A little bit of history… I am quoting some of these events from memory. Some of you may remember them also.
From the ashes of WW2, two superpowers emerged… the USA and USSR. After the war they became adversaries.For 4 decades, they engaged in the so-called “Cold War”…. an era when a minor accident or a slight misstep could have resulted in a nuclearArmageddon,with mutual destruction guaranteed.
However, the USA was not alone… in 1949, twelve nations along the shores of the North Atlantic formed NATO.(including Canada and the USA on the North American continent, but not Mexico).
NATO was intended to be a non-aggressive organization, with its sole purpose being to provide assistance to any member, should it be attacked by the USSR.
Over the years, NATO started expanding and accepting new members, even though many of them were nowhere near the North Atlantic.NATO did not expand in all directions… no, they expanded only towards the East, getting closer and closer to the USSR
In the early 1990s, the USSR started falling apart.Russia was preparing to withdraw its troops from the various former USSR states , and they were worried that these states would join NATO
In early 1991, a meeting between the USSR and NATO members US, UK, Germany and France, took place in Bonn, Germany.
During this meeting, NATO made it very clear to Russia, that NATO would not try to benefit from the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Eastern Europe.
They also made it very clear that countries such as Poland and other former members of the USSR would not be accepted into NATO, should they apply for NATO membership.
NATO also promised not to expand beyond the Eastern border of Germany.
Well… they lied…. a few years later, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were admitted into NATO.
Around the same time, there was internal trouble in Yugoslavia. This country was not a NATO member.Yet, NATO decided to get involved in this dispute and bombed the country…So much for NATO being a “non-aggressive” organization.
Since then, NATO has expanded further in direction of Russia, now including some 30 nations, while Russia has remained more or less the same.
Take good look at this picture! It illustrates NATO’s expansion. It looks to me like NATO was doing a great job closing in on Russia? And you can also see the importance of the Ukraine
When we think of NATO and its 30 members, we think of it being a large organization of like-minded nations.However, the reality is that the main driving force of NATO is the USA, followed closely by the UK, and in the fardistance France and Germany.All the other countries are only hanging on for the ride.
Consider a small country, such as Estonia. What could it possibly contribute, should NATO find itself in the situation to defend one of its members against an attack by Russia?Almost nothing.
On the other hand…. Why would NATO even be interested in including such a small country in its membership?
History has shown that, when NATO accepts a new member in front of Russia’s doorstep, US troops and missiles are sometimes not far behind. That’s why such small countries are useful… another piece of land to place a US military presence at Russia’s doorstep.
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s Secretary General, recently claimed that the USA has more than 100,000 US troops stationed throughout Europe, with 40,000 being under the direct command of NATO.
Don’t get me wrong… I am not a fan of Putin or Russia… but take a look at the graph above and assume you are in charge of that country called Russia… and you see NATO coming right up to your borders… and with it, US troops and missiles….Would you be OK with this?
In the 1960s, the USSR installed missiles on Cuba, after Cuba had turned into a communist state…missiles pointing in the direction of the USA
President Kennedy told the USSR to get these missiles out, or else…. and we all know what “or else” meant.
Now,as you can see on the above chart, the same scenario is happening in reverse,but on a much larger scale.
Over the last few years, Russia has repeatedly complained about NATO’s aggression… and Putin should have left it this way…. verbal complaints.
No doubt, invading Ukraine was a very bad decision.Not only did it result in many fatalities and other horrors of war, it also put him and his country in a very bad light.
He totally underestimated the support Ukraine would receive from NATO. He also is outmatched in the propaganda department. The English speaking Russian news websites (and theirRussian propaganda) are now outlawed and shut-off in Europe (and ignored in the USA)…. whereas Zelensky can hand his material directly to MSNBC and other sites in Europe.
There is no doubt in my mind that NATO is trying to keep up the pressure against Russia. This is evidenced by the huge military and financial support given to the Ukraine.
I believe, it’s in NATO’s interest to spoil any peace agreement in Ukraine and keep the war going. It seems to me, the Ukraine is simply being used in a ‘proxy war” (that’s my personal opinion… I may be wrong about all this)
What we have to be careful about is Russia’s response. If Russia starts talking about NATO aggression being an “existential threat”, then the nuclear ICBMs will soon follow. If I am not mistaken, Putin has already mentioned that nukes will not be used, unless there is an “existential threat” for Russia
We can only hope and pray that our leaders, and NATO’s leaders, will not let this turn into WW3 and a nuclear Armageddon.
