| | | That's quite a distinction.
By your logic, Russia had nothing to be concerned about NATO until Ukraine formally joined NATO. I find the argument thoroughly unconvincing. How you can suggest that writing a goal of NATO membership into a nation's Constitution cannot be considered a step towards joining NATO is, well, odd. If the requirement is reversed, i.e., if the Ukrainian Constitution called for it to never become a NATO member, would you say that there was a step towards not becoming a NATO member? LOL!
In the meantime, Ukraine's defense minister says that Ukraine is a de facto member of NATO, and I agree with him. De jure membership would mean invocation of art. 5, which NATO does not want for obvious reasons, the first and most significant being that it is best to let the Ukrainians bleed for it.
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And, by the way, NATO considers that the door to Ukraine's membership is "open."
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So you say NATO membership will never happen because of various speculative reasons but you cannot deny that there is a desire on both the part of NATO and Ukraine for membership, to the extent that NATO's Secretary General on November 29, 2022 stated that “NATO’s door is open.”
Your purely semantic arguments (moving the line as to the meaning of what is a step towards NATO membership might be) aside, it is a horrible policy to have Ukraine as a NATO member.
Having the very real potential for NATO nuclear weapons to be a seven to ten minute flight away from Moscow in my view presents a significant threat that the Russians cannot ignore. We didn't ignore such a threat in 1962.
Yes, sovereign nations should be free to pursue their own foreign and domestic policies. That is obvious and unnecessarily stated. But we have violated that principle time and time again. The most egregious example is of course the infamous "Fuck the EU" phone call in 2014.
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And how much freedom of action in its foreign policy does Ukraine really have? It is utterly and completely dependent on the West for its military supplies, financing, etc., just about everything. Do you really think Ukraine can craft a truly independent foreign policy given those powerful constraints on its actions? I'm tempted to call it a puppet state, not a sovereign entity. Its foreign policy is dictated by others. Perhaps you meant that, as a sovereign nation, it is free to be a docile puppet who dutifully follows instructions.
But the more important consideration for us, in my view, is that America's strategic national interests are not involved in the dispute. We have no dog in the fight. The "Putin is a bad man" trope is tiresome (national leaders are rarely pristine choir boys or girls, including ours). Nor is the suggestion that the Russian flag will fly over Paris and London if he not checked in the Ukraine. Such crap.
After decades of screwing up our military interventions at a huge cost in both blood and treasure (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, etc.), can't we ever learn to fight when it matters, not when some DC warmongers think it is a good thing?
Our military and security establishment is a national threat. There is no clear-eyed vision of what our national interest truly is. |
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