Kiev Is Burning

[Roman Alymov]

ATGM(?) vs. another Marder near Verbovoye, crew was pinned down near vehicle and attacked by regular drone https://t.me/milinfolive/107059

[Roman Alymov]

Drone video of inflatable T-72 decoys https://t.me/uav_tech/21013

[BansheeOne]

Quote

Merkel's Leading Role in Preventing Ukraine's NATO Membership

The Day the War Really Began

In April 2008, NATO deliberated on admitting Ukraine as a new member as a show of strength against Vladimir Putin. Washington favored the move, but the Germans thwarted the plan. A reconstruction of a decision that ended in disaster.

A DER SPIEGEL Cover Story By Klaus Wiegrefe

25.09.2023, 19.03 Uhr

In April 2022, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky stepped in front of the cameras, a severe expression on his face. In Bucha, the town near Kyiv, numerous dead civilians had been found, their bodies lying on the streets, in homes or in hastily dug graves in front yards.

And when it came to assigning responsibility, Zelenskyy didn't just single out the Russians – the murderers who hunted down pedestrians and cyclists. He also mentioned former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "I invite Ms. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy to visit Bucha to see what the policy of 14 years of concessions to Russia has led to."

Zelenskyy was referring to the NATO summit that took place in Bucharest in April 2008.

That was the year that Ukraine was likely closer to becoming a member of the Western alliance than ever, before or since. United States President George W. Bush stood solidly behind Kyiv's accession. But the effort failed, as Zelenskyy made clear, due to the opposition of Merkel and Sarkozy – and an "absurd fear" of Russia. Because of this "miscalculation," the Ukrainian president continued, his country is facing "the most terrible war in Europe since World War II."

Must Germany once again bear the blame for a war, this time stemming from cowardice? Does Bucharest mark a kind of "original catastrophe" for the failures of Berlin's relations with Russia?

Zelenskyy's accusations resulted in Merkel breaking the silence that she had maintained since leaving office in December 2021. She issued a statement saying that she stands by her "decisions relating to the NATO summit in 2008." A short time later, she expanded on that statement, saying that, at the time, Ukraine had been divided on the issue of joining NATO and that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have just quietly stood aside and allowed the country to be accepted into the alliance. "I didn't want to provoke that," she said.

Was her position the right one? And were the steps taken by Germany the correct ones?

DER SPIEGEL has spoken with a half-dozen people who attended the 2008 Bucharest summit. Some of them, like Latvia's then-President Valdis Zatlers, have agreed to be quoted on the record. Other diplomats and aides asked not to be named. They describe a kind of "High Noon" situation between Merkel and Bush, tears of anger from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and pointed attacks from Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski against his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is today Germany's president and head of state. There were, say participants, wild threats coming from Putin. The German chancellor even spoke Russian on occasion with her Central Eastern European allies from the former Warsaw Pact nations in the attempt to negotiate a way out of the impasse, since it was the language they all had in common. And finally, say participants, Merkel – using the green pen that German heads of government use in day-to-day operations – personally added changes to the closing communiqué.

Photos from Bucharest show an apparently high-spirited chancellor in the Romanian capital's Palace of Parliament, one of the largest buildings in Europe, with conference halls the size of half a football field. But there are also images of Merkel looking surly, the strain clearly visible. The summit lasted from April 2-4, a Wednesday to Friday. On the first evening, Merkel dined with the other heads of state and government, and the next day, the national leaders met together with ministers, advisers and military leaders in a large conference setting. On the last day, member state leaders welcomed Russian President Putin. Many witnesses also remember how Merkel wore a green jacket on that Thursday, making her stand out among the gray suits worn by all the men.

The accounts of the summit also make it clear that Bucharest was the climax of a conflict that had begun in 2007 and first came to an end with Bush's departure from the White House in January 2009. And that Merkel wasn't alone. She had support from France in addition to Spain, Italy, the Benelux countries, Portugal and Norway. Even the British, normally so loyal to the U.S., were wavering. Merkel's opposition in Bucharest, in other words, was not the result of Germany going it alone. Perhaps Berlin was right after all?

Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there have been demands that Germany's relations with Russia under Merkel, of the center-right Christian Democrats, and under Steinmeier, of the center-left Social Democrats, be closely reexamined. Yet very few steps to actually do so have been taken. Here, DER SPIEGEL is making an effort to reconstruct a key year in the Ukraine question from a number of different perspectives. It was possible for the first time to examine German Foreign Ministry documentation that had thus far been classified, including draft talking points for Merkel, dispatches from embassies in Washington and at NATO headquarters in Brussels, memos from the German Foreign Ministry's political affairs division for Steinmeier and "guidelines" for the German delegation in Bucharest, which outlined the German positions. Other source material used for this reconstruction include interviews, declassified U.S. records, documents published by WikiLeaks, memoirs and the results of a project completed  by Southern Methodist University in Texas, where scholars systematically interviewed former members of Bush's staff about his Russia policy.

Neither Merkel nor Steinmeier made themselves available for an interview when contacted by DER SPIEGEL.

A Nightmare

Kyiv, Fall 2007

A letter to NATO expressing a demand to start the accession process. That's all it would take. For several months, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko had been consulting with U.S. diplomats about sending just such a signal, signed by Ukraine's highest constitutional institutions: President Yushchenko in addition to the prime minister and the president of parliament. A signal of unity. Such a gesture would demonstrate to the West that Kyiv's interest in joining NATO had to be taken seriously – in contrast to the signals sent in previous years.

Yushchenko was in favor of the step. A former banker, the Ukrainian president was married to an American woman who used to work at the U.S. State Department, and his fear of the Russians was based on personal experience. Just a few years earlier, the reformer had only narrowly survived a dioxin poison attack. He was convinced that Putin, a former KGB agent, was responsible. From Yushchenko's perspective, only NATO membership could guarantee sovereignty for his country. Otherwise, he feared, Ukraine would remain "in a semi-colonial state," dependent on Moscow.

But the letter never came.

It had been the same story for quite some time. In conversations with the Americans, leading Ukrainian politicians would insist that they aspired to NATO membership – particularly Yushchenko, a leader of the 2004 Orange Revolution, with its promise of freedom and prosperity. His one-time political ally turned bitter rival Yulia Tymoshenko also wanted Ukraine to become part of the trans-Atlantic alliance. Even the pro-Kremlin opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych, who would ultimately flee to Russia in 2014, would occasionally give the impression that he wasn't opposing Ukrainian NATO membership for all eternity.

