Topic: Where are the guts of NATO & the US? (Read 376 times)

its pretty simple
nato is a membership. meaning you gotta pay to get in and use its services.
if it started offering its services for free no one would pay to be a member

nato wont break its member contract and help out a non member directly as it sends a message to the current members that they dont need to be members to get neto support. thus undoing nato.

so nato would rather do nothing and keep its members(and their fees) than step up to help a potential future member

I think that they (NATO and US) are not "powerless" against Russia, but they are seeing how things go. They also don't want to make matters more complex, by imposing sanctions that would make Putin even crazier than this. Especially after Putin issued a statement that if any country intervened in their actions, they would see something that had never happened in history, this statement that I think made NATO and the US think twice about wanting to intervene directly. Hopefully the dialogue between Ukraine and Russia in the second session will find a solution to this problem.

               TBH, I really don't know anymore. I just tried reading more about this and seems like Russia and US had agreement that US will not expand even an inch towards the east but the US did so plenty of times it even has missile assemblies on Romania and Poland and now they want UK as well to he oart of NATO, goals simply look fishy. Which is why Putin sees this as an insult and an act of deceiving Russia. But then again it was just a verbal agreement, and UKR already has every right to be free and in fact was the one who made an application for NATO. I am so confused with everything at the moment. Seems information is lacking about this issue between the US and Russia to really point out who needs to be blamed. One thing is clear though, their egos make this thing last longer than it should and is now affecting a lot of people. :/

My ultimate fears still revolve around the true mental stability of Putin, and whether he's mentally capable of standing down, at this point in his political, and mortal, life... or if he sees this as his 'final hurrah'.

Putin's approval ratings in Russia seem to have been declining somewhat quickly the past 4-5 years, and I don't think the invasion will help those ratings, and he probably knows that. He's getting older. He has weapons he hasn't used yet, which are deployed. He's not a guy who appears he is going to walk away and accept a loss at this point.

I do hope I'm wrong, because if he begins to use some of the weapons, like the "flamethrower", we are probably heading towards an eventual deployment of a nuclear weapon on some level, probably one the world has never seen, and probably the end of life as we know it.. and ya, that's depressing.

That said, it is inspiring to see Ukrainians putting up this type of fight.. Russia is definitely not getting what they expected, and I'm starting to see support from all over the world for Ukranians, more closed airspaces, additional sanctions (finally), companies speaking out and cutting ties with Russia, etc.. which is good stuff, they need every bit of help they can get.
Even Klitschko got in on the action.

While I do realize it is a sensitive situation, from a NATO/US perspective, if someone like Putin is allowed to take another country such as Ukraine, with its unique strategic location for further conflict, it seems equivalent to [militarily] shooting one's self in the foot before getting into an eventual boxing match with someone who just put on a new pair of loaded gloves.. this is of course assuming Putin succeeds in taking Ukraine.. which I really hope he does not.  

Keep up the good fight, Ukrainians.

Thats not fair actually. Provided thry try that, Im pretty sure their chance of success is less than 5& or could be much lower. Russia loves Putin and they are good on cyber info, if there is an information about a plan like that surely Russian Intelligence would know right away. Plus killing him would let the people of Russia revolted and retaliate.

You guys realise that WW3 will be the end of life on earth, right? I know some idiots are feeling extremely heroic, despite not going to Ukraine to fight themselves, for some reason....

But there's a reason why everyone is so careful. Because we don't want nukes involved. Especially those moving at supersonic speeds (currently impossible to counter).

The west fucked up with Ukraine. I give full responsibility to the west for dancing on eggshells instead of admitting Ukraine to NATO. Now its too late. Most we can do is wait and watch Ukraine fall.

Well, I think that although the loss of any human life is a tragedy and should be avoided, from what Putin has done to wanting to conquer the whole world and gassing millions of people because he considers them subhuman there is a still a tiny difference.

Although as I said before, I would be on the lookout in case things escalate. But as much as we perceive Putin as a bully (or much worse) who we'd like to beat up, destroying all of humanity is a prospect no one likes, which is why NATO hasn't sent troops to Ukraine.

If Putin didn't have nukes it would be a different story. I don't doubt that Nato would have sent a bunch of troops to defend Ukraine.

Why do you think Gadaffi died the way he did and the president of North Korea is alive? Gadaffi signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, while Kim Jong-un has a few dozen nuclear weapons. That's a game changer. If Kim Jong-un didn't have a few nukes he would be dead for a while now.

In International politics might is right, no one owns the globe. It's left for Ukraine to stand up and be defensive to themselves rather than waiting on the USA to intervene. Cause as far as those missiles are not dropping on USA soil, it's only going to be from one sanction to another while Ukrainian are bearing the brunt.

This incident of Ukraine will actually be a game changing event in global geo poltics, US has lost all it's reputation as a saviour of small countries. Moving forward all the countries will intend to be self sufficient in terms of their defense need, don't be surprised if you even see Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons being torn apart by many countries. Countries would realise keeping nukes is the only options to counter big giants having nukes themselves. UN already didn't had any reputation we all know. Don't be surprised if now countries leave their alliance with US even if that gives them that bad boy image around the world.