In the meantime, our “sanctions “ are definitely having an effect… we all are paying for them.
Even if we are fortunate enough to avoid a nuclear WW3,the world will never be the same anymore.
A third Superpower is now emerging, China.NATO’s (and the USA’s) recent activities/sanctions are driving China and Russia closer together, and this is not good for us.
The Ruble and the Yuan will soon be the reserve currencies of the world, replacing the US Dollar.The consequences for us are huge.
Sorry 'bout the long post
Thanks Gunter,
Take as much length as you need to express a legit opinion.
"NATO also promised not to expand beyond the Eastern border of Germany.
Well… they lied…. a few years later, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were admitted into NATO."
“NATO (under direction from the United States) is violating previous agreements and expanding eastward.”
"Such an agreement was never made," NATO says in a fact page on its website, one of multiple pages that addresses the Russian allegations. "NATO’s door has been open to new members since it was founded in 1949 — and that has never changed."
https://web.archive.org/web/20220222223845/https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_111767.htm#c203
As the U.S. and Europe impose yet another round of sanctions on Moscow, critics are renewing long-standing questions about whether they really work.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/another-russia-sanctions-are-work-rcna23453
Critics, however, have long argued that sanctions are often ineffective humanitarian disasters that tend to leave the targeted regime with a stronger grip on power.
Academic studies have found that sanctions only achieve their stated goals about 30 to 40 percent of the time and that successful cases typically have modest aims, like a change in trade policy or the release of certain political prisoners.
“The irony is that sanctions often hurt people outside the ruling regime most,” said Dursun Peksen, a political scientist at the University of Memphis who has published numerous articles on the topic. “Sanctions often initially encourage the political opposition, but the regime expects that and so the regime becomes more aggressive in its repression.”
Press freedom goes down while secret police spending and subsidies to political cronies go up, Peksen said, all while liberal professionals like doctors and engineers flee if they can. Propaganda blames economic misery on the countries that imposed the sanctions, not the government's actions that triggered them.
“Earlier examples suggest that Russia will end up a lot more authoritarian, with less political engagement, more poverty and more economic inequality, while groups that are close to the Putin regime will be OK,” said Peksen.
Moreover, sanctions are often difficult to remove once imposed for political reasons, since politicians want to avoid being labeled as “soft” on the offending country, so critics say targeted countries may reasonably conclude they have little incentive to comply since the benefits may never materialize.
Still, even a sanctions critic like Peksen was quick to add that something had to be done after Russia invaded Ukraine — and sanctions were probably the least-worst option in a conflict with a nuclear-armed former superpower.
“Inaction was not an option,” he said.
Thank you for your response, metmike
You countered my comments about the 1991 meeting between NATO and the Russians, by using Politifact. As usual, Politifact shows it’s impressive image with the needle on the left…..”False”
The problem with this “debunking” process is that it failed. .
Having experienced Politifact's "smoke and mirror" tactics before, I made the effort of reading their lengthy analysis.
Most of Politifact’s rant is about the German Reunification,. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that NATO membership was discussed, probably more than once, with West Germany being NATO, and East Germany being USSR. According to Politifact, there were arguments between historians, as well as between people who had actually attended these meetings, about what was actually said. They don't all agree about what was said. As usual, Politifact takes the side that pleases their political party
However, all this is irrelevant. Most of Politifact’s analysis is about meetings regarding Germany’s reunification…. whereas the meeting I wrote about happened in 1991, well after the Reunification.
The punch line comes in Poltifact’s own last paragraphs, where they actually confirm my comments………
[historical background: The German Reunification was completed in 1990. Poland was the subject of discussion during the 1991 meeting mentioned in my post, a meeting that was attended by 4 NATO states and 2 members of the USSR]
Here is what Politifact says: “ [snip].. a new document he recently discovered in the British National Archives supports that case. The record, from 1991, quotes a German official as telling British and American policymakers, "We had made it clear during the 2+4 negotiations that we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe (a river in Germany). We could not therefore offer membership of NATO to Poland and the others."
