This may be a part of the reason, but far from “the entire reason”.
For example, you ignored all the bad experience Ukraine already had with Russia, which might have contributed to their desire to try something else for a change.
The other countries in the region decided to join NATO on their own (they were not invaded by USA, at least not literally). Any guess why? Looking at other nearby countries which are neither in NATO nor in EU, does it seem like their territories are getting somewhat smaller during the recent decades?
I am also curious, do you consider Western Europe to be “reshaped in American political and cultural image”? Like, sure they watch lots of Hollywood movies, but other than that, what specifically do you imagine would be different if USA isolated itself from the rest of the world? Because from my perspective, Western Europe seems to have enough independence and high quality of life (considering things like healthcare, perhaps even better quality of life than USA); and the people in Eastern Europe… well, dream about having the same.
The way the “realist” political scientist Mearsheimer puts it, is that small countries between large ones, need to be very careful about crossing the red lines of their powerful neighbors; and that the US has encouraged Ukraine to do just that, where Russia is concerned. He speaks as if it is due to shortsighted righteousness on the part of today’s American politicians and strategists; but enough of them also say that American policy opposes any single power achieving Eurasian hegemony, and hate Russia specifically, that one can reasonably view the policy of bringing Ukraine into western institutions, and arming it, as an anti-Russian policy; and whether Russia goes along with this, and is weakened, or resists it and gets tied down, will be viewed as a success. Creating problems next door to great-power rivals is a basic geopolitical gambit, e.g. Chinese support for Pakistan against India or for North Korea against Japan can probably be viewed this way, and I am sure history contains dozens of other examples.
One may ask, if some American Bismarck had explicitly said, after the cold war, we have enough NATO, and it shall not expand beyond Germany, or Poland, or wherever, would Ukraine still have ended up in a shooting war with Russia. I suppose it has some degree of possibility; but in this world, the US was always heavily involved,
As for American universalism, I don’t know if I am capable of listing all the ways in which American elites, especially liberals and progressives, think that American values and practices are for everyone. Political and economic systems, attitudes towards religion and race… From Woodrow Wilson in 1918, to the transformation of occupied Germany, Japan, and (much more recently) Iraq and Afghanistan, even through to European concerns today about missionary “wokeism”… To some extent the world was Europeanized after the industrial revolution, and one could argue that the world has been Americanized during the information revolution. One may again argue about cause and effect—was it sheer historical fortune (a fresh continent, a can-do culture) that gave America the potency to become what it is, or did specific cultural factors (religious and ideological universalism, intense commercialism) also presuppose it towards becoming this kind of power—but I don’t see how you can deny the universalism in American thinking.
One may ask, if some American Bismarck had explicitly said, after the cold war, we have enough NATO, and it shall not expand beyond Germany, or Poland, or wherever, would Ukraine still have ended up in a shooting war with Russia.
On the other hand, Abkhazia, Alania, Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan did not apply for NATO membership, and yet Russian Federation had armed conflicts with them. So, whatever would happen in a parallel universe is difficult to predict, but I would say that being a former Soviet republic gives you a significant chance of Russia wanting some piece back, sooner or later.
As for American universalism, I don’t know if I am capable of listing all the ways in which American elites, especially liberals and progressives, think that American values and practices are for everyone.
Speaking for myself, I was born and still live in Eastern Europe, grew up during socialism, both my parents were communists… and yet I strongly prefer the “American values”. Perhaps people in other parts of the world are also psychologically capable of enjoying freedom, or whatever specifically you consider to be exclusively “American”. Just like they can enjoy pizza despite not being Italians.
Do you believe that e.g. black Americans are genetically incompatible with “American values”? Because, you know, Eastern Europeans (such as Ukrainians) are genetically closer to white Americans than the black Americans are. Heck, even the Russians are closer.
Or do you assume it is all cultural? Well, sometimes cultures change. For example, Czechoslovakia wasn’t in the Russian sphere of influence before WW2; then it was; and then it wasn’t again. Is it wrong if Czechoslovakia after 1989 reverted to the values it had before WW2, just because by historical coincidence they happen to be similar to the American values? (Is there some rule like “once you were touched by Russia, you must remain culturally Russian forever”?)
I don’t see how you can deny the universalism in American thinking
The question is whether the “American values” are completely arbitrary, as you seem to assume. Like, some people prefer freedom, other people prefer slavery, neither is inherently more enjoyable, it’s all just a question of cultural brainwashing—if you believe that freedom is somehow preferable to slavery, apparently you were watching too many American movies.
