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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   35664 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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The Soviets talked about joining NATO as early as around the time of its foundation. Their idea though was to either exclude the US from NATO or to require unanimous agreement for any NATO action, either way gutting NATO.

Putin did indeed at one point talk about joining NATO. He asked when they would be invited to NATO. Was told that it didn't work that way that countries applied to join. Then Putin said "Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”

In addition to not wanting to follow the process, I'm not sure Russia would really want to be in an alliance where another country was the dominate member (Russia would be 2nd in population, and military strength, 3rd in PPP GDP, and 7th in nominal GDP).

And I'm not so sure it would have qualified for membership -

While there is no membership checklist for interested nations, NATO has made clear that candidates for membership must meet the following criteria. Interested nations must:

Uphold democracy, including tolerance for diversity;

Be progressing toward a market economy;

Have their military forces under firm civilian control;

Be good neighbors and respect the sovereignty of other nations; and

Work toward interoperability with NATO forces.

https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/fs_970815members.html

The first and 2nd to last points have been questionable at best for years and has become more so lately. And I'm not sure Russian leadership would care to change the way their military operates to fit with the last point.

Uphold democracy, including tolerance for diversity;

Be good neighbors and respect the sovereignty of other nations

It's a relief to know Ukraine and the United States will never join NATO.

Some sort of argument can be made about the US. I don't think its as strong as the people normally making the argument would claim, but on respecting sovereignty it isn't nonsense, there is a real argument there. Less so on the democracy question.

Ukraine? Maybe its just because they haven't had a lot of time or a lot of power as an independent country but they haven't done much in the way of infringing on anyone's sovereignty. As for democracy they are far more democratic than Russia, corrupt maybe but a solid democracy, at least until after they were invaded and large sections of their country occupied by a foreign power (when they outlawed pro-Russian parties as traitorous)

Calling Ukraine a solid democracy post-Maidan (let alone post-banning political opposition) is a joke. I'll concede the US, flawed as it is, should still qualify as one -- but for the US I was really poking at the whole "sovereignty" bit.

Ukraine had several free and fair elections post Maidan, and those elections actually determined who got to run the government.

You don't get to call any election free or fair after a foreign-backed coup. Especially not when it's now been surpassed by the out-and-out banning of political rivals.

Actually you do. A coup existing in the past doesn't inherently make a latter election not free and fair. It could easily create conditions to have an election that is neither, (or to not have any elections at all) but doesn't by itself or automatically make subsequent elections not free or fair.

Also "a foreign backed coup" isn't a very accurate description of what happened in the first place.

Once a foreign power has shown itself able to so thoroughly control politics, by default I refuse to consider subsequent elections legitimate. I can't stop you from doing so, of course.

They didn't thoroughly control politics even at the time. And assuming the counterfactual that they did, such control rarely lasts, esp. in cases that aren't openly obvious puppet states. Control for a moment, is not control forever. The US didn't run the polling places in Ukraine, didn't set the election rules, didn't count the votes, etc. Once someone was elected, US opinion had some influence, because Ukraine seriously wanted support. But that's a separate issue than the elections.

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