His thoughts on Serbia/Kosovo, Russia/Ukraine, likely Russia/
Georgia etc have all been problematic too.
Chomsky was illuminating in my personal character development. I grew up in a pretty conservative area, and his name carried a lot of hate like Hillary/Clinton did, but i didn't know why. Later, I saw some of his writings on American interventionism, and I found myself nodding my head in agreement over the mistakes my country/we have made. Later yet, I'm in college going for the math+cs degrees and his stuff on formal languages was probably the peak of my admiration for him... but with the admiration comes research, and perhaps the most important thing chomsky illustrated to me was that you can be a genius, but that doesn't mean you can't be blind, myopic, wrong, an asshole, or ... non-credible.
I don't know why chomsky's beliefs and supported causes are so inconsistent with the morals he pushes, but it's been an exemplar for me regardless -- good and bad, functional and broken.
> I don't know why chomsky's beliefs and supported causes are so inconsistent with the morals he pushes
The obvious resolution to that paradox is either you don't understand Chomsky's morals or have mistaken what his beliefs are.
Judging by some random interview from 2022 [0] it looks like he has a position on Russia/Ukraine that is easy to defend. He describes it as a "principled, internationalist, anti-imperialist left response" and that seems like a fair assessment from what I'm reading. Looks like pretty standard fare for anyone who doesn't like war and propaganda.
He is still annoyed communism failed so epically. In his mind the Soviet satellites were to blame for wanting independence. It can been seen again with Ukraine, it's not that the Ukrainians are standing up for their independence, it is somehow NATOs fault.
He has made some good points about western politics from time to time. Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.
NATO continued to expand right up to Russia's doorstep despite repeated promises not to, and refused to rule out expanding to Ukraine. Russia clearly called this out as a problem for years. Whether or not this is "NATOs fault", it's clear that the Ukraine invasion was motivated, in part, by NATO expansion.
> it's clear that the Ukraine invasion was motivated, in part, by NATO expansion.
Unless you mean, the only way to have prevented the Russian invasion of Ukraine would have been to accept Ukraine into NATO, I strongly disagree with you here.
Russia invaded Ukraine not because Russia is fearful of NATO but because Russia wished to recreate the Soviet empire. It's just plain old imperialism.
Yep. The US told Ukraine it was never going to happen. Originally Ukraine had wanted neutrality but Russia kept making territorial claims on Ukraine land pushing Ukraine to seek protection from Russian imperialist ambitions.
If Ukraine eventually gets NATO membership it will be because of Russian's invasion.
Heck Crimea basically guaranteed ukraine couldn't be admitted because of the whole no territorial disputes clause, and they were (nor are they now) nowhere near ready to acquiese on that.
> Heck Crimea basically guaranteed ukraine couldn't be admitted because of the whole no territorial disputes clause
There is no such clause in the North Atlantic Treaty, and many NATO members (including founding members) were admitted with territorial disputes, including with other NATO members, either admitted earlier or simultaneously admitted.
NATO members are required to pledge to resolve disputes of any kind in accordance with the principles of the UN, endeavouring to do so by means which are both peaceful and not disruptive of international peace and security, but without prejudice to any of their rights under the UN Charter including those of individual and collective self-defense, and to declare that at the time of their accession to the treaty none of their existing "engagements" violate those principles. (See, particularly, Articles 1, 7, and 8 of the North Atlantic Treaty.)
There is no reasonable reading of the Treaty which would prohibit a new member from being admitted while while some of its territory is under hostile occupation or while engaged in a defensive war on its won territory against an aggressor; it may make it more difficult to achieve the required unanimity,
but there is no "territorial disputes clause" preventing it.
> NATO continued to expand right up to Russia's doorstep
NATO was literally founded on the USSR's border ("Russia", as a top-level sovereign, did not exist), it had nothing to "expand up to", on either the Eastern or Western side.
> despite repeated promises not to
Assuming any such promises were made (which only one dubious alleged instance is ever pointed to, so hardly "repeatedly" in even the best case), they were personal guarantees between individual leaders of the USA and USSR, not durable binding commitments (note the absence of a treaty, executive agreement, public document or even mere joint contemporaneous oral statement of any kind) binding governments to their terms beyond the term of individual officials and heritable after the fall of one of the involved states by some successor regime.
And even had such an undocumented commitment existed and had validity, it was implicitly nullified by Russia's attempts to join NATO.
> Whether or not this is "NATOs fault", it's clear that the Ukraine invasion was motivated, in part, by NATO expansion.
It's not clear at all that it was. For one thing, Georgia was invaded immediately after NATO complied with the Russian request in 2008 not to extend Membership Action Plans to Georgia and Ukraine, and Ukraine subsequently abandoned efforts to join NATO until after Russia invaded and purported to annex much of the country in 2014. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been the cause of, rather than a response to, recent NATO expansion.
NATO was literally founded on the USSR's border ("Russia", as a top-level sovereign, did not exist), it had nothing to "expand up to", on either the Eastern or Western side.
Well that's not a fair assessment. It's technically true that NATO was founded on the USSR's borders via Norway. But there's not doubt that the expansion east of Germany, to include not just nearly all of Eastern Europe but a much more sensitive position directly on Russia's border (talking about the inclusion of the Baltics here) was hugely significant, and let's face it, also clearly a snub to Russia (despite their also wanting to join at one point; but that in no way mitigates the fact that NATO being expanded to their other countries was a move fundamentally aimed at Russia from the very start).
