Nato summit: Ukraine on 'irreversible path' to membership
Nato summit: Ukraine on 'irreversible path' to membership
The alliance also pledges more aid to Ukraine, but China warns it to stop "provoking confrontation".
Nato members have pledged their support for an "irreversible path" to future membership for Ukraine, as well as more aid.
While a formal timeline for it to join the military alliance was not agreed at a summit in Washington DC, the military alliance's 32 members said they had "unwavering" support for Ukraine's war effort.
Nato has also announced further integration with Ukraine's military and members have committed €40bn ($43.3bn, £33.7bn) in aid in the next year, including F-16 fighter jets and air defence support.
The bloc's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said: "Support to Ukraine is not charity - it is in our own security interest."
I wonder why most neighbours of Russia want to join NATO. Being an aggressive neighbour is the only reason. Russia wants to control their neighbours.
Starting to notice a lot of Tankies jumping to .world because they let .ml slide enough that enough of us ban .ml users on sight
edit: Site to Sight.
This sentiment makes me sad.
I chose .ml because it was smaller than .world (and that seemed to be the point of federation) but was also generic (my interests are very varied) and had great uptime, and didn't de-federate or had been de-federated by many instances. Now people say stuff like this and I feel the need to change instances because I don't want people to tar me with that brush (and I have been accused directly multiple times just because of my instances) but I feel conflicted because the whole point of this while thing was that we could be on any instance we liked and it shouldn't impact our "social standing". I'm disappointed in people that they can't judge a person by the content of their character rather than the instance they are on. And alas - I feel it's only a matter of time before I'm forced to change instance because of other people's prejudice.
Communities on .ml are moderated in a way that pisses people off, especially in regard to politics.
People that judge someone with an .ml name on an different instance and a different community are acting like clowns. They're just being lazy and/or prejudicial.
Eh, they use .ml to mean marxist-leninist. I have an inkling feeling you too would be wary if you saw a comment by "[email protected]".
I feel conflicted because the whole point of this while thing was that we could be on any instance we liked and it shouldn't impact our "social standing".
I don't think that was ever the point of federation, especially with defederation as an option, specifically to deal with instances that don't follow generally accepted morays.
It sucks that you're going to have to abandon the instance you initially picked, but it happens to the best of us. I picked kbin initially, and abandoned that after a while due to the increasing toxicity, and the increasingly large lack of features or development by the one person doing it.
I might judge someone based off the usage of “tar me with that brush”
Never knew this was a thing. I just choose a random instance when I joined Lemmy.
Got banned recently for being critical about "Apple & China relationship" and sourced a few articles in privacy channel or whatever its called.
I didn't know why I was banned because according to their rules and didn't break any rules, so I messaged a few mods for a response.
Please don't ban me... I joined .ml because it was privacy, security and FOSS focused! I had no idea about the ancillary political focus now associated with it.
1: I'm just a user, if its just me blocking you, it's likely not going to impact your lemmy experience much
2: While the .ml tag means I instantly am wary/distrust you, the autoblock happens when you try and justify anything Russia and China has done.
Maybe Ukraine deserved to be invaded? Block
Countries surrounding Russia lining up to join Nato is a sign of expanding US Hegemony? Block
Isreali citizens deserved to be gunned down and r***** because they are settlers and not human? You better believe thats an autoblock
(China's not currently on this example list because they havent done anything in the last few months. I guess you could replace Ukraine for Taiwan in the first example)
(But really, if you are still in .ml and not a Tankie, you should move instances, that instance is too far gone for it to recover)
edit: And before one of you fucknuts "WHATABOUT GAZA" 's me, yeah FUCK the GOVERNMENT of Isreal for what they are doing to Gaza currently, two warcrimes dont make a right
Yeah, its a large instance, and you need some inside knowledge to know about the political leanings.
Fun fact, they chose .ml to abbreviate marxist-leninist
I joined .ml because it was privacy, security and FOSS focused!
Sort of the joke in all this. The .ml users are "raiding" the sub because they like the advanced feature set.
I chose whatever I am because it was the first one I saw when I made the jump
I'm not saying all world members are Tankies, I'm just saying that I'm seeing a whole lot more Russian apologia coming from .world users (China hasnt done something fucked in the news recently aside from that fuel/food thing that hit front page today) than I used to. Which is a similar pattern that I saw with .ml once most of us wised up to banning the fuck out of hexbear
I’m trying, but I don’t understand what this has to do with Ukraine NATO membership.