This more or less confirms the the words I wrote in my post. Politifact does not dispute this item.
IMHO, posting Politifact's "False reading " image was inappropriate and misleading
History: Poland and other countries were admitted to NATO a few years later., in spite of the assurances. I rest my case.
Thanks Gunter,
Another attempt to spin by ignoring the actual evidence.
Why not just read the actual evidence, man and acknowledge that 1 time and from that point forward be able to go on in a direction that allows you to accumulated authentic knowledge instead of constantly trying to use information to try to justify a belief system......even when it require twisting things like a pretzel.
You could actually become an honest/authentic/objective person, Gunter!
Of course this would mean giving up getting your info from sources like, Info Wars and Zero Hedge and Joseph Mercola...that appeal to you because of their extreme rejection of accepted views on politics and medicine.
I get the rejecting of fraudulent science, as in the fake climate crisis but you have to have the actual facts/evidence to back up it up.
Becoming members of Alex Jones's or Joseph Mercola's or Zero Hedge's far right propaganda cult, believing everything they say then spreading it here, trying to recruit new members is how one makes the world a more ignorant place.
Then, when somebody shows you evidence, completely ignoring it only shows how captured your mind really is.
You come here to use tribalism, knowing we have many on the far right that you feel are patsy's, so you can STEAL THEIR INTELLIGENCE(with anti COVID vaccine, pro Trump, pro election steal, anti Ukraine hogwash).
Let me help you out again with one of the sources you intentionally ignored:
Appealing to Russia to acknowledge the benign nature of NATO's enlargement misses a most essential point: NATO enlargement ‒ as well as the enlargement of the European Union ‒ is designed as a continental unification project. It therefore does not have an “end point” that could be convincingly defined either intellectually or morally. In other words, precisely because the two organisations’ respective enlargement processes are not intended as anti-Russian projects, they are open-ended and – paradoxically – are bound to be perceived by Russia as a permanent assault on its status and influence. As long as Russia shirks an honest debate about why so many of its neighbors seek to orient themselves towards the West, this will not change – and the NATO-Russia relationship will remain haunted by myths of the past instead of looking to the future.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/russia-is-a-fake-power
According to numerous Western reports, Russia’s state disinformation was supposed to be sophisticated and persuasive. In reality, it has failed to convince anyone outside of a narrow group of true believers that Moscow is conducting a just war of "de-Nazification" in Ukraine. Attempts to control the narrative have failed miserably because of early exposure of Kremlin war aims by Western intelligence services and by an effective information campaign by the Ukrainian government and civil society. Similarly, Russia’s much vaunted cyberwarfare capabilities have been grossly exaggerated, as Kyiv was evidently well prepared for any digital disruption of Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.
metmike, I was planning not to engage in this old thread anymore, but you stated in another thread that you often debunk my posts, and I don’t acknowledge your ‘debunking”. Well, in quite a few cases I simply don’t agree with your “debunking”, and further replies would only lead to more arguing.
An example is this thread, right here.
My original post was simply a description of how NATO changed from a passive, defensive organization into an aggressive entity.
Today’s war could be called NATO’s “proxy-war” against Russia.
I expressed my worries about this war turning into WW3. And even if WW3 is avoided, this war could result in the Dollar losing its role as the Reserve Currency of the world.
I considered this post to be a reasonable contribution to the forum. It could even be considered a TR subject
You ignored the main body of my post (about NATO’s change of behavior) and focused on a small paragraph… a paragraph about NATO giving verbal assurances to the Russians…. assurances that NATO would not expand past the Eastern Border of Germany.
Historical fact:
For the last few years, the Russians have accused NATO of violating such assurances, and NATO has denied having made such verbal assurances.
It’s a stale-mate.
You first posted the infamous Politifact image,showing the meter on “false”. I went through the trouble of addressing this rather complex (“twisted like a pretzel”) Politifact article and disagreed with their finding.
You then accused me of ignoring “evidence”, most likely meaning that link to the NATO website, which you posted twice.
True, I did not respond to this one… so I will do it now, a bit late….
Why did I not respond to this link? Because I couldn’t find any “ evidence” in it.
