Zelensky: Ukrainian loss could force US to choose between ‘collapse of NATO’ or war

The Hill via Yahoo ^ | June 15th, 2023 | Julia Shapero

[Mariner]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that a loss to Russia could ultimately force the U.S. to choose between the “collapse of NATO” or going to war.

“If Ukraine would lose, if Russia would occupy Ukraine, Russia will continue going towards Baltic countries, Poland, etcetera,” Zelensky said in an interview with NBC News. “And they will start war with one of the NATO countries, and at this moment, the U.S. would have to choose the collapse of NATO or go to war.”

The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are all members of NATO, as is Poland. An attack on any member of the alliance is “considered an attack against them all” under the treaty organization’s principle of collective defense.

Zelensky brought up the possibility of NATO involvement in response to the suggestion from some Republican politicians that the U.S. needs to limit its spending on the war in Ukraine.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — a 2024 Republican presidential candidate — previously described the war as a “territorial dispute,” while arguing that the U.S. should not become “further entangled” in the conflict. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also warned last fall that a Republican majority in the House would not write a “blank check” to Ukraine for aid.

“Is any candidate or senator who thinks it costs too much for the United States to support Ukraine, is he ready to go to war, to fight, to send his kids,” Zelensky said Thursday, adding, “Because anyway, they will have to do this if NATO gets involved.”

“It’s not Ukraine against Russia,” he said. “Russia is fighting against the civilized world.”

[Cronos]

Furthermore, while ethnicity and religion were definitely intertwined (and IS intertwined) between Serbs (Eastern Orthodox Southern Slavs), Bosnians (Sunni Muslim Southern Slavs) and Croats (Catholic Southern Slavs), it was more ethnic in the Serb v/s Albanian war.

The Albanians in Albania proper are lukewarm Muslims at best — and has a large Christian historical and current presence
Albanian censure 2011
Muslim: 58.9%
Catholic: 10.0%
E Orthodox 6.8%

But Kosovo Albanians were more Muslim - just as Chechens took up Islam as a banner to separate themselves from The Russian conquerors.

The war was ethnic primarily, religion was far smaller a reason, if at all

[Cronos]

The Central European countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria etc. still felt threatened by Russia and clamored to join NATO from the 90s onwards.

They reformed, upped their military etc. to get to NATO standards, applied and were accepted in.

If Putin hadn’t invaded Ukraine, then NATO would have collapsed. Instead he has renewed its raison d’etre

[fieldmarshaldj]

"If Putin hadn’t invaded Ukraine, then NATO would have collapsed."

Funniest comment of the thread !

[Cronos]

Zelensky has many faults, but he isn’t a tyrant. He has nowhere near that level of power.

Xi and Putin are tyrants.

[Cronos]

Again, Zelensky refuses to tell his nation and countrymen, that Crimea is beyond their reach,

There are three points to this:

1. Crimea isn't definitively out of their reach - there is a slim (very slim) possibility. Not zero
   
   
2. Zelensky can tell them its out of their reach, but that doesn't mean they will believe him. Some folks here seem to think ukrainians hang on Zelensy's every word -- they don't. They admire him for not leaving in Feb 2022 and for keeping their struggle in the world's eye, but they don't fight FOR him, rather they fight for their loved ones
   
   
3. By holding out the "we will fight to Crimea", he still has a bargaining chip for retaking much of the Donbas region

[Cronos]

you do realize that NATO has article 5 - when a NATO country is attacked, then it ommits each member state to consider an armed attack against one member state, in the areas defined by Article 6, to be an armed attack against them all. Upon such attack, each member state is to assist by taking "such action as [the member state] deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area." >[?The article has only been invoked once>[?When?

9/11 - when article 5 of NATO was invoked - the invocation was confirmed on 4 October 2001, when NATO determined that the attacks were indeed eligible under the terms of the North Atlantic Treaty. The eight official actions taken by NATO in response to the 9/11 attacks included Operation Eagle Assist and Operation Active Endeavour, a naval operation in the Mediterranean which was designed to prevent the movement of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction, as well as enhancing the security of shipping in general. Active Endeavour began on 4 October 2001.

It would be kind of disingenuous to leave after having been the only country to invoke Article 5

[Cronos]

Ukraine can’t negotiate with Putin for the simple reason that he will take the opportunity to breathe before attacking Ukraine again.

In 2014 when Ukraine gave up Crimea, and de fact the Dontesk People’s Republic and Luhansk people’s republic, there was some hope on the Ukrainian side that Putin would be satisfied with his pound of flesh.

But he was not - he came back for the head, attacking Kyiv.

Putin can’t be trusted for that reason.

When he goes then Ukraine may decide to negotiate with Russia

[Cronos]

“Sue for peace and stop the fighting.”

That would be workable if Putin really meant not to come back after a few years and attack again.

See my answer above — it’s like you have a neighbor who grabs a chunk of your garden and you decide to let it go, but then, later he comes and tries to grab your living room.