Not that this supports Russia's "because NATO" argument in any way; it's just pure garbage, of course. One can even argue that the expansion up to countries (such as the Baltics) that have been historically victims of Russian aggression is an intrinsically good thing. But there's no reason to attempt to water down the fact that the post-1990 expansion of NATO was hugely significant, and intrinsically meant as an anti-Russian manouevre (one can argue with perfectly good cause, in retrospect -- but there's no denying that import was there).
The fact that Norway and Russia shared a tiny border that most people don't even know about is entirely incidental to all of this.
NATO is an aggressive alliance that has exclusively invaded three countries in the last 20 years, zero of whom were threat to it.
The worst one was probably Libya, because NATO pretended to engage in a humanitarian mission to gain approval from the security council and then left the country utterly destroyed state afterwards. The country was shredded.
It's a tool of western imperialism that dangles the false promise of protection. In this respect it operates with the same logic as a gang recruiting teenagers before using them as cannon fodder.
Of course you can't say these things in polite company just as I couldn't say that WMDs were a complete load of bullshit in 2003 without being verbally attacked.
In 20 years time it will be seen as obvious, however.
The invasion of Libya was fully authorised by the UNSC, and it was not conducted or approved solely by NATO. Libya was also already in a highly destructive civil war before the intervention, which is why it happened, so it’s not like they went in and destabilised a stable country. Gaddafi had built Libya’s security around himself in a cult of personality, things were always going to fall apart once his power waned.
> * Intervention in the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, invited to do so by the UN in response to the genocide going on there.
Indeed. So not an aggressive invasion but a humanitarian intervention.
> * Invasion of Afghanistan, following the invocation of Article 5 after an attack on a NATO country (i.e., 9/11).
Not quite. Technically speaking, neither of the official NATO missions in Afghanistan, ISAF and Resolute Support, were Article 5 missions.
When the US triggered Article 5 in October 2001 it explicitly did not request a full NATO response, but initially only for support such as NATO AWACS aircraft in US airspace. When it invaded Afghanistan, which was entirely justified in international law as an act of self defence, a handful of NATO countries opted to send support contingents, like SOF, as a way of showing solidarity. But it was not a NATO mission under NATO command: Operation Enduring Freedom was American-led and commanded from the beginning. At best you can say several NATO allies invaded. Later, NATO launched ISAF and Resolute Support and became more involved as an organisation deploying forces, but that was post-invasion.
The invasion of Afghanistan was as much self defence as the invasion of Ukraine. Probably less, actually.
The idea that it was any kind of self defence is kind of pathetic, and mirrors Putinesque propaganda. It was occupation pure and simple.
America really wanted to set up military bases there. It was a black spot in the world which it lacked imperial force projection and it was right between 3 major rivals (Russia, China and Iran).
Afghanistan did not knock down the twin towers. It actually offered to hand over bin Laden if the US provided evidence of his involvement and tried him in a neutral country.
That wasn't good enough for the US, who were itching for a military invasion anyway, and were keen to build some military bases in a spot where they didnt yet have any.
The idea that the US follows international law is a sick joke. The idea that the country that created the Hague invasion act has nonzero respect for international law is laughable.
First, the Taliban ‘offer’ was so full of caveats as to be worthless and, most importantly, they refused to do anything about the rest of the Al-Qaeda organisation that they hosted and shared power with and which attacked the US. Putting Bin Laden on trial in some supposed neutral third country would’ve done nothing to remove the clear and present threat to the US that Al-Qaeda at the time presented. So, yes, the US’s actions were legal under international law.
None of the major powers outside Europe have acceded to the ICC. Neither the US, nor India, nor China, nor Russia.
The caveats were exactly as I described and were entirely reasonable, but the US had a hard on for a military invasion and was not about to be stopped by such a trivial thing as due process.
Your idea that he should be handed over without question for trial does not follow any legal logic but is simply the logic of an imperialist.
The same logic is what led to the Hague invasion act, Guantanamo bay, the imperialist invasion of Iraq and, of course, the various attempts to push NATO further and further up against the more vulnerable parts of the Russian border.
As I said before, a Putin supporter would have broadly similar views to you - in reverse.
Again, that’s quite absurd. You’re acting as though Bin Laden was solely responsible for the attack, rather than being the head of an organisation that carried it out.
Afghanistan under the Taliban were hosting Al-Qaeda, protecting it, supporting it, and refusing to dismantle it when it attacked the US. It was in all the ways that matter basically part of the government. Under international law this means that they were responsible for its actions and therefore that the attack on the US was effectively an attack from Afghanistan. This is ‘due process’ at the international level.
Given this, international law is extremely clear on the rights of self defence in response to an attack. There’s no requirement to merely put the leader on trial in a third country, because everybody involved in drafting these conventions and treaties knew that would be nuts, would not achieve security, and would be unenforceable.
So, no. These are not ‘imperialist’ views, they’re ones any scholar of international law would describe in the same way. The US was fully justified in attacking Afghanistan and dismantling the threat from Al-Qaeda under international law.
See my other reply. In any case, that you can refer to these as ‘aggressive imperialist power plays’ shows you’re both not to be taken seriously and are not willing to engage in a good faith and informed discussion.
The Serbian campaign was ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, forcefully and methodically expelling over a million Kosovar Albanians from the area by the time they were stopped by NATO’s intervention. That does, arguably, rise to the level of genocide under the standard definitions.
Just because someone can claim something doesn’t mean it’s right. That determination is up to independent observers, experts, and courts, and tribunals.
Russia tried to claim at the ICJ that it was invading Ukraine under the Genocide Convention. The court ruled that it had to end to the invasion immediately, which Russia ignored.
What do you expect him to believe? If you go in with an anti-imperialist anti-war bias, then NATO expansion is a bit of a beacon when asking questions like "why is their an active land war in Eastern Europe?". I don't actually remember if there is a serious counter-proposal; most people tend to rely on the theory that Putin suddenly went unhinged - which is obviously not the belief a thoughtful leftist would come to.
