Are you seriously going to argue that a rejection in 2008 into NATO membership somehow dissuades Russian concerns that new leadership could change that equation? Russians do not depend on foreign actors for their security.
None of those countries listed were actual Russian territories, and calling Turkey a member of NATO that would honor its commitments is laughable. They are NATO in name only.
Finally, if you do not believe nations have strategic red lines, you have not spent a day in the industry. They absolutely do, and any possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, crosses it. Absent NATO membership, even US-Ukrainian collusion threatens the Russian strategy to (1) control the flow of commodities (food/fuel), (2) erode NATO cohesion and growth (3) create a new trading block that eliminates the dollar.
You are looking at this problem through Western eyes. Try looking at the problem through Russian eyes. You are absolutely ignoring the fact that Russia will have 15% of Ukraine next week, codified in Russian law. That is not an emotional argument. It doesn’t care about the morality of the means by which the end is achieved.
It is what it is.
“None of those countries listed were actual Russian territories”
You miss the point!
Putin argued he felt threatened by having a NATO nation on his border: Putin created a ‘counterfeit’ red-line.
The people in Donetsk identifying as Russian voted for an INDEPENDENT Ukraine. Putin manufactured propaganda to facilitate his pattern of “Transnistrian” policy ofcontrols ‘zones’ of frozen conflicts in Moldova (Transnistria region), Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia), and NOW in the Ukraine annexed Crimean peninsula and the Donbas.
*** IMPORTANT NOTE
Russia uses this wider pattern of created separatist conflicts to create corruption and criminality as ‘Trojan horses’ to block progress in reform-minded periphery countries. This is the Russian tactics part of their geopolitical strategy creating conflict zones to prevent countries from entering NATO and integrating into the European Union.
CONFLICTS created by Russia is part of Russia imperialistic plan to regain strategic points of its LOST EMPIRE.
LAW
1. NATURAL LAW (Latin: lex naturalis) has A law is set by nature and therefore has validity everywhere [refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior.]
2. POSITIVE LAW has nothing to do with justice &
actually may represent STRONG INJUSTICE in dictatorships, i.e.dictatorships [Russia]
*** MOST IMPORTANTLY, positive law is “law actually and specifically enacted or adopted by statutes, codes, and regulations that have been enacted by a legislature for that government. MEANING, only applicable to Russia & not legal law for another nation or the world for that matter.
You state “This is not an emotional argument. It doesn’t care about the morality of the means by which the end is achieved.”
***You absolutely ignorE the fact that Russia will OCCUPY Ukraine codified only by Russian law. Again, RUSSIAN LAW IS ONLY CODIFIED FOR RUSSIA!!!
IN BOLDER WORDS, PUTIN DOES NOT RULE THE WORLD!
Yes.
Look at the timeline
April 2008, Georgia and Ukraine applications to start joining NATO are rejected by Germany and France for fear of “provoking Russia”
August , Russia invades Georgia.
Conclusion: if you aren’t a member of NATO and you are Russia’s neighbour, then Russia will invade you.
This is not through western eyes, this is what is
Logically apparent.