 and beyond. Who knows what the world will be then and whether nuclear weapons continue being an effective deterrent. They are falling back to the rules of thumb empires have used for ages. Having a potential enemy at your doorstep can be a bad thing, while having some space between you and potential enemies is probably a good thing.
I am no strategist but I would estimate that right now Russia is generating incredible amounts of hate and fear and turning even those who were kind of indifferent into future enemies. If I naively estimate the probability of this being some rational grand strategy vs probability of this being a move of an old dictator possessed by his ego and some imagined grievances behaving in an irrational way that will damage Russia... I am leaning towards the later one. Of course this is just one example and there are certainly other scenarios/explanations.
I wouldn't make this too much about Putin as a person. Russia has had plenty of leaders with similar ambitions, both in Soviet times and in the empire before it. If leaders like Putin persistently arise in Russia, there must be deeper institutional issues behind them.
That is not how I read Putin. Instead what I'm seeing, is a person who is inherently nationalistic having experienced that his pride was hurt.
I see this tendency within many, if not most countries that have seen a decline in national power over some period, and were nationalists wanted to "Make <their country> Great Again".
Examples:
- Germany under Hitler
- Italy under Mussolini
- France after WW2, when they were quite nationalistic for decades, and certainly did NOT like that English had become the "Lingua Franca"
- Britain under Margaret Thatcher
- Russian under Putin
- MAGA
- And most important of all: China under Xi Jinping
Some of these movements were relatively harmless, some were (and are) very dangerous
This post is strictly personal. I feel like when Dmitry Medvedev was leader of Russia (during the "Putin swap period") that tensions were much lower. Privately: I am such a big fan of him. He is such a geek! I sincerely wonder when Medvedev and (Sergey) Lavrov think about the Crimea and Ukraine situation.
When I look long term, I cannot wonder how Russia will ever leave Crimea. Does that mean that Russia is the next Iran with "forever" sanctions? I cannot see another story, unless Putin leaves and the next leader is more centrist, like Medvedev.
> The fact that NATO has no intention of doing so is irrelevant to them, because politics change. It's the military capabilities they are afraid of.
The change is not in politics - for decades post-Soviet Russia wasn't worrying about NATO. Actually, no - even the point that Russia is afraid isn't correct - it's Putin who's afraid. NATO problem doesn't really exists.
