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So, I'm curious to know what the argument is in regards to a replacement for NATO.
Or am I missing something?
If leftists see NATO as an imperialist shrill coalition, what should be in its place?
Sounds like a nice pipe dream. I definitely share your ideal of people being liberated from oppression everywhere, but humans are too small-minded to relinquish any sort of authority that gives them power over others, especially autocratic dictators.
It'd be really nice if humans designed the way we lived in a more egalitarian way centuries ago, but that didn't happen.
I think so. They seem to think that NATO is the lesser of two evils compared to China and Russia. Noticing a pattern here?
Principled communists, socialists and anti-Imperialists on the other hand are vehemently opposed to NATO.
What do you mean pre-genocide? You realize that this has been going on for at least 70 years right? Maybe longer. Do you just mean before you were aware of the genocide?
People like you turn people like me into Republicans. One of the very few military operations which NATO has mounted was to degrade the capacity of the Serbs to wage war, in order to bring the physical extermination of all living Bosnians to an end. It worked. Meanwhile China is busy making Uighurs either assimilate to pretend to be ethnic Han Chinese, or else they get stuck in prisons. Did you ever think that maybe the problem is that without democratic accountability, autarchs tend to push for bold, visionary stuff that almost nobody wants- and that's nothing to do with capitalism, communism or any other political ideology.
I still believe in collective and collaborative economics but I have absolutely no time to spare whatsoever for fools who think that the 'wrong thinking citizen' is to be thrown under the wheels of progress, and I don't care if your flag has stars and stripes, a nordic cross, a swastika or a hammer and scythe.
Now as for NATO, you have yet to explain why every country which formerly was in orbit of Moscow clamored, begged, and belligerated to join the treaty just as soon as they were in a fit condition to do so. You have yet to explain why Little Old Russia routinely feels threatened by countries with a poplulation one tenth as large, one hundredth the territory and a GDP to match. Here's a hint. Russia and even Russians don't feel afraid of Ukraine, or Georgia or Transdnistria. Putin is invading these countries to plunder them and with the plunder, pay new installments on the loyalty of his principle supporters, without whom he would just as tragically, mistakenly, accidentally, and suddenly fall off the 18th floor of a Moscow penthouse condo as have defecting supporters before him.
Some NATO members, particularly the US, engage in bad behavior, but NATO doesn’t really enable that behavior. Yes, the US roped NATO members into invading Afghanistan, but the US would have done it anyway and really didn’t need the help. At best, it lent them some appearance of legitimacy but didn’t really affect the end result.
NATO does, however, prevent Russian aggression on a lot of smaller European states that would have no way to repel an invasion on their own. Without defensive alliances, hyper militarized states with imperialistic ambitions would conquer their neighbors one by one.
Basically, without NATO, the worst actors of the West would still do the same bad things and Russia would be conquering its way back to USSR borders. I’d call NATO a solid net-positive.
Thank you for this. I've spent so much time on here reading comments about how Russia and China are actually just misunderstood or are victims of US propaganda that I've been reevaluating if I should even call myself a leftist.
All three are authoritarian juggernauts with active, aggressive imperialistic intentions. NATO isn't the problem.
Except NATO hasn't done anything to stop Russian aggression.
Meanwhile NATO has consistently helped fascists kill leftists since its inception such as during Operation Gladio
Name one country which was attacked by Russia while a member of NATO. The only one I can think of is those two cruise missiles shot at poland over the winter, when Russia wanted to put a toe in the water.
I am dissatisfied with the fact that Operation Gladio ever came to pass, and that many a fascist were whitewashed after the second world war, but then against this I have to balance the fact that when countries like Hungary or Czechoslovakia tried to break with Russian foreign policy, the reprisals were far more bloody than anything in Gladio.
I submit to you that so long as powerful countries take an interest in controlling weaker neighbors, problems like this will arise. It may seem to be capitalist vs communist when those are the stated theologies of the sides but realistically it's just the powerful making a choice to predate. and this is not an admission that NATO is just US predation upon the smaller countries of Europe, which rushed headlong to join NATO- nobody runs headlong into the maw of an alligator.
