“Oleksii Reznikov said in an interview that he detected a split within
the NATO military alliance over how far to go in supporting Ukraine.
Canada, the U.S., and Britain were more willing to challenge Mr. Putin’s
aggressive behaviour, he said, while countries such as Germany and
France were hesitant because they were concerned about maintaining their
economic relationships with Russia.”
​
Wow
Does Russia want a repeat of 2014 after what it ended up doing to the Ruble and its economy? Are its leaders okay in the head? Hardly any Russians want to invade Ukraine, yet they are somehow held hostage by the macho petulance of a leader who still acts like “spheres of influence” is a real thing.
Comparing this thread to the anti-LePen thread is quite interesting.
Ukraine should have urged France to ignore LePen’s advise and support Ukraine. Everyone would be jumping at the chance to snub LePen. Don’t try to make it about Ukraine – Europe doesn’t care about Ukraine. Make it about hating a locally despised politician.
So, I suspect the political problem from the US standpoint is this. Let’s say that the US says “okay, Random Western European Country isn’t going to back Country X, so let’s go step in”.
Now, Random Western European Country Not Personally Worried About Russia is probably very happy with this situation. It has not only a buffer state keeping Russia comfortably away, but a buffer state that the US has committed to backing. It has no personal risk of involvement in conflict itself. Were it to, say, hypothetically be wanting to slash its military spending further to shift the expense of dealing with Russia onto border countries and the US, that’d look really good to politicians in Random Western European Country Not Personally Worried About Russia.
And the direction you tend to have things heading in then is a thin crust of buffer states bordering Russia with the US funding part of the defense costs and a bunch of countries sitting on the other side. That’s not really where the US wants things to wind up.
It also discourages Random Countries Who Aren’t In NATO Now from joining NATO themselves if they think “Hey, the US will probably step in *anyway* if things get unpleasant — why should I expose *myself* to any risk? How about I not commit to defending anyone else and then just say ‘hey, US, need you to jump in here’ if things get sticky.”
So the US wants to have Countries Who Are In NATO have a more-desirable position than Countries Who Are Not In NATO, have a reason to be in NATO, or it kind of creates misincentives.
My preference would be the United States putting pressure on Random Western European Country Not Personally Worried About Russia to drop objections to Ukraine having NATO membership. Then you get a nice, solid, large bloc. If European countries want to have a nice large federal EU in the long term, they’re going to have to bite the bullet anyway and make serious defense commitments.
All that being said, I can also understand why Ukraine — given Ukraine’s position — would say “look, how about we deal with the long term in the long term and deal with the immediate now, because this isn’t a very fun situation”. And I get that it’s not as if the reason Ukraine isn’t in NATO is that Ukraine had great opportunity to join NATO and then turned it down — it’s because Ukraine was blocked in the past when it attempted to join by Random Western European Country Not Personally Worried About Russia.
My guess is that for the US to be onboard with something like this, it’d require establishment of Ukraine on a path to NATO membership that it is sure that Random Western European Country Not Personally Worried About Russia isn’t going to obstruct in the future.
5 comments
“Oleksii Reznikov said in an interview that he detected a split within
the NATO military alliance over how far to go in supporting Ukraine.
Canada, the U.S., and Britain were more willing to challenge Mr. Putin’s
aggressive behaviour, he said, while countries such as Germany and
France were hesitant because they were concerned about maintaining their
economic relationships with Russia.”
​
Wow
Does Russia want a repeat of 2014 after what it ended up doing to the Ruble and its economy? Are its leaders okay in the head? Hardly any Russians want to invade Ukraine, yet they are somehow held hostage by the macho petulance of a leader who still acts like “spheres of influence” is a real thing.
[Summary](https://imgflip.com/i/5wtkmv)
Comparing this thread to the anti-LePen thread is quite interesting.
Ukraine should have urged France to ignore LePen’s advise and support Ukraine. Everyone would be jumping at the chance to snub LePen. Don’t try to make it about Ukraine – Europe doesn’t care about Ukraine. Make it about hating a locally despised politician.
So, I suspect the political problem from the US standpoint is this. Let’s say that the US says “okay, Random Western European Country isn’t going to back Country X, so let’s go step in”.
Now, Random Western European Country Not Personally Worried About Russia is probably very happy with this situation. It has not only a buffer state keeping Russia comfortably away, but a buffer state that the US has committed to backing. It has no personal risk of involvement in conflict itself. Were it to, say, hypothetically be wanting to slash its military spending further to shift the expense of dealing with Russia onto border countries and the US, that’d look really good to politicians in Random Western European Country Not Personally Worried About Russia.
And the direction you tend to have things heading in then is a thin crust of buffer states bordering Russia with the US funding part of the defense costs and a bunch of countries sitting on the other side. That’s not really where the US wants things to wind up.
It also discourages Random Countries Who Aren’t In NATO Now from joining NATO themselves if they think “Hey, the US will probably step in *anyway* if things get unpleasant — why should I expose *myself* to any risk? How about I not commit to defending anyone else and then just say ‘hey, US, need you to jump in here’ if things get sticky.”
So the US wants to have Countries Who Are In NATO have a more-desirable position than Countries Who Are Not In NATO, have a reason to be in NATO, or it kind of creates misincentives.
My preference would be the United States putting pressure on Random Western European Country Not Personally Worried About Russia to drop objections to Ukraine having NATO membership. Then you get a nice, solid, large bloc. If European countries want to have a nice large federal EU in the long term, they’re going to have to bite the bullet anyway and make serious defense commitments.
All that being said, I can also understand why Ukraine — given Ukraine’s position — would say “look, how about we deal with the long term in the long term and deal with the immediate now, because this isn’t a very fun situation”. And I get that it’s not as if the reason Ukraine isn’t in NATO is that Ukraine had great opportunity to join NATO and then turned it down — it’s because Ukraine was blocked in the past when it attempted to join by Random Western European Country Not Personally Worried About Russia.
My guess is that for the US to be onboard with something like this, it’d require establishment of Ukraine on a path to NATO membership that it is sure that Random Western European Country Not Personally Worried About Russia isn’t going to obstruct in the future.