Your NATO editorial is nothing but another denial of such assurances. A denial is not “evidence”. The NATO editorial did admit that there were countless meetings, and that some NATO members may have made comments that could have been interpreted as such… but there was no written commitment.
Well… nobody claimed there were written comments… the whole debate was about verbal insurances.
However, I would like to add one important detail…. The paragraph in my post did not come from a Russian propaganda website. This comment was based on a document from the UK Archives. Furthermore, the entity admitting assurances is not a Russian, but a member of NATO … therefore, I would give this document more credence than the NATO denial..
BTW, your NATO editorial/denial was written in 2014. The information I provided came to light on February 18, 2022. And it was first reported by a German newspaper.
Nothing has been “debunked”
Unfortunately, such debates here often turn into personal attacks.
You write: “You come here to use tribalism, [snip] so you can STEAL THEIR INTELLIGENCE [snip]” (one of your favorite expressions)
I almost had to laugh …I have absolutely no intentions to “steal anyone’s intelligence”. I post my views, or I post links to informative articles, aware that some will agree and some will not. I have no problem with somebody disagreeing with me… I have never seen the need to attack or insult anyone who disagrees with me.
Enough of this … too much time wasted already.
The debate about these assurances will go on forever.
"Unfortunately, such debates here often turn into personal attacks."
Gunter,
You are one pathological dude, man.
You come here with your many hundreds of posts with DISinformation and conspiracy theories and I correct them with authentic facts and science, while exposing who you really are.
That's not a debate.
This was your latest hogwash:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/83243/#83337
April 14, 2022, 4:31 p.m.
GunterK
"As you may have noticed, during the recent past I have avoided infowars or zerohedge posts… in an attempt to comply with your rules."
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https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/83409/#83456
By GunterK - April 18, 2022, 6:51 p.m.
metmike
I apologize if my posts are confusing to you. Maybe it’s best if I just post a link and let a link deliver a message..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlokJAUKhFE&t=66s
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.https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/83409/#83461
Lancaster’s reach has been further boosted by American uber-conspiracy-theorist Jones, who has made Lancaster a recurring guest on his show, “Infowars.” Jones has been a major proponent of the “Stop the Steal” movement to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, and his shows often describe real news events as fantastical “false flag” intelligence operations meant to mislead and confuse the American public. Jones did not respond to a request for comment. In an unrelated lawsuit, Jones’ lawyers have argued that no reasonable person would believe his over-the-top rhetoric.
In one “Infowars” segment with Lancaster, titled “American Reporter in Ukraine Exposing the Globalist WW3 Russian False Flag Op in Real Time,” Jones heaps praise on the expatriate Missourian, in between advertisements selling buckets of shelf-stable food and dietary supplements. “He shows what the Western media will not show you,” Jones said on one episode. To Lancaster, he said, “You’ve done so much amazing work I feel like I know you.”
On a recent “Infowars” appearance, Lancaster implored Jones’ audience to “do your own research.” On screen, Jones promotes Lancaster’s Patreon, a fundraising platform popular with podcasters.
“Think for yourself,” Lancaster says, “Don’t listen to the narrative the Western mainstream media gives you. Research and find out the facts.”
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Gunter,
I would be careful here right now. I've never censored any of your DISinformation or conspiracy theories (and don't plan to) just busted them and the sources you get this crap from.
In the past, when this happens and you get frustrated because your fake veil of honestly/objectivity crumbles as truth always triumphs when one side is armed with it and the other side gets exposed........ you often ramp up the blatant lies out of desperation.
You pretended to be a victim and resigned 3 times last year to get people to think that you were being treated unfairly(because your stuff was being busted) but always came back, ramping up the DISinformation to a higher level each time.
Then were actually suspended 2 times for telling too many consecutive blatant lies.
All your posts this month tell me that its headed in that direction again.
Only Gunter can control what Gunter posts, which is what will determine Gunter's fate here.
You are only acting this way because there is a far right audience here that you think will believe your extremely twisted DISinformation.
Which is the 100% opposite of the objective of this site..........to show BOTH sides when they represent truth
and even represent ALL sincere opinions that include potentially wrong ones or based on things that have 2 sides of opinion, that can make a legit case for either side.
As I've laid out, countless times, that's NOT been your MO.