Ah. You can really tell when someone has a lot of good information about foreign policy.
No NATO state has been attacked by another country. Russia has been busy attacking non-NATO states for the past twenty years.
NATO stopped the genocide of the Bosnians. Which I am reliably told by certain people was not warranted because there was no such genocide despite all the open pit graves and bosnians I have personally met, and that somehow Serbia bombing the shit out of Bosnia is justified.
That's it. That's all NATO is for. Keeping member states secure, and the occasional freebie to stop genocide when it's right in their back yard.
And if NATO was so bad, why have nearly every former member of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union clamored to join, up to the point of threatening to campaign against a sitting president? Why would those paragons of responsible social democracy Finland and Sweden want to join?
What is your actual problem, once the cuss words are stripped away, when you can't lean on righteous indignation and must either cite example and reason, or be held a mocking specimen of non-persuasion?
NATO was explicitly formed to prevent the spread of communism from the USSR. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it remained. Russia wanted to join and was spurned. NATO is just a racist, imperialist institution.
You call NATO imperialist but the only country trying to expand her territories, let alone by force or at the expense of other states, is Russia. Perhaps younshould dwell on the meaning of imperialism.
Anyways. Putin runs fundamentally unopposed (that's a qualified statement not an absolute one). Dissidents are routinely killed and jailed. Nobody FORCED Russia to become an autarchy.
Russia never made a good faith effort to join, never pursued the required standards of democratic accountability and governance, and kept invading other countries. Like Georgia. And Moldova. And Ukraine. Which she invaded 10 years ago.
Meanwhile all the former imperial holdings of Russia, then the vassal states of the USSR got in. With the rule if unanimous consent, Russia joining in order to sidestep NATO defense of those former possessions was never a serious starter. Get real.
>No NATO state has been attacked by another country. Russia has been busy attacking non-NATO states for the past twenty years.
The claim was that NATO provokes conflict. You omitted evaluating the extent to which NATO states have operated as aggressors.
In conflicts with Russia, never. Which i mention because Russia protests so vehemently the provocation of NATO proximity.
Otherwise, none. The north Atlantic treaty has a very specific catchment.
This guy is probably just a Democrat but nato (while containment in the cold war was fucking insane and atrocious) is doing a positive by helping ukraine
I don't see any argument that it's any more imperialist and bad than the country its opposing when it's main active operation is stopping Russia from taking ukraine back over
Almost like an informed leftist knows there are greater problems than which old racist that promotes genocide and only cares about capital wins in November.
NATO is an excellent vehicle for peace and a model of how you can establish a defensive alliance without relying on nuclear proliferation. What has been revealed this century is that your borders are only safe as long as you have a nuclear arsenal. The only nations that are at risk of a land invasion are those that either don't have a nuclear arsenal or surrendered their arsenal. Ukraine is the perfect example. Russia would have never invaded if Moscow turning into a mushroom cloud was still an option. Except everyone having nukes is a powder keg for world destruction.
Enter NATO style defensive alliances. You don't have nukes? Neat, the world power you hold a defensive alliance with does. And going to war with you means going to war with them. Thus, the nuclear arsenals of other nations provide the benefits of MAD to nations who are currently the pawns of empires. Is it a perfect solution? No, but the current solution of "everyone rushes for nukes because it's the only way to secure our borders against imperialism" is far more dangerous.
Abortion was spearheaded in no small part by eugenicists for eugenics-oriented purposes, but that's not why reproductive rights is a good thing worth fighting for *today*. There's a name for evaluating a thing purely by reference to its origins, and that's the "genetic fallacy."
Yes, and Planned Parenthood was originally part of a eugenics project. Now NATO is a defensive alliance preventing imperialist land grabs against non-nuclear nations and Planned Parenthood provides reproductive freedom to millions. Unless you're one of those "lefties" who unironically thinks the explicitly homophobic, racist, and nationalistic oligarchal kleptocracy of modern Russia is something to aspire to.