You can’t negotiate with such a thug

[Cronos]

You see Germany through the lens of its Bismarckian to Hitler era.

What if Germany had been united under the Hapsburgs or Bavaria?

Germans are destined to be war hungry - in fact through much of their history they were the commercial and artistic soft powerS of Europe.

I would argue that they have learnt from the 20th century war that their best option is to win the world commercially.

[Cronos]

glee is correct

After WW1 ended, our own military was vastly shrunk, and became a dead end for ambitious young men. And thus the roaring 20s, the Crash, and The Great Depression. Of course we then had WW2 and a seriously unprepared military thanks to America Firsters, War Resistors, and Commies following the Party Line so long as the Hitler/Stalin pact was in force. You mean that kind of collapse of NATO? You believe that Putin is any less ambitious and ready for warfare with neighbors than Stalin? You are either wearing blinders, or are a Russian agent.

Putin doesn't have the capabilities as Stalin, but he has the ambition - and worse, Russians still think they are a first rate military power that can and should throw its weight around.

That makes them a nuisance, not a world-ending nuisance, but a nuisance that will kill a few people

[Cronos]

FieldMarshal Zhukov Globalists are the enemy of mankind, freedom and Christian values. NATO is their international enforcement arm in the European Theater.

Putin and Xi are teh globalists.

NATO is not globalist -- it keeps the Putins away

Putin in his time in St Petersburg was at the core of the mafia operations that included human trafficking.

[Cronos]

Good summary.

If we hadn’t started Gulf War II then Putin would never have been so emboldened

[Cronos]

Amnesty, Jim — Russia’s problem is the “stab in the back myth”

Just as Germany surrendered in WWI without foreign troops on its soil, the Russian soviet empire collapsed without losing a military war.

Just as the ordinary German couldn’t understand the loss and that they had really lost but the generals were sparing them the hell of 1945, the ordinary Russians thought and think the same.

Germany needed a crushing to realize that war is not the only way to primacy, Russia unfortunately seems to need this to give up its imperialist mindset

[Cronos]

gritty Besides, I don't see NATO defending our border

Have you forgotten that the USA invoked article 5 of NATO (the only time it was invoked) and the NATO allies came to America's side?

[Cronos]

Mariner - you are wrong in saying that You also operate from the fallacy/fantasy that Ukraine is an actual country. Historically, they have never been a country. In the very, very narrow window of history that anyone claims they were, most of that they were a vassal state of Russia.

That's bull - most countries in the world today haven't existed for "much of history":

• Germany existed only from 1870 and was divided from 1945 to 1989
• Italy and Greece existed only from the 1800s
• the USA in its current form existed only from the 1800s after the acquisitions of Hawaii, Alaska, etc.
• The UK exists in its current form as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland only since 1921
• The Russian federation exists only since December 1991
• Ukraine exists since April 1991 - so technically is a few months older than the Russian federation

Furthermore if you mean as a sense of a "nation", then both Muscowy and the Cossack Hetmanate have equally long histories -- Ukraine as the Hetmanate dates to the settlement of Kyiv in the 9th century -- and Muscowy is an offshoot of an offshoot (Vladimir-Suzdal) of Kyiv -- both as sister nations of equal age

Hetmanate state in 1649

The USA as nation has existed since the late 1700s -- while Ukraine has existed since the 9th century and then since the 1600s as a political entity.

[AndyTheBear]

Like a neighbor who used to own my entire property and still sees it as his grabbing part of my garden. A neighbor I had a long bloody history with with many thousands dying and resentment and bitterness growing without end. And in which the neighborhood is encouraging me to fight fight fight no matter how many of the slaves in my garden that I have subjugated to my rule who must die in order that I may rule them rather than the other corrupt tyrant?

[Cronos]

Mariner You also refer to a “resurgent Soviet Empire”, implying those who do not support fighting Russia would allow the emergence of an Evil Empire.

Which is, on it’s face, wholly ludicrous.

It is not ludicrous.

Putin is like the school bully who was the biggest kid in class in the 2nd grade and was twice as big as the other boys, but now is just a bit bigger -- but he doesn't realize things have changed

He can still cause damage to the other boys, but can't utterly dominate them as he once thought

Things would be ok if he realize this - but he has not, even after the boy he bullied (Ukraine) gave him a bloody lip

[Cronos]

Like a neighbor who falsely grabbed your property and subjugated you until you broke free.

A Neighbor who says you have no right to exist.

And no “slaves” involved here.

Zelensky is a clown, but he has nowhere near the power to be a tyrant, leave alone a tyrant like Putin

[Cronos]

NOpe, FieldMarshall Zhukov — NATO was moribund until Putin invaded Ukraine for the second time in February 2022

[Cronos]

Bully - central european countries requested to join NATO, took the structural changes and begged to join because they saw Russia as a threat.

And Putin has proven them right