What is “Europe”? It’s easy to say that “Europe” refers to a definable area of land, but there are multiplicities of meaning. “Europe” can also mean some sort of political, economic, sociocultural construct associated with a particular piece of land in the same way that Republicans might define “America” as some sort of white Christian capitalist democracy. Victor is, arguably, right for some definition of “Europe”, which may not be your preferred definition of “Europe”.
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The West should not rule out methods of assassination that produce significant levels of collateral damage.
Sounds pausible to me, but I don’t watch the news anymore. Which networks are beating the drums?
The Americans knew the soviets were up to no good and would eventually conquer all of Europe militarily and install communist satellite states under an autocratic leadership.
Stalin conquered half of Poland the moment he had an opportunity in 1939, and tried to conquer Finland in 1940. They also annexed the baltics during this time.
By 1945 stalin had the largest land army in Europe and the rest of Western Europe was devastated. All the countries that soviet russia marched through between 1943-1945, they kept to themselves.
The soviets manufactured a coup in Czech in 1948 and with the Berlin blockade it was obvious to the west that Stalin could not be trusted.
NATO was created from those events.
If communist Russia wasn’t such a shithead neighbour for all of its history the good guys wouldn’t have needed to create NATO.
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Pretending the US foreign policy has ever cared about anyone seems astonishingly naive at this point in history. There was never some golden age where we had principles. Foreign policy has always been about our interests. Which has always been understood to be synonymous with the interests of capital.
Agreed, but the notion that the reason we care about that was more than ‘communism is bad for business and we can’t let that spread’ is some sweet summer child shit.
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Why is “argument” spelled “argument” and not “arguement”?
Sheeple: NATO was created to keep the Soviet Union from dominating Eastern Europe.
You, extremely smart: Actually, NATO was created to keep the Soviet Union from dominating Eastern Europe, for capital.
This is just plain wrong. America got involved in WW1 and WW2 for reasons other than because it wanted to maintain capitalism export lines for its multinationals and return on capital.
Did you think Roosevelt sat there in the White House in 1941 thinking “Gee I am going to send American boys to WW2 and the only reason why is to protect good old American Capital”
Seeing the entire continent of Europe and Asia fall to communist dictatorships is an existential threat to humanity as a species.
Just because america has never been perfectly idealistic doesn’t mean they never cared about the people of nato. Your position is nonsense.
For Western powers, the Kosovo crrisis was fueled by frustration with Milsoevic and the legitimate fear that instability and conflict might spread further in the region, The evolving political aims of the Alliance and the changing nature of the transatlantic community also played a role. In that vein, it is useful to more broadly consider how NATO and Yugoslavia came to be locked in conflict…
NATO’s large membership and consensus style may cause endless headaches for military planners, but it is also why joining NATO is appealing to nations across central and eastern Europe. Nations from Albania to Ukraine want in the western club. The gravitational pull of the community of western democracies highlights why Milosevic’s Yugoslavia had become such an anachronism. As nations throughout the region sought to reform their economies, mitigate ethnic tensions, and broaden civil society, Belgrade seemed to delight in continually moving in the opposite direction. It is small wonder NATO and Yugoslavia ended up on a collision course. It was Yugoslavia’s resistance ot the broader trends of political and economic reform–not the plight of the Kosovar Albanians–that best explains NATO’s war. Milosevic had been a burr in the side of the transatlantic community for so long that the United States felt that he would only respond to military pressure Slobodan Milosevice’s repeated transgressions ran directly counter to the vision of a Europe “whole and free,” and challenged the very value of NATO’s continued existence.
John Norris, Communications Director for Secretary of State Strobe Talbott.
from Collision Course: NATO, Russia, and Kosovo
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“lol from your own quote.”
Saving someone the trouble. Yes, I read that. Also, this:
So it wasn’t that Yugoslavia was committing genocide, it was that committing genocide stood against the direction of the rest of Europe.
That is a position I guess.
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NATO sought to protect Europe/western Europe from Soviet domination and instability in order to protect capital.
Well, I guess that makes Soviet domination and instability preferable.
That’s a stupid fucking post and you’ve driven me out for a while again.
That’s what your source, which you clearly dove for a contrarian reason as this guy is a nobody, argues. That genocide was the direct result of those trends of political and economic reform. You cannot separate those things.
A nobody? You are a fucking idiot. He was the communications director for the US Secretary of State at the time and that US Secretary of State wrote the fucking forward for the book. It was a god damn brilliant find for what goofy asked. And you respond with “derp, that is a position I guess.” Jesus Christ.
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Name who that is right now without looking it up. Please.
How could I not know that after just getting that quote? That would be ridiculous. You don’t really have a theory of mind. You imagine that everyone is as stupid and incurious as you are. You’ll get the last word because this is my last post on this site for…hmmm…we’ll say 3 months. Maybe by then I’ll forget how much you’ve ruined this place.
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Frankly I’m still not sure who has that position right now or even if that position exists. Can you tell me who it is?