"Anyone who dares to say anything that disagrees with the official western line is a tankie" - you, basically. Anyway, all anyone has to do is look at the upvotes and downvotes to see who really is flooding .world and it's not the tankies like you claim with your victim complex post.
"Anyone who dares to say anything that disagrees with the official western line is a tankie" -
More like 'anyone with a comment history rabidly defending the acts of nations like Russia and China because anti-US'. You know, like your comment history.
You lot have been popping up here more and more as your havens get banned by people. But at least we can still block you directly.
Tankies in shambles.
Tankies are never in shambles. If Ukraine doesn't join NATO they'll say "See, NATO was just using Ukraine" and if Ukraine joins NATO they'll say "See, NATO is expanding east again". Tankies are never wrong when it comes to believing their own delusions.
I mean, I've seen tankies spin anything to fit their narrative, I'm sure they'll continue to do so. Remember, anything resembling support of Ukraine is an act of aggression against Russia, and tantamount to unilaterally starting WWIII.
Tankies in disarray!
I just have to wonder what the state of the NATO coalition is going to be if Trump takes office a second time.
Probably dented for quite a while but Europe is already in the process of re-arming and there are no existential threats that could prevent it buffalo buffalo buffalo from doing so. Russia can't take all of the EU or European NATO countries at once and Chinas military and navy aren't set up with long distance power projection in mind. The only exception would be the US itself if they really went off the deep end on a second Trump term.
Tankies have blood shooting out their penises
Hip hip hooray!
That was a way worse path to NATO membership than just fixing the corruption issues that were keeping them out of NATO in the first place.
I thought they denied membership to Ukraine for being too corrupt
I don't think the decision was ever on the table. But corruption is present in all countries, including the NATO members, so that'd be a bit hypocritical, especially now considering they're fighting for freedom and democracy. Supposedly what the alliance exists for.
for freedom and democracy. Supposedly what the alliance exists for.
What? It's been founded by a bunch of colonial nations (not ex-colonial at that point) still from time to time fighting colonial wars with war crimes and such. It has Turkey of all genocidal bastards as an important member.
The only reason for its existence was accumulating power. Well, as with all alliances.
Of course, kinda motivated by USSR redesigning its ground forces for capturing large parts of the world after they've been nuked. I'm not joking, that's the reason ex-Soviet militaries so terribly suck at actually fighting - they are sort of a different mechanism, more like huge mobile garrisons to deploy in wastelands. Their analog of western ground forces was, say, VDV in Russia ; which is why despite nominally having the narrow function of paradropped assault troops, they've been used for every kind of thing important.
But corruption is present in all countries, including the NATO members, so that’d be a bit hypocritical,
Yes, and also weird.
I don’t think the decision was ever on the table.
Yes, when after 2 years of war and hundreds of thousands dead they meet and sign something about "discussing help to Ukraine" in case fighting gets more intensive by not clear which criterion - it means Ukraine is not becoming a member.
About "irreversible path" - they've said such things about Georgia too. Ivanishvili's party is not good, but there's been plenty of time before they started acting like now.
I'm not familiar with that so I looked it up and found this article:
- EXPLAINER: Ukraine not joining NATO so why does Putin worry? (apnews, Feb. 2022)
"Ukraine has long aspired to join NATO, but the alliance is not about to offer an invitation, due in part to Ukraine’s official corruption, shortcomings in its defense establishment, and its lack of control over its international borders."
Maybe opinions have changed amongst NATO decision makers.
That was something the current administration cracked down on. Plus with the war, there isn't a lot of loose money floating around, but there's lots being spent on military and infrastructure, so they're making enough in legit business to not need to use corrupt means to get it. And a lot of the Russian oligarchy has left which was part of why they didn't want them.
Nuke time
On one hand, Russia deserves to be nuked. On the other hand, I don't want innocent people to die. So unfortunately no nukes.
"I hope you know what you're doing..."
The purely defensive pact keeps on expanding.
I wonder why? What happened recently to get all these nations lining up to join Nato?
NATO started expanding long before the current conflict.
Please expand on your comment, it doesnt say much. As I understand it, a sovereign nation has opted to join a group under its own free will due in part to threats, invasions, land grabs and broken agreements by its nuclear capable neighbour.
You're taking NATO at face value while ignoring the actions taken underground to pry apart any countries who aren't friendly to the west. Why would the west need to fund operations like this if it was such a voluntary and clearly beneficial relationship?: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
They gotta collectively match the size of Russia to be competitive.
...it is in our own security interest.