These things might get out of hand way too quickly. One misstep and boom the next thing we see will be nukes flying everywhere. The thing is, it is hard to sanction Russia when they are the biggest energy supplier of EU. Biden himself said something similar to this if I am not mistaken. "We will sanction Russia but we will keep buying their oil because we don't want the Europeans freeze to death." How is you gonna sanction Russia when their only and the biggest export is Oil/Gas? That don't make any sense.

This ignores decades, centuries of history since before the US even existed. Pretty much immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union and the "block", most newly-independent countries started looking for defense from Russia's aggression, which they felt was inevitable sooner or later. 50+ years - and in some cases 200+ years - of repressive occupation tends to do that to nations.

Ironically this probably benefited Russia quite a bit. Instead of subsidizing half of Europe with energy and military resources as it did post WW2, it could now sell oil/gas (including to its former "blockmates"), let NATO take care of their military needs, and cash in on increased trade with the growing new economies.

But that apparently "provoked" a senile KGBist - trying to disguise his shaking hands by holding onto a desk - into declaring war on an independent country.

This makes no sense to anyone, probably not even to ordinary Russians, but that's what Kremlin's propaganda says and you're helpfully spreading the message.

               Well, maybe I do get carried away and may have a bit of misinformation on my part but as far as what I can see, Ukraine is the origin of Russia and all throughout the years, US has been expanding influence with clear goals of suppressing Russia. With their actions it's really not that difficult to understand. And now things has reached this point, the US barely does anything to prevent the deaths from happening. Don't get me wrong though, no matter the cause, win or lose,  whether you manage to protect or not or however the hell it is sugarcoated, war is a pointless exercise. What I am trying to point out is the possibility of all these nonsense not happening had the US thought about their actions more carefully and didn't continue to provoke Russia.

Hasn't he already reached hitler status by invading Ukraine in this fashion?  He has said he is seeking to "denazify" the country. He's inhumane, and his actions do resemble hitler.. a narcissistic psychopath, a mad man.

No country should be allowed to walk into another country (especially one that appears to have close/family ties between their citizens) and tell his soldiers to annihilate anyone who opposes them. For nobody to really be helping defend Ukranians, human beings, feels as bad as when people turned their heads while Jews were being slaughtered by hitler.

Seems like Ukranians get a choice to fight (and likely die), flee the country (best choice at this point IMO, if you even can), or [eventually] join Russia's federation (making it bigger).. but hey, for any struggling with the changes, I'm sure Putin will offer denatzifying education facilities, a.k.a modern day concentration camps to "help" those struggling.

I see your question much more rational than what af_newbie raises who wants to start a war with Putin because he is supposedly able to predict the future.

In fact, Russia is already issuing warnings about finland and Sweden: Russia Issues Ominous Warning to Finland, Sweden Should They Join NATO

If Putin turns out to be a Hitler and, say, invades Poland, be prepared for all-out war. It is one thing to be wary of someone who has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, and another to let a new Hitler start invading countries at will.

Although if I were Biden or any NATO country leader I would put a lot of intelligence and money to try to perform a JFK on Putin right now. I think it would be smarter.

More sanctions might be counter productive. European economy is integrated. Europe needs Russia and Russia needs them. The sanctions are well coordinated to minimize the impact on the economy of nations that depends on Russia for certain goods and services. We know hundreds are dying and we want more sanctions but more sanctions could lead to more death by hunger and poverty

I'm quite sure that sanctions are coordinated with allies and possibly big businesses with the supposed goal of minimizing the impact on the economy. The stock market is just a symptom, not the reason. I don't agree with it, but it's been like that forever, not surprising in the least.

The very first thing we should do is to stop buying oil and gas from this Soviet regime and destroy their pipelines in Europe.

As of today, the US is still buying oil from the Soviets.

 How is the power going out? EMP?.. I would think Putin has more incentive to detonate a nuclear EMP on western countries than western countries would have detonating it on themselves.

You think Biden is picking this path to help the stock market?  Either way, for me, I can't see the stock market being a good reason to let Ukranians be terrorized while we sit around for a month watching.. I think the long-term effects/consequences of this decision is worse than a [likely temporary] dip in the stock market.

What's the plan IF he threatens the same thing to any other country he wants to take over after Ukraine?  

We should do whatever we can to avoid WWIII... but, ya, feels like the match has been lit.  

What is going on between Russia and Ukraine at the moment is a very high level of international politics. I've tried really had to understand the reasons behind this propaganda and my thoughts ties America to it. America is a very smart country and so are American but the propaganda is just so much with Russia putting out a claim that Ukraine is been used like a puppet by America. Fronting it with NATO and creating a NATO bridgehead at Russians borders.

Am still trying to understand Biden's softness on the whole issue but in a way, should Biden go hard on the issue, it would be putting lives at serious risk and his got no right to do that. We don't need a world war III.

This is the result of giving up nuclear weapons. Surely this would not have happened if those nukes Ukraine had in the 90's were still theirs. Not saying destabilized countries should have nuclear weapons, but the least the U.S. could have done is hold up their end of the deal and provide protection to Ukraine.

As with most things, it comes down to greed. Ukraine is useless to the U.S. and all NATO countries, while Russia has the natural resources. So they'll let the country fall as long as the EU gets their oil.