Dismissing Russia's concerns is exactly what led to this war.
> It's not even that there was absolutely no active process of joining NATO when Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2014 and started all this. No; if Ukraine wants to join NATO, that's entirely Ukraine's decision. Russia has no say in it. Ukraine is sovereign and can join any military alliance it wants. Just as Russia is free to do so.
NATO stated in the 2008 Bucharest Summit that "Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance" and reiterated that statement in the 2021 Brussels Summit. I didn't even remember those details, it was easy to find with google and a vague idea that NATO had shown interest in Ukraine.
> No nation has extra-territorial security interests that it needs to defend by attacking a neutral, peaceful and friendly neighbor.
Then you know nothing of US doctrine. The Central Americans will tell you how the US will even invade just to lower the price of bananas - no joke.
> You have been fooled into defending imperialism. Or worse; you're consciously defending imperialism.
No, I really don't have a side in this. I'm simply presenting Russia's viewpoint as I understand it. I also understand the Western viewpoint as well, but there's no need to defend it in present company, we all agree about NATO, European, and US positions on the matter.
This is not "Russia's viewpoint", but a narrative to advance their ambition of enslaving again the roughly 100 million people who became free after the USSR collapsed.
The Russian viewpoint is that Eastern Europe would be much easier to conquer if they were internationally isolated and could be picked off one by one like in the 1940s. The current war against Ukraine is an excellent example of this; international cooperation is a leading reason for the failure of the invasion. All the complaints about NATO lead back to the fact that for Russia it elevates the cost of invading Eastern Europe. Without NATO, they would face only limited conventional forces in Poland. With NATO, an attack on Poland go as far as activating American carrier groups or even a nuclear response.
> > It’s not even that there was absolutely no active process of joining NATO when Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2014 and started all this. No; if Ukraine wants to join NATO, that’s entirely Ukraine’s decision. Russia has no say in it. Ukraine is sovereign and can join any military alliance it wants. Just as Russia is free to do so.
> NATO stated in the 2008 Bucharest Summit that “Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance” and reiterated that statement in the 2021 Brussels Summit. I didn’t even remember those details, it was easy to find with google and a vague idea that NATO had shown interest in Ukraine.
A little bit more competent Googling would fill in the context you’ve clearly missed:
(1) The 2008 statement was a way of mollifying Ukraine after acceding to Russia’s demand that Ukraine and Georgia be denied NATO Membership Action Plans at the 2008 summit. (Russia responded, by the way, to this accession to their demands by invading Georgia. Might have done the same to the Ukraine soon after, except by the time they were at a stable point with Georgia, they’d already managed to get a Russia-friendly government in Ukraine.)
(2) Ukraine publicly abandoned any interest in a foreign military alliance between the 2008 summit and the 2014 invasion by Russia.
(3) Ukraine abandoned its neutrality stance and restarted attempts to join NATO only after the 2014 invasion.
(4) The 2021 statement was, again, a way of putting a nice face for Ukraine on NATO again rejecting Ukraine’s attempts to join in the near term.
> Dismissing Russia's concerns is exactly what led to this war.
No. Russia invading a peaceful, friendly and neutral neighbor with unmarked military units is what lead to this war.
> NATO stated in the 2008 Bucharest Summit
FR, ES and DE made it clear that Ukraine would not be a candidate for NATO and nothing came of it. The first step in admitting a nation into NATO is a Membership Action Plan (MAP) - there never was a such for Ukraine. NATO membership for Ukraine was dead in the water in 2014, when Russia heinously attacked with unmarked military units.
But that is besides the point, really; Ukraine is sovereign. It is a sovereign nation that can itself decide which alliances to join. Ukraine is not beholden to Russia and Russia doesn't get a say in Ukrainian politics. Russia is not the Soviet Union and Ukraine is not the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
> Then you know nothing of US doctrine.
Ah, yes. The "this one over there is a murderer too" defense. You're still defending imperialism, you're just defending imperialism with more imperialism.
> I'm simply presenting Russia's viewpoint as I understand it.
Russia's viewpoint is that Ukraine has no right so sovereignty. That's in direct violation with multiple treaties with Ukraine that Russia has signed.
Russia does not want an independent Ukraine. That's why they have been attacking Ukraine for 10 years now, first clandestine and then ever more openly. That's why they have been bombing civilians, that's why the formally annexed Ukrainian territory, that's why they will not grant peace to their neighbor.
Because without Ukraine, there can be no Russian Empire.
Dismissing Russia's concerns is exactly what led to this war.
Provided one accepts that those concerns are valid.
And that its stated "concerns" were in fact its actual reasons for starting the war.
But there is no compelling logical basis for us to accept either of these premises.
I don't have time to fully dissect what you're saying about the NATO issue -- other than that you are leaving out some very important details which for some reason were not presented to you in whatever sources you are reading from. (Which is a polite way of telling you: your sources are apparently misinformed, or worse).
But the main point is: none of the NATO stuff ever amounted to an actual physical threat against the Russian state, or otherwise any rational reason for Russia's regime to start a war.
More to the point, it wasn't the real reason it chose to the start the war. It's just something it says, for internal and external propaganda purposes.
So no - we don't have to "accept that Russia's concerns are valid".
> No nation has extra-territorial security interests that it needs to defend by attacking a neutral, peaceful and friendly neighbor.
Then you know nothing of US doctrine. The Central Americans will tell you how the US will even invade just to lower the price of bananas - no joke.
No, I really don't have a side in this. I'm simply presenting Russia's viewpoint as I understand it. I also understand the Western viewpoint as well, but there's no need to defend it in present company, we all agree about NATO, European, and US positions on the matter.