The problem, however, was that political reforms in Ukraine simply weren't progressing to the point where they would meet NATO standards when it came to the military, the judiciary and politics. That lack of progress could only partly be blamed on Russia, which was eager to weaken Ukraine wherever it could so as not to lose influence. On the Corruption Perception Index kept by Transparency International, Ukraine had fallen to 118th place, almost as low as Russia, and the trend remained negative. Yanukovych and Tymoshenko themselves were suspected of malfeasance.

More than anything, though, they were not having success in reversing the populace's skepticism of NATO. Indeed, the efforts undertaken by Yushchenko and Tymoshenko to that end had been less than monumental, with opposition leader Yanukovych even using the September 2007 parliamentary elections to brand himself as the leader of the anti-NATO movement in the country.

A strong majority of Ukrainians indicated in surveys that they weren't particularly interested in joining the alliance. Merkel's administration in Berlin believed that around two-thirds of the population "held negative views of NATO." Cold War prejudices fueled by Russian television continued to have an influence, particularly in the eastern and southern parts of the country. Furthermore, many Ukrainians had fought for the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and were worried about being sent back, this time to fight for the West, should Ukraine become part of NATO.

Victoria Nuland, the U.S. ambassador to NATO in Brussels, advised the Ukrainian government to launch an expansive information campaign in the country to dispel the image of NATO as a "four-letter word." To some observers, it seemed as though the Americans were more interested in Ukraine's accession to NATO than the Ukrainians themselves.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were ultimately able to set aside their differences following the parliamentary elections for long enough to establish a coalition to prevent election victor Yanukovych from become prime minister. Instead, Tymoshenko took the position, the woman with the striking braid wrapped across her head. It was the fourth change in government in just three years for Ukraine. And in January 2008, Yushchenko, Tymoshenko and the president of parliament finally sent the letter to Brussels.

In the letter, they requested from NATO a Membership Action Plan (MAP) for Ukraine. Normally, such plans outline the reforms that must be undertaken ahead of accession and are part of the standardized process that takes a number of years to complete. In theory, MAP status does not guarantee ultimate accession to the alliance, but in practice, it is widely considered to be a sign of almost inevitable membership.

Yet the letter did not actually become the symbol of unity Kyiv had hoped to send. In protest against the request for MAP status, Yanukovych's people paralyzed parliament for several weeks. There were even fisticuffs on the floor. Ultimately, the government and the opposition agreed to hold a referendum prior to a NATO accession.

Reformers Tymoshenko and Yanukovych also sought to block each other. Ukraine planned to hold presidential elections in 2010 and, as the German Embassy in Washington learned, Tymoshenko was hoping to win that election and wanted to wait to start the MAP process until that time. That desire translated into hesitancy from Tymoshenko when it came to pushing for her country's NATO accession during a visit to alliance headquarters in Brussels.

German Foreign Minister Steinmeier warned his NATO counterparts in a confidential meeting of domestic political intrigue in Kyiv on the MAP issue. "Hidden agendas cannot be ruled out," he said.

The Ukrainian reformers frequently bickered like children for all to see. "It's always the other one who is to blame for the situation," one Berlin diplomat said, describing the situation. When Merkel visited Ukraine later that year, Yushchenko tried to prevent the prime minister from meeting with the German chancellor. The Germans, though, found a cagey way to set up a meeting anyway: Merkel sat down in a restaurant and Tymoshenko came in through the backdoor. The situation in Kyiv is a "nightmare," Merkel's security adviser, Christoph Heusgen, told the Americans.

But the letter sent to NATO by Kyiv did at least force alliance member states to reveal where they stood on Ukrainian accession.

[...]

The Baltic states and Poland would regularly meet to harmonize their positions ahead of NATO meetings, says Zatlers, the former president of Latvia. Zatlers, a medical doctor and a former reserve officer in the Soviet army, exudes fearlessness in public. Immediately after the reactor meltdown in Chernobyl in 1986, the Soviet army sent him there for a two-month stint. "The Ukrainians like me because I'm the only head of state who has been to Chernobyl," says Zatlers, a brawny man with a friendly smile.

Zatlers, who served in office from 2007 to 2011, doesn't harbor any anti-Russian sentiments and strove for friendly relations with his country's massive neighbor to the east. But Zatlers also spoke frequently with Polish President Lech Kaczyński about their countries' past experiences. In contrast to Zatlers, the archconservative Polish law professor had clear conceptions about who his enemies were: "Dangers? That would be our neighbors – Russia and Germany."

One-time Solidarność activist Kaczyński was arrested when the communist regime in Warsaw imposed martial law with the support of Moscow. His parents had fought against Nazi Germany in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Stalin's advancing Red Army paused combat operations before entering the Polish capital, giving the Nazis the time they needed to complete their destruction of the uprising and the city.

Zatlers says that even back in 2008, Kaczyński was concerned that Moscow might attack neighboring countries Ukraine and Georgia, which was also seeking to join NATO at the time. A powerful show of unity by the alliance at the Bucharest summit, it was hoped, would deter Putin and improve the strategic position of Central and Eastern European countries.

But the alliance was divided. Nuland, the U.S. NATO ambassador, counted 14 countries of 26 in the North Atlantic Council that backed Kyiv's ambitions to begin the MAP process, but aside from the U.S. and Canada, almost all of them were Central and Eastern European countries.

Alliance skeptics grouped around Germany's NATO ambassador, Ulrich Brandenburg, a typical proponent of Foreign Minister Steinmeier's restrained approach to diplomacy. A deliberate man who had once been a conscientious objector, Brandenburg sat between France and Greece in NATO's alphabetized seating arrangement and sought to hold together a kind of blocking minority of around 10 countries. NATO may adhere to the principle of consensus, but Germany on its own would not have been able to stand up to pressure from the Americans.

The U.S., meanwhile, kept a close eye on what Steinmeier's representative was up to in Brussels – as he sought to prevent Ukraine and Georgia from even making it onto the agenda for the Bucharest summit. When Nuland and her team would manage to defeat Germany on a specific question, they would joyfully write to Washington that Brandenburg was "stone-faced" or was "visibly unhappy."

The kid gloves had long since been taken off. "We aren't alone, but we are exposed. The result will have an effect on our status in NATO," Brandenburg noted. The Germans and their allies had to face accusations that they were primarily concerned about their economic interests in Russia, says Zatlers. Minor episodes he had experienced reinforced that impression. During his first visit to Berlin, he says, Merkel opened their discussion by asking whether he was opposed or in favor of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. That was apparently the most important issue from the chancellor's perspective. And it was clear what she wanted to hear: The pipeline is a super idea.

