Every so often you'll be going about your day, minding your business and then,
Don't forget a resurrecting Russia.
Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Crisis in Ukraine.
How close are we really to war?
Russia.
And Russia.
Russia.
Anything involving Russia, the United States and NATO
tends to have all the characteristics of a 21st-century crisis.
Meme wars initiated by official government accounts?
Check.
Shallow mainstream media analysis?
The only clarity we've had in this whole thing is
that American citizens are on their own,
you know, in a potential war zone.
Check.
Article telling you which weapons manufacturers stock to buy because, hey,
war might break out and thousands of people might die...
but at least your portfolio can grow?
Yeah. We're not surprised that either.
Check.
But why is there tension?
What's the missing piece mainstream news isn't covering very well?
Are Western countries correct
in saying that Vladimir Putin is a relentless aggressor
trying to invade neighboring countries and dreaming of resurrecting the Soviet Union?
Or is Russia justified in saying that the United States and its allies are hostile,
breaking promises and deliberately encircling Russia?
This is a story about war, loss, betrayal,
and, at the center of it all,
the largest military alliance in the world
The coverage of this crisis tends to downplay the role of one central player:
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also known as NATO.
If the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
had stuck with providing
basic security against Russia or anyone else
for its original membership
of the West European countries, we would have no crisis today.
Unpacking NATO is key to understanding Russia's actions.
You see, NATO was born right after World War Two as an alliance
against the Soviet Union,
its growing influence and its massive army.
In the West, it's often forgotten that it was the Soviet Union
that made the biggest contribution in defeating Nazi Germany.
Around 27 million Soviets died in the Second World War.
This almost unimaginable death toll is crucial to understanding why
the formation of NATO made Russians feel like the world betrayed them.
We'll get to that in a bit.
But first, a little more about NATO.
The NATO's treaty has a section - Article five -
that says that an attack on one member country
should be seen as an attack on all, which is a useful deterrent
if you're worried about being invaded by the Soviet Union.
Now, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 without Article five
ever being invoked by any of NATO's 16 member countries.
But since the Soviet Union ended,
this historically anti-Soviet alliance has doubled to 30 members.
Three decades on, that includes some countries that were
part of the Soviet Union and others right on Russia's border.
Understandably, some of those Eastern European countries
had brutal experiences living under Soviet domination
and the fear of Soviet tanks rolling across the border.
Joining NATO and keeping it alive was seen as a good buffer
against repeating that history.
So they mobilized
ethnic lobbies
and in America in particular,
to agitate, to press for the expansion
of NATO to their countries.
But the United States as the biggest member and the primary weapon systems
provider in the alliance also has its reasons for growing NATO.
During the Cold War,
NATO existed to defend Western Europe
against the Soviet Union.
And of course, the Soviet Union
never attacked Western Europe,
so NATO never had to fight.
Now, after the end of the Cold War,
unfortunately, what you got was
very much just a desperate way of finding a new reason
for NATO to exist when its actual reason to exist vanished.
You got this phrase “out of area or out of mission,”
and then NATO began to cast around for
places to do things.
This was also a way, of course,
of pleasing the Americans
in order to keep the Americans in Europe.
Remember, a little earlier we talked about Russia's sense of betrayal.
Well, this is where it comes from.
As early as 1990.
U.S. diplomats reportedly promised not one inch eastward of NATO's expansion,
but this promise was actually never written down.
So the U.S. says there was no formal agreement.
Russia insists that there was a verbal agreement and that it believed the U.S.
and it's not like NATO wasn't aware of what growing the alliance could mean.
Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet president,
warned even back then that any expansion would trigger, quote,
“the flames of war bursting across the whole of Europe.”
Well, we know what happened next.
Well, NATO has expanded to taking former communist states of Eastern Europe
and three former
Soviet republics of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.
In 2007, the United States
and a couple of other NATO countries
pressed for NATO membership
for Ukraine and Georgia as well.
Disbelief that the Russians have
that they were tricked after the fall of the Soviet Union
is where that sense of betrayal comes from.
Now, whether it's justified or not is a matter of opinion.
But what does matter is that this is a big reason why relations
between Russia and the West are the way they are
and why there's so much mistrust between them.
So, Ukraine.
As Anatol mentioned, the U.S.
and some other NATO countries wanted Ukraine to join in 2007.
That probably played a part in Russia deciding to invade
and annexed Crimea in 2014.
Quick refresher: Crimea back then was a part of Ukraine,
though historically it had been a part of Russia.
Today the status of Crimea is complicated.
Some nations recognize Russia's annexation,
while others, like the United States, do not.
Historically, Russia does have connections to that region,
but more importantly, it has a major naval base there.
Well, obviously, if Ukraine is in NATO
and Crimea is part of Ukraine,
you know, NATO is not going to tolerate a Russian naval base on NATO territory.
Sooner or later, NATO's going to say to Russia, get out.
Well, as many Russians have said to me,
we didn't lose 500,000 men in Crimea
in the Second World War.
to be expelled by Europe.
Now, since the invasion of Crimea, the U.S. has gotten further involved in Ukraine,
providing about 90% of the country's military aid.
And that's not lost on Russia's leadership.
What they are doing on the territory of Ukraine,
or they are trying to do and they are planning,
it’s not thousands of kilometers from our national border,
it’s at the doorstep of our house.
Well, from a strategic point of view,
it means exactly that.
It means what it would mean to America
if Mexico tried to join
the Chinese led military alliance.
But while that analogy makes sense, Russia has continued to interfere in Ukraine.
Other than actually occupying and annexing part of the country,
Russia has also supported pro-Russian separatists and launched cyber attacks.
There's a lot to the argument that Russia just doesn't
respect Ukraine's sovereignty,
especially when President Putin has already said on record, quote,
“I believe that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, one nation, in fact.”
So is Ukraine actually going to join NATO
putting more of Russia's border up against the hostile alliance?
Well, probably not.
No. I mean, there's no chance of Ukraine
ever becoming a NATO member.
In fact, NATO members are not prepared
to guarantee Ukraine's defense.
So in one way,
all of this is an argument about nothing.
Joining NATO's isn't like signing up for Netflix —
name, email, credit card info and you're good to go.
In order for a new member to join,
all the current members have to approve.
The reason why Ukraine and Georgia didn't join after the U.S. wanted them to
is that France and Germany said no.
NATO rules also require a country to not have any contested
borders or territorial disputes before joining.
Well, part of Ukraine has already been annexed by Russia,
and Russian backed separatists are fighting for control of other territories.
So if all this is an argument about nothing,
then why all the huffing and puffing from Putin?
From Russia's point of view,
having Ukraine as an American ally
without being in NATO
is just as bad as having Ukraine in NATO.
As long as there's a tug of war over Ukraine and deep mistrust between Russia,
the U.S. and NATO.
There will always be a chance for war to break out.
What you must not do in a deeply divided country
is face it with a clear
and unavoidable choice between Russia and the West.
And neutrality, in my view,
is an entirely feasible solution
and one which, by the way, does not prevent
Ukraine from
developing as a free market democracy.
The problem is Biden administration is so scared of its domestic opposition,
not just the Republicans but also within the Democratic Party,
that this obvious compromise solution
and in a peaceful settlement are not possible
for the West.
But that is a profound tragedy