"Invaded" implies a hostile, or at least forceful takeover.
That's not what happened. In fact its local government reached out to the US and agreed to come under its wing as a de-facto protectorate, which it saw as a preferable alternative to Canadanian/British (and in any case German) intervention.
Ok, they "occupied" Greenland if you prefer although if they didn't have Copenhagen's greenlight it was an invasion. But that's largely semantics and does not address the general point and the fact that the US's interest in Greenland is not new despite Trump being Trump and they were keen to keep it. Even at the time it was not new.
You can even go back to the 90s and promises that NATO made that it would not expand to eastern Europe
And I encourage you to do so, because if you look at the actual event protocol it simply doesn't support what you're saying.
The bottom line is that whatever was said verbally at the time was understood by all participants to be part of the brainstorming process in the course of negotiations of what would eventually become the 2+4 Agreement. And simply put, this particular proposal did not make it into the agreement. As one notable observer put it: "It was tough, everyone knew that only what is written in black and white in the contract counts."
That's why Gorbachev insists (in an interview you can easily find) that even though he felt that NATO expansion was against the "spirit" of the negotiations, there were no statements about NATO expansion that rose to the level of a "promise". We also have Shevardnadze's equally stringent denial (per the sibling commenter), and strong counterweighing factors, such as Russia's greenlighting of the first round of ascensions (PL, CZ, HU) in the 1997 CFE Treaty, which by itself renders the "broken promise" theory unequivocally moot. And some notable language in the NATO-Russia Founding Act signed in the same year as well.
The war was at least partly instigated by our refusal to promise to keep Ukraine neutral and out of NATO.
That's a severe misreading of the article you cite in association with this statement. Simply put, that's not the language of the article, and that's not an implication it makes.
How would you feel about Russia making trade deals with Mexico, sponsoring pro-Russia politicians,
So far so good. Whatever one may feel about Mexico taking that direction -- it is after all a sovereign state. And while such circumstances would certainly be a matter of concern to the US, the idea that they amount to something in response to which the US would need to launch a full-scale invasion of Mexico (or that such a move could possibly be beneficial the US in any way) would, of course, be seen as batshit insane.
... and selling advanced military gear to them?, ... How would you feel if Mexico was attacking us with cruise missiles supplied and operated by Russia?
If this happened only after the US launched an invasion of Mexico as plainly stupid and unprovoked as Putin's invasion of Ukraine -- all rational observers would agree that Mexico would of course have a perfect right to defend itself -- indeed, "by any means necessary".
Including the procurement of advanced military gear of virtually any conventional description, from whichever source it could find.
Of course it's unrealistic to expect that the status gradient simply shouldn't matter. It's perfectly natural (and useful, healthy) to weigh what people say according to their status, to some degree. It's just human relations, as you say.
Where things become problematic is when their putative status becomes the primary or overriding factor. That is, "X is true (simply) because Y said so" environments. Or "You're just an L{N}, but I'm a L{N+k} so even though I don't actually know what I'm talking about, I don't have to listen to you" environments.
The Americans knew that NATO expansion into Ukraine could provoke Russian intervention, and they did it anyway.[0]
Except they didn't.
The footnote you cite describes Burns's concern, but not what actually happened:
NATO rejected Ukraine's membership appliction in 2008, and Ukraine itself formally disclaimed aspirations of joining NATO in 2010, stating that Ukraine would remain a "European, non-aligned state."
And there the situation sat until 2014, when Russia invaded anyway, making any objections it might have had to Ukraine joining NATO instantly and forever moot.
This idea that the West was aggressively dragging Ukraine into NATO is just a soundbite you heard somewhere, but has no connection to reality.
False, you are spreading blatant lies.
Russians were pretty transparent about reasons. Budapest Memorandum as of 2003 guaranteed Ukraine sovereignty in exchange for nuclear disarmament, provided that Ukraine stays neutral state.
Ukraine decided to break the Budapest Memorandum by seeking the NATO ascension, and GW Bush promised them NATO in 2008, and then in 2014 CIA/State Department organized a coup (just a mere month before official elections) and pro-western puppet leader was put in charge (search Victoria Nuland's call where she decided to appoint pro-western Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister after the coup) who decided to seek EU and NATO membership.
Thus, Ukraine effectively nullified the neutrality clause of the Budapest Memorandum.
