Question: Does the right to sovereignty also mean for Georgia and Ukraine, for example, that Russia would have nothing against their accession to the EU and NATO?
Lavrov: That is their choice. We respect the right of every state - including our neighbors - to choose its own partners, to decide for itself which organization to join. We assume that they will consider for themselves how they develop their politics and economy and which partners and allies they rely on.
SSU said that joining Nato would lead to Russia attacking Finland? Really, ssu? — Christoffer
It's here — Isaac
Russia has constantly threatened Finland and Sweden with "serious military and political repercussions" if they join NATO. For years now, actually. — ssu
March 12 (Interfax) - Finland and Sweden's possible accession to NATO would have serious military and political consequences and require Russia to take retaliatory measures, Russian Foreign Ministry Second European Department Director Sergei Belyayev said.
"It is obvious that Finland and Sweden's joining NATO, which is a military organization in the first place, would have serious military and political consequences requiring use to revise the entire range of relations with these countries and take retaliatory measures," Belyayev said in an interview with Interfax.
Finland should join Nato to better handle its security, said the country's Prime Minister and president in a joint declaration on Thursday morning.
Sanna Marin (SDP) and Sauli Niinistö said they had come to the conclusion after a wide-ranging debate on security policy following Russia's renewed attack on Ukraine.
"Now that the moment of decision-making is near, we state our equal views, also for information to the parliamentary groups and parties. NATO membership would strengthen Finland’s security," read the statement.
"As a member of NATO, Finland would strengthen the entire defence alliance. Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay. We hope that the national steps still needed to make this decision will be taken rapidly within the next few days."
We shall see, now that Finland has applied. — Olivier5
Russia is too dangerous to wait for them to recover before trying to join any kind of security. — Christoffer
So what would the military repercussions be then? — Isaac
I guess the obvious thing would be to reinforce the air defenses in the Leningrad area and basically put more troops on the border. — ssu
perhaps — ssu
I guess — ssu
typical nonsense — ssu
The hubris is unbelievable. You come up with a load of armchair speculation ranging from the motives of leaders, the military tactics of armies, political strategies, economic repercussions... And then have the shameless ego to assume literally any other such guesswork is "nonsense". It just beggars belief. — Isaac
keeps misunderstanding others, all the time, that's what he does here. He's good at it. I guess it stems from 'the will to be dumb', the desire for obscurity and doubt, the fear of clarity. What he calls 'hubris' is exactly that: clarity of thought, and he's pissed when you clarify things. — Olivier5
the setting is set to "common internet forum mode". — Christoffer
keeps misunderstanding others, all the time, that's what he does here. He's good at it. — Olivier5
It's so much easier to misunderstand and keep your narrative than to understand and challenge yourself. It's a bias that most people do and it's what philosophy aims to bypass. — Christoffer
his thread should be better curated than others, not abandoned by the mods as it is now. — Olivier5
If Germany had the courage to ask for a say on the American-Ukrainian strategy, nothing like this appears to have been on offer: the German tanks, it seems, will be handed over carte blanche. Rumours have it that the numerous wargames commissioned in recent years from military thinktanks by the American government involving Ukraine, NATO and Russia have one way or other all ended in nuclear Armageddon, at least in Europe.
...De-industrializing Russia, à la von der Leyen, will not be possible anyway as China will ultimately not allow it: not least because it needs a functioning Russian state for its New Silk Road project. Popular demands in the West for Putin and his camarilla to stand trial in the International Criminal Court in The Hague will, for these reasons alone, remain unfulfilled.
...Ukrainian politics apart, an American proxy war for Ukraine may force Russia into a close relationship of dependence on Beijing, securing China a captive Eurasian ally and giving it assured access to Russian resources, at bargain prices as the West would no longer compete for them. Russia, in turn, could benefit from Chinese technology, to the extent that it would be made available. At first glance, an alliance like this might appear to be contrary to the geostrategic interests of the United States. It would, however, come with an equally close, and equally asymmetrical, American-dominated alliance between the United States and Western Europe, one that would keep Germany under control and suppress French aspirations for ‘European sovereignty’.
There is a powerful impulse within the electorates of the nato states for their governments to give a lead to the world and really help the less fortunate overwhelming majority of humanity to improve their lives and strengthen their security and welfare. But we must bear in mind two unfortunate facts: first, that the nato states have been and are hell-bent on exacerbating the inequalities of power and wealth in the world, on destroying all challenges to their overwhelming military and economic power and on subordinating almost all other considerations to these goals; and second, the nato states are finding it extraordinarily easy to manipulate their domestic electorates into believing that these states are indeed leading the world’s population towards a more just and humane future when, in reality, they are doing no such thing.
The fate of Yugoslavia in the 1990s has been a classic case of this general story. nato electorates thought their states were trying to help in Yugoslavia, even if they were not ‘doing enough’. In reality, Western policies promoted the descent into barbaric wars. There are occasions when advanced capitalist countries will help the populations of other states. But these occasions are rare, namely when the welfare of the populations of these other states is a vital weapon in a struggle against another powerful enemy. This applied to us policy towards Western Europe when it was threatened by Communist triumph in the early post-war years. The welfare of the people of Yugoslavia has been irrelevant to the nato powers in the 1990s because these powers have faced no effective enemies whatever.
...It is surely right that institutions should be built that can put a stop to such acts of political violence and can punish their perpetrators. But we face an acute dilemma when we confront this task because we know enough about the dynamics of politics to be able to identify not only the perpetrators of atrocities, but the international actors who helped and continue to help create the conditions in which such perpetrators arise. And, in the Yugoslav case, the Western powers, by their deliberate acts of commission and omission, played a central role in creating the conditions in which barbaric acts were bound to flourish.
And Lavrov’s comments? — Punshhh
When the risks (of using nuclear weapons - ed.) are very, very substantial, I would not like these risks to be artificially inflated, and there are many people willing to do so. The risk is grave, it is real, it can not be underestimated - Interview with Channel One Russia, April 25, 2022
would you contemplate the possibility to make Crimea a neutral state independent from Ukraine and Russia? — neomac
Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay was NATO’s first Secretary General, a position he was initially reluctant to accept. By the end of his tenure however, Ismay had become the biggest advocate of the organisation he had famously said earlier on in his political career, was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”
perhaps
— ssu
I guess
— ssu — Isaac
?You come up with a load of armchair speculation ranging from the motives of leaders, the military tactics of armies, political strategies, economic repercussions... — Isaac
That's why I'm against imperialism, be it American, European, Russian, Chinese, Turkish, or whatever. — Apollodorus
:snicker:What I'm saying is that Russia has more of a claim on Crimea than Ukraine has. — Apollodorus
As for Siberia, most of it was uninhabited land that the Russians gradually colonized and took over, no big deal. — Apollodorus
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