this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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I'm not up to snuff on NATO regulations. As I understand it, if a NATO nation gets attacked, the rest of them are obliged to defend, correct? What happens if that nation is "the aggressor". Like in this situation if Poland were to do a first strike against Belarus or Russia and they respond attacking Poland, is the rest of NATO obliged to help defend Poland?
No, NATO doesn't interfere if a member starts a war. It's a defensive treaty. That said, Poland alone wouldn't be able to do much, and democracies rarely openly declare war.
I had a deployment with Polish soldiers. They are a modern and extremely capable defensive force. It would likely turn into the same thing we're seeing in Ukraine (smaller force that is well trained and better supplied vs sending a lot of bodies and old tech). I don't think we'll ever see a Polish led force invading Belarus or Russia without a massive NATO backing and a lot of foreign units already on the way to support them. Defensively, they will fuck you up. Offensively, they don't have the man power to go deep into enemy territory.
The Polish have historical grudges with Russia and are chomping at the bit to hurt some Russians. It is probably NATO that is holding them back from sending units to Ukraine
However what if a NATO country starts a war with Belarus, and then Russia attacks the NATO country?
The NATO country would never have initiated a war with Russia, they would have initiated it with Belarus.
Does a NATO country automatically become vulnerable if they have any wars currently ongoing? Because that would mean Russia could have attacked America during the war in Afghanistan and NATO would not have been able to get involved.
It's probably a case where Russia could attack Poland's forces in Belarus but attacking Polish soil would involve article 5.
The way it works is that the attacked country invokes article 5. If the country does it then other members are obligated to help. If they don't, they are undermining NATO.
Having said that, NATO doesn't specify how countries supposed to respond. It could be something to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War
I think putin sending Wagner to Belarus is indeed thinking to force Belarus to attack Poland or a Baltic states and see what happens. Of course that would be simple, it would be Belarus vs NATO, and would end up quickly.
So he is tipping the scale and saying that attacking Belarus will be also attacking Russia, hoping that it will be ignored like two Russian missiles hitting Poland. If it won't be ignored, then he is just sacrificing Belarus.
As long as an attack happens on NATO territory, it's considered an act of war. Even if the NATO country is the aggressor. Ideally the aggressing country would be suspended before they could invoke article 5.
Your comment belies your ignorance of how NATO works.
Enlighten me.
PP in all examples intermixes NATO with US military.
In its history NATO article 5 was invoked only once.
That doesn't dispute my comment though? If Poland were to attack Belarus and Belarus retaliated with an attack on Polish soil, they could absolutely invoke article 5.
Unless there is a cover up like happened with those Russian missiles that hit Poland.
Imagine how dangerous it would be if NATO was, instead of a defensive pact, a transnational nuclear military helmed by the world's foremost genocidal empire that marches across Europe via propaganda and coup d'etats towards it's ultimate goal of encircling Russia and China. What a cluster fuck that would be? In that reality, if a member state launched a war of aggression NATO would probably support it and continue escalation.
Luckily, we know NATO is a defensive force because it didn't launch multiple wars of aggression, drop depleted uranium on civilians, and is democratically accountable.
Respect the thin blue line! Team NATO: World Police!
ITT: "But sometimes, dicks fuck assholes!"
Oh lemmygrad is leaking.
Oh reddit is leaking
Yes, it is, badly.
BTW: since lemmy (and obviously lemmygrad) was created by communists. Can you explain to me what's so communist about Russia that you and others are so fiercely defending? How are they different from that "imperialistic pig" that is the US? Is it because Russia is fascist now?
Looks to me like you never cared about communist ideology, and it was always about supporting Muscovies and totalitarism.
Nobody said Russia is communist, nor is anybody defending Russia here. People are just explaining to you that the reality is more complex than the propaganda narrative you've guzzled makes it out to be. The only fascists here are the ones who think that people of Ukraine should be used in a proxy war against Russia by the west. So, maybe stop projecting there.
Said the guy with a thumbnail with big CCCP on his forehead.
Standard bullshit pretending that you care about people, dismissing that Ukrainians are fighting for their right to exist. After the war crimes committed, after Bucha and many other places, after Russia admitted to kidnapping nearly a million of Ukrainian children (textbook definition of genocide), after ICC charges for war crimes.
But ok, please outline exactly what should be the peace agreement, who gets what (don't skip any details).
And second, please tell me how Russia, will honor that agreement, when it broke every single one going back to 90s, including Budapest Memorandum where it signed that it will respect Ukraine's borders. The one that it broke in 2003, 2014, 2018 and 2022 (when it decided to go after the rest of Ukraine).
The fact that you made a personal attack followed by a bunch of drivel there that has nothing to do with anything I said is really in character fro you.