"Some harbor the suspicion that we and others have conceded zones of influence to Russia," Brandenburg wrote to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin. Still today, all German participants continue to deny that such suspicions were at all justified. According to a U.S. cable from Warsaw, Polish diplomats at the time even went so far as to advance a claim that bordered on character assassination – namely that Foreign Minister Steinmeier was profiting financially from Nord Stream, just like his friend Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor who Steinmeier had served as head of the Chancellery. Still, Warsaw wasn't interested in a blanket boycott of Russian natural gas, they just wanted the pipelines to run through Poland.

Ambassador Brandenburg, for his part, introduced the horrific scenario of a political partitioning of Ukraine. The German diplomat told his American counterpart face-to-face that it was "impossible to have security in Europe without Russia, and foolish to try to have it against Russia." The sentiment was a classic mantra from Merkel's and Steinmeier's relations with Moscow – one that is today considered to be one of the greatest failures of the Merkel era.

Evil Spirits

Washington, D.C., White House, February 2008

With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq dominating the headlines, President Bush had long paid little attention to the issue of Ukraine. But the letter from Kyiv changed that. Fundamentally, the Texan received European countries interested in joining NATO with open arms. Bush was a believer in the American mission of bringing democracy to the world and had bipartisan support on the issue in Congress, with Democratic Senator Joe Biden, the current U.S. president, leading the way. Yushchenko was seen as a hero by many in the U.S., with influential Democrats and Republicans even nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize following the Orange Revolution.

Bush was aware of Ukraine's corruption problems, but he hoped that the prospect of NATO membership would accelerate reforms in Kyiv and also prompt Moscow to pursue a less aggressive course against Ukraine and Georgia. The Americans told the Germans over and over again that under no circumstances could the impression be created that Kyiv and Tbilisi were being denied MAP status out of consideration for Moscow's sensitivities.

There were, however, also warnings from intelligence agents, diplomats and ministers. U.S. Ambassador to Moscow William Burns, who is now director of the CIA, wrote that NATO membership for Ukraine was the "brightest of all red lines" for the Russian elite (not just Putin). The Russian president, he noted, had no flexibility on the issue. Burns recommended that MAP status for Ukraine be delayed, arguing that the West needed Russian cooperation on a number of other issues, such as Iran.

[...]

Still, Bush stayed true to his line, and administration staff believe that's because of the neo-conservative advisers lined up behind Vice President Dick Cheney. Still today, Cheney is seen as the black hat in the Bush administration who pushed the U.S. into the illegal invasion of Iraq and the torture program that damaged America's reputation for years.

Even before German reunification in 1990, Cheney – who was U.S. secretary of defense at the time – was eyeing NATO's eastward expansion because he didn't trust the Russians. He also wanted to prevent a second superpower from ever again posing a threat to U.S. hegemony, and thus sought to pursue the enlargement of NATO, which had lost some of its importance with the end of the Cold War. It proved advantageous that Central and Eastern European countries sided reliably with the U.S. when it came to conflicts within the alliance. NATO Ambassador Nuland in Brussels had once been a member of Cheney's staff.

Officially, the Americans insisted that Ukraine was making its own sovereign decisions on the NATO issue, but many German diplomats and politicians harbored suspicions that Washington was seeking to enlarge its own sphere of influence. When it came to the issue of MAP status, scoffed a Foreign Ministry staffer in Berlin, Ukraine was receiving "a lot of support, except from its own people."

This impression was strengthened by a number of minor episodes. When the U.S. government learned that Prime Minister Tymoshenko was hesitant on the MAP issue, Secretary of State Rice took it upon herself to speak with her – the Germans learned from a source in the U.S. capital. Rice apparently wanted to get the Ukrainians back in line. A Merkel administration staffer says that on the Ukraine issue, the Americans were motivated by "ideology and great power aspirations." In the German guidelines for Bucharest, the first item in the list of German interests is the sentence: "Maintain a sense of proportion in expanding NATO's regional and functional role."

[...]

In the German Foreign Ministry guidelines for the Bucharest summit, beneath the heading "our interests," is the sentence: "Minimize strains in the relationship to RUS," the abbreviation for Russia. In his public comments, Steinmeier would say that the West was already in conflict with Moscow on a number of issues, such as Kosovo. He therefore saw "no compelling reason" to open up an additional disagreement.

Soon, it became clear to the Americans that Steinmeier could not be moved. Bush would have to negotiate with Merkel personally, at the top. He called her at least three times in the run-up to Bucharest, and he asked allies to also call Berlin.

Merkel responded to the efforts with humor. According to someone familiar with the conversation, she told him: "George, I've noticed that you have asked other Europeans to call me as well. And when they do, I ask them: Are you calling on George's behalf? And then I know that they are. It makes no difference if you call yourself or if others do. I've thought things through carefully. It is not a tactical position, I am convinced of that. You shouldn't think that I am one of those people who say something different before the summit than they do at the summit." That's how someone present at the time recalls the conversation.

Bush took her recalcitrance in stride. He had always told Merkel that he had no problem with being openly contradicted. His falling out with Gerhard Schröder over the war in Iraq, Bush said, only came about because Schröder had lied to him – which Schröder denies. And Merkel did contradict him openly.

The chancellor had her doubts about Ukraine's democratic maturity. She was also concerned about Russia's Black Sea fleet, the contractually agreed headquarters of which was on the Crimean Peninsula, which would become NATO territory if Ukraine were to accede. She pointed to the North Atlantic Treaty, which founded the NATO alliance and limits membership to countries that can "contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area." Nobody, Merkel felt, could seriously claim that the clause applied to Ukraine and Georgia. Furthermore, countries involved in regional conflicts should not be allowed to join, she emphasized – and Georgia was involved in a spat with Moscow over two provinces that wanted to escape the clutches of Tbilisi.

When Bush called, the Germans got the impression that the chancellor's arguments were having an effect on the American president.

It was also true that Merkel, head of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, would be facing a re-election campaign one year down the road and had very little room for maneuver. Following a visit to Berlin, a senior U.S. diplomat reported that among leading members of German parliament, he was unable to find anybody who shared Washington's position on Ukraine. George W. Bush's America was seen by many in Berlin as violence prone and unpredictable – and many members of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) hadn't forgotten that when it came to efforts aimed at preventing the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Putin had stood by Germany's side. In 2007, SPD parliamentary group leader Peter Struck said that Germany should maintain the "same proximity" to Washington and Moscow. Or the same distance, depending on your interpretation.

Bucharest, Palace of Parliament, April 2, 2008

"This Is Getting Ugly"

On the German delegation's outbound flight to the NATO summit in Bucharest, many conversations centered on the French. Steinmeier was apparently concerned. Would Sarkozy cave to pressure from the Americans? If he did, it would be difficult for the Germans to prevent NATO's eastward expansion.