No one's security interests are served by a new era of escalating tensions between Russia and the West. No country has more nuclear weapons than Russia. All efforts should be taken to prevent Russia from becoming desperate enough to use their nuclear weapons. By further isolating and encircling Russia, I think the chances of them using their nuclear weapons increases.
Where do you draw the line? If you are happy to give up Ukraine to avoid a nuclear war, where do you stop? Can he take all of Eastern Europe? What about the whole of Europe? Everywhere except your country?
Putin is a bully, and you stand up to bullies.
Besides, he might have the most nukes, but given the maintenance costs for 5,000+ of them and the corruption in Russia, most of them probably won’t work.
I have more cars than all my friends put together.
Of course, they're all in various pieces, parting out for scrap, and in storage, so only my main driver works...
But hey, I've got the most cars!
You draw the line at "stop attacking outside your borders and we don't have an issue" it isn't hard...Russia has decided it wants to be seen as the villain and it wants the war to keep going ... Has nothing to do with NATO or the US.
Besides, he might have the most nukes, but given the maintenance costs for 5,000+ of them and the corruption in Russia, most of them probably won’t work.
I don't disagree with the rest of what you said, but this is kind of a silly dismissal. First of all "most of them" don't need to work. Only a few need to and vast numbers of people will die and the Earth may be poisoned for many years.
Yes, stand up to Putin. Absolutely give Ukraine NATO membership. But don't act like there's no risk here. There's a huge risk.
Yes, appease the bully, clearly the best strategy.
It worked for Hitler!
…wait.
By allowing Russia to expand it further provokes the west to use nuclear weapons. Huh, guess we're at a deadlock. I guess Russia could give back what they stole.
Ah yes, appeasement. A historically winning strategy.
That's funny because Ukraine gave up their nukes and Russia signed the agreement to defend their territorial integrity. Russia's feelings are irrelevant and if they want to nuke us all so they can get out of a contract they signed, that's their problem.
Another thing is you can appease someone completely in reality and people like Vladimir Putin will just turn around and say it's still not enough.
I think it's the other way around: Russia is aggressive but a show of strength would deter it. In other words, Russia isn't desperate to avoid a confrontation with the West. Russia wants a confrontation with the West, and it needs to know that that's a confrontation it won't win. (China also needs to know that, and it's watching the situation in Ukraine closely.)
That's not to say that we should seek out such a confrontation with the goal of intimidating Russia. A high-stakes situation like that does have the risk of escalating out of control. However, the situation in Ukraine is already such a confrontation, initiated by Russia due to its belief that the West is weak. It would have been much better to avoid creating such a belief, but now is too late for that. The best we can do is to avoid reinforcing it and, from a pragmatic perspective, it helps that most of the risk is borne by Ukraine.
In short, the nightmare scenario is Russia invading a NATO country like one of the Baltic states. Then either there is a war between nuclear powers immediately or Western unity collapses and a war between nuclear powers becomes much more likely in the near future. Our best chance of avoiding that is to stop Russia in Ukraine, where we can do so indirectly.
Edit: Also people shouldn't be down-voting you. You're making a valid point that needs to be addressed.
I disagree. As the cold war showed, shows of strength escalate, they do not deter. I don't believe for a moment Russia wants a confrontation with the West or that they believe the West is weak. I think they invaded Ukraine because they were scared of the West. They were scared of Ukraine's rich agricultural land coming under the control of the West, and they were scared of NATO being on their doorstep. I think the invasion of Ukraine was an act of fear and desperation, and if we continue down this path, more acts of fear and desperation will follow.
I wonder who fucking started the escalations?
Uh... nato...
You may want to look up the Sudeten crisis/Munich agreement and how effective it was at preventing war.
Ok, I give up. I've been down voted to hell and told repeatedly by multiple people that I'm an idiot or a coward or a Russian bot for wanting a peaceful resolution to the conflict, so I'm going to defer to the expertise of all these people and concede the point. It's not like my opinion was going to change anything anyway.
It's amazing to see how down voted a contrary opinion can be in this subject.
It's a little easier to understand if you reversed the situation.
How would the US react if the Russians supported Mexico in joining a military pact against the US, so that the Russians could build military bases and install short range nuclear weapons in Mexico and point then at the US? What would the reaction be if Russian then spent billions of dollars financing the Mexicans from any kind of military aggression from the US?
You can't threaten someone with a gun and not expect them to eventually shoot you.
It doesn't matter how anyone feels about my opinion but the more we posture with violence, lies on all sides, anger and an unwillingness to step back and find sensible solutions .... the closer we get to nuclear war and the end of civilization.
