“Somebody needs to tell NATO, the US State Department and DOD that Ukraine is not going to become a member of NATO.”
My God, but you are naïve. You clearly don’t know what it takes to become a NATO member. It is a lengthy and detailed process, during which the nation seeking membership must meet certain criteria and fulfill certain requirements, after which the candidate must be accepted UNANIMOUSLY by the full NATO membership. One of those criteria is that the candidate country cannot be engaged in hostilities at the time of consideration. So, right off the bat Ukraine is ineligible. Then there is the unanimous vote: Ukraine has NO chance of getting a unanimous vote. For instance, Turkey and Hungary would be definite no votes. Then, Zelensky himself has said that Ukraine membership in NATO is not going to be pursued.
Do you have even the vaguest idea what a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner is? It is a country that will work with NATO under certain circumstances and conditions.
Here, this is for your reading pleasure:
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/51288.htm
”On November 10, 2021 The US signed the U.S.-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership.”
A bilateral agreement between the US and Ukraine. NATO wasn’t involved.
“So why didn’t Obama /Biden do anything about it (Russia’s invasion of and “annexation of Crimea”)? Or NATO? Life went on with Russia. No real sanctions. Trade and commerce continued. Ukraine made no effort to liberate it in contrast to the Donbas, which they shelled regularly.”
Ever the bluffers (remember their “red line” in Syria?), Obama/Biden sent Ukraine blankets and MREs. Ukraine did not have the wherewithal to try to get Crimea back, but it did have the means to combat the civil war in the Donbas. And, are you seriously trying to argue that it was only Ukraine that shelled the Donbas? Because so did the Russian-backed separatists and, yes, even Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.
“You know we have contractors in Ukraine maintaining weapons and training personnel.”
Yes, there are contractors there. There are contractors anywhere there is money to be made. Those contractors come from all over, from multiple countries and interests. As for training, the vast majority of training takes place in Europe and North America.
“I am not OK with it, but Moldova is not part of NATO. The Russians already occupy a portion of Moldova. Russian peacekeepers occupy a mainly Russian-speaking breakaway sliver of territory called Transdniestria since 1992, while political power in the capital Chisinau has oscillated for years between pro-Russian and pro-Western political parties.”
So, a Russian-backed coup is now under way in Moldova. Will you condemn that, as you have condemned the “coup” by the Obama administration in 2014 in Ukraine? Or, is the coup in Moldova okay because Russia is doing it, and is trying to “rescue” native Russians there (does that excuse sound familiar yet)?
Moldova wants to join the EU. Russia opposes that. Russia stirs up separatist shit wherever it can, just as the Soviet Union before it.
Look at a map. Russia’s intermediate goal vis-à-vis NATO is to break NATO’s soft underbelly, and the road goes through Ukraine and Moldova to Romania, which has a pro-Russia Serbia on its west, and a weak Bulgaria to its south; and Bulgaria has pro-Russia Serbia and non-aligned Macedonia to its west. If Russia remains true to its usual behavior, you will see soon pro-Russia and separatist unrest in Romania and Bulgaria and Albania, and in the Balkans in general with the possible exception of Croatia. Russia wants to restore the hegemony of the Soviet Union. But, its hardest nut to crack in that regard would be in the north, in Poland, and I think Russia will forego that and concentrate on the three Baltic states.
Russia is expansionist, and historically has been.
I know exactly what it takes to get into NATO and the EU. But that is not relevant to our discussion. Why does NATO and the US continue to hold out the possibility that Ukraine can join NATO? Why not categorically rule it out period? It is just a provocation for Putin who has as one of his red lines, that Ukraine will never be a member of NATO.
Do you have even the vaguest idea what a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner is? It is a country that will work with NATO under certain circumstances and conditions.
Of course I do, which is why I sent you the link on the program. From Russia's perspective, Ukraine has a junior membership in NATO. One of the key aspects is "interoperability" and all that it entails. It is a red flag for Russia, which views NATO as an adversary.