The summit began with a number of dinners. NATO heads of state and government convened at Cotroceni Palace, the official residence of the Romanian president, while the defense ministers and the foreign ministers, including Steinmeier, attended separate dinners at the Palace of Parliament. The foreign ministers had been charged with discussing eastward enlargement – and, of course, with working on the Germans, who were seeking to block it. Steinmeier would later say that it was the worst evening of his tenure at the Foreign Ministry.

There are no minutes available from the meetings, and events can only be reconstructed through the memories of attendees. According to those recollections, Rice asked her German colleague to speak first, then the Central and Eastern Europeans. She wanted to have the last word.

The heads of state from Central and Eastern Europe had already taken a close look at how West Germany joined NATO in 1955. When Steinmeier said that Georgia could not become a NATO member as long as the "frozen conflict" with its two provinces remained unresolved, things started "getting ugly," according to Rice. The foreign ministers of Poland and the Czech Republic along with Rice attacked Steinmeier sharply. Divided Germany had itself been a "frozen conflict," they said, and the Germans should be happy that no one back then had the mindset that Berlin has now.

[...]

Tears of Anger

Bucharest, Palace of Parliament, April 3, 2008

The working session of the North Atlantic Council began at 8:55 a.m. in a vast hall with a dove-blue carpet, marble columns and crystal chandeliers. Merkel vs. Bush, it was like "High Noon," recounts Volker Stanzel, who was director of the Political Affairs Division at the German Foreign Ministry at the time.

Heads of state and government were sitting at the circular table, with Steinmeier next to Merkel. Behind them were the delegations, comprised of more than 100 politicians, military officers, diplomats and advisers. As the leaders gave their speeches up front, handwritten proposals were being passed around in the background, airing ideas on the search for a way out of the impasse.

According to Heusgen's account, Rice even broke down in tears because the Germans were being so tough. Another witness says they were tears of anger. Speaking to the press later, the U.S. secretary of state praised the Central and Eastern European allies as welcome "new blood" in NATO. She described them as "people who understand what it was to live under tyranny" – clearly a barb against the West Germans.

It was an unusual situation. Normally, staffers prepare summit agreements, leaving it to their bosses to resolve the final points of disagreement. In Bucharest, though, Merkel and the others had to do the groundwork themselves. But they made no progress. It was Bush with the Canadians and the Central and Eastern Europeans on one side, and Merkel with most Western and Southern Europeans on the other. There was talk of a serious historical mistake by the Germans, of ingratitude, of emboldening Russia. Bush let the Germans know that he had already promised everything to the Ukrainians and the Georgians and couldn't back out now. That, at least, was the version propagated by the Germans.

Draft talking points for Merkel, in turn, proposed that her main argument should be that "every step this alliance takes should mean more security and stability," which is "very much in the common interest." Countries involved in regional or internal conflicts, the draft read, could not become members of the alliance.

Around noon, everyone had to leave the hall except for the heads of state and government, the foreign ministers and the closest staff members. The sound in the side rooms, where some diplomats sat, was turned off.

It was the last round in Bucharest.

Merkel and Bush agreed that the Russians could be given no veto power over NATO matters. When Merkel said that Ukraine and Georgia could certainly become NATO members, just not now, Bush saw it as a possible compromise formulation. But Poland's Kaczyński intervened: "We want MAP now."

The meeting was adjourned, at first for only 30 minutes, but then for an hour. Confusion spread through the room. Many noticed Bush slouching at the conference table – and his reticence. As the Central and Eastern Europeans gathered in the corner of the hall, the U.S. president remained seated, leaving the initiative to Merkel. The situation left one member of the German delegation later wondering: When the leader of the Western world really wants something, after all, he usually gets it.

The chancellor finally joined the Central and Eastern European leaders. By all accounts, she showed understanding. She was a skilled mediator and she knew the region from her travels as a student during East German times. Her paternal grandfather was also originally from Poland. Then-Latvian President Zatlers recalls appreciatively that the chancellor was the only one who wanted to know why MAP was so important to them.

[...]

With the situation growing heated, the German side would say afterwards, the impulsive Polish leader Kaczyński even sought to intimidate the German chancellor, despite her larger stature.

But Merkel was already prepared to make compromises. A German draft explicitly stated that Ukraine and Georgia would "one day become members of NATO." Germany was not fundamentally opposed, but wanted the MAP process to be slowed down. Rice walked over to Bush. The president said he could live with that.

But the Central and Eastern Europeans countered that "one day" actually meant never, and Merkel ultimately deleted the two words, though she also refrained from making any concrete promises. The Germans, after all, had plenty of experience with non-binding membership promises, having held Turkey's European Union bid at arm's length for decades. And thus, the upshot from Bucharest was that NATO would, at some point, welcome two new members. The foreign ministers were to deliberate again in December 2008. For the time being, the subject was closed.

At 2:04 p.m., Merkel and Sarkozy appeared together before the press.

Bush, together with the Central and Eastern Europeans, was able to claim that they had achieved more than expected. Normally, a commitment to allow a country to join NATO came at the end of the accession process – and not at the beginning. Rice and others later gave the impression that Merkel, as a German, had probably not properly understood what she had written in English, namely: a clear commitment. The Germans, in turn, could claim that they had prevented the immediate accession of Ukraine and Georgia.

From the internal policy perspective of the West, Bucharest was a reasonable compromise, for which Merkel received praise from German media, from the mass-circulation Bild newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, the Süddeutsche Zeitung and also DER SPIEGEL.

Putin's Appearance

Bucharest, Palace of Parliament

April 4, 2008

The Russian president is notoriously late, and in Bucharest, he kept the assembled heads of state and government waiting for 40 minutes. NATO leaders should not have accepted the delay, Zatlers says today. And they certainly should not have accepted the speech Putin delivered, he adds. Bucharest, the Latvian says, "was a low point in the history of NATO."

Putin described Ukraine as a "very complicated state," stitched together from Polish, Czechoslovak, Romanian and, particularly, Russian territory. A state with a Russian minority, the size of which he greatly exaggerated. Above all, though, he took aim at Crimea. He said it had wound up in the hands of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic through an arbitrary act by the Soviet Politburo which, although true, sounded disturbing in the context. Although Russia has no right to veto NATO membership, Putin noted, the Russian leader threatened that if Ukraine joined the alliance, it could jeopardize the existence of the state.

[...]