Or maybe some of those values are just things that resonate with human nature, maybe with some hunter-gatherer egalitarian insticts that were for millenia suppressed but not completely eliminated by the forces of agrarian society, and now in the industrial society we can pay more attention to them again. Maybe no one ever really enjoyed being a serf, but for millenia people didn’t have much of a choice, and now they kinda do. And Americans were just the first who made this officially their national applause light; maybe because they founded their country at the right time, historically. (Actually, “liberty” was also an applause light of the French Revolution. So, maybe such ideas just happen naturally when you establish a country without a king, or an official equivalent of a king.)
Consider the fact that even in Russia today, thousands of people are in the streets, despite the fact that it will cost them a lot. So it makes sense to extrapolate that maybe hundreds of thousands also do not like the system, but are afraid to oppose it openly. In other words, you wish to protect people from something they want. You want them to stay in a system they hate. (Of course, not all of them. People are different. Just like in USA.) They should not be allowed to taste freedom, because Americans already have it copyrighted; and they should not be allowed to taste pizza, because Italians already have it copyrighted; no cultural appropriation!
Perhaps the Germans should revert to Nazism, because that is natural for them; that is what they would do in a parallel universe where Americans did not intervene, I guess. The Japanese should return to feudalism, the Indians should start burning widows again (okay, that was a British intervention, not American; but colonialism is bad either way, right?), and everyone outside of USA should disconnect from internet. That would make the world a much nicer place. /s
tl;dr—yes, Americans assume that the preference for “life, liberty, and pursuit for happiness” is a human universal, and although I am not an American, I personally happen to agree with them. I am not saying that all people are like that, but rather that in many cultures many people are naturally like that, and cultures typicallly have mechanisms to suppress this preference by force… which kinda proves that the preference has always existed, i.e. the Americans have natural cultural allies everywhere
On the other hand, Abkhazia, Alania, Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan did not apply for NATO membership, and yet Russian Federation had armed conflicts with them. So, whatever would happen in a parallel universe is difficult to predict, but I would say that being a former Soviet republic gives you a significant chance of Russia wanting some piece back, sooner or later.
I appreciate the concrete examples. Quickly having a look at them, it seems like the most recent conflict (involving Abkhazia and Georgia, starting 2008) was, in fact, immediately preceded by Georgia applying for NATO-membership, and NATO creating a plan for how they would become members, according to wikipedia.
It looks like the Chhechnyan, Dagestan, Moldovan, and Tajikistan conflicts all happened 1990-2000, which makes them slightly less relevant for predicting what might’ve happened today. (Though I could have missed some more recent events.) I couldn’t find info on Alania.
There are a lot of human values. It would be a profound and worthy achievement to understand the many civilizations of world history, in terms of which kind of values were foremost in their various sensibilities, successes and failures. Figuring out the ideal mix is even relevant to Less Wrong’s big picture—isn’t that what AGI alignment is about?
I don’t think anything I said is in contradiction with your assertion that the American civilization elevates certain values that have widespread appeal. My main point is that it is a missionary civilization which believes in actively spreading its favored values and social institutions, to all humanity if possible, and which uses all the Machiavellian tools of statecraft to do so.
If we compare America with China, then yes there is a huge difference, China seems to be happy enforcing its values within its historical territory, without much desire to expand. (I think so; maybe I missed something.)
If we compare America with Russia (and former Soviet Union), in my opinion Soviet Union / Russia is even more missionary… only less successful at doing so, but certainly not because of lack of trying.
Just look at the cold war in Europe. How often did Soviet Union intervene militarily in its vasal countries, just because they tried some outrageous idea such as “socialism with human face”? (Ironically, if you were a member of Warsaw Pact, you were more likely to be invaded by the Warsaw Pact than by NATO.) On the other hand, if a country in Western Europe tried something like “capitalism with universal health insurance”, America was cool about it.
So seems to me that although both countries are quite missionary, Russia is much more of a micromanager, and probably that is why it gets more resistance. If you are generally allied with America, then America is usually happy about it. If you are allied with Russia, once in a while you will still have Russian tanks rolling on your streets to remind you that you got some detail wrong. So it is quite difficult to be friends with Russia, even if you try.
In a different context, sure, let’s talk about how USA sucks. But in a context of Russia, such comparisons are absurd, because whatever bad thing USA has, Russia has as least twice as much of it. (Even the slavery? Ha! There were ethnic groups in Soviet Union who would have loved to get an opportunity to be merely enslaved.)