No, the alternative liberal internationalist view is that the preservation of imperial-like spheres of influence and ironclad regional hegemonies is unfair, u democratic, and at odds with the rules-based trade-oriented order we’d like to see the world continue to adopt.
No country was forced to join NATO. In fact, it took years and years of lobbying from Eastern European countries before the first new members were allowed to join in 1999. Even then, plenty of care was taken to signal to Russia that it was strictly seen as a defensive measure, from allowing the Russian government in as an observer at all levels, to limiting the military capacity of the Baltics and putting a very low cap on the number and type of NATO assets that could be deployed in countries bordering Russia.
The intellectual mistake that Chomsky and many who share his ideas make is to believe that just because Russia might reasonably feel aggrieved at no longer being able to politically and economically dominate the countries around it through the use of military force as it could as the USSR, that it somehow has a right to have that situation reversed and is therefore justified at launching an unprovoked attack on a neighbouring democratic country to gain back that power. There should be no such right in the modern era, and believing in it is a betrayal of traditional left-wing ideals.
Ironically, returning to a might-makes-right global order as envisioned by Russia would mean the United States could behave far worse in future, pulling off the same kinds of annexations and similar as it did as a young power, and when it was far less powerful than it is now.
I don't disagree with any of that. But you didn't deal with the "why is their an active land war in Eastern Europe?" question; which is what Chomsky was picking at to get to the NATO expansion point.
> Ironically, returning to a might-makes-right global order as envisioned by Russia would mean the United States could behave far worse in future
The US could act much worse in the present if it wanted. Only China is really in a position to stop them and even there only in a geographically limited area of Asia. The reason the US often doesn't bother with a might-makes-right response is because it isn't effective, not because they're purposefully holding themselves back from useful options. It is more effective to have the rule based order where, famously, the US makes the rules and gives the orders.
> I don't disagree with any of that. But you didn't deal with the "why is there an active land war in Eastern Europe?" question; which is what Chomsky was picking at to get to the NATO expansion point.
Fair enough. To answer that, I’d say the actual trigger wasn’t NATO but the EU, and Ukraine wanting to join it and move out of Russia’s sphere of influence. This was coupled to a wave of new leadership who wanted a more western and central European alignment. That’s what the Maidan was all about, when Yanukovych unilaterally refused to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement and brutally cracked down on the resulting protests.
That desire for closer ties with western and central Europe played out economically too, with the Ukrainian tech sector in particular being promoted as an outsourcing hub for European companies and holding conferences like Devoxx.
Russia invaded because it knew it either subjugated Ukraine now, while it was still relatively weak but growing fast, or it lost the opportunity altogether. And in Russian strategic thought the idea of not being able to control Ukraine, which they see as an integral part of Russia, is anathema.
> The reason the US often doesn't bother with a might-makes-right response is because it isn't effective, not because they're purposefully holding themselves back from useful options. It is more effective to have the rule based order where, famously, the US makes the rules and gives the orders.
On some level, sure, but as China’s rise has shown the rules based order does not prevent competitors from rising up and eventually eclipsing US power. While the rules based order allows the US to use economic coercion, it also allows China to do the same.
A might-makes-right approach can be effective, but it can also lead to world wars which are immensely destructive and which the US wants to avoid.
It’s not just the US though, the EU is similarly in favour of substituting diplomacy and trade for military power.
Well, point 1 is NATO and the EU are almost the same entity. Difference of sets and there are only a couple of countries left. The non-EU NATO countries are generally involved in the war (maybe not Turkey? I don't keep an eye on the Turks).
Point 2 is more an observation. Russia is currently taking significant casualties - we don't really know how many - from Ukrainian forces armed with NATO weapons, NATO ammo, NATO intelligence, NATO training in some cases. These NATO activities are being done in service of NATO strategic concerns and appear to be coordinated through NATO headquarters. The CIA - most certainly not an EU institution - has 12 bases in Ukraine [0]. Biden is the person who turns out to have the authority to green light strikes on Russian soil [1]. It would appear superficially that Ukraine is going to join NATO [2].
If the trigger was EU expansion then the Russians made a pretty basic mistake and should have hired Chomsky as a military advisor to warn them about the rather obvious threat to Russian interests posed by NATO and its expansion. Putin obviously figured out that mistake fairly quickly because I'm pretty sure I've read about him talking about NATO in a couple of speech transcripts. The threat to them is NATO #1, EU #several - taking its spot in the queue with China, Russian winters, and coups and whatever other problems might materialise for them in a decade's time.
> A might-makes-right approach can be effective, but it can also lead to world wars which are immensely destructive
That doesn't sound effective. Effective is getting what you want with minimum fuss.
NATO isn’t the only supplier to Ukraine, and NATO has no command authority over Ukraine and its forces. The idea that this is a ‘NATO’ proxy war is ridiculous and denies the agency of a democratic nation.
The US could only green light strikes on Russian territory with American-made weapons like ATACMs, it had no authority over those supplied by others or produced by Ukraine. This is clearly shown by the fact that Ukraine was hitting Russian territory using its own domestically produced drones long before the US gave the green light to do the same (albeit only in Belgorod) using US weapons.
This isn’t unique to the US: Countries routinely place limitations and restrictions on the uses of their weapons as a condition of sale, especially Western countries. For instance when Switzerland sold Pilatus trainers to South Africa it required a legal commitment from South Africa to never arm them and use them in combat missions. Countries also usually forbid retransfer or resale without their permission. These are often stipulated in the End User Certificate.