Bush, though, remained silent, which Zatlers still believes was a mistake. The leader of the free world, he says, failed to stand up to Putin. Bush continued onward to Sochi following the Bucharest summit for his last state visit to Russia, clearly eager to avoid controversy. In Sochi, Putin went even further in his talks with the American than he had at the NATO summit. "You don't understand, George, that Ukraine isn't even a state," he told Bush.

Speaking to the press, the U.S. President said: "The Cold War is over." Some of the Texan's staffers had the feeling that his efforts before and in Bucharest had only served to allow the president to say afterwards that he had tried everything to get Ukraine into NATO.

And how did the Germans react? "Putin's speech was largely brushed off," says one participant, adding that many seemed to think it was just talk. "Plus, everyone was looking at their watches because they wanted to get home." It was Friday, after all.

Merkel told journalists that she had been unable to detect "any kind of aggression" in Putin's words and that the focus should be on the "constructive elements." It was a position that Berlin adhered to for far too long.

[...]

And the Ukrainians? After Bucharest, President Yushchenko tried to change public opinion in his country in order to address the concerns held by Berlin. The cabinet in Kyiv allotted additional funding to public relations work and established an inter-ministerial working group. And Yushchenko's party launched a campaign promoting NATO membership. The plan had been for the share of Ukrainians supporting NATO accession to rise – to 43 percent in 2009, then 50 percent in 2010, and finally 55 percent in 2011. U.S. Ambassador Nuland was ecstatic, and many member states said they would offer their support to the government in Kyiv, with Germany apparently among them.

But the efforts fizzled out. In 2010, reformer Yushchenko failed badly in his re-election bid and Yanukovych, the Russian ally, beat out Tymoshenko in a run-off election – bringing the NATO accession project to an end. Latvian ex-president Zatlers nonetheless sees Bucharest as a "missed chance." He believes that Ukrainian attitudes toward NATO would have slowly shifted had the alliance sent a positive signal to Kyiv during the summit.

The path laid in Bucharest in 2008 didn't necessarily lead to today's war in Ukraine. And yet the summit in Bucharest resulted in the worst of two worlds, Ambassador Burns believes. The Ukrainians and Georgians had been indulged in hopes of NATO membership, which the West was unlikely to deliver. And the summit also reinforced Putin's sense that the West was pursuing a course he saw as an existential threat.

As such, Merkel, Steinmeier and their allies must live under a cloud of suspicion that despite their good intentions, they ultimately sacrificed both Georgia and Ukraine. Putin, at least, hasn't yet dared to attack a NATO member.

When Yanukovych was officially inaugurated as the president of Ukraine in 2010, there was a delay and Zatlers had to wait with the other guests. By chance, he found himself standing next to members of the Russian delegation, who apparently either didn't recognize him or didn't realize that he spoke Russian. The delegates from Moscow openly congratulated each other on Yanukovych's success in Kyiv. "Everything is going according to plan," one said. For Zatlers, it is proof that Putin's so-called "special operation" against Ukraine had already begun. It just hadn't yet reached the battlefield.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/ukraine-how-merkel-prevented-ukraine-s-nato-membership-a-der-spiegel-reconstruction-a-c7f03472-2a21-4e4e-b905-8e45f1fad542

Edited September 26, 2023 by BansheeOne

[Roman Alymov]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/15/bribes-and-hiding-at-home-the-ukrainian-men-trying-to-avoid-conscription

Bribes and hiding at home: the Ukrainian men trying to avoid conscription
Some are spending life savings to stay out of the war, but such actions are seen as treasonous by those already fighting

Shaun Walker in Odesa and Jamie Wilson
Tue 15 Aug 2023 06.00 BST
At the last military checkpoint before he exited Ukraine in April, a 39-year-old man from Odesa handed over papers showing he had a serious spinal injury, thus exempting him from military service and from the ban on adult men leaving the country.

“One of the soldiers said, ‘That hospital really likes this diagnosis, huh?’” recalled the man. “I could see they knew exactly what was going on, and it wasn’t the first time. But they were powerless to do anything, so waved me through,” he said.

The man, who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter, admitted that he had paid a $5,000 bribe to escape a potential draft into the Ukrainian army and service on the front lines in the war with Russia.

“I knew there was no way I would be able to sit in a trench, so I took my savings and contacted a ‘fixer’. Everyone knows where to find them. I paid in cash, they sent me to a hospital to do a spinal MRI; the hospital gave me a medical report claiming I had a major spinal defect, and with that I could get papers allowing me to leave the country. I had the feeling that, at every stage of the way, people knew what was happening and were getting a cut,” said the man.

The whole process took two weeks; the man was able to leave Ukraine and now lives elsewhere in Europe.

A billboard in Odesa
Billboards in Odesa call on men to join the army and defend Ukraine, but the city has become a hub for people trying to avoid the draft. Photograph: Nina Liashonok/Future Publishing/Getty Images
It is believed that tens of thousands of Ukrainian men have left the country illegally since the full-scale war with Russia started last February, many by paying bribes. On Friday, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, fired every regional military recruitment head in the country, citing endemic corruption in the apparatus.

“This system should be run by people who know exactly what war is and why cynicism and bribery during war is treason,” he said in a video address.

Odesa has emerged as a particular hotspot for draft evasion schemes, with a recruitment official arrested after he was found to have $5m in savings and a lavish property in Spain. But across Ukraine, there are reports of corrupt officials willing to take bribes from people eager to buy their way out of the draft. There are more than 100 other criminal proceedings against enlistment officials.

“The cynicism is the same everywhere,” Zelenskiy said on Friday. “Illicit enrichment, legalisation of illegally obtained funds, unlawful benefit, illegal transfer of persons liable for military service across the border.”

While the corruption scandal has made headlines, it hints at an even more troubling story for Ukraine as the country approaches the 18-month mark since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion.

In the first weeks after the invasion, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Ukrainians volunteered to serve at the front in an explosion of patriotism that helped keep the country independent and fight off the initial attack.

More than a year later, however, many of those initial recruits are now dead, wounded or simply exhausted, and the army needs new recruits to fill the ranks. By now, most of those who want to fight have already signed up, leaving the military to recruit among a much more reluctant pool of men.

Fathers of more than three children, people with disabilities and those working in strategically important jobs are exempt from the draft, but everyone else is expected to join up if called. Crews of mobilisation officers roam the streets and sometimes go door to door to hand out notices. Viral videos show officers bundling men into vans to deposit them at enlistment offices.

Some Ukrainian men say they would not relish receiving mobilisation papers, but would accept it if called, as a part of life in a country at war. But others are desperate to avoid receiving draft papers, and not everyone can afford a $5,000 (£3,945) bribe.