I am not so sure whether it makes sense to put Russia and the SU in the same category when it comes to being missionary. The ideology of the SU was basically universal—an ideal end state would have been the conversion of every country in the world to communism. For Russia I don’t see that. Getting the former parts of the Russian empire back, yes, maybe being the leading slavonic country (especially an important motivation until 1917). But would Russia care how, e.g., Spain was governed? I don’t think so (SU or USA would care).
Ok, this makes sense. After the fall of Soviet Union, Russia got defensive rather than missionary. Still “the best defense is a good offense”, but the ambitions to conquer other countries are now proportional to their geographical distance.
I think that is an important distinction you are making. Russia’s (and Putin’s) motivations for aggression seem to be primarily defensive, made from a position of weakness, of vulnerability (which can make them extremely dangerous). That wasn’t the case with the SU.
Russia was the dominant force in the USSR. It is perfectly reasonable to treat the USSR as red paint over a Russian Empire, especially considering the geopolitical framework from which I wrote the original post.
“but I don’t see how you can deny the universalism in American thinking. ”
I don’t think you can deny the universalism in any other big power’s thinking either. I mean, in a time where you have an autocrat risking nuclear war for an sheer power grab (no, I don’t think Russia has anything to fear from NATO with a 7000 nuke arsenal, that’s 19th century talk, no one buys that excuse), your timing couldn’t be more ironic blaming it all on the US.
I’m glad for the Europeanization of the world. It wasn’t done properly in the first centuries, but if it wasn’t for it the millions of people living in the rest of the world wouldn’t have a tenth of the quality of life that they have today. I’m glad that Europe has conquered the world culture, because not only it drastically improves the average person’s life, it also prevents other less desirable cultures from doing it. Try to put any other big power in the place of it… We’d be living horrible lives today. (And I can assure you they’d have done it, and in a way less desirable way in many aspects).
In 2000, Putin considered joining NATO. According to some sources, we weren’t to keen on it. Massive mistake. Today we wouldn’t be on the brink of a large war, and China wouldn’t be half the threat.
I am curious, how would the “Putin in NATO situation” actually work?
Imagine that Putin invades Moldova, Moldova fights back… are now all NATO members obligated to attack Moldova? Or do you assume that in the parallel universe, Putin would not invade Moldova?
In other words, could Putin simply leverage his NATO membership into conquering the former territories of Soviet Union? What exactly would have prevented him from doing so?
NATO is a defensive organization. Article 5 says “an attack on a member is an attack on all members”. So far is was only activated once, due to the 9/11 attacks. Yet the US has been in many wars since it joined NATO.
Yes, according to the NATO treaty there is only support for a victim of an attack. Here is the relevant Article 5 of the NATO treaty:
“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.” (NATO) [emphasis by me]
My understanding is that if Greece and Turkey decide to go to war over Cyprus NATO would not be compelled to intervene one way or the other. Presumably neither country would be silly enough to try invoking article 5 in the first place and the rest of the block would be heavily pushing the peace process.
I believe their last war ended 1922. But there were times when a next war between them seemed quiet likely and NATO spend a lot of energy discouraging both sides from open hostilities, if I remember correctly.
Yes, two NATO members were involved on different sides in a civil war in a third (independent & non-NATO) country. I think that lies outside the scope of NATO’s Article 5.
If Russia were part of NATO, then something like that could have happened, too, e.g.: Romanian and Russian troops fighting each other in a civil war in the Republic of Moldova.
I don’t think it was a massive mistake. Putin would still be the autocrat he is, his countrymen would still be supporting him on his military adventures. If anything Russia would be emboldened by their NATO membership status.
Look at how much headache Turkey has already caused. NATO would most likely have de facto fallen apart with a trojan horse as big as Russia, with the US falling back on bilateral defense treaties. Which I think was Putin’s true motivation anyway.
The US has had plenty of military ventures too, and not once was NATO called in, except for 9/11. NATO is only called in when you’re attacked first.
On one hand it’s not cool to have dictators on the board (still they are in the UN). But what we would gain: no current war on Ukraine (tragedy for Ukrainians and massive danger for the world), no China being half as much a threat (also a danger to the world). What we would lose: nothing, the downsides would be the same as they are today more or less.
Also, I don’t think NATO means “you can do what you want, we forgive you” either.
