Fuck NATO

[mistermack]

From what I'm seeing these days, NATO is more likely to get me killed, than protect me.

What will Russia and China do, in the face of all this sanctimonious banging of the drum by NATO?
My first move, if I was Putin, would be to announce that Russia will not recognise any new members of NATO. He's perfectly right in what he says, the west is trying to encircle Russia with new members. Boris Yeltzin was a stupid drunken cunt, he let it all go, but Putin certainly won't.
If Putin did declare that he won't recognise any new members of NATO, that leaves the west with a very difficult dilemma. Call his ''bluff'' ( which probably won't be a bluff at all ) and add any old loony ex-Russian satellite into the fold, or don't add any new members. The first would bring the world a giant step closer to all-out conflict, the second would be humiliating. I'm sure they would not enjoy that dilemma.

There is also the prospect of Russia and China forming their OWN mutual defence alliance, which would also be a nightmare scenario for NATO. They might not find that option attractive at the moment, but if NATO keeps pressing, with more new members, that's going to look more interesting to Putin and the Chinese. It's a logical reaction, to any growth and pressure by NATO.

Having NATO on one side, and Russia and China on the other, would be probably a worse situation than what we had in the cold war.
And NATO is the loose cannon. They undertake to back every member state, which means that you only need one tiny state to elect a bunch of loonies, and you have all the ingredients for a nuclear war, starting from a piddling little border dispute.

Interesting times.

[rainbow]

Make Love, not War

[Tero]

I don't recognize Putin.

[laklak]

He looks like this, Tero.

[Svartalf]

I know the phrase "jump the shark", is "ride the shark" even worse?

[pErvinalia]

With a barge pole!1!

[Tero]

Naah, this is nothing. Leave jump the shark to Fonzie.

[JimC]

NATO is a necessary counter-balance to Putin's Russia. I think they'll be sensible enough not to add extra states, but they simply must defend existing members to the hilt.

[cronus]

NATO is a necessary counter-balance to Putin's Russia. I think they'll be sensible enough not to add extra states, but they simply must defend existing members to the hilt.

Yo. Safety of being out of range might be affecting your confidence here?

[JimC]

NATO is a necessary counter-balance to Putin's Russia. I think they'll be sensible enough not to add extra states, but they simply must defend existing members to the hilt.

Yo. Safety of being out of range might be affecting your confidence here?

We'll have our hands full defending against screaming hordes of Chinese troops...

Luckily, we may be able to bribe them with New Zealand...

(sorry Dev...)

[cronus]

NATO is a necessary counter-balance to Putin's Russia. I think they'll be sensible enough not to add extra states, but they simply must defend existing members to the hilt.

Yo. Safety of being out of range might be affecting your confidence here?

We'll have our hands full defending against screaming hordes of Chinese troops...

Luckily, we may be able to bribe them with New Zealand...

(sorry Dev...)

Do you think the Russians would be happy with Wales? and Ireland?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Make Love, not War

In Putin's Russia, Love makes you, not war!

[cronus]

Same faeces as the intro better defined....

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/ ... -warriors/

The Imperial Rot of Armchair Warriors

An occasional misconception of history is the contention that geo-political outcomes are the result of rational calculation. Or put differently, local rationalities don’t always, or even most of the time, aggregate to global rationalities. The Obama administration used the CIA to organize a neo-nazi putsch in Ukraine after NATO spent the last twenty years squeezing (heavily) nuclear-armed Russia and immediately involved the IMF and Western oil company executives in Ukrainian ‘government’ affairs? At about the same time part of the Syrian ‘opposition’ that the U.S. had armed and financed morphed into IS (Islamic State) and promptly marched into Iraq to confiscate and use the weapons the U.S. had supplied leading Mr. Obama to once again bomb the country while re-committing combat troops. Given that there is no conceivable ‘good’ outcome to any of this, just what local ‘rationalities’ could be driving the serial disasters of U.S. foreign policy?

The common links between Ukraine and Iraq are oil and the alleged regional political interests of the U.S. But the regional political interests tie to oil— reserves, pipelines and strategic control of all things oil related. Restarting the Cold War with Russia represents a business opportunity for arms manufacturers. And no effort is being spared in demonizing the highly accommodative IS. Both of these represent an urgent need to exercise rare political judgment by the citizens of the U.S. The risk of the growing hot war in Ukraine pits cloistered demagogues (neo-cons) in Washington against a Russia that has seen little more from the U.S. (NATO) than relentless aggression and broken promises for twenty years. And IS is in the early stages of demonstrating the folly, and rapidly escalating cost, of the ‘contained chaos’ strategy for maintaining U.S. political control over the Middle East. In short, U.S. foreign policy is wildly reckless at present, if not outright unhinged.

(continued)

[MrJonno]

Every country has a right to who choose who they want to align and if that means every single country bordering Russia wants to align with Western interests leaving Russia isolated then that is Russia's problem (maybe they should be asking themselves why no sane country wants anything to do with Putin)

Russia basically needs to realise its automatic influence ends at its borders

[cronus]

Every country has a right to who choose who they want to align and if that means every single country bordering Russia wants to align with Western interests leaving Russia isolated then that is Russia's problem (maybe they should be asking themselves why no sane country wants anything to do with Putin)

Russia basically needs to realise its automatic influence ends at its borders

That's why you are posting here rather than advising senior figures on policy anywhere.