In Odesa, like in most Ukrainian cities, a Telegram chat group serves as a forum for people to share anonymised data about where recruitment officers, known informally as “olives” due to the colour of their uniforms, can be found on any given day. The group has more than 30,000 members.

Video purports to show man being dragged into van by conscription officers in Odesa – video
00:59
Video purports to show man being dragged into van by conscription officers in Odesa – video
Every few minutes, a new tipoff drops: “Pishonivska Street 37. The olives have arrived”. “There’s a bus of olives outside the market; six olives walking around inside handing out papers.”

Other people simply stay at home. A factory owner in eastern Ukraine said the threat of being grabbed by conscription officers on the morning commute meant some workers were too scared to go to work.
He said: “I met a guy who told me he was taken from the street and within a week his unit was starting to attack a village near Bakhmut. And he told me ‘What the fuck – it is the first time I picked up a rifle and after a week I go to attack this village’. He was shot twice, once in the arm and once in the back.”

Mobilised recruits receive several weeks of training before being sent to the front. Many are sent to Britain for brief courses in the essentials of frontline combat, although the training often appears to be rudimentary.

In Lviv, one man who was served with mobilisation papers outside a supermarket in the city said he was conscripted, sent to Britain for training, dispatched to the frontline and then wounded all within a two-month time span.

The stakes have left many people reluctant to comply with mobilisation calls, and those who receive the initial set of papers often lock themselves away to avoid being dragged to the recruitment office.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has taken steps to end corruption in military recruitment by firing regional leaders on Friday. Photograph: Ukrainian Presidential Press SER/AFP/Getty Images
“There are two categories of people – one is already in the army and the other is too scared to go outside so as not to be conscripted, and no salary will make them leave their houses,” said the factory owner.

One young woman, who like most people when speaking about mobilisation requested to remain anonymous, recalled a scene in Kyiv earlier in the summer at a nightclub in the capital.

A few minutes after 10pm, when bars and clubs are required by law to close during wartime, the club was raided by armed men in uniform, who told the women to leave. They then handed all the men conscription notices.

“My husband has an important job for his company so he has an exemption, but my visiting friend did not, and he was terrified. He has gone back to his small town and has been sitting at home, scared to go out, ever since,” the woman said.

Many Ukrainians who have been serving since the start of the war see avoiding the draft as nothing short of treasonous. The country’s political leadership said it recognised the mobilisation process was difficult, and wants to avoid excess zeal in recruitment, but said Ukraine had little choice but to continue conscription if the army is to stand up to Russia, which has mobilised hundreds of thousands of men since the start of the war.

“Of course it’s hard to expect people to be positive about mobilisation,” admitted Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskiy, in a recent interview in Kyiv.

“The people who went first were those who had this internal call, who were the most patriotic, but they are there for 17 months and we need rotation. Of course it’s scary, it could mean death or disability. It’s the 21st century, you finished university, you were trying to get a job, and now you have to take a gun and defend your home. But the president is trying to talk to society, to explain what is at stake,” he said.

[Stefan Kotsch]

5 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

Bribes and hiding at home: the Ukrainian men trying to avoid conscription

@Roman Alymov Mother RODINA is calling you! 

[glenn239]

2 hours ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

I didn't ask that.

But this:

What do you mean by that? Every state should bow to Russia's will? Preventive and precautionary?
Should the old communist Stalinist KGB officers in the world determine where states are allowed to develop?

I warned you for five years prior that if Ukraine got into a war with Russia that it could lose everything.  You didn't listen to a word of it.  Now it's increasingly possible Ukraine will lose everything, and you trot out philosophical questions about whether it was weak and small Ukraine's job to fight on behalf of the world for fear of stop Russian aggression elsewhere.    The answer is no, it was not Ukraine's job to decide its course based on the nebulous criteria you outline.  Ukraine's choice solely was whether appeasement or war would be better for Ukraine in the crisis it faced.  

 

 

 

 

 

  

[Detonable]

On 9/18/2023 at 1:58 PM, Roman Alymov said:

Meanwhile central Donetsk under HIMARS strikes, as usual. "Arrivals" is direct translation of Russian slang for incoming shells, "volfram" is tungsten

 

  What is HBN on the billboard 30 seconds in?

[KV7]

4 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

Coup by whom? If by pro-Western forces - it makes no sence as they are allready in power, so why overthrow themselves? If by pro-Russian forces  - it is highly unlikely since for last 30 years the whole "vertical of power" was constructed of people loyal to pro-Western forces (or, at least, very well hiding their real beliefs). Of course there could be skirmishes between "towers of Kremlin" for the role of Kronprinz, but it is not major political change.

One remote possibility is some division between those in power, where one faction adopts a more populist message, along the lines of what Putin did in the late 1990's. If this involves empowering actual populist-nationalist forces, it might lead to some change. In the late 1990's, these did not really exist, except perhaps in the CP form. But I have no idea if these are a force today.

One thing that I seem to notice is that Russian non-liberal dissident (populist-nationalist ?) commentators are very pessimistic, almost as if they are setting up some narrative along the lines of "we tried but it was really impossible, it was a noble but doomed attempt to fix our society" which seems also to present a little in your commentary. 

[Roman Alymov]

4 hours ago, Detonable said:

  What is HBN on the billboard 30 seconds in?

Beauty studio in central Donetsk

 

[Ssnake]

22 hours ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

the extreme fortification of the current defense line by Russia shows that they now want to hold on to what they have conquered.

That's literally textbook Clausewitz for the aggressor.

[KV7]

1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

That's literally textbook Clausewitz for the aggressor.

I am not familiar enough to comment, but defensive works in theory would allow reduced troop concentrations in those areas, and that can allow for greater concentrations elsewhere for some offensive. So the construction of defensive works cannot be good evidence for a lack of offensive intent, but could indicate a willingness to make an offensive more safe from counterattacks conducted at other points of the line. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

12 hours ago, glenn239 said:

I've warned you for maybe five years that if Ukraine got into a war with Russia, they were risking everything.  

They have been in a war with Russia for the past 9 fucking years. Was I the only one who noticed?

[ink]

2 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

They have been in a war with Russia for the past 9 fucking years. Was I the only one who noticed?

See Spiegel seems to think the war started in 2008 😋

[seahawk]

8 hours ago, glenn239 said:

I warned you for five years prior that if Ukraine got into a war with Russia that it could lose everything.  You didn't listen to a word of it.  Now it's increasingly possible Ukraine will lose everything, and you trot out philosophical questions about whether it was weak and small Ukraine's job to fight on behalf of the world for fear of stop Russian aggression elsewhere.    The answer is no, it was not Ukraine's job to decide its course based on the nebulous criteria you outline.  Ukraine's choice solely was whether appeasement or war would be better for Ukraine in the crisis it faced. 