After all most of his bad deeds are from fear of losing ground to the West.
This may be a part of the reason, but far from “the entire reason”.
For example, you ignored all the bad experience Ukraine already had with Russia, which might have contributed to their desire to try something else for a change.
The other countries in the region decided to join NATO on their own (they were not invaded by USA, at least not literally). Any guess why? Looking at other nearby countries which are neither in NATO nor in EU, does it seem like their territories are getting somewhat smaller during the recent decades?
I am also curious, do you consider Western Europe to be “reshaped in American political and cultural image”? Like, sure they watch lots of Hollywood movies, but other than that, what specifically do you imagine would be different if USA isolated itself from the rest of the world? Because from my perspective, Western Europe seems to have enough independence and high quality of life (considering things like healthcare, perhaps even better quality of life than USA); and the people in Eastern Europe… well, dream about having the same.
The way the “realist” political scientist Mearsheimer puts it, is that small countries between large ones, need to be very careful about crossing the red lines of their powerful neighbors; and that the US has encouraged Ukraine to do just that, where Russia is concerned. He speaks as if it is due to shortsighted righteousness on the part of today’s American politicians and strategists; but enough of them also say that American policy opposes any single power achieving Eurasian hegemony, and hate Russia specifically, that one can reasonably view the policy of bringing Ukraine into western institutions, and arming it, as an anti-Russian policy; and whether Russia goes along with this, and is weakened, or resists it and gets tied down, will be viewed as a success. Creating problems next door to great-power rivals is a basic geopolitical gambit, e.g. Chinese support for Pakistan against India or for North Korea against Japan can probably be viewed this way, and I am sure history contains dozens of other examples.
One may ask, if some American Bismarck had explicitly said, after the cold war, we have enough NATO, and it shall not expand beyond Germany, or Poland, or wherever, would Ukraine still have ended up in a shooting war with Russia. I suppose it has some degree of possibility; but in this world, the US was always heavily involved,
As for American universalism, I don’t know if I am capable of listing all the ways in which American elites, especially liberals and progressives, think that American values and practices are for everyone. Political and economic systems, attitudes towards religion and race… From Woodrow Wilson in 1918, to the transformation of occupied Germany, Japan, and (much more recently) Iraq and Afghanistan, even through to European concerns today about missionary “wokeism”… To some extent the world was Europeanized after the industrial revolution, and one could argue that the world has been Americanized during the information revolution. One may again argue about cause and effect—was it sheer historical fortune (a fresh continent, a can-do culture) that gave America the potency to become what it is, or did specific cultural factors (religious and ideological universalism, intense commercialism) also presuppose it towards becoming this kind of power—but I don’t see how you can deny the universalism in American thinking.
On the other hand, Abkhazia, Alania, Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan did not apply for NATO membership, and yet Russian Federation had armed conflicts with them. So, whatever would happen in a parallel universe is difficult to predict, but I would say that being a former Soviet republic gives you a significant chance of Russia wanting some piece back, sooner or later.
Speaking for myself, I was born and still live in Eastern Europe, grew up during socialism, both my parents were communists… and yet I strongly prefer the “American values”. Perhaps people in other parts of the world are also psychologically capable of enjoying freedom, or whatever specifically you consider to be exclusively “American”. Just like they can enjoy pizza despite not being Italians.
Do you believe that e.g. black Americans are genetically incompatible with “American values”? Because, you know, Eastern Europeans (such as Ukrainians) are genetically closer to white Americans than the black Americans are. Heck, even the Russians are closer.
Or do you assume it is all cultural? Well, sometimes cultures change. For example, Czechoslovakia wasn’t in the Russian sphere of influence before WW2; then it was; and then it wasn’t again. Is it wrong if Czechoslovakia after 1989 reverted to the values it had before WW2, just because by historical coincidence they happen to be similar to the American values? (Is there some rule like “once you were touched by Russia, you must remain culturally Russian forever”?)
The question is whether the “American values” are completely arbitrary, as you seem to assume. Like, some people prefer freedom, other people prefer slavery, neither is inherently more enjoyable, it’s all just a question of cultural brainwashing—if you believe that freedom is somehow preferable to slavery, apparently you were watching too many American movies.