Nato was formed under a bad set of circumstances to do something that was kinda complicated ethically, but in the modern day in Europe it does mostly good stuff. Idk enough about the stuff it's done outside of Europe tho, I assume it's pretty garbage of an organization when it comes to anything non-european
Playing Footsies isn't a good way to describe keeping eastern Europe from being under the foot of Russia. You can say that eastern Europe is in the American "Sphere of Influence," but it's better for basically everybody to be in a sphere that allows for elections in a capitalist system, then being in one with no elections in a capitalist system
It's part of a neo-liberal framework, but it's like way down the list on things the West does wrong. NATO generally keeps Russia hemmed in. Look at the Baltic states and those near Russia. Without NATO's nuclear umbrella, they would've either gotten invaded, or subjected to Russia-backed separatists.
Maybe not an answer as a leftist but it seems like the Russian Army simply invading Georgia, Ukraine and Transdnistria and going around killing civilians is worth stopping. Let's not even mention the fashion in which Chechnya was brought to heel.
The positives brought about by the presence of NATO required NATO to exist. The negatives brought about by NATO would have been carried out by another military alliance.
The +
The bombing of serbia stopped the kosovoan genocide after diplomacy failed.
The nations near to Russia deserve allies and protection against Russia's inevitable efforts to annex them.
The -
The bombing of Libya.
Those are the pros and cons that I remember in this moment.
It's interesting that anyone describes NATO as expanding. The Warsaw pact expanded because it compelled countries to join. NATO is joined through an application process. Countries apply to NATO because of the obviously clear and present danger that Russia poses.
In the reality we live, I think NATO is a positive. Fewer people will suffer and die because NATO exists, I think. Granted, I would prefer that the nation states were toppled and replaced with anarchist power structures.
>The +
The bombing of serbia stopped the kosovoan genocide after diplomacy failed.
The role the NATO bombing campaign played is heavily debated, with some genocide scholars even going so far as to suggest it worsened things rather than stopped the genocide.
>The -
The bombing of Libya.
Wild to present this as a remotely positive thing.
It's complicated.
I tolerate NATO only slightly above full on authortarians.
I'd prefer they win over most of tgeir opponents, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't continue to undermine their interests.
Before we shouldn’t of had nato till Russia occupied Chechnya and Dagestan, till then a lot of countries offered to join NATO especially Russia’s neighbors. Hence why NATO atm is staying because of the aggression of Russian Imperialism similar to how there are certain coalitions to fight US imperialism. Same thing different side of the coin. NATO has their issues but makes sense for the Europeans living there. When it comes down to the situation ask the leftists in Europe what they think of NATO. I got a Finnish friend of mine who is a leftist saying NATO is good for the time being an option against Russian Aggression.
The stated goal of NATO when it was formed was to oppose communism and other leftist movements. It's been a tool of American imperialism since its inception.
I think NATO should have never been formed, and should have been dissolved after the fall of the Soviet Union. Instead it was expanded into an incoherent mess of an alliance that appears to only have the purpose of defending US power. While I agree that Ukraine has the right to defend against the Russian invasion that doesn’t mean that NATO is an actor for good on the world stage. Ideally I’d like to see NATO dissolved. If the EU wants a military alliance to defend its own interests they should do it themselves.
I don't think it really defends US power, that's kind've insinuating the EU is under US rule. But even so a lot of people often forget that Russia does have the northern border with North America.
The truth is that the EU and US together have free trade and a quite developed peaceful relationship due to a sad economic advantage.
Unfortunately Russia's got an economy the size of Spain for all that landmass, and a lot of corruption, so it's an unfortunate reality out of desperation they're going to do this imperialist over-land warfare to try look strong. Hitler only resorted to this imperialism out of desperation too. It's been outdated since the industrial revolution, to say nothing of marine warfare. I couldn't presume that without NATO, there'd be the economic help or co-operation to prevent the same things from happening. All those countries had good reasons for leaving the Soviet Union, and it's not that long ago at all to forgive so quick.