  

Ukraine should have been settled peacefully, because now it is only the beginning of series of long wars. Russia will take control of all Soviet territories. Russia now sees that the west is bend on destroying Russia and the only way to protect Russia is to widen Russian influence and create a large buffer zone. The final objective should be reseting the clock to 1980 and have the frontline well within Western Europe. Western aggression has given Europe a war that will last decades.

[Stuart Galbraith]

7 hours ago, glenn239 said:

I warned you for five years prior that if Ukraine got into a war with Russia that it could lose everything.  You didn't listen to a word of it.  Now it's increasingly possible Ukraine will lose everything, and you trot out philosophical questions about whether it was weak and small Ukraine's job to fight on behalf of the world for fear of stop Russian aggression elsewhere.    The answer is no, it was not Ukraine's job to decide its course based on the nebulous criteria you outline.  Ukraine's choice solely was whether appeasement or war would be better for Ukraine in the crisis it faced.  

 

 

 

 

 

  

Oh, now you are claiming the mantle of Tankets Nostradamus.

Lets say I warned, for 9 years, ad nauseum, the threat Russia presented to the West. You all laughed and mocked. You in particular Glenn were obsessed with the idea I wanted a war with Russia. In fact I was convinced the ONLY way we would avoid a war with Russia was by seriously arming up, and giving as much help to Ukraine as we possibly could. We failed to do that, just as you and you other arch appeasers wanted. And we got a war, just as I predicted. Well, it wasnt such out of left field prediction looking back.

No, it doesnt make me Nostradamus. It does me capable of observing the bleeding obvious and calling it how I see it, which seems to still be wholly beyond some on the grate site, whom seem to observe reality through the obfuscative fluff in their navel.

You havent predicted anything. You didnt predict just how generally nasty Putin was. You didnt predict the arms buildup. You didnt predict Crimea. You didnt pedict the war of attrition in the Donbas. You didnt predict the invasion, and christ almightly, there was more than enough indicators of those. I think only Josh here got that one right.

So pardon me If I look on your claiming the mantle of Tanknets wise man with incredulity. You are of course entitled to your opinion, and as always I respect it. I dont respect the certainty that you are always right, when you invariably arent.

1 minute ago, ink said:

See Spiegel seems to think the war started in 2008 😋

It depends how you define it. Putin certainly started trying to shake up his armed forces on that date, and of course he invaded Georgia at that time. Its as good a date as any.

For me, Ive never liked, respected or thought the best of Putin, so for me thats what, 23 years now? Certainly since Litvinenko anyway. But If im honest, the turning point came in 2007, at the Munich security conference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Munich_speech_of_Vladimir_Putin

That was, one way or another, a declaration of war. We just were too dumb as rocks to listen to it. Even now we dont seem to quite get it.

Putin is at war with our values. That he isnt bombing us yet, doesnt mean he isnt employing all the means he can to destroy them.

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 minute ago, seahawk said:

Ukraine should have been settled peacefully, because now it is only the beginning of series of long wars. Russia will take control of all Soviet territories. Russia now sees that the west is bend on destroying Russia and the only way to protect Russia is to widen Russian influence and create a large buffer zone. The final objective should be reseting the clock to 1980 and have the frontline well within Western Europe. Western aggression has given Europe a war that will last decades.

That would mean reinvading Afghanistan again, right?

If they start with that, im all for it personally.

 

[ink]

8 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

In fact I was convinced the ONLY way we would avoid a war with Russia was by seriously arming up, and giving as much help to Ukraine as we possibly could. We failed to do that, just as you and you other arch appeasers wanted. And we got a war, just as I predicted. Well, it wasnt such out of left field prediction looking back.

It's a bit of security dilemma, isn't it? Everything's peaceful and Russia and Germany are getting on like a house on fire but you (not you personally, the US in this case) are convinced the only way to deal with Russia is to tool up. The Russians see this, they think, "shit, these guys are out to get us" and tool up too. 

Never ends well.

Anyway, we can argue til the cows come home about who started tooling up first but it doesn't matter ultimately, does it?

Makes me have a lot of sympathy with Merkel (for all her many faults). She saw it all spelled disaster and turned to the only trick she had to stop it. Now she's under fire for trying to turn the heat down on a geopolitical confrontation of epic proportions - which is ridiculous, frankly, as that's ultimately the only moral path to take.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Except, it was fairly obvious, even with a fairly cursory glance of the security situation post 2007, nobody was getting on with Russia. Why the need for a reset button if they were?

Do you forget Alexander LItvinenko? The poisoning of him with Polonium 210, in central London. They irradiated a restaurant in Central London, as well as a London hotel. Not to mention the airliner seat on the way there.It reinforced an opinion of mine that was underlined when the Salisbury incident occurred. A leadership that is crazy enough to do this, is crazy enough to do anything. I pointed that out in 2018. Who listened?

Russia created its own insecurity by invading its neighbours, or trying to intimidate them into compliance. Nobody forced them to do it, not NATO, not the international security situation. If they hadnt, NATO would have disappeared. You can read the threads from 10 years ago, proposing we dispose of NATO. Who was it that made it relevant? And wouldnt NATO have done its primary mission so very much better, if we had tooled up in the expectation Putin was going to try something? If nothing else, Ukraine right now would have a considerably bigger pool of equipment to reclaim its territory.

We dont need to argue about it, we know who started rearming first. It was Russia. We were busy trying to convert our armies into light infantry to fight the war on terror.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Russian_military_reform#:~:text=Key elements of the reforms announced in October,staff%3B 7 elimination of cadre-strength formations%3B More items

And whilst most people would say 'he is reducing troops, that isnt rearming!', in reality it was to free up considerable sums to reinvest in the military, and buy the high tech equipment to compete with the West. This was obvious at the time. But who else called it as such? Certainly not Bush, certainly not Obama. They were really only interested in the Pacific.

Merkel is typical of lazy, self centred, complacent leadership that led us up the blind alley of trusting Putin. None of this was doomed to happen. Our unintelligent, vote obsessed leaders made it so. Russia would never have competed with us if we had correctly inrepreted what he was doing say, 2009, 2010, and we met the challenge, not least through energy diversification. Instead we waited till Crimea, and even then, we are still haphazardly meeting the challenge, with nothing like the weight in resources we could, or should have committed.

Wars are not there to be fought. They are there to be deterred, and if you didnt deter them, then ultimately its your own fault. You dont deter a damn thing from disarming, and that, until very late in the day, is precisely what most of Europe, and to a considerable extent America too, has done.