Putin and other Russian officials have made many claims to many audiences, often contradicting each other. But when you analyse the most consistent and those that align most consistently to codified doctrine you’ll find that it’s all about Russian hegemony over the former USSR territories, and its revanchist aims to regain lost power. Once again, former empires have no right to their former colonies, and that includes Russia regarding Ukraine.
Ukraine was not anywhere near close to joining NATO in January/February 2022, its request for admission was stalled and key NATO countries had made it clear that it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Ironically, it’s Russia’s invasion that provided the impetus for the Ukrainian accession to NATO to move forward, even though it’s still a long way away.
Joining the EU was much more likely and was a key foreign policy goal of the Ukrainian government before Russia invaded. It remains one now.
As for the US, its economic and political power is declining much faster than its military power. If it really was such an imperialist state it would seek to use that military power to restore its economic and political power, aiming for full hegemony rather than just influence. It doesn’t because American society would not support that kind of approach, having moved past the age of annexation by force.
Alright. So just jumping back to "why is there an active land war in Eastern Europe?"; is it fair to characterise your position with these 3 points?
1) Russia was worried about EU expansion into Ukraine [0].
2) They've invaded Ukraine and are encountering heavy resistance from the EU.
3) The US is barely involved in either of the other 2 points.
Because it doesn't look like an EU war effort to me. It looks like a NATO effort. Russia seem to be talking about the NATO-ish aspects of the struggle when they try to justify themselves and the bulk of the materiel seems to be being directed by the US if the stats are to be believed. The US aren't bit players in this one [1].
I'm not seeing a strong counter to my basic understanding of the situation (which is pretty close to what Chomsky seems to have come to). It looks like a "Russia were worried about NATO expansion in Ukraine and discovered their worst fears being realised when they tried to resist said expansion militarily" situation. I'm not seeing a strong argument here for why Chomsky should have come to a different opinion, it seems to rely on the EU having an independent military presence that they just don't have.
> NATO isn’t the only supplier to Ukraine, and NATO has no command authority over Ukraine and its forces. The idea that this is a ‘NATO’ proxy war is ridiculous and denies the agency of a democratic nation.
Why would Ukraine's form of government have anything to do whether this is a proxy war? They are democratic, they have agency, and this is still a NATO proxy war. If NATO wasn't involved Ukraine would have folded in the first month and the conflict would have ceased years ago.
[0] Although I am still a bit confused about why this is supposed to be a misread by Chomsky or myself; the only major difference I see between the EU and NATO is whether the US is involved. And I obviously think the US is involved.
No, that's not an accurate characterisation. You're confusing the cause and the response. That the support to Ukraine has been predominantly US-led, in no small part because it had stockpiles that Europe does not, does not tell us anything about Russia's motivations for invading a sovereign neighbour. It's also possible for countries to support what they consider an ally without it being a 'proxy' war. For it to be a proxy war would require that NATO caused the war, but all the historical evidence shows that NATO countries like the US, France, the UK, Germany, and others spent months in advance of Russia's invasion trying to convince Putin not to invade. There's even a video of one of Macron's phone calls to Putin where he begs him to agree to a diplomatic summit that could find an alternative to war.
Chomsky's view, and I'm guessing yours too, is that NATO should never have expanded, that NATO's expansion was a move intended only to provoke Russia, that Russia had the right to not have NATO on its borders, and therefore that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is justified and understandable.
Yet none of those are accurate, as I've shown, but I'll address them again in brief below:
1) NATO was expanded only with initial great reluctance and the constant lobbying of Eastern European and Baltic nations in particular, who had good reason to want to be part of a defensive security alliance. However, and most importantly, Ukraine was nowhere near joining NATO and certainly was not moving closer to it in January/February 2022. There was, in fact, no activity being undertaken by Ukraine that could possibly be considered a clear and imminent threat to Russia in any form.
2) The expansion was conducted cautiously, with strict limits placed on what forces could be forward-deployed near Russia, adding Russia as a Partnership for Peace member, creating the NATO-Russia Founding Act and with it the permanent NATO-Russia Council, and creating additional official liaison offices to provide the Russians with visibility into and reassurance about NATO's operations and intentions.
3) Sovereign countries are free to join whatever security alliance they want to, it is a fundamental concept of sovereignty that countries should have their own foreign policies. Therefore Russia has no right to prevent its neighbours from joining either the EU or NATO. To grant Russia a veto over that would be to accept an undemocratic imperial hegemony of the type that existed decades ago. Of course, Russia is free to use its own foreign policy instruments in response, by isolating, sanctioning, demarching, etc a neighbour that does something it doesn't like, but that's as far as it can go.
4) Obviously, given all the above it's ludicrous to claim that Russia had any kind of justification in invading Ukraine, or that its decision to do so can be viewed as an understandable or reasonable one.
But sure, if you still want to argue that it was 'because of NATO', then you have to accept that Russia chose to invade Ukraine not because it was about to imminently join the alliance in the next few months (because it was years and years away under the absolute best case scenario) but to avoid the mere possibility of it joining NATO some point in the future. That's no less unacceptable and illegal, and it doesn't make it more understandable.
Would you accept the US invading Venezuela because it was concerned about that country's close alliance with Russia and substantial re-armament using Russian weapons?