What personal attack? Are you saying your thumbnail is offensive to you?
You don't answer these questions, because you don't have a good answer that doesn't show that you are supporting the genocide being committed by Russia.
My thumbnail isn't offensive to me, but a reddit troll talking about it in pejorative fashion is. And your "questions" have nothing to do with anything I said here. However, last I checked it was Ukraine committing ethnic cleansing in Donbas as CNN reported back in 2014. Also, Russia should be held to the same standard western "democracies" are held to. The ones that invaded Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. In fact, US currently occupies a greater percentage of Syria than Russia is occupying of Ukraine while stealing food and oil from the people of Syria. Western war on terror has massacred over 6 million people, and nobody holds a candle to US when it comes to killing civilians. In fact, UK is currently torturing a journalist who exposed US war crimes in Iraq.
But I guess Russia's invasion of Ukraine is different from all that because people in Ukraine have blond hair and blue eyes, so a bunch western racists started caring about wars all of a sudden. You have no moral high ground when your own country commits far worse atrocities than what Russia is doing.
Stop changing the topics and answer that simple question. You are all about peace, so tell me:
You must have something in mind, or are you saying that you have no idea what you're talking about?
Again you didn't address a single point and diverted everything with pseudo arguments.
did you forgot to switch the accounts?
I'm not changing any topics. I'm pointing out the how utterly morally bankrupt your position is. The reality of the situation is that it was possible to avoid the war, and all Ukraine had to do to achieve that was to stay neutral. Ukraine joining NATO was a red line for Russia, and this is something that was well known both in Ukraine and in the west. Countless western experts have been warning about this for many decades. This only became controversial to mention after the war started. Here's what Chomsky has to say on the issue recently:
https://truthout.org/articles/us-approach-to-ukraine-and-russia-has-left-the-domain-of-rational-discourse/
https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/
50 prominent foreign policy experts (former senators, military officers, diplomats, etc.) sent an open letter to Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion back in 1997:
George Kennan, arguably America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia" back in 1998.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"
Even Gorbachev warned about this. All these experts were marginalized, silenced, and ignored. Yet, now people are trying to rewrite history and pretend that Russia attacked Ukraine out of the blue and completely unprovoked.
The reality is that it's Ukraine that refused to implement Minsk while attacking civilian population in Donbas as CNN reported at the time. Now, western and Ukrainian leaders have actually admitted on record that they never planned to implement Minsk and it was a play for time.
I'm saying that it's either you who has no idea what you're talking about or you're just an outright liar. Either way it's a pretty bad look. War happened because of people like you, and now hundreds of thousands of people have died, millions have had their lives ruined, and Ukraine will lose a huge chunk of its territory in the best case scenario. All of this happened because the west and Ukraine refused to negotiate.
@takeda @yogthos I understand where you're coming from Takeda. But don't expect rationality from Yogi. He says Ukraine is being "used in a proxy war". That's your first hint that he's a propagandist. Anyone who says the US is helping Ukraine to hurt Russia without mentioning that the ONLY reason the US needs to do so is because Russia has needlessly and baselessly attacked Ukraine, is not trying to speak the truth. Unless Yogi here wants to admit Russia's attack was the cause? Yogi?
Believing what you wrote takes a brain as smooth as a bowling ball. RAND literally put out a whole study called extending Russia where it outlines a proxy war in Ukraine. US ambassador to Finland openly called it a proxy war, Lindsey Graham said it's the best money US ever spent on killing Russians. Meanwhile, imagine claiming with a straight face that US is helping Ukraine, what an utter monster one has to be to call this help. You are a deplorable piece of human garbage.
@yogthos You missed the point with the grace of a dancing elephant as usual. I didn't say it wasn't a proxy war. I said that acting like Russia isn't reason the war exists at all why you're a propagandist. Can you admit that Russia started this war and is solely responsible for the bullets and bombs that are flying or no? How much of a leash does Daddy Putin keep on you?
I never argued that Russia didn't start this war, what I'm arguing against is the simplistic claim that Russia is solely responsible for creating the conditions for the war. The fact that you can't comprehend that shows utter lack of capacity for critical thought on your part. The funny part is that plenty of people in the west such as Sachs, Mearshaemer, and Chomsky have all explained in detail the role the west played. RAND literally published a study on this. Yet, here we have burger empire propagandists such as your self prancing around claiming Russia is solely responsible for the war. You are a truly deplorable individual.
@AdamantlyAdam @yogthos I think he is not even paid for this. He is just a bit more delusional than the rest of us.
It is so odd seeing so many supposed communists defending the fascist Russian state. Lenin is spinning in his mausoleum.