So it was Ukraine that walked back from Budapest Memorandum by giving up neutral status, that nullified the territorial sovereignty guarantees given by Russia.
if you think about it, it kinda makes sense. Russia can tolerate friendly and aligned country on its border that is 70% comprised of Russian speakers and/or Russian ethnicity.
But Russia cannot tolerate NATO member on its border, the same way that USA cannot tolerate Canada/Mexico that are in military alliance with Russia/China.
Ask yourself, what would USA do if tomorrow Canada/Mexico decided to join exclusive economic and military alliance with China ?
The Budapest memorandum was signed in 1994 and not 2003, it sets no neutrality requirements on Ukraine, nor was there a coup in Ukraine, nor was Ukraine scheduled to have any elections in 2014, nor was or is Ukraine in the process of joining NATO, and nor has Mexico anything to do with it all.
Did you generate your post with an AI tool? It's such a strange collection of undisputably incorrect statements, from the wrong year of the Budapest memorandum to the invalid reference of upcoming elections in 2014.
In August 2014, and only after Russia invaded both the Crimea and the Donbas. In fact even after the invasion of just the Crimea (in March) his government was still playing it safe, and renouncing any intent to join NATO (Reuters, March 18):
Ukraine's new pro-Western leadership is not seeking membership of NATO, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Tuesday, in comments intended to reassure Russia and Ukraine's large number of Russian-speakers.[0]
It only changed its tune -- was forced to change its tune -- when Russia doubled down on its "covert" intervention in the Donbas by sending armored vehicles with Russian military plates, and attempted a similar assault on Mariupol.[1] Which (unlike the events you are falsely describing) actually did tear the Budapest Memorandum (and the UN Charter) to shreds. And rendered whatever "defensive" objections Russia may have had to Ukraine's bloc status entirely moot.
I would venture that introducing fresh ideas and technologists with first principles thinking will yield better results.
It could, maybe. Provided the people you appoint have some measure of credibility and integrity. Or at least seem to have some kind understanding of the basic mechanics by which governments (even when reduced to a bare minimum) need to operate.
Elon and Vivek plainly do not fit this description, and that should be screamingly obvious by now.
Litigating this is like arguing about whether George W. Bush was a southerner. He was a Connecticut blueblood who grew up in the South, made his political career there, spoke with a southern accent, married a southerner, and so on.
The war with Ukraine has made questions of Russian and Ukrainian ethnicity much more salient then they used to be, but it's important not to project that onto the past. The situation with Khrushchev and Brezhnev is a lot like W's—they grew up and made their political careers in Ukraine; Khrushchev in particular had a strong southern accent.
Аnd if you absolutely insist on blood tests, then you'd have to count Gorbachev as half Ukrainian, which would be a further bit of proof about the effectiveness of assimilatory policy...
Khrushchev in particular had a strong southern accent.
You can take the matter up with his granddaughter if you like:
I remember my grandmother saying that Khrushchev spoke Ukrainian all the time and that it was so embarrassing because it wasn’t the real thing! That said, Khrushchev was a Russian. It’s erroneous to say that he was Ukrainian—as Henry Kissinger just did, in a recent article. He did not transfer Crimea to Ukraine because he was Ukrainian. He was a Russian.
Trump won both the electoral and popular votes and won all the swing states.
That's not what "landslide victory" means.
In fact Trump's electoral total was scarcely different from Biden's in 2016, and his popular vote margin was far narrower. Historically speaking, both of these are much closer to dead heats than they are to what are generally considered to be landslide victories (like Clinton's wins in 92-96, and Reagan's in 84-88).
You're only saying it's a "landslide" because Trump keeps saying that in his speeches.
But as usual he's either simply lying, or has no idea what he's talking about.
Israel is a democracy desperately suing for peace with its neighbors, and at no point in history has initiated a war to expand its borders (or for any other purpose).
'56, '67 and '82 were all unambiguously started by Israel.
It is also currently engaged in an effort, which it initiated on December 9th, to expand its illegally annexed territorial holdings in Syria as we speak.
That's not what happened. In fact its local government reached out to the US and agreed to come under its wing as a de-facto protectorate, which it saw as a preferable alternative to Canadanian/British (and in any case German) intervention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_in_World_War_II