Ukraine being in or out of NATO has nothing to do with port access. Nothing in your post is about how Ukraine being in NATO harms Russia, only that it hinders Russia from conquering Ukraine and forces them to treat it as a sovereign nation. Indeed, none of your arguments make a lick of sense unless you buy into Putin’s argument that Ukraine is not a sovereign nation but is instead a modern fiction that he has the right to undo via genocide.
Yeah like the multiple genocides Russia committed there
This is only true if Ukraine being in or out of NATO has no correlation to Russia controlling Crimea and, thus, Sevastopol.
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It’s orders of magnitude more important because it makes them EASIER TO CONQUER.
Leaving that bit out is at least a tad disingenuous.
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rofl yeah man, that noted Russian propaganda outlet, uh, the Council of Foreign Relations
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You using it that way is the apologia, not the source.
If you used Wikipedia to argue Russia’s bullshit interests that’d be apologia too
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OK, do you think these are legitimate arguments that deserve equal consideration from fair-minded people, or just that they are examples of the bullshit Russia puts forth in service of genocide and conquest?
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These aren’t arguments. Nothing there justifies a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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But arguments for why Ukraine is the juiciest target for conquest are not really an explanation for why this time, for some reason, is the first time that any nuclear super power will use nukes in a proxy war. Post-Soviet Russia existed without Sevastopol for quite a bit longer than it has had control of it, and Russia was fine for all of that time. Does Russia want Sevastopol? Sure, that much is obvious. But it’s not like their economy or anything else in Russia depends on owning it. As such, there is no reason to believe that the territory seized in 2014 is any more likely to generate a nuclear backlash than any other lines that Putin has bandied about.
I didn’t read that as an argument for why Ukraine is the juiciest target. I read that as an argument for why Russia has an emotional interest in Ukraine that isn’t the same as US-Vietnam or USSR-Afghanistan. This isn’t a proxy war on the Russian side. There’s a clear emotional angle to how Russia thinks about Ukraine. This isn’t just a pretext for Putin warmongering. The war probably continues even if Putin dies because his desire wasn’t born out of nothing.
The Russian Black Sea Fleet has been based on Sevastapol since the fall of the Soviet Union. Until superseded by the invasion of Crimea, there was a lease agreement for Russia to have a base in Sevastopol. Mot quite the permanent lease that the US has for Guantanamo in Cuba, but with automatic renewal.
Some Russian politicians clamoring to take Sevastopol in the 1990s was one reason that Ukraine tried to develop closer ties with NATO.
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The argument that Russia won’t use nukes because they (or the Soviet Union) haven’t in the past is the same as the argument that Republicans won’t let the US default in a debt ceiling showdown because they haven’t in the past. The argument that they will in both cases is that the motives of today are different from the past.
Well, I got “Fear of not getting to renew the lease on the Sevatapol naval base” as the first thing cited that resembles a legitimate gripe Russia would have if Ukraine joined NATO.
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Of course, but it’s also only sensible to ascribe less probability to following through on the threat every time it is made and not followed through upon.
For one, I wasn’t talking to you. For two, I thought all your points above were simply “backdrop for Russian motivations” and not actual arguments that should be taken seriously by independent observers.
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I completely agree with you that Putin and other Russian nationalists see the long-standing relationship between Russia and Ukraine as being more intertwined and intimate than it’s relationships with other countries formerly or presently under it’s influence.
Consequently, I can see why these hardliners believe Ukraine needs to be brought back home.
Although I’m not an expert on Russia, I do have some expertise about how abusive people act when their long-time partners try to leave.
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Im not following this as closely day-to-day as most people here, but just curious, what happens to the Ukranian efforts if the House cuts US funding off in 2023? Is this a case where Europe can carry the mantle and/or Ukraine already has enough to fight and just is going to have to deal with getting more funding for post-war efforts later or are they totally fucked?
I’d be shocked if a Republican house did actually cut off funding. The Republicans are overwhelmingly in favor of the US proxy war and the Democrats are literally unanimously supporting whatever Biden wants for Ukraine. If the Republicans win the house I’ll bet they’ll do some kabuki opposition of what Biden asks for and then pass something smaller than what he asks for, or maybe with more oversight and some hearings. But substantially cut off funding? I’d be shocked. Hopefully I’m wrong.
But to answer your actual question, I think they’d be hosed if US funding was slashed. Their 2020 GDP was $155 billion. It’s tough to get exact numbers but I think the military and other aid from the US has been $70-80 billion. Biden claims to only want to send $50 billion for all of 2023, but I’m dubious it would stay that low. Could Europe pay the US share if the US bails? They could afford to, but can they send the weapons that the US could? I doubt it but I’m not sure.
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A full withdrawal of US support would be a really big hit. Weapons systems are really important and depending on how the budget was written, we could also be looking at a loss of training/surveillance/intelligence capabilities. I don’t think we know exactly how much the US is helping with picking out targets and providing info about Russisn troop movements, but I’m pretty sure it’s not zero.
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Even if the rest of NATO COULD pick up the slack, I’m not sure they will. If US support goes away completely, I think it becomes a lot harder to keep the NATO coalition invested in the fight. Are France and Germany really going to pick up the mantle?
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