Ukraine did not have the wherewithal to try to get Crimea back, but it did have the means to combat the civil war in the Donbas. And, are you seriously trying to argue that it was only Ukraine that shelled the Donbas? Because so did the Russian-backed separatists and, yes, even Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. So, a Russian-backed coup is now under way in Moldova. Will you condemn that, as you have condemned the “coup” by the Obama administration in 2014 in Ukraine? Or, is the coup in Moldova okay because Russia is doing it, and is trying to “rescue” native Russians there (does that excuse sound familiar yet)?
I can condemn it. My point is that we should not get involved in this dispute. There are limits to our power and we have no strategic national interests that would justify our involvement. Let the Europeans address it.
Look at a map. Russia’s intermediate goal vis-à-vis NATO is to break NATO’s soft underbelly, and the road goes through Ukraine and Moldova to Romania, which has a pro-Russia Serbia on its west, and a weak Bulgaria to its south; and Bulgaria has pro-Russia Serbia and non-aligned Macedonia to its west. If Russia remains true to its usual behavior, you will see soon pro-Russia and separatist unrest in Romania and Bulgaria and Albania, and in the Balkans in general with the possible exception of Croatia. Russia wants to restore the hegemony of the Soviet Union. But, its hardest nut to crack in that regard would be in the north, in Poland, and I think Russia will forego that and concentrate on the three Baltic states.
It has been NATO expanding ever closer to Russia's borders after the fall of the Soviet Union that has created instability. America's greatest diplomat of the 20th century, the author of the "Long Telegram" that formed the basis of our containment policy, George Kennan, summed it up best in 1997:
"First, your reference to the implicit understanding that the West would not take advantage of the Russian strategic and political withdrawal from Eastern Europe is not only warranted, but could have been strengthened. It is my understanding that Gorbachev on more than one occasion was given to understand, in informal talks with senior American and other Western personalities, that if the USSR would accept a united Germany remaining in NATO, the jurisdiction of that alliance would not be moved further eastward. We did not, I am sure, intend to trick the Russians; but the actual determinants of our later behavior--lack of coordination of political with military policy, and the amateurism of later White House diplomacy--would scarcely have been more creditable on our part than a real intention to deceive."
"Secondly, I could not associate myself more strongly with what you write about the realist case that sees Russia as an inherently and incorrigibly expansionist country, and suggest that this tendency marks the present Russian regime no less than it did the Russian regimes of the past. We have seen this view reflected time and again, occasionally in even more violent forms, in efforts to justify the recent expansion of NATO's boundaries and further possible expansions of that name. So numerous and extensive have the distortions and misunderstandings on which this view is based been that it would be hard even to list them in a letter of this sort. It grossly oversimplifies and misconstrues must of the history of Russian diplomacy of the czarist period. It ignores the whole great complexity of Russia's part in World War II. It allows and encourages one to forget that the Soviet military advances into Western Europe during the last war took place with our enthusiastic approval, and the political ones of the ensuing period at least wit hour initial consent and support. It usually avoids mention of the Communist period, and attributes to ``the Russians'' generally all the excesses of the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe in the Cold War period."
"Worst of all, it tends to equate, at least by implication, the Russian-Communist dictatorship of recent memory with the present Russian republic--a republic, the product of an amazingly bloodless revolution, which has, for all its many faults, succeeded in carrying on for several years with an elected government, a largely free press and media, without concentration camps or executions, and with a minimum of police brutality. This curious present Russia, we are asked to believe, is obsessed by the same dreams of conquest and oppression of others as were the worst examples, real or imaginative, of its predecessors."
Russia is a country with 147 million people. Its GDP is dwarfed by the EU and the US. The median age in Russia is 40.3 years compared to 38.5 years for the US. Life expectancy in Russia is 72.44 years (156 in the world) and for males alone, 66.9 years. Infant mortality is 168th worst in the world.
Russia's ability to project power globally is limited. It is having a hard time logistically in supplying its forces in Ukraine. The idea that Russia could attack and occupy NATO countries is ludicrous. Russia poses no real conventional military threat to Europe. The only existential threat to America is China.