Or maybe some of those values are just things that resonate with human nature, maybe with some hunter-gatherer egalitarian insticts that were for millenia suppressed but not completely eliminated by the forces of agrarian society, and now in the industrial society we can pay more attention to them again. Maybe no one ever really enjoyed being a serf, but for millenia people didn’t have much of a choice, and now they kinda do. And Americans were just the first who made this officially their national applause light; maybe because they founded their country at the right time, historically. (Actually, “liberty” was also an applause light of the French Revolution. So, maybe such ideas just happen naturally when you establish a country without a king, or an official equivalent of a king.)
Consider the fact that even in Russia today, thousands of people are in the streets, despite the fact that it will cost them a lot. So it makes sense to extrapolate that maybe hundreds of thousands also do not like the system, but are afraid to oppose it openly. In other words, you wish to protect people from something they want. You want them to stay in a system they hate. (Of course, not all of them. People are different. Just like in USA.) They should not be allowed to taste freedom, because Americans already have it copyrighted; and they should not be allowed to taste pizza, because Italians already have it copyrighted; no cultural appropriation!
Perhaps the Germans should revert to Nazism, because that is natural for them; that is what they would do in a parallel universe where Americans did not intervene, I guess. The Japanese should return to feudalism, the Indians should start burning widows again (okay, that was a British intervention, not American; but colonialism is bad either way, right?), and everyone outside of USA should disconnect from internet. That would make the world a much nicer place. /s
tl;dr—yes, Americans assume that the preference for “life, liberty, and pursuit for happiness” is a human universal, and although I am not an American, I personally happen to agree with them. I am not saying that all people are like that, but rather that in many cultures many people are naturally like that, and cultures typicallly have mechanisms to suppress this preference by force… which kinda proves that the preference has always existed, i.e. the Americans have natural cultural allies everywhere
I appreciate the concrete examples. Quickly having a look at them, it seems like the most recent conflict (involving Abkhazia and Georgia, starting 2008) was, in fact, immediately preceded by Georgia applying for NATO-membership, and NATO creating a plan for how they would become members, according to wikipedia.
It looks like the Chhechnyan, Dagestan, Moldovan, and Tajikistan conflicts all happened 1990-2000, which makes them slightly less relevant for predicting what might’ve happened today. (Though I could have missed some more recent events.) I couldn’t find info on Alania.
There are a lot of human values. It would be a profound and worthy achievement to understand the many civilizations of world history, in terms of which kind of values were foremost in their various sensibilities, successes and failures. Figuring out the ideal mix is even relevant to Less Wrong’s big picture—isn’t that what AGI alignment is about?
I don’t think anything I said is in contradiction with your assertion that the American civilization elevates certain values that have widespread appeal. My main point is that it is a missionary civilization which believes in actively spreading its favored values and social institutions, to all humanity if possible, and which uses all the Machiavellian tools of statecraft to do so.
If we compare America with China, then yes there is a huge difference, China seems to be happy enforcing its values within its historical territory, without much desire to expand. (I think so; maybe I missed something.)
If we compare America with Russia (and former Soviet Union), in my opinion Soviet Union / Russia is even more missionary… only less successful at doing so, but certainly not because of lack of trying.
Just look at the cold war in Europe. How often did Soviet Union intervene militarily in its vasal countries, just because they tried some outrageous idea such as “socialism with human face”? (Ironically, if you were a member of Warsaw Pact, you were more likely to be invaded by the Warsaw Pact than by NATO.) On the other hand, if a country in Western Europe tried something like “capitalism with universal health insurance”, America was cool about it.
So seems to me that although both countries are quite missionary, Russia is much more of a micromanager, and probably that is why it gets more resistance. If you are generally allied with America, then America is usually happy about it. If you are allied with Russia, once in a while you will still have Russian tanks rolling on your streets to remind you that you got some detail wrong. So it is quite difficult to be friends with Russia, even if you try.
In a different context, sure, let’s talk about how USA sucks. But in a context of Russia, such comparisons are absurd, because whatever bad thing USA has, Russia has as least twice as much of it. (Even the slavery? Ha! There were ethnic groups in Soviet Union who would have loved to get an opportunity to be merely enslaved.)
I am not so sure whether it makes sense to put Russia and the SU in the same category when it comes to being missionary. The ideology of the SU was basically universal—an ideal end state would have been the conversion of every country in the world to communism. For Russia I don’t see that. Getting the former parts of the Russian empire back, yes, maybe being the leading slavonic country (especially an important motivation until 1917). But would Russia care how, e.g., Spain was governed? I don’t think so (SU or USA would care).