That 1) is full of holes. It is 2024, only 2 years later, and Ukraine is awash with NATO gear and as mentioned the official position of the US State Department is saying they're going to be part of NATO. They were clearly on the verge of integrating with NATO if not already doing so and close to the point where Russia was out of options. If the Russian military had waited any longer there wouldn't have been anything they could do and realistically they made a massive error not invading back in 2014 when their losses would have been much smaller. To see "nowhere near joining" we can look at somewhere like Georgia. That is a country that is nowhere near joining NATO. Russia invades in 2008. They got no support and today, nearly 20 years later, they are still not part of NATO (although they are getting there). The invasion was over and done in 16 days; night and day compared to what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't have a position on 2 and 3 although they seem pretty reasonable. 4 I mostly agree with - the caveat to that is the last part. Russia's decision to invade is easily understandable and reasonable. We can see what NATO was planning on doing to them based on what is currently being done. If they didn't act now they'd lose their chance and the US would probably start setting up missile banks along the Russian border at some point. Realistically that might still happen, it looks quite bad for Russia right now.
This war has cost Russia a number of troops that, while difficult to estimate, is probably measured in 100,000s. Their opposition is entirely sustained by NATO logistics. Going in to the war Putin, on behalf of Russia, basically started the speech with "I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border" [0]. This theory that Russia was motivated by internal conditions to Ukraine and no broader strategic concerns requires them to be ignorant of the biggest military threat to them, which turned out the be on the verge of materialising, while simultaneously pretending to be motivated by it for political reasons. It is a much more reasonable view to accept that in their military action they are probably motivated by the single biggest military threat they are facing. The one they publicly identified and that is a very realistic concern given what then happened.
We have a reference here, which is the US invasion of Iraq. It was appalling, unprovoked and the US encountered no real resistance from the rest of Asia who accepted that sometimes the big players just attack the small ones. The fact that the response in Ukraine is so different is a dead giveaway that NATO was provoking the conflict. Otherwise there isn't a reason for them to be involved. We've had more than 100 wars this century [1] and the NATO involvement and escalation of this one stands out as unusual.
And on some minor points:
> For it to be a proxy war would require that NATO caused the war
I don't expect that to be correct, but it turns out that a proxy war technically requires one of the actors to be a non-state actor [2], so I can only agree that this isn't a proxy war. But the US is using Ukraine as a metaphorical club to kill Russians.
> Would you accept the US invading Venezuela because it was concerned about that country's close alliance with Russia and substantial re-armament using Russian weapons?
Something like a reoccurrence of the Cuban missile crisis? I'd expect the US to respond with extreme violence if Russia didn't back down as soon as possible.
They were clearly on the verge of integrating with NATO if not already doing so and close to the point where Russia was out of options.
Sorry, but this plainly nonsense.
The only way you could say they were "on the verge of joining" would be if NATO had indicated that intended to offer Ukraine an official invitation to join, via a formal step known as the Membership Action Plan. But that's been famously on hold as far back as the Bucharest Summit in 2008. It was really a very big deal at the time that both Georgia and Ukraine were specifically asking to be offered MAPs, but ultimately said "no" to both countries -- largely because France, Germany and (you really won't like this) the United States were all opposed, and this in turn, out of a desire to not upset Russia.
Of course there's also been a song and dance going about Ukraine eventually, some day joining the alliance, and yes Ukraine has an article in its constitution about wanting to join some day. But the whole point of these actions is they have been second-tier, rear-guard manoeuvres. Which if anything simply underscore the fact that the fundamental decision regarding Ukraine's status was made in 2008, and that since then there have been no major motions in process to reverse that decision.
It's simply not the case that they were "on the verge of joining, if not already doing so" in 2022. Or that the Western powers were on the verge of taking any action that was an imminent threat to Russia at the time. And far from being "out of options" -- by any pragmatic assessment of the situation, Russia already had a successful containment strategy in place in regard the issue, attained by purely diplomatic means.
But of course they chose to invade anyway, for reasons that never had anything to do with NATO in the first place.
> That 1) is full of holes. It is 2024, only 2 years later, and Ukraine is awash with NATO gear and as mentioned the official position of the US State Department is saying they're going to be part of NATO. They were clearly on the verge of integrating with NATO if not already doing so and close to the point where Russia was out of options. If the Russian military had waited any longer there wouldn't have been anything they could do and realistically they made a massive error not invading back in 2014 when their losses would have been much smaller. To see "nowhere near joining" we can look at somewhere like Georgia. That is a country that is nowhere near joining NATO. Russia invades in 2008. They got no support and today, nearly 20 years later, they are still not part of NATO (although they are getting there). The invasion was over and done in 16 days; night and day compared to what is happening in Ukraine.
As the other poster mentioned, Ukraine and Georgia were both denied Membership Action Plans at the 2008 NATO Bucharest summit, meaning they weren't even on the first rung of the process to join NATO. In 2021 NATO made some positive noises but still refused to offer Ukraine a MAP, even though Russian troops were massing on Ukraine's border.
It also takes years to be able to join after a MAP starts, and most importantly a MAP is not a treaty with any legal power: Joining one doesn't guarantee membership and the process can be stopped at any point. So even while Russian troops were massing on Ukraine's border and threatening to invade NATO wasn't ready to formally move closer to a Ukrainian accession beyond some encouraging words. Nearly all of the military support to Ukraine came after it was invaded, not before, and it was committed because NATO quite understandably reasoned that if Russia was willing to invade Ukraine without legal justification or provocation it would not stop there, but would try to go for Moldova and other countries next, significantly changing the strategic picture of Europe for generations. Supporting Ukraine is a defensive action.
The idea that Ukraine joining NATO would've meant US 'missile banks along the Russian border' is ridiculous, given that none of the other NATO members that border or are near Russia received US missile banks. As I said, NATO was very careful to limit both the quantity and type of equipment that it would deploy in new members, restricting them to purely defensive measures such as the NATO air patrols over the Baltics.
