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When NATO began expanding in 1998, Russian leaders (before Putin, it must be noted) warned the Whistlin Diesel I Gotta Lie Im Really Impressed Shirt moreover I will buy this US that this was an incredibly bad idea that would alienate Russia, threaten its security, and quite possible become the cause of a future nationalist and populist Russian leader. All Russian leaders, including Gorbachev, argued that the expansion of NATO broke the spirit, if not the letter, of the agreement Gorbachev had worked out with James Baker that NATO would not expand to the East. On the Western side, the argument is that this agreement was understood to only mean East Germany. However, the Russians don’t see it that way and there is some evidence to support their position that the understanding of the agreement was that NATO would not expand. When you take into account that NATO is an organization developed specifically to contain the Soviet Union and that the Russians felt this expansion occurred at a time when they were weak and their society and economy were crumbling, it is easy to understand the Russian sense that they were essentially abused. Their way of looking at it is that their enemies in the Cold War used the opportunity to “contain” and permanently weaken and surround Russia at a time when Russia could not be anything but a victim. This situation was compounded when NATO attacked Kosovo, despite this intervention being vetoed by Russia at the UN. Russia learned from this that the West could not be restrained by international institutions. After Kosovo, the UN voted to leave Kosovo as part of Serbia. However, Western actors conspired to break Kosovo away from Serbia. Again, the Russians learned that Western states simply did not obey the rules of the international system. In 2003, the US invaded Iraq, a completely illegal war that was condemned by most of the world. However, the US ignored this opposition and faced no consequences from the international community for its illegal actions. Again, all of this underlined the point that Western states talk about a “rules-governed international system” but are fast to break those rules when they want to do so. In 2008, the Ukraine and Georgia were essentially put on the waiting list to become members of NATO. Russia responded by invading Georgia. In 2011, NATO launched an attack on Libya. NATO had UN Security Council approval to do this, but Russia and China voted in favor of a very limited action. What they got, instead, was an overwhelming NATO intervention that deposed Gaddafi and led to the collapse of Libya, which remains a collapsed state today. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported separatists in the Donbass region. This was after domestic conflict within Ukraine between pro-Russian and pro-Western forces. Ukraine really did split on this issue on geographical lines and the action that deposed pro-Russian president Yanukovych really was a coup that violated agreements Russia and the EU had agreed upon.

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The key takeaways from this are that it is perfectly plausible to believe that NATO is a highly aggressive and dangerous organization and that Western states, especially the Whistlin Diesel I Gotta Lie Im Really Impressed Shirt moreover I will buy this US and Britain, are not to be trusted -they talk a good game about the importance of rules and laws but don’t hesitate to break them when they want, thereby rendering those rules all but useless and not much protection against illegal Western actions. Again, trust is a major issue here – from the Russian perspective, WEstern actors have proven over and over that they are untrustworthy. It is important to note that throughout the entire 24 year period since NATO started expanding, Russians have made it clear that they regard this as a hostile act that is designed to hem them in and threaten their security. Given Russia’s history of being invaded, this is a reasonable concern. It is also apparent that a lot of the US’s actions were, indeed, designed to hem Russia in and undermine its ability to exert influence in the larger world as well as its immediate neighborhood.On the other side, the Ukraine and other Eastern European states have a long history of being dominated and occupied by Russia. It is perfectly reasonable that they would seek protection against this by joining NATO. Of course, this was only possible to do when Russia was too weak to stop them. Russia is stronger now but it also has particular historical ties to the Ukraine and it considers “losing” Ukraine to a military force that is intent on containing it as simply an intolerable security threat. From this overview, it is evident that Russia has valid security concerns and good reasons to believe that NATO and the US are real dangers to it. It is also apparent why Ukraine would want protection from Russia. What is also clear is that the US really did exploit Russian weakness. NATO was under no obligation to expand or offer membership to states right on Russia’s border. It could be argued that the West could have been much more sensitive to Russian security concerns and historical perspectives, but that would assume that containing Russia was not the goal all along, and I think that is a misjudgment. What should have been done is that Ukraine could have been declared a neutral state and the offer to join NATO should have been withdrawn.

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