Ok, this makes sense. After the fall of Soviet Union, Russia got defensive rather than missionary. Still “the best defense is a good offense”, but the ambitions to conquer other countries are now proportional to their geographical distance.
I think that is an important distinction you are making. Russia’s (and Putin’s) motivations for aggression seem to be primarily defensive, made from a position of weakness, of vulnerability (which can make them extremely dangerous). That wasn’t the case with the SU.
I can’t see how this is argument in good faith. Your choice of using Russia instead of USSR feels intentionally misleading.
Was Russia not the dominant force within USSR, the “unbreakable union of free republics, forever united by Great Russia”?
(Yes, I know that Stalin was not ethnicaly Russian. Anything else?)
Russia was the dominant force in the USSR. It is perfectly reasonable to treat the USSR as red paint over a Russian Empire, especially considering the geopolitical framework from which I wrote the original post.
Have you heard about Communist Party?
“but I don’t see how you can deny the universalism in American thinking. ”
I don’t think you can deny the universalism in any other big power’s thinking either. I mean, in a time where you have an autocrat risking nuclear war for an sheer power grab (no, I don’t think Russia has anything to fear from NATO with a 7000 nuke arsenal, that’s 19th century talk, no one buys that excuse), your timing couldn’t be more ironic blaming it all on the US.
I’m glad for the Europeanization of the world. It wasn’t done properly in the first centuries, but if it wasn’t for it the millions of people living in the rest of the world wouldn’t have a tenth of the quality of life that they have today. I’m glad that Europe has conquered the world culture, because not only it drastically improves the average person’s life, it also prevents other less desirable cultures from doing it. Try to put any other big power in the place of it… We’d be living horrible lives today. (And I can assure you they’d have done it, and in a way less desirable way in many aspects).
In 2000, Putin considered joining NATO. According to some sources, we weren’t to keen on it. Massive mistake. Today we wouldn’t be on the brink of a large war, and China wouldn’t be half the threat.
I am curious, how would the “Putin in NATO situation” actually work?
Imagine that Putin invades Moldova, Moldova fights back… are now all NATO members obligated to attack Moldova? Or do you assume that in the parallel universe, Putin would not invade Moldova?
In other words, could Putin simply leverage his NATO membership into conquering the former territories of Soviet Union? What exactly would have prevented him from doing so?
NATO is a defensive organization. Article 5 says “an attack on a member is an attack on all members”. So far is was only activated once, due to the 9/11 attacks. Yet the US has been in many wars since it joined NATO.
I expect there are rules in NATO’s treaties for this kind of problems. And NATO membership, just like EU membership, comes with strings attached.
Yes, according to the NATO treaty there is only support for a victim of an attack. Here is the relevant Article 5 of the NATO treaty:
“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.” (NATO)
[emphasis by me]
As far as I remember, Turkey and Greece, NATO members, were at war with each other.
My understanding is that if Greece and Turkey decide to go to war over Cyprus NATO would not be compelled to intervene one way or the other. Presumably neither country would be silly enough to try invoking article 5 in the first place and the rest of the block would be heavily pushing the peace process.
I believe their last war ended 1922. But there were times when a next war between them seemed quiet likely and NATO spend a lot of energy discouraging both sides from open hostilities, if I remember correctly.
I was talking about the war in Cyprus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus
Yes, two NATO members were involved on different sides in a civil war in a third (independent & non-NATO) country. I think that lies outside the scope of NATO’s Article 5.
If Russia were part of NATO, then something like that could have happened, too, e.g.:
Romanian and Russian troops fighting each other in a civil war in the Republic of Moldova.
I don’t think it was a massive mistake. Putin would still be the autocrat he is, his countrymen would still be supporting him on his military adventures. If anything Russia would be emboldened by their NATO membership status.
Look at how much headache Turkey has already caused. NATO would most likely have de facto fallen apart with a trojan horse as big as Russia, with the US falling back on bilateral defense treaties. Which I think was Putin’s true motivation anyway.
The US has had plenty of military ventures too, and not once was NATO called in, except for 9/11. NATO is only called in when you’re attacked first.
On one hand it’s not cool to have dictators on the board (still they are in the UN). But what we would gain: no current war on Ukraine (tragedy for Ukrainians and massive danger for the world), no China being half as much a threat (also a danger to the world). What we would lose: nothing, the downsides would be the same as they are today more or less.
Also, I don’t think NATO means “you can do what you want, we forgive you” either.
After all most of his bad deeds are from fear of losing ground to the West.