Russia again has said it cannot tolerate Ukraine joining NATO.
Russia wants Ukraine to be a neutral country, demilitarized. I guess it’s up to Ukraine to make this decision.
in Russias shoes, the USA would not tolerate the same situation.
The invasion is terrible, but the west seems to have been ignoring the Russian point of view.
Even if the Ukrainians might have agreed to that before the invasion, there’s no chance they ever will now. Putin has just demonstrated how he treats neighbors who don’t have the protection of NATO membership.
Cuba is very close to the US and we’ve “tolerated” them being allied with a hostile superpower for decades.
I tend to agree with you now more than this morning. The BBC reported that a majority of Finland and Sweden citizens now prefer NATO membership more than their long standing neutrality.
As far as Cuba, I was thinking about the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 60’s not being tolerable and Ukraine in NATO must seem like a similar situation to Russia.
I might have been possible to work out some arrangement whereby Ukraine was part on NATO, meaning that Russia would face nuclear retaliation if it invaded, but no nuclear missiles would be based in Ukraine. That would be parallel to Cuba being a de facto member of the Soviet bloc even without missiles there. There’d be precedent. The UD withdrew nuclear missiles from Turkey when the Soviets withdrew theirs from Cuba, but Turkey remains part of NATO.
After this invasion, it would be hard to imagine any compromise. And the Taiwanese are fools if they’re not planning their own independent nuclear deterrent. Everyone has seen now that with an aggressive dictatorship, only deterrence works.