Putin has also quite clearly stated on numerous occasions that he considers Ukraine statehood a myth and that it's really a breakaway province of Russia.[0]
Finally, even if Ukraine was about to join NATO, that gives Russia no right to invade it. I don't understand why you seem to believe that it would.
There has been order-of-magnitude 100 billion dollars worth of NATO gear provided to Ukraine with the express purpose of killing as many Russians as possible, let alone the intangible value of various forms of aid provided (things like intelligence are hard to assess). "Hehe, well we didn't file the proper paperwork" isn't exactly the sort of response that is going to get a good result.
I doubt the Russians are worried about whether the US followed its own self-imposed process of officially declaring the alliance. They're worried about the network of countries that the US is building up with the fairly plain purpose of destroying the Russian military followed by regime change. They respond to threats when they detect them, not when the US or whoever decide to officially declare that the threat is being made.
> ... 'missile banks along the Russian border' is ridiculous, given that none of the other NATO members that border or are near Russia received US missile banks.
The presence of all those members is why I think it might well happen. NATO has the real estate and doesn't seem worried about escalations. Why not? NATO seems to be pretty firm in their belief that a good offence is the best defence; I think technically we've never seen them fighting defensively? Although I maintain de-facto that what seems to be happening in Ukraine is the defence of a NATO country.
> Finally, even if Ukraine was about to join NATO, that gives Russia no right to invade it. I don't understand why you seem to believe that it would.
Can you name a war where the invader had a right to start it? This is war! The people purposefully starting wars are almost uniformly monsters clothed in human flesh. The best case is that they are monsters in an age of other monsters. If there are exceptions to that none spring to my mind.
You're mixing up cause and response, once again, and ignoring the timeline of events.
> There has been order-of-magnitude 100 billion dollars worth of NATO gear provided to Ukraine with the express purpose of killing as many Russians as possible, let alone the intangible value of various forms of aid provided (things like intelligence are hard to assess). "Hehe, well we didn't file the proper paperwork" isn't exactly the sort of response that is going to get a good result.
> I doubt the Russians are worried about whether the US followed its own self-imposed process of officially declaring the alliance. They're worried about the network of countries that the US is building up with the fairly plain purpose of destroying the Russian military followed by regime change. They respond to threats when they detect them, not when the US or whoever decide to officially declare that the threat is being made.
Many countries, just not NATO, have sent weapons and other resources to Ukraine for it to defend itself against the Russian invasion, and to deter further Russian incursions or invasions beyond Ukraine. They were not sending those quantities in advance of the war.
Had Russia not invaded Ukraine in February 2022 two things would be presently true: First, it would not have lost all that military personnel and military equipment, and, second, Ukraine would still not be in NATO. Once again, Western countries spent months trying to convince Russia not to invade, as they expected Russian forces to swiftly overwhelm Ukrainian forces and take over the country. It was only when Ukraine put up better than expected resistance and repelled the attempt to take over Kyiv that Western countries began supplying it in earnest.
> The presence of all those members is why I think it might well happen. NATO has the real estate and doesn't seem worried about escalations. Why not? NATO seems to be pretty firm in their belief that a good offence is the best defence; I think technically we've never seen them fighting defensively? Although I maintain de-facto that what seems to be happening in Ukraine is the defence of a NATO country.
Now you're just speculating. The actual history of NATO expansion, its actions, and the restrictions it has openly placed on forward deployment of forces have shown it to be very concerned about escalations and about Russia's fears.
> Can you name a war where the invader had a right to start it? This is war! The people purposefully starting wars are almost uniformly monsters clothed in human flesh. The best case is that they are monsters in an age of other monsters. If there are exceptions to that none spring to my mind.
Yes, the coalition attack on Iraq in 1991 to repel its forces from Kuwait is one example, but there are others. You should read up on jus ad bellum and how it applies.
80s? NATO expands. 90s? NATO expands. 00s? NATO Expands. 10s? NATO expands. 20s? NATO expands. Russia at peace? NATO expands. Russia at war? NATO expands. Russia tries anything, including diplomacy? NATO expands. Only the neutrality of Switzerland prevents me from drawing a line through NATO from the Russian border to Spain.
The pattern here is not "oh Ukraine wasn't going to join up until the Russians invaded". The pattern is NATO expands. The preponderance of evidence in the NATO response to the Ukraine invasion - and the flow of history - suggests that the US has its sights on integrating Ukraine into NATO and was probably in the process of it.
> Yes, the coalition attack on Iraq in 1991 to repel its forces from Kuwait is one example
The audacity. You spend a thread whinging about Russia panicking because the US is organising all of Europe against them [0], then as a counterexample you pick one of the US's invasions of the Middle East (of Iraq no less, those poor people) as your example of a justified war?
What is the criteria here? US aggression is OK? A quorum of European interests justifies any invasion? It is OK if we do it to brown Muslims but not white Christians? There is no jus ad bellum to be found in the US expeditions into the Middle East; they've been a disaster for the region and the world. And any time you end up siding with the Saudis it is bad news for any sort of principled approach.
[0] Which, I mean, fair enough what Russia is doing is awful but let's aim for some consistency here.
NATO is not a loaf of rising bread that expands on its own when left on a windowsill. My country is in NATO because I voted for successive governments that set it as their top priority, because I believed then and I believe now that tight cooperation with likeminded countries is the best way to deter another Russian invasion (we've had 40+ of them in recorded history).
And this is the universal view in Europe as of 2024. No country in Europe can afford on their own what Ukraine has been through, and this makes military alliances essential for national security. Even Sweden with its 200+ years of neutrality ditched it as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine. Ukraine is by now a cautionary tale of naive belief in diplomacy (Helsinki Accords; Budapest memorandum; etc) without a big stick to back it up.
