NATO tells Russia to go pound sand

US Air Force Magazine
Jan. 7, 2022

Emerging from a virtual meeting with allied foreign ministers, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declared ahead of a meeting with Russia that NATO’s open-door policy is sacrosanct. He also detailed the reasons why NATO believes new conflict in Europe is imminent.

“The risk of conflict is real,” Stoltenberg told members of the media Jan. 7 after a meeting to discuss Russia’s troop buildup on the border of Ukraine, which is believed to number some 100,000 with growing military capabilities.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said NATO is a threat to Russia’s national security and that expanding eastward by admitting Ukraine and Georgia would only further heighten that concern. The treaty alliance, in turn, claims it is defensive in nature. It provides that any nation may pursue admittance, though all member nations must agree.

Russian and U.S. officials are set to meet in Geneva Jan. 9-10, followed by meetings of the NATO-Russia Council on Jan. 12 and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Jan. 13, to discuss Ukraine border tensions and to hear Moscow’s concerns about the alliance. The NATO-Russia meeting is the first since the summer of 2019.

“Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified military buildup in and around Ukraine” has serious implications for European security and stability, the secretary-general said. He said Russian forces are only strengthening a noose around Ukraine.

“The Russian military buildup has not stopped. It continues and [is] gradually building up with more forces, more capabilities,” Stoltenberg said, describing armored units, artillery, combat-ready troops, electronic warfare equipment, and other military capabilities.

Stoltenberg was clear that the alliance would not heed Russia’s demand to withdraw the invitation for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO—or for any country to pursue the path of its choosing.

“There’s no way NATO can compromise on the principle of the right of every nation to choose his own path, and that was very clearly stated by allies today,” Stoltenberg said, citing the NATO founding charter and the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. The act, signed by 35 European countries including the Soviet Union, plus the United States and Canada after two years of negotiations, was a non-binding set of articles that included respect for territorial integrity and refraining from the threat of use of force.

https://www.airforcemag.com/nato-stoltenberg-open-door-polic…

Jaak

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Putin needs to check himself or waste his army entirely.

While I will not like any Ukrainian deaths watching the slaughter of the Russian army is a different matter.

Leap

Although I understand and even share your desire to see Putin and his ilk balked and frustrated I found your statement that “watching the slaughter of the Russian army is a different matter” to be appalling, in fact unacceptable. Please consider retracting or at the least readdressing your too hasty statement, as it is a vile crudity that I cannot believe you truly intended.

Slaughter is never a different matter from slaughter, and soldiers are perhaps the most pathetic of the sorts that get slaughtered. I had High School friends who were slaughtered in Vietnam. I have a wonderful Russian friend whose son I have cherished for 12 years (he sang a Russian birthday song for me when I turned 60 and he 11), and he only recently finished his forced service in the Russian Army.

David fb

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David fb,

In the history of my family being hunted across Eastern Europe…the family memory runs very painfully deep.

It is in Putin’s court.

He is threatening for more and more territory. Either he backs down as a petty little man beat now or he wastes his more than willing army.

Just remember those men in that army are on a border threatening an enslavement of millions of Ukrainians.

I will say as an allegory what I said early today to a friend about Antonio Brown. Walking off the field made AB the only sane football player out there.

You can find all of this crude, but I will remind you it is not my violence that is being threatened at all. I am not on this field. I am remarking on the violence being offered by Putin. I am voicing the response that will happen in arming the victims in the Ukraine to the hilt by the US and EU.

If it was in any way my violence or my threat or my actions or not in any way a reality…I was never have written it and I would gladly retract it. It is not mine.

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David fb,

We both can guess what has long been held…war is hell.

I am only stating it.

It is in Putin’s often bloodied grip.

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Although I understand and even share your desire to see Putin and his ilk balked and frustrated

PUTIN WILL NOT BE BALKED!

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“The risk of conflict is real,” Stoltenberg told members of the media Jan. 7 after a meeting to discuss Russia’s troop buildup on the border of Ukraine, which is believed to number some 100,000 with growing military capabilities.

Keep in mind that Russia is known to already have troops in the east, not to mention their seizure of Crimea. Ukraine joins NATO, they can immediately invoke the mutual defense clause. Food for thought…

The Russians may end up in a major conflict in Kazakhstan.

The each of these major conflicts terribly weakens Russia.

The Ukrainians may find a solid opportunity to kick out the Russians in the next few years.

…I found your statement that “watching the slaughter of the Russian army is a different matter” to be appalling, in fact unacceptable. Please consider retracting or at the least readdressing your too hasty statement, as it is a vile crudity that I cannot believe you truly intended.

Thank you David. It has become too easy at the keyboard to forget that words matter.

