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I'm tired of people claiming that this war is all about other countries and their complicated geo-political agendas: the US, Germany, Russia. Why do America's reasons for wanting Ukraine to join NATO, or Russia's reasons for wanting to stop them matter so much? Ukraine wanted to join. That is enough. NATO has expanded because all those countries wanted to join.
Cuba also just “wanted to join” back in 1962. It’s their territory. Can station as many missiles there as they want, can’t they?

Kind of like it’s your neighbor’s business if he runs his leaf blower 4 hours a day. His lawn. His choice. If you get angry about this, you’re just being irrational. Probably isn’t even about the leaf blower at all. You’re just using that as an excuse. In truth, you just want to extend your influence and throw your own weight around.

> NATO has expanded because all those countries wanted to join.

Joining NATO is not like taking a membership card at one's local gym when one feels like it. If, say, Sierra Leone "wanted to join" it's unlikely it would happen.

NATO is a military alliance. It has a purpose, it has a governance and it doesn't just randomly expand to whichever country feels like joining. It's understandable that analysts analyze the expansion of NATO in a broader context. It would be naive not to.

Didn't the mess start when the EU forced a decision between partnership with the EU or Russia without allowing both?
At least one should evaluate other arguments before saying they don't matter. If we believe what people say about what Putin is thinking, he's really paranoid that NATO is going from strength to strength because it's planning to sooner or later invade Russia. It's amazing how this paranoia in 1 little guy's mind has messed up the world so much. But maybe he has more proof than just his fears...

And you say the countries want to join and that's enough? Huh, maybe we can evaluate their motivation for wanting to do so? To use a different example, if a partner wants to break up with you, would you ask "But why?" or do you just say "OK, you want it, so that's enough of a reason."...

For Context: This interview was originally published in the Swiss newspaper "Die Weltwoche," which is owned by a far-right politician known for taking pro-Russia and pro-China stances. The owner of the paper has publicly called the President Selenski a "liar" who "needs to be urgently restrained" and has blamed the war on the West. He is also a frequent guest on Russia Today.
You're not commenting at all on the content of the article... some might say: QED.

There is nothing controversial in that interview. If you think there is then it just shows that propaganda is very effective not only on the Russian side...

None of this is a "theory", really. It's plain as day, including the absolute hostility of the US towards the Nord Stream pipelines.

It does not mean that Russia wasn't planning to invade Ukraine, but the US saw that eventuality as useful to further their own interests. This has worked so far: the US are undoubtedly the biggest (only?) winners so far.

Hah, is that site satire? A link at the bottom of the page is to an article with the title "More Evidence that Taking the Knee Causes Ligament Damage". Which it says is written by "a 14 year-old Hull City fan".
Great.

One one side we have Putin who poisoned people/opposition in/on eu Land, took Crimea, plays games with France in Africa, plays other games in Africa, threatens with nuclear and apparently is so easy to manipulate through the USA to be were it currently is.

Vs.

The theory that the us secret gov (doing all of this while Obama, trump and Biden have been in power) is playing the half long game with Putin to let him do all of this by 'himself'.

I'm somehow not convinced.

And yes USA is probably pretty happy about the current situation but I don't think this is all because of USA and not Putin's little dick.

Source interview in German (no paywall): https://www.mediagnose.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Todd_Es...
Thanks for the link to the excellent article.

Emmanuel Todd seems to me quite reasonable for a French intellectual. He analyzes the German confusion and helplessness quite aptly.

(I don't understand Weltwoche, SVP or Switzerland, but it seems to be a semi-respectable magazine: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Weltwoche).

The newspaper was pro the invasion of Iraq, and denies climate change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Weltwoche
I don't want to detract one ounce of moral responsibility from Russia for all the killing. But it is also true that the West has created one fine mess in Ukraine and now is in an highly uncomfortable situation where it cannot allow Russia to be triumphant but on the other hand it cannot let this war escalate further. And somewhere along this fine line many more thousands will die before this thing is over.

The West's cunning little plan to expand NATO right up to Russia's border, devised by such visionary and honorable men like Barack Obama, blew up right in our face and now we're forced to admit that, in the end, Ukraine isn't worth THAT much to us.