Conspiracy theories about the US turning Europe against Russia are completely redundant. When it comes to national security, no responsible government in parts of Europe closest to Russia can afford to stay out of NATO. If you were the prime minister of Finland, why would you not do everything you could to join NATO and enter the mutual defense pact seeing how Russia behaves in Ukraine?
For a very long time, both Finland and Sweden had a deep belief that skillful diplomacy could prevent a war with Russia, but what do you do when Russia starts blasting that your country doesn't exist?
> If you were the prime minister of Finland, why would you not do everything you could to join NATO and enter the mutual defense pact seeing how Russia behaves in Ukraine?
Yes. My whole position in this thread has been that countries tend to do things for the obvious reason, I'm not sure why people keep expecting me to disagree on points like that. Everyone wants to be in NATO. Even Russia probably wants to join NATO. But that doesn't change the fact that the US was provoking Russia by signing everyone up and the US acting on that expansionist urge in Ukraine seems to be the major driver of this war.
> But that doesn't change the fact that the US was provoking Russia by signing everyone up and the US acting on that expansionist urge in Ukraine seems to be the major driver of this war.
???
But that's exactly the opposite of what happened. Ukraine and Georgia desired to join the NATO like everyone else. The US, Germany and a handful of others dashed those hopes in 2008 due to Russian pressure. This lowered the risk for Russia and they immediately invaded Georgia, and a few years later Ukraine, and expanded the invasion in 2022 after they saw the shameful retreat from Afghanistan as a further sign of US' weakness and unwillingness to support their allies.
Not American expansionist urge, but the utterly short-sighted belief in "we must not provoke Russia" is how we got here. Russians are not provoked by strength, but by weakness. Belief in enemy's weakness enables dangerous illusions like "3 days to Kyiv".
> The US, Germany and a handful of others dashed those hopes in 2008 due to Russian pressure.
That is a ruse on the part of the US and I don't know why anyone expects it to be taken seriously given what we see post 2022. NATO considers Ukraine to be part of their strategic territory. They're dumping 10s to 100s of billions of dollars into Ukraine's defence. They've claimed to have been a part of killing something like 300,000 Russian soldiers. They're explaining to anyone who'll listen that the relationship will be formalised as soon as possible. It looks like they've been working on this for years prior to the invasion in fact - unless you believe that the NATO military planners are so incompetent they didn't have contingency plans for Russia invading Ukraine. There is even the obvious pattern of behaviour on the part of the US here regarding NATO expansion.
> They're dumping 10s to 100s of billions of dollars into Ukraine's defence. They've claimed to have been a part of killing something like 300,000 Russian soldiers.
This has come only after years of war against Ukraine and refusal by Russia to take any offered exit ramp.
When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, Obama refused to provide lethal aid to Ukraine. After Russia launched the full-scale invasion in 2022, the US infamously offered Zelensky a ride and not ammo. Countries like Germany were openly mocked for providing only 5000 helmets. It took approximately half a year before any considerable aid began to appear in Ukraine. They got their first American tanks (only 31 provided so far) full year and a half into the war.
NATO countries and other allies have consistently dragged their feet and done too little too late. This allowed Russia to recover from the initial shock, and their armed forces are larger than at the start of the war. This year, they are forming two new armies that are larger than the ground forces of UK, France, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, and a number of other countries COMBINED.
Instead of a conspiratorial ruse, European governments have finally recognized that Russia is a rapidly growing threat to entire Europe, and that's why they started to pour a lot of resources into Ukraine starting around fall 2023, and into rebuilding their own militaries. Russians are wiping one Ukrainian town after another from the earth with no indication of stopping anytime soon. At worst, we can expect a second front launched from Belarus against Poland and Lithuania.
> unless you believe that the NATO military planners are so incompetent they didn't have contingency plans for Russia invading Ukraine
It is very obvious that there were no serious plans for such turn of events. Many NATO countries, including mine, were caught by surprise and have had to provided military aid to Ukraine at the expense of own security from readiness stocks that cannot be replenished for many years to come, but might be needed to fulfill NATO obligations, should Russia broaden the war.
Not only were NATO countries unprepared, but several key countries didn't even believe such development could be possible at all. The chief of French military intelligence was infamously fired over inadequate assessments related to Russian invasion of Ukraine.
> The hopes of Ukraine were never dashed.
Yes they were. Even today, nobody is willing to give any firm commitments. At the last NATO summit, Biden refused to support NATO invitation for Ukraine and instead lobbied for a vague "Ukraine will become a member of NATO" statement without any specified date, to great frustration of Ukrainians.
The story you are trying to spin is the polar opposite of observable reality.
It’s a remarkably insular and US-centric view to believe that that story was the reason the United Nations Security Council voted to eject Iraq from Kuwait. It was a piece of propaganda that merely had some air play in the US and which, while it may have been convenient to the US and Kuwaiti governments for the support of the US population, was not the strategic reason for any of the nations involved.
Fortunately we have plenty of primary sources to validate this, from the minutes of UNSC minutes to statements by various heads of government at the time. All make it clear that the war was authorised because Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was not only blatantly illegal but destructive to the international system. That story didn’t form any part their rationale.
That particular Security Council decision was entirely driven by the US though, including getting the Saudis to pay 1B USD to the ailing Soviet Union to buy their Yes vote (and by then it was already in the final stages of Perestroika).
I wonder what your justification for Saddam's invisible WMDs is. That lie was not invented by someone at the Pentagon?
Again, such an arrogant US-centric view. You do realise that other countries have agency too, right?