As an American I think that would all be reasonable...if the official US position was that Mexico has no right to exist, the Mexican people should be forcibly integrated into our society as 2nd class citizens, and the US Army was in the process of a "peacekeeping operation" in Mexico to carry all this out.
For all our flaws, we respect the borders of our neighbors and don't have irridentist aspirations that belong in the 19th century. Russia is the aggressor here, and they have demonstrated that they have little interest in global peace or human rights, only increasing their sphere of influence.
Continually rolling over for thugs because it's what avoids nuclear conflict will only lead to a global order based on thuggery, and it likely won't even avoid nuclear conflict in the end.
I'm no fan of Russia ... I'm just stating my opinion because I don't want to die in a nuclear holocaust because everyone didn't want to see reason.
There's only one country in modern history that has spread global influence and threats in every part of the world, imposed, threatened, created and caused violence everywhere for decades while imposing their financial, political and economic powers on everyone everywhere for all of modern history ....
.... and it isn't the Russians.
I think your downvotes are because your "reversal" is not particularly valid, not because your opinion is contrary.
As others have said, it would need the US to first be invading Mexico before Russia or other countries start propping Mexico up militarily.
Cuba.
For your hypothetical scenario to make more sense, the US would have had to annex Baja California just a decade prior, then straight up have gone to forward invasion war with Mexico to annex more, bombing the shit out of the country including children’s hospitals.
In that scenario, fuck yes Mexico would be justified in finding allies to help them maintain sovereignty and protect themselves.
That’s what happens when nations invade one another.
Cuba (country right next to the US) aligned itself with the USSR after Castro's revolution, and the US has attempted to coup them, invade them, murder their leaders, then sink them in isolation and starvation. I've always defended that Cuba had the right of self-determination for their own foreign and domestic policy, and that the US was in the wrong for retaliating against them.
It would be extremely hypocritical of me to defend that Ukraine has no right to self-determine whether they want to be in a defensive pact or not, and whether they want to join the EU or not, just because a third country would like them not to do so - just as it's extremely hypocritical of tankies and campists to say that Cuba had the right to choose their own future but Ukraine doesn't.
Yeah, Cuba decided to choose sides in a (cold)war AND become a very real threat to US civilians. As was their right, as you said. Decisions have consequences.
The coups and assassinations were a means of punching them in the decision-makers so maybe the next ones would see the value of remaining out of the fight. The isolation and blockading was to make their population decide the fight wasn't worth it and call upon their leadership to change stance back to at least neutral. We could have just hit everything they had with long range missiles and bombers and said "don't join our enemies or else!" as their cities fell over and their island burned
They absolutely had the right to make those decisions and ally with who they want...and had the war gone hot, we would not have taken the time to pick off leaders here and there or blockade them and wag a finger. We would have carpet bombed cities that we heard rumors of leadership being near before entrenched soviet troops could have launched missiles from said cities (they wouldn't care, it isn't their country).
It wasn't retaliation, it was striking a very real and very bad threat before it could get dug in and become permanent.
The parallel with Ukraine isn't really the same. The US is an international bully and does some vile shit, but we, and our allies, don't care about Russia (before this)...it was just a big sleeping threat to guard against (say...incase they start conquering neighbors...). Even if the US has bases inside a NATO Ukraine, we wouldn't start shit with Russia or take their land...people don't want another world war. Also, we already have all the capability and power to do whatever we want to anywhere in the world. Cuba was a threat because we were pretty much logistically untouchable when it came to prosecuting a war against us....Cuba changed that. These days, we can stuff more insane destructive power inside ONE of our cargo planes that reaches out farther than any plans for Cuba ever had. We don't have to have a base next door to do war. We could ONLY have a base in Spain and still be an existential threat to Russia these days...and they aren't taking all of Europe. Honestly, with how empty Russia is, we could set up launchers INSIDE their country and attack them if we really wanted to...
Sorry, I got way ranty...I don't think your position is without some reason, but I can't say, for as awful as it was, that Cuba was handled incorrectly given the time frame and threat. I also respect that you stick to your idea that "it is their right to decide" in any case. I just don't think you realize how fundimentally different those scenarios are beyond a very surface level.
Just putinists apologist nonsense. Just gaslighting the world .. they backed us into a corner.. they made us deny they have the right to exist as a country, invade them and commit atrocities against their population.
The call is coming from inside the house...
No threat to Russia except free prosperous Ukranians living across the Russian border, who speak russian and have deep ties to Russian population. This by far is the biggest threat to Putin's health, hence the war.
Oh and the fact that Russia sold gas to Europe though Ukraine and needed to pay. But now Ukraine found a lot of gas in the Donbas also did not help.
