The worst-case scenario is now a possible one: European troops fighting off an invasion largely alone.
It’s by no means clear the Europeans would succeed. Romanian and other European officials at the exercise in Cincu, about 260 kilometers (162 miles) north of Bucharest by road, voiced concerns about how long it would take for NATO allies to make it to the front.
French four-star General Philippe de Montenon said he’s confident Europe could prevail, even without the US on side. “The direction of history is a progressive disengagement of the United States from the European continent,” he said.
In my opinion, the morally correct answer is to have a mild relation with Russia, consisting of trade and not much more. Europe would get access to a huge pool of resources to boost its industry, and stopping to antagonize our neighboring countries would help to drive down military tensions in the continent.
NATO was conceived as an anti-Soviet military pact, and any excuse for its usefulness expired after 1991. Now it’s just a military playground for US interests, keeping European money flowing to the Wunderwaffen of the USA Military Industrial Complex, and maintaining Yankee military bases in the continent.
so how do you respond to a violent invasion of a country like ukraine, which is made of people who don’t want to be part of russia
How did Europe respond to the genocide in Gaza? To the invasion of Iraq? To the blanket bombing of Vietnam, Laos and Korea? To the invasion of Afghanistan? To the coups in essentially all countries in Latin America? To the invasion attempt on Cuba?
Why should Europe exclusively react to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?
that isn’t much of an answer. I still have no idea what your position is.
to answer your question though, I don’t think any of those invasions you listed are good things. I don’t think they had good outcomes, and I don’t like them
I equally condemn them, yes.
My position is: Russian government sucks, it’s a far right wing nationalist antidemocratic regime. Europe is just not really better or in a moral position to believe itself better than Russia. We have our own far right problems that we should locally take care of. If you ask me, a communist, I suggest having radical left wing organizations, strong unionization, and class struggle against the oligarchs and capitalists in Europe, and I would strongly encourage Russian citizens to do the same with their own government.
That said, I think that war is the least desirable outcome, possibly especially because I’m a young conscriptable male by demographics. My stance as a European is antimilitarism, I think Europe is as much an evil empire as Russia if not worse, and I don’t want state expenditure to be directed towards weapons and tanks, I want it to be directed to healthcare, education and pensions.
I believe that Russia assumes an aggressive militaristic stance with its neighboring countries that it considera its sphere of influence, because it doesnt have the soft power tools (propaganda, economics, intelligence, media control, cultural hegemony) that the west does, and it sees the west intruding in its sphere of influence (e.g. color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia). The only way the Russian oligarchy and capitalists have of maintaining its sphere of influence, given the lack of soft powers to do so in comparison with the west, is through military power.
I want to leave Russia alone with its sphere of influence, and have friendly relations with it and China, and not have war.
Ban test
how do you suppose a mild relation with russia could be achieved in this scenario?
The way it was from the late 90s to the early 2010s: by allowing them to have their Russian sphere of influence (Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan…) the same way US ans Germany enjoy their own.
And if Ukraine doesn’t want to be a part of that, then fuck them I guess?
I wish you had the same level of concern for Mexicans, Venezuelans, Argentinians, Guatemalans, Cubans, Hondurans and Puertorricans. As a western citizen you should be primarily concerned with the consequences on the sphere of influence of your country.
Ultimate whataboutism final boss
It’s a comparison, not whataboutism. They’re comparing similar things, they’re not trying to shift the discussion somewhere else.
Big imperialist capitalist countries want to have spheres of influence, especially in their immediate proximity, this is basic geopolitics. Intruding reach other’s leads to escalation. It really is that simple.
Also, in case you didn’t think of this: joining a military pact isn’t a human right. It is totally possible and sometimes very rational to say “no” to a country who wants to join it. I’d bet my ass you would have absolutely no problem with the EU rejecting countries from joining such as Morocco, Algeria, Libya or Saudi Arabia. If you don’t see that NATO allowing neighboring countries to Russia to join it is an escalation towards Russia, I don’t know what to tell you. I tried to explain how Mexico joining a military pact with China and/or Russia would be a horrible idea in terms of escalation and risk of war.
Russia invaded a sovereign nation, they weren’t just minding their own fucking business
History began in 2022?