The idea that the US drove the Saudis to lobby the Soviets is absurd: The Saudis were independently lobbying everyone they could because all signs were that the much more powerful Iraqi military would invade them next in order to gain control of much of the world’s oil supplies. That’s why the first coalition response was to form Desert Shield to protect Saudi Arabia from an Iraqi invasion.
34 countries took part in the military operation to push Iraqi forces from Kuwait, which they had invaded without any legal justification at all. The operation was clearly and unambiguously authorised by the United Nations Security Council. It’s as clear an example of Jus ad Bellum in the modern era as you could hope for. And you still aren’t satisfied.
As for your last sentence, you’re conflating events thirty years later. It’s irrelevant to a discussion about whether the 1990 UN-authorised ejection of Iraqi forces from Kuwait was legally sound and justified.
I'm not that crazy yet, I am aware that the two Iraq wars were separately wielded by father and son.
Kind of funny that you accuse me of a US-centric view. Usually I get told I am a paid Russian troll. One last question: how long do you think the Ukraine war would last if the US decided to pull out? Other countries having agency? I'm just not seeing it. Looks like they just do what they are told from where I am sitting.
The issue with what you write is that it's most all nonsense. Your core thesis doesn't pass the smell test at all.
Because you utterly ignore Finland. It's less that it's not NATO and more that it literally can't be. Why would Putin drive them into NATO if having NATO neighbors (which, besides, was already a fact anyways) is such a threat?
He views it as his rightful property, and that's that.
The same view that is held by a plethora of senior western officials such as Obama, William Burns (Former ambassador to Russia), Gates (Former Secretary of Defence), Angela Merkle, etc.
He describes it as a "principled, internationalist, anti-imperialist left response" and that seems like a fair assessment from what I'm reading.
It's also a complete mindfuck of a piece, with obvious cognitive distortions and major factual evasions flying from every paragraph.
But because it's expressed in that calm, authoritative, rational (sounding) voice -- and it's coming from Saint Chomsky after all -- "principled, internationalist" lefties eat it up like candy.
I admire Chomsky for other things he's done. But he's got a split personality also, and in some cases his "morals" are very deeply flawed.
There is unfortunately a staggering amount of evidence of genocide in Ukraine committed by russia. To suggest otherwise, or to suggest that russia is "acting with restraint and moderation" as Chomsky said, is tantamount to Holocaust denial.
> Russia did not target (initially, now they are) major essential civilian infrastructure like power plants.
Initially, Russia was planning a decapitation strike and to take Ukraine relatively whole afterwards, either by annexation or installation of a puppet regime or a mix of the two.
They started heavily hitting civilian concentration with no military value as a terror tactic pretty quickly when the swift decapitation strike bogged down, and then started hitting civilian infrastructure where the combination of attacks on military targets and terror civilian attacks didn't produce a collapse that left them in control.
If you could dispute the casualty figures or the fact that power plants were not targeted initially in Ukraine but were in Iraq you would do so. You can't so you resort to baseless accusations.
> points out that Russia did not target (initially, now they are) essential civilian infrastructure like power plants
Oh, right, they were targeting shopping malls and residential buildings... Or, you know, nuclear power plants.
> When people are confronted with this fact they typically turn to the argument that our team are pure-of-heart so their killing doesn't count.
Yes, your side is the only one that has rational individuals.
> I don't remember where or if he talked about the claim of genocide in Ukraine but there is not a "staggering amount of evidence" unless your definition of genocide is so broad as to include a large proportion of armed conflicts
So, Mariupol, Bucha... Bucha was just a massacre, there's no justification there, but let's say you want to compare Mariupol with... Fallujah? Do you have a worse US massacre in recent history? Well, yeah, the US killed people, and they should be blamed for it, but the scale doesn't even compare. Even if you take the Russian number of casualties, it's way higher in Mariupol.
>Like I said these criticisms fall apart almost immediately when you start discussing the facts.
> Russia did not target (initially, now they are) major essential civilian infrastructure like power plants
The russians targeted major essential civilian infrastructure right from the outset of the full scale invasion. This included hospitals, airports, train stations, bridges, information infrastructure, fuel facilities, etc. They also launched wave after wave of cruise missile and drone attacks on energy infrastructure all across the country from the autumn of 2022.
I would know, because I was there.
So, what you are saying here is utter horseshit.
> there is not a "staggering amount of evidence"
There is, but clearly you don't want to see it.
> unless your definition of genocide is so broad as to include a large proportion of armed conflicts.
The definition of genocide I am using is the one provided by the UN.
They did not target power plants at the outset. As you say, later they escalated and started targeting substations (which are easier to repair). This year they have escalated even further and are targeting main power plants. How do you account for this?
Contrast with Iraq where power plants (probably the most critical of civilian infrastructure) were targeted immediately.
> The definition of genocide I am using is the one provided by the UN.
Unfortunately the "whole or in part" definition is so vague that it can be interpreted to encompasses pretty much every conflict. You cannot apply the same standard and say that Ukraine is a genocide and Iraq was not.
Chomsky was illuminating in my personal character development. I grew up in a pretty conservative area, and his name carried a lot of hate like Hillary/Clinton did, but i didn't know why. Later, I saw some of his writings on American interventionism, and I found myself nodding my head in agreement over the mistakes my country/we have made. Later yet, I'm in college going for the math+cs degrees and his stuff on formal languages was probably the peak of my admiration for him... but with the admiration comes research, and perhaps the most important thing chomsky illustrated to me was that you can be a genius, but that doesn't mean you can't be blind, myopic, wrong, an asshole, or ... non-credible.
I don't know why chomsky's beliefs and supported causes are so inconsistent with the morals he pushes, but it's been an exemplar for me regardless -- good and bad, functional and broken.