re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Thing is they really have little reason to join NATO.

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Pretty sure Article 5 would be coming in handy for them right about now

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NATO has already been helping them for years

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frick that. Sovereign nations don't bend to the paranoid whim of dictators.

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Sovereign nations

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Ukraine has the right to rule over its territory as it sees fit. This is called sovereignty. Ukraine also has the right to seek alliances to maintain that sovereignty and to protect its own perceived interests.

Theory is great, but it is only theory. Reality does tend to intrude though. In this case, the Ukrainians have made a mess out of their post-Maidan revolution by exacerbating Moscow’s natural paranoia through its constant requests to join NATO. By doing this, Ukraine antagonizes its much more powerful neighbour which sees itself under existential threat from its smaller neighbour’s invitations to host a hostile organization on its soil. It is therefore only natural that Russia would act to neutralize this existential threat, because it can and it showed in 2014 (and again this week) that it will.

Much like how the USA would never tolerate a Chinese client regime in Mexico with nukes pointed at it, the Russians have shown that they won’t tolerate NATO in Ukraine. For the past few months, head Russian diplomat Lavrov has patiently explained to the West that NATO in Ukraine is a non-starter for them, and that they will take actions to ensure that their national security interests are protected. These security interests come at the cost of Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea in 2014, and now over the Donbass as of yesterday.

What Are the Ukrainians Thinking?????
Everyone wishes to maximize their own autonomy, and Ukrainians aren’t that different in that respect. The calculation that Ukrainians have made in the past and continue to make going forward is that by tying themselves to the world’s superpower, the USA, they will protect their own state and sovereignty, even if they have to make some painful concessions to the Americans (such as economic and political reforms, and cultural reforms like gay pride parades in this very conservative country). Therefore, get away from Russia > being under the American thumb. The Ukrainians took one look at their neighbours in Poland, Lithuania, and Romania and saw that NATO membership protected them from unwanted Russian advances. They also saw that Georgia was partitioned in between the two para-states known as Abkhazia and South Ossetia, with rump Georgia, a state that wasn’t under the NATO umbrella.

Ukraine’s calculation failed because it didn’t take into account three important points:

historical-cultural ties between it and Russia

Ukraine’s sheer size and geographic position

the fact that the two points above make Ukraine, unlike the other states listed, an existential matter to Russia

There is a fourth point which completely tanks Ukraine’s position:

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Uh oh. Prepare thy anus. People around here don't like any rational arguments displaying the logic of the opposing side of the conflict. You're basically a Russian spokesman tied directly to the Kremlin in their eyes now.

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