It seems wanting to join NATO is enough for Russia to be threatening, if they consider one's country to be in Russia's sphere of influence. See for instance Georgia (2008) and indeed Ukraine (2014/2022).

[–] 420blazeit69@hexbear.net 38 points 2 years ago (12 children)

NATO is a hostile military alliance formed for the sole purpose of destroying the Soviet Union. It did not go away when that purpose was achieved, but continued to creep closer to the USSR's main successor state despite assurances that it would not. In this post-USSR period it has undertaken multiple purely offensive actions (the former Yugoslavia and Libya come to mind). It also invaded Afghanistan as a response to 9/11, despite none of the hijackers being from Afghanistan, and despite the Afghan government offering to turn over bin Laden. Then you have the puppetmaster of NATO invading Iraq on completely false pretenses, and generally running a wide-ranging assassination program all over the world.

I wouldn't want NATO near me, either.

[–] mellowheat@suppo.fi -5 points 2 years ago (11 children)

NATO is a hostile military alliance formed for the sole purpose of destroying the Soviet Union. It did not go away when that purpose was achieved

Somehow it doesn't currently seem like it was achieved.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 35 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you think the Russian Federation and the USSR are remotely comparable, you're smoking crack. NATO won, and the depraved, neoliberal regime it replaced the USSR with is its own God damned fault.

[–] mellowheat@suppo.fi 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

NATO won, and the depraved, neoliberal regime it replaced the USSR with is its own God damned fault.

I don't think USSR became what anyone in the west wanted it to become. It's nowhere near neoliberal, for one, more like a mafia state.

If you think the Russian Federation and the USSR are remotely comparable

Oh no, I don't. The Russian Federation is much worse. Just saying that we didn't really "destroy" them in the same way as, for instance, Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan was destroyed in WW2.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 31 points 2 years ago

I don't think USSR became what anyone in the west wanted it to become.

Who is Yeltsin?

It's nowhere near neoliberal, for one, more like a mafia state.

Technically it quickly became something closer to classically liberal rather than neoliberal (as the imperial core shunned it) but to claim that liberalism is opposed to mafiosi is hilarious, it has never existed without them. It's like saying liberalism is opposed to slavery, there is some vacuous sense in which you could use sophistry to push that angle, but when you look at real, historic manifestations of liberal states, they are heavily economically reliant on various forms of slavery, whether domestic or via their dogs in the third world.

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