re: Is Henry Kissinger's reason for Russian invasion of Ukraine wrong?

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I would think the US orchestrating a 2014 coup in Ukraine to remove the pro-Russian President and put in a pro-US/NATO president would come off as being aggressive.

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But we ousted a Russian-backed coup, so even with your assertion being true, Russia was the initial aggressor. We just responded.

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I just think fomenting a coup in Ukraine to replace a Russian puppet with a western one in order to bring them into union with NATO was an obvious act of aggression that should have been seen as a step too far.

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And that's why let Russia steal Crimea.

That was 2014

This is 2022

The government we put in place was ousted by Zelensky

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Okay, let’s imagine, for a moment, that the Balkans nations didn’t all hate each other more than they hate any other nation. Turkey and Greece have been saber rattling for years over maritime borders and claims to Cyprus. Now, imagine if Greece started entering a mutual support agreement with all of the other Balkan nations against Turkey. The Turks might get a little nervous at the prospect of a coalition army massing 120 miles from Istanbul, but the Turkish mainland isn’t threatened. Now, imagine Georgia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Armenia join in. The Turks will react…violently. They will have to in order to survive.

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Except, in reality, when faced with that type of opposition, such as in 2000, what did the Turks do? We don't have to invent a scenario when we can look at Turkish directly. They pursued what they called the 'Good Neighbors' policy, which sought to address historical grievances and tried to promote economic integration. That situation changed only with the Syrian Civil War.

You guys keep acting like Russia had no choice but to react with violence, but that is just not true. They had plenty of chances to integrate with Europe proper through trade, as Merkel's approach after 2005, called Wandel durch Handel, was directly informed by West German Ostpolitik with East Germany after 1970. But Putin has been explicit on why he started to see the West as a threat, as he was at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. He referenced the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 as a direct threat to Russia, all without understanding why the US might want to pursue other defensive arrangements, considering what happened the year prior. That seemed like a fatalistic approach to international relations, but who can question what Putin sees as a threat?

Apparently, in the post-colonial sense, only Russia is justified in using its history to interfere with other countries in a violent fashion, where that logic wouldn't fly with literally anyone else.

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I just think fomenting a coup in Ukraine to replace a Russian puppet with a western one in order to bring them into union with NATO was an obvious act of aggression that should have been seen as a step too far.

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Again, do you think that Poroshenko was the first pro-NATO Ukrainian leader? Is it okay for Russia to interfere with Ukrainian politics, but somehow it isn't okay for the US? This line keeps getting repeated and it is so damn stupid on every level.

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Putin invading kind of validates Ukraine's concerns.

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Putin invading validates millenia of geopolitics as well as Henry Kissinger. The US/Nato pushing up against Russias doorstep 100% caused it.

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Simplest explanation is Putin wants to restore the Russian Empire.

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Nonsense. He is not repeating this in any of their former satelites that do NOT have a coup/stolen election done by the US State Department occurring in them on his doorstep. No defense in them.

Simple explanations are fine when they are truthful. When not it is only evidence of a simpleton

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but somehow it isn't okay for the US? This line keeps getting repeated and it is so damn stupid on every level.

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it is so damn stupid when you repeat your nonsense.

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Of course not! Does anyone really believe that “Weapons of Mass Destruction” was the reason the U.S. actually wanted to invade Iraq? Of course not! In foreign policy, every nation is made of liars with aspirations and agendas. Every word is simply a justification for carrying out their agenda, even if it has flowery language like “The War on Terror”, or “Making the world safe for democracy”. Countries use any opening they can spin as justification for taking the actions they already want to tak

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I’m in total agreement there.

Which is why I don’t understand why people actually continue to say “well nato aggression in expanding to Ukraine made Russia feel threatened so they invaded”. It’s giving credence to what everyone knows is a false pretext.

NATO expansion isn’t the reason Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s just what excuse they packaged the invasion as to their public.

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it is so damn stupid when you repeat your nonsense.

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Lol

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and attacking the pro-Russian Donbas. Ukraine helped instigate this as well. I'm not pro-Russian at all but the US, NATO, Ukraine have helped create this. THis is not where Ukraine was just being a good little country and the US was minding their own business, then the big bad Russia just invaded us for no reasons. You had Russians getting killed by Ukrainians for year in the pro Russian regions.

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Got it. So now all Russia has to do is unilaterally annex territory, proclaim it Russian, then invade it to protect Russians. The country whose territory was annexed by Russia has no right to attempt to prevent the annexation.


Which of course is exactly what they’re doing right now.

Because there’s an old saying “don’t give your enemy a club to hit you with.”

Even if you know you’re dealing with an antagonistic liar, you still try not to give them easy narratives to spin into the lies they want to tell. It’s like with the republicans during elections. The dems are going to lie about how republicans hate women or want to put black people in chains, but that definitely doesn’t mean that republicans should say things that can easily be spun to that effect.