- When they were told that they could join, just not yet. They should have just been let in.
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I mean, thatâs just fantasyland. NATO admission requires unanimous consent and thereâs no way that would have happened then. It wasnât even remotely on the table.
Thatâs a good point. Orban at least is likely to veto admitting Ukraine
Good job switching from âshouldâ to âwas.â You win, I guess. Iâve been chessmated.
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Orban? Maybe, I donât know, the newly admitted countries were pretty compliant to whatever the US wanted, for obvious reasons. The real obstacles were countries like Germany.
Also, I donât think he was in charge of Hungary during the relevant period, but, whatever.
If you agree that Ukraine membership in NATO wasnât at any point feasible then what the fuck are we even talking about here?
You asked me, âWhen should NATO have admitted Ukraine as a member?â and I said 2008. The fact that NATO fucked up does not make my answer incorrect.
Iâm pretty sure if Orban is the only hold out, there are ways of twisting his arm. I canât see Finland wanting to join and NATO saying - sorry, Orban says no. ÂŻ\(ă)/ÂŻ
Right, it just makes it total fantasy. It isnât something that could have happened, it was never even considered. It isnât a serious scenario.
Of course admitting Ukraine was feasible. Whatever happened to âGreat powers do what they will; lesser powers do what they must?â If you think a lesser powerâs objection to a NATO membership is a sufficient condition to block new members, I donât think youâre being, shall we say, realistic.
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to make the costs of european expansionist war (special operation) unpalatable to whoever is the general secretary, anytime before 2014 would have worked
OK, walk us through this, how does the US go about admitting Ukraine into NATO in 2008 over Germanyâs, Franceâs, and other minor nationâs objections?
maybe orban wasnât in power in 2008?
Nah, Iâm not going to bother. Youâre welcome to claim victory on the question of âshouldâ based on your unfalsifiable position that has nothing to do with âshould.â
Do you think Ukraine gets invaded if they were admitted to NATO in 2008?
Right, youâre not going to expand on your ahistorical bullshit because it is complete fantasy.
Maybe! Itâll either happen much earlier or not at all. But since Ukraine in NATO in 2008 could never happen, who cares.
Why would Germany object when they didnât to Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia? And why wouldnât the US just be able to push them through like they did all those countries in 2004 as a reward for their support in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Iâll speculate for youâŚMaybe the Russians do think Ukraine is different. Maybe Gerhard Schroeder, then Chancellor of Germany, who actively supported those admissions to NATO knew he would end up on the boards of Gazprom and Rosneft and wouldnât have supported Ukraineâs admission because it would have gone against those companyâs interests.
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They probably understood Russiaâs red lines better than the Bush administration:
Germany and France have said they believe that since neither Ukraine nor Georgia is stable enough to enter the program now, a membership plan would be an unnecessary offense to Russia, which firmly opposes the move. In fact, senior diplomats here said, the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, has threatened to cancel his planned first-ever visit to the NATO meeting on Friday if the two former Soviet states enter the program for eventual membership.
Mr. Ischinger, Germanyâs ambassador to London, noted that after the NATO summit meeting Mr. Bush and the two Russians would meet in Sochi, a Russian resort on the Black Sea. He said, âItâs the absence of this discussion that makes me wonder if NATO has done enough of its homework at this point on this front.â
Also an interesting hypothesis!
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https://twitter.com/Nik17137289/status/1502707468161495043
Well Keeed, Kissinger is on your side. So youâve got that going for you.
Does Russia have any territory that China has always coveted? Now would be the time.
Yeah, and you have Dick Cheney, David Frum, Bill Kristol, Lindsey Graham, and John Bolton. These seem like good guys to have on your side.