What "aggressor"??? NATO didn't attack any other country. Didn't threaten or coerce a single one of them in any way. Each country that joined NATO essentially begged to join. That's how NATO expanded, not by "aggression".
So what exactly was Putin worried about? That he'd get drunk one night, accidentally call the Secretary General of NATO and beg to join, and that he'd wake up the next morning and find that Russia was now a member of NATO too?? Because that's about the only "threat" that NATO presented to Russia.
Until this invasion, NATO had been an alliance in decline. There was less cooperation among member states, and defense spending had been declining for a long time. No objective observers of the NATO alliance would honestly believe that either the organization or the member states had the slightest interest in ever invading Russia, or that they even have the capability of doing so.
And that's not even mentioning the ultimate trump card of Russia possessing a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons with which it could obliterate any nation that invaded Russia.
“No objective observers of the NATO alliance would honestly believe that either the organization or the member states had the slightest interest in ever invading Russia, or that they even have the capability of doing so.”
Uhh??? NATO going from 12 to 30 countries. Verbalizing an invitation to Ukraine to join NATO. Encouraging Georgia to join NATO. For all practical purposes NATO is the US. And the US has invaded and/or or attempted regime change in numerous countries — including our own, by the way. Now you may not call that aggression but any sane person calls it aggression.
By the way, I did observe you declined to answer the question about CCP missiles on our border. That would be aggression as well in case you don’t recognize it.
“And that’s not even mentioning the ultimate trump card of Russia possessing a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons with which it could obliterate any nation that invaded Russia.”
Sure. That’s called not looking past the nose on your face. Russia fully realizes that the use of nukes has a high probability of destroying them in turn — as in MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). Give them a little credit, will you?
They’ve got nukes and the means to deliver them. In fact, more than we do. That’s probably why NATO/US has not moved into Ukraine. Both sides know that to do that can easily lead to potential massive strikes and destruction on both sides.
Let’s give credit to the Ukes, though. They got a whopping big return on their investment of “10% for the big guy.” A billion dollars to stop the Hunter investigation (remember the Biden video?). They know how to run a good scam. A few million in payoffs for $5B in free money/aid. Not too shabby.
Good point. gotta love the mental gymnastics involved in holding these views simultaneously:
1. USA shouldn’t be footing the bill for keeping NATO going while Germany and others aren’t pulling their weight at all
2. Putin just couldn’t stand NATO getting more dangerous by virtue of small states with bugger all money, modern weapons or nukes stretching the NATO budgets even more thinly.
The last time Article 5 was invoked (9/11) it cane with a clarification that Article 5 is more about responding to international terrorism and asymmetric war.
“The commitment to collective self-defense embodied in the Washington Treaty was entered into in circumstances very different from those that exist now... But it remains no less valid and no less essential today, in a world subject to the scourge of international terrorism”
Does Putin think of his Russia as an international terrorist state? Or does he think he is the new Stalin in the old USSR?
They are literally the only two reasons why he could feel worried about NATO expansion.