When I was 12 I got to visit Europe with my parents, in part to go visit my Uncle Joe’s grave in Normandie. The view of endless white crosses and other religious markers had more impact on me than any reported number could do. We also went to visit Dachau, where I got to see an accounting of what happened in that concentration camp. The pictures were stunning. I found myself really hating the Germans at that point. But I give my parents credit for also taking us to a German cemetery, where I saw the grave marker for a soldier boy my age, and my anger started to fade. WWII was not a war that without grave consequences for any side, with many of the soldiers no doubt pressed into service against their will.

It was also the beginning of my understanding of the importance to speak up when you saw something wrong, not to remain quiet and hope that things will sort themselves out. It is often said, (and misattributed to Burke,) that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Thank you for speaking up.

IP

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Thank you David. It has become too easy at the keyboard to forget that words matter.

IP if you had read my response it centered on the Russian army’s willingness to enter the Ukraine and enslave millions of people. That is a serious threat. The counter threat is the US and EU giving weapons to the Ukrainians to destroy the Russian army.

Those are realities. War is hell. It is not of my making. I can not retract it.

Putin is forcing to a degree such a war, such a trade. The US, EU and Ukraine would kill the Russian army instead of the Ukraine facing enslavement. Not sure why you would have a problem with that.

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The Russian soldiers know from experience that you only follow orders or you will be shot. It was Stalin who said during WWII “Only steps forward” and had soldiers shot if they retreated.

The person directly responsible for any and all hostilities is Putin.

NH

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NH,

Yes Putin has the entire responsibility.

But if I said that here in the US about a leader you’d be applaud if the public allowed it.

The Russian public can one day have the ultimate say. It would not include Putin at the end of the day.

In the mean time what happens to the Russian army is not exciting me to be sympathetic. My sympathies are only with the Ukrainians.

These are life and death matters. No retraction can change that.

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When the Russian Army liberated Budapest in 1945, a Russian soldier who liberated the ghetto gave us bread and chocolates.

The Captain

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My sympathy falls with any soldier that is conscripted into service in any army. My grandfather, the one aided by the Finns, had been dragged off by the Russian army to serve even though he wasn’t a Russian citizen. It was while on maneuvers near the Finnish border, 3,000 miles from home, that he was able to escape.

So I don’t expect a retraction only some understanding.

NH

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When the Russian Army liberated Budapest in 1945, a Russian soldier who liberated the ghetto gave us bread and chocolates.

That is anecdotal. My family and possibly a million other jews prior to WW II or even WW I had quite a different experience with the Russian army.

Stalin would end up killing 35 million Slaves and enslaving Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

YMMV

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So I don’t expect a retraction only some understanding.

NH


I came up in the shadow of Vietnam just after the war had ended. The culture as you know was anti war.

I have some understanding. Perhaps a lot of understanding. Sympathy is a different matter.

feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune.
"they had great sympathy for the flood victims"

understanding between people; common feeling.
"the special sympathy between the two boys was obvious to all"

The "Russian army" is an abstraction for us sitting at home today. What the Russian army is poised to do is much less of an abstraction. Those actions can not warrant pity or sorrow for some sort of misfortune.

The understanding part I have. It is all too human. The counter moves in the offering of arming the Ukrainians is just to avoid the Russian's destructiveness.

When you eat a steak tonight or a chicken how much pity or understanding did you have for the animal? It is an abstraction.

Humans are worth more. Russian life needs to be valued at a much higher rate but that is only achievable with the overthrowing of Putin. And then going by the history another strongman is likely. The geography is problematic for a democracy to stay rooted.
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While I will not like any Ukrainian deaths watching the slaughter of the Russian army is a different matter.

Not sure why you would have a problem with that.

Really? Liking the slaughter of any large group of people is problematic for me.

IP

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Captain,

Have you been to Budapest recently?

It is incredible city but is dotted with “Brutalist” Soviet era buildings. Where parts of the city have been restored to their former beauty, see the Corinthia Hotel and the New York Cafe, there are also parts where the Soviets attempted to wipe out any traces of the former Jewish community. There are huge ugly concrete structures that functioned as housing blocks and government offices where Jewish people use to live.

So, while there seems to be many cases where an individual kindness in war it can be the governments policy to the contrary both during and after conflict.

OTFoolish

P.S. Anyone that goes to Budapest must visit the “Shoes” Memorial.

Really? Liking the slaughter of any large group of people is problematic for me.

IP,

I never said I would like the slaughter of the Russian army.

I said it was different matter.

You keep seeing things that do not exist.

I never said I would like the slaughter of the Russian army.

And yet unlike your “quotes” from my posts, I literally copied and pasted from your post, with only the bolding added:

While I will not like any Ukrainian deaths watching the slaughter of the Russian army is a different matter.

Liking to see the slaughter of the Russian army is exactly how that comes across once you take out the qualifier of not wanting to see Ukrainians hurt.

IP

1 Like