- #1,016
Astronuc
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
2023 Award
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From a discussion between Amy Goodman and Dr. Andrew Bacevich on Democracy Now.
According to the discussion, the US and EU were too aggressive in expanding NATO to the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
NATO would not be needed but for the aggression of Putin.Under threat of violence, Putin is demanding among other things:
I have alternative demands:
Russia ceases military action in Ukraine, and withdraws forces.
Russia compensates Ukraine for damages due to invasion.
Russia cedes illegally seized territory, and a 100 km buffer zone from Ukrainian border, which is fully demilitarized.
Putin is arrested and tried for murder and other war crimes (the invasion itself is a war crime, and all resulting military actions in Ukraine).
Russia rewrites its Constitution to where it was prior to Putin, with guarantees of freedom of speech/expression, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, etc.
One person who warned years ago about NATO expansion in Eastern Europe is William Burns, the current director of the CIA.
He served as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008. In his memoir, The Back Channel, Burns wrote “sitting at the embassy in Moscow in the mid-nineties, it seemed to me that NATO expansion was premature at best and needlessly provocative at worst.” And then in 1995, Burns wrote a memo saying, “Hostility to early NATO expansion is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here.” He’s talking about Russia. In another memo Burns wrote, “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” Again, those the words of the current director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns.
According to the discussion, the US and EU were too aggressive in expanding NATO to the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_NATOIn 1997, three former Warsaw Pact countries, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland, were invited to join NATO. After this fourth enlargement in 1999, the Vilnius group of the Baltics and seven East European countries formed in May 2000 to cooperate and lobby for further NATO membership. Seven of these countries joined in the fifth enlargement in 2004. The latest waves of expansion saw 4 Southeastern European states join; Albania and Croatia joined in the sixth enlargement in 2009, Montenegro in 2017 and North Macedonia in 2020.
NATO would not be needed but for the aggression of Putin.Under threat of violence, Putin is demanding among other things:
Ukraine cease military action, Ukraine change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, acknowledge Crimea
I have alternative demands:
Russia ceases military action in Ukraine, and withdraws forces.
Russia compensates Ukraine for damages due to invasion.
Russia cedes illegally seized territory, and a 100 km buffer zone from Ukrainian border, which is fully demilitarized.
Putin is arrested and tried for murder and other war crimes (the invasion itself is a war crime, and all resulting military actions in Ukraine).
Russia rewrites its Constitution to where it was prior to Putin, with guarantees of freedom of speech/expression, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, etc.