It's all on Russia. Maybe if they weren't terrible neighbors to neighboring countries, this wouldn't happen. NATO doesn't force countries to join, nor does it seek other countries to join. If the country wants to be a part of NATO, they have to apply. I'm tired of seeing this tired talking point.
Yeah if the US had invaded Mexico maybe it would be understandable if they sought Russian help. Your whole comment ignores the fact that Russia invaded a sovereign country in 2014 and continues to kill people every day there trying to take it over. There's no arguing with bullies like Putin, we learned this lesson with Hitler. Burying them in the ground is better than appeasing them.
That's not an opinion. That's the lack of it. Plus a few grams of whataboutism. You're a victim of Russian propaganda agents.
find sensible solutions
For example? How do you do that with terrorists?
False premise. "A military pact against".
While it looks that way because Russia is a military invader and overall aggressor, NATO is a defensive pact. If the US decided to attack someone to be a dick, it doesn't draw NATO in automatically....but if someone attacked a NATO member obligations trigger and everyone dogpiles the foolish attacker. Yes Russia was the boogieman use to get people to join, but it was not "against" Russia exclusively, it was against aggressors.
I get the cuban missile crisis parallel too. But this would be more like Russia and Mexico doing a "we will protect you if the US actually attacks" agreement and the US would just be annoyed with Russian bases that close and halt trade with Mexico as whiney punishment or some such. However, the US doesn't seem to want to conquer Mexico, so it doesn't parallel well to reality. Cuba was "let's put offensive capabilities next to you during a war (cold....but it was a war)" that is self defense and very different.
No matter what, there will be hostile borders around the world and deterrence is all we can do to keep it quiet. Ukraine war would have never happened if it was in NATO, and the US woulda just let Russia sleep despite the strategic advantage of having Ukraine right there. The US has plenty of other horrible shit it does, we don't conquer with military might.
I also know the story about how Putin tried to play nice with the world and got shit on and not let into the club fully, and this is part of him acting out for that. There is some very small legitimacy, or at least a logic to that claim....but you just don't take countries anymore, especially if it makes you a threat to the EU.
Sucking Russia off is not a contrary opinion. I'm not going to entertain anyone saying that maybe Russia isnt in the wrong for Invading Ukraine, and maybe the countries providing military support for Ukraine to defend itself are in the wrong for maybe making Russia feel threatened. America does a lot of shit wrong, supporting Ukraine is not one of them in any way.
edit: added accidentally missed half of sentence
What if supporting Ukraine just ends in a loss with a hundred thousand more dead people and less territory; would that have made it a mistake to support Ukraine?
The main issue is that Russia feels that it cant let ukraine join nato, its "the reddest of red lines" and yet they are pushing us toward a direct conflict with russia.
If the US invaded Mexico, I would fully support any and every country that supported Mexico in pretty much any way.
Wild that you call out posturing with violence, but seem fine to forgive actual violence.
If the U.S. even thought about invading Mexico, I would support Mexico arming themselves to the teeth.
But Mexico is clearly not worried about it. It would be so catastrophic for the US, even if it somehow succeeded.
This happened once with the Cuban crisis, and humanity still exists thanks to the level headedness of JFK. I'm not sure the situation is comparable as, afaik, no new nukes have been stationed in Europe after the end of the cold war. And it is useful to remind that nobody would have felt the need to join NATO after the end of cold war if they hadn't felt threatened.
The US would react with diplomatic protests and perhaps sanctions. If Russia had acted that way with Ukraine it would have been their right.
How would the US react if the Russians supported Mexico in joining a military pact against the US, so that the Russians could build military bases and install short range nuclear weapons in Mexico and point then at the US?
This a convoluted scenario, as why would they do this in the first place? The US, as big of an asshole as it is, is not invading Mexico. Mexico is not the least bit worried about it.
Ukraine was very worried about Russia invading them, for years, for legitimate reasons. And what does Russia do to alleviate those fears? Repeatedly threaten them, then actually invade.
A gun happy neighbor you are complicated friends with is very different than a gun happy neighbor who is repeatedly saying they want your house. If the situation afterwards feels unfair, well, that's Russia's fault for getting there in the first place.
And if the U.S actually postured itself for invading Mexico, for heavens sake, I would want them to arm themselves to the teeth.
Propaganda has been turned up to 11 to manufacture consent for this war, it's no wonder people are so polarized about it.
We already know how we treat Cuba even without them installing a military base. Direct invasion and cutting it off from the world. The hypocrisy is staggering.