Ultimately Its not Russias fault, its ours for leaving the gate unlocked and telling them we had fallen asleep in the snow.

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Stuart Galbraith

[ink]

I don't know about that sequence of events. Who withdrew from the ABM treaty, for example? And when?

I remember rather a lot of tension since then over the US ABM shield and where radars would be sited.

That all went down rather early on in the game ... and continued through your kick-off date in 2007.

Also, building an ABM shield that obviously antagonises your "counterpart" (not to say, "opponent") doesn't sound much like beating swords into ploughshares to me.

Anyway, Russia helped the US quite a lot in Afghanistan initially*. Where and when did that good will evaporate?

 

* Indeed, not just initially.

[ink]

As an addendum to the above:

Given how successful fundamental and deep-rooted trade relationships had proven to be in toning down European security dilemmas, and how beneficial for all of Europe it would be if Russia could be dealt with peacefully, I can't see what other option Merkel had. A bit hard on a German chancellor to suggest that they should jump on the US bandwagon and start arming against enemies in the East without first giving diplomacy a go.

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 minutes ago, ink said:

I don't know about that sequence of events. Who withdrew from the ABM treaty, for example? And when?

I remember rather a lot of tension since then over the US ABM shield and where radars would be sited.

That all went down rather early on in the game ... and continued through your kick-off date in 2007.

Also, building an ABM shield that obviously antagonises your "counterpart" (not to say, "opponent") doesn't sound much like beating swords into ploughshares to me.

Anyway, Russia helped the US quite a lot in Afghanistan initially*. Where and when did that good will evaporate?

 

* Indeed, not just initially.

The ABM treaty was a huge mistake. I called it at the time, to general Tanknet mockery from the smart guys who supposedly knew better

. The problem comes when you recognise that the Russian have far more offensive firepower than could ever possibly be overcome by a European based ABM. I qualify this as clueless on Bush's part, but not a gamechanger. And its worth remembering, the Russians were perfectly in favour of it, at long as the radar for it was based on Russian territory. So the Americans went on a tour of the site they proposed for it, and it was derelict. They were basically looking for the Americans to build an ABM to warn them of America attacking them, so not surprisingly the Americans could see it was a shakedown, and said no thanks.

Answer me this. If this WAS the cause of the dispute, then why did Russia continue to enable Western Units to transit through Russian territory, and use former Soviet bases, in Uzbekistan IIRC, to get to Afghanistan? Wouldnt that be the logical first thing to shut off?

Imho, its a contrived dispute, to drive a wedge between the west and Russia. If you think about it, just as China is currentlydiscovering, if Russia prospered and became more interdependent with the west, then it must politicaly liberalize. To trade with the west, that is precisely what happens, you adopt western practices. And for the guys Putin represents, who like to shake down businesses, apply arbitrary violence, then this simply wouldnt do. Like the Chicoms are finding, it suddenly makes them irrelevant. So, dispute with teh west has to come. But dont interefere with our nice rate of return on our western bank accounts.

None of this means Putin didnt want to acquire Ukraine or Belarus. Im quite sure he did. Im saying the start of the dispute was very convienient for a man trying to establish his control over Russia, which is essentially how he used it. 'You want rights like a westerner? You are gay homosex Nazi!' It just wrote itself from that point on.

[Stuart Galbraith]

7 minutes ago, ink said:

As an addendum to the above:

Given how successful fundamental and deep-rooted trade relationships had proven to be in toning down European security dilemmas, and how beneficial for all of Europe it would be if Russia could be dealt with peacefully, I can't see what other option Merkel had. A bit hard on a German chancellor to suggest that they should jump on the US bandwagon and start arming against enemies in the East without first giving diplomacy a go.

As you can read from what I wrote, I think it was the deep rooted trade relationships that were the problem.

Even there are problems. See the Russians laying down the terms of the relationship, by demanding payment in roubles? So, not exactly 'free trade' at all is it?

Merkel grew up in the East, and like many people that grew up there, they still see Russia in a light that the rest of us in the West do not. And ultimately it turned out to be a false light, like most other people seemed to see in 1989.

Its not about jumping on an American bandwagon. The Americans were at least as much as a sellout to Russia as the Europeans were. The point was about perceiving the danger, and doing something about it, and clearly nobody in Europe (other than commenably Poland and the Scandinavians) were inclined to see it that way. We were all making too much money, without seeing that we were not liberalising Russia through trade, just in the same way we made precisely the same mistake with China.

[ink]

16 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

 

Answer me this. If this WAS the cause of the dispute, then why did Russia continue to enable Western Units to transit through Russian territory, and use former Soviet bases, in Uzbekistan IIRC, to get to Afghanistan? Wouldnt that be the logical first thing to shut off?

 

It's possible - not to say child's play - to spin that whichever way one wants. I could easily say, for example, that Russia was concerned about the ABM thing, that US assurances that it was aimed at Iran were unconvincing, but that it still held out hope that, by offering an olive branch and helping the US fight world terrorism, it could still repair the relationship and that everyone could be friends again.

Let's not forget that it was only a year or two before the ABM treaty was cancelled that (worried, I assume, about threat of an unstable power transition) the US and UK helped Yeltsin install Putin as his successor.

Jesus, I'm starting to sound like Roman. See what you did Stuart? 

Edited September 26, 2023 by ink

[Stuart Galbraith]

Lets look at it the other way. If they didnt want ABM on their doorstep, they could have been partners in stopping Iran getting the bomb. Instead, they prefer to arm Iran with long range air defence missiles, so they can get the bomb. Talk about making your own problem.

Im convinced you are Romans alter Ego, when he is trying to sound reasonable. Just kidding.

Im not saying we got everything right. We clearly did not. Im just saying that for every mistake we made, there was a Russian regime disposed to spin everything in the worst possible light. Conversely, no matter what Putin did, which was bad mostly, we were headed by people disposed to see Putin's actions in the best possible light.

There was a BBC documentary on the lead up to Ukraine, and it was impeccably produced, but I coudlnt watch it. I couldnt stand the fatuousness of David Cameron and the other European leaders explaining why they couldnt see what was self evident in front of their faces.

[Yama]

55 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

The ABM treaty was a huge mistake. I called it at the time, to general Tanknet mockery from the smart guys who supposedly knew better

. The problem comes when you recognise that the Russian have far more offensive firepower than could ever possibly be overcome by a European based ABM.

This is true for the first strike scenario, but not necessarily for the second strike, if we assume that say 90% of the enemy's capability is destroyed in first strike.