Ukraine Takes First Step Towards NATO Membership

This is really bad trouble. Anyhow reasonably, NATO has nothing to do with post-Soviet problems.

Ukraine Takes First Step Towards NATO Membership

Maybe I'm missing something, but wasn't NATO an alliance against the Soviet Union? Why have it now? It seems to have morphed from a defensive military treaty to an economic and political counterbalance to Russia and the former Soviet states. But they're our friends now, and we should treat them as such. Why not just dissolve NATO?

Thanks for posting. Ukraine is a huge and important country that doesn't get enough media coverage, imo.

who were violated by the Soviet presence like the membership clause that provides for protection of any member country under any non-specific military attack. NATO is still a military club, even though it has a large overlap with the EU, which is an economic club. NATO did a good job in Bosnia. It works. Remember, W. Clark ws the NATO commander at one time.

<NATO did a good job in Bosnia.>

Yes, Yugoslavian intervention looked like success - until Afghanistan and Iraq. Then it turned out to be a 1st step in neocolonization.

Now they are not. Much better, IMO.

We attacked Iraq when that country was in peace. Now they are killing each other. BIG difference.

I still call the Yugoslavian intervention a success.

I suppose the underlying assumption of NATO now is that Russia might again embark on imperialism, given the chance. Perhaps I am naive, but it seems to me like an historic opportunity for the West to cement a friendship and alliance with Russia. The very existence of NATO maintains an adversarial relationship.

I'm all for freedom in Ukraine, but I don't see why they should have to align themselves militarily with the US and Europe to be free. Would/could Russia really invade them?

that. Russia invaded Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Ukraine, at one time or another in the 20th century. People are happy to join an alliance for assurances of safety. NATO is it.

-- What is the purpose of EU?
-- What is the purpose of UN? etc.

but secondarily the post-Soviet, Russian, hegemony as well.

The job of NATO is not so much to fight wars, it's to absorb all the relevant countries of the European sociopolitical sphere into a military alliance that neutralizes the military and violence-prone elements of their societies. There's nothing like an antiwar organization posing as a military alliance, but don't tell anyone.

The fate of NATO imho is to absorb all the countries between the Atlantic and the Urals. Taking in a detotalitarianized Russia is the crown and the completion of the enterprise- 10-20 years after Russia gets taken in the whole thing dissolves into a kind of large multinational corporation-meets-the-Foreign Legion.

During the Russian Revolution Ukraine became a free country, but in the Twenties Russia took it over again.

Doesn't NATO membership cement it as an independant country?

I would think the next step would be for Russia to apply.

This sounds like good news to me.

<During the Russian Revolution Ukraine became a free country, but in the Twenties Russia took it over again.>

During the Russian civil war, everybody was as "free" as it gets, then situation was stabilized.

<Doesn't NATO membership cement it as an independant country?>

No. Nothing in the world prevents Ukrainians from developing their economy while remaining neutral.

<I would think the next step would be for Russia to apply.>

Thos cannot ever happen.

<This sounds like good news to me.>

:-(

I don't understand when they aren't near the Atlantic.

More countries on our side is something we desparately need right now.

<More countries on our side is something we desparately need right now>

This logic looked good in the 1990-ies. But now it is clear that new EU/NATO members do not really integrate into the West. Instead, "new Europe" makes lots of pro-neocon noises which lead to new cold war against Russia.

France, Germany, and Russia have all opposed the US on several issues, not the least of which was invading Iraq.

Still, Germany has a new leader, so things may change. . .

Blair's victory changed a lot for the worse :-(