Once again, my point was that the west did not engage in diplomacy with Russia and did not make any attempts to address their concerns. If you don’t understand why it’s desirable to try and resolve problems before they escalate into an open conflict, I really don’t know what else to tell you. Painting Russia as being implacable and claiming that any negotiations would be pointless is a self fulfilling prophecy.
The German government did engage in diplomacy (a lot and several times), and also refused to export weapons to Ukraine until after the war broke out. So blaming this on the German government as the original article does is just plain wrong.
The German government did not engage in any meaningful diplomacy. At no point did any western nations take Russia’s concerns seriously or made any attempt to address them. Blaming German government for failing to do what it could to try and avert the war is absolutely correct position to take. In fact, any of the NATO member governments could’ve done this, but Germany was certainly in the best position to do so.
You have seriously no idea what you are talking about… there were years of diplomacy under the Normandy Format between Germany and Russia (including France and Ukraine). Just because they didn’t result in all of Russia’s demands being met doesn’t mean they didn’t try hard to find a diplomatic solution.
All the experts on the subject, including Chomsky, happen to agree with my position. Obviously, though it’s me that has no idea what I’m talking about.
They agree on the position that the US made matters worse, not that Germany was at fault like the original article does… stop shifting the discussion to something else just because you are clearly wrong.
The way NATO works is that countries have to be invited by a unanimous agreement of its existing members. Russia’s core concern has always been the expansion of NATO towards its border. This is what all the experts on the subject agreed would eventually lead to conflict. Germany, as well as any other NATO member, could have vetoed acceptance of Ukraine at any time. I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to acknowledge this.
See my original argument at the very beginning of this long thread. Germany vetoing the NATO expansion would have likely meant NATO becoming irrelevant and the US starting a different defensive alliance with the eastern European states (and the UK) in the early 2000. This would have been a worse outcome from the Russian perspective any way you can look at it.
We don’t know what would’ve happened with NATO, but we do know that a war may have been avoided. Your concerns for the fate of NATO feel somewhat hollow in face of real human suffering that unfolded.
In fact, it’s very likely that had NATO become irrelevant then Europe could develop much better relations with Russia going forward creating far better stability and security in the region.
Once again, my point was that the west did not engage in diplomacy with Russia and did not make any attempts to address their concerns. If you don’t understand why it’s desirable to try and resolve problems before they escalate into an open conflict, I really don’t know what else to tell you. Painting Russia as being implacable and claiming that any negotiations would be pointless is a self fulfilling prophecy.
The German government did engage in diplomacy (a lot and several times), and also refused to export weapons to Ukraine until after the war broke out. So blaming this on the German government as the original article does is just plain wrong.
The German government did not engage in any meaningful diplomacy. At no point did any western nations take Russia’s concerns seriously or made any attempt to address them. Blaming German government for failing to do what it could to try and avert the war is absolutely correct position to take. In fact, any of the NATO member governments could’ve done this, but Germany was certainly in the best position to do so.
You have seriously no idea what you are talking about… there were years of diplomacy under the Normandy Format between Germany and Russia (including France and Ukraine). Just because they didn’t result in all of Russia’s demands being met doesn’t mean they didn’t try hard to find a diplomatic solution.
All the experts on the subject, including Chomsky, happen to agree with my position. Obviously, though it’s me that has no idea what I’m talking about.
They agree on the position that the US made matters worse, not that Germany was at fault like the original article does… stop shifting the discussion to something else just because you are clearly wrong.
The way NATO works is that countries have to be invited by a unanimous agreement of its existing members. Russia’s core concern has always been the expansion of NATO towards its border. This is what all the experts on the subject agreed would eventually lead to conflict. Germany, as well as any other NATO member, could have vetoed acceptance of Ukraine at any time. I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to acknowledge this.
See my original argument at the very beginning of this long thread. Germany vetoing the NATO expansion would have likely meant NATO becoming irrelevant and the US starting a different defensive alliance with the eastern European states (and the UK) in the early 2000. This would have been a worse outcome from the Russian perspective any way you can look at it.
We don’t know what would’ve happened with NATO, but we do know that a war may have been avoided. Your concerns for the fate of NATO feel somewhat hollow in face of real human suffering that unfolded.
In fact, it’s very likely that had NATO become irrelevant then Europe could develop much better relations with Russia going forward creating far better stability and security in the region.