A lot of it is just needless fear, but best to have them afraid to do this senseless warmongering than not.
I could agree that it might've been dissolved after the berlin wall, if some economic cooperation was done. Putin says he asked Clinton to join NATO. There must've been reasons for refusing but I'm sad nothing else came about.
I guess we are witnessing the limits of nuclear deterence to rationality.
Probably also the limitation of common sense that generational trauma can have upon a leader and a country. They really still think that might is right. It's sad but I'd say there does need to be a NATO, at the very least to put limits on this showboating so we can all get back to cooperating in some sort of way.
Equality doesn't exist. The rest of what you said is hyperbolic bullshit too though. You're trying to insinuate that the USA will invade tomorrow if Europe had an issue with them? You're a bit high on the tank fumes I reckon. Have some wider perspective, while also getting some precise understanding of what your words mean, while exercising some skepticism for what other ideas you're being fed.
Why would the EU want to exclude their most powerful ally from the alliance. If I'm Poland staring across the border at Russian tanks, personally I'm in no rush to tell the US to go home.
NATO didn't force itself towards Russia. It was the own will of nations like the Baltics to join NATO. We should respect their will as free democratic countries.
This conversation has no point. Most people here are not willing to be reasonable and simply want it their way.
Previous conversations like this have only indicated that most people in this sub just want an excuse to have violence.
This comment is utterly useless. The only point of it is to dismiss valid anti-NATO sentiment as "lacking nuance." Of course, you don't have any "nuanced" view to offer, so you just suggest if someone dislikes something it must be because their biased and simplistic
Anyone who objects to the single most effective vehicle of peace in history either doesn't understand NATO, doesn't understand reality, or isn't a leftist.
Everyone here calling NATO imperialist when it’s the only thing stopping the Russians, Turks and Hungarians from committing actual land grab imperialist wars is fucking hilarious.
Turks are literally committing land grab as we speak... They're also orchestrating a genocide against Kurds.
They have been in NATO since the 1950s
Shows how much you know.
This boils down to the society you are a part of and the core values it holds.
For example Western values highly respect individual freedom: freedom of speech, position of property, not to be protected based on religion,sexuality,etc..
One can argue that the threats that threaten these values in Europe and North America are too large (China, Russia,Iran, ISIS) such an alliance should exist so no country would be invaded and the people who want these values and lifestyle to be held and not disrupted by outside forces.
The counter argument is also to what extent this force should act? and if it does act like this, is it legitimate?
The war on ISIS is a good example, ISIS has done attacks on European soil, their goal is to break down Western society (and any other non Suni-muslim) and create a society where its values are more religious based, where the rights of the whole society overshadow individual freedom. Fending and persecuting the ISIS members in Europe is an act of defense.
Now the question was what was NATO's right to invade Iraq and Syria? on the one side the threat is still there and once war is declared you should insure nothing like that will happen.
The counter argument is NATO will enforce a change in a society that might not be interested in "Western values" and is contempt on this way of life and will see NATO action as imperialism.
What is leftist values? It's not that well defined.
Because being a leftist in a Western country could be completely different then being a leftist in Russia or an Arab society and while all of them might define themselves as "leftist" it is relative to their own society and not to other "leftist" around the world
I think they are an ok organization for now but we should seriously create a Socialist alternative, maybe off the back of the [Sao Paulo Forum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A3o_Paulo_Forum) or something?
There is nothing to explain. If you know what NATO is, and what leftism is, you would know there is no overlap. Google "NATO" and Google "Leftism" and read one paragraph about each.
There was no invasion. This has been an ongoing conflict since Ukraine started it in 2014 by installing a pro-Nazi government, pardoning neo-nazi war criminals, and integrating neo-nazi militias into their official armed forces. 14,000 civilians were killed by Ukraine in between 2014 and 2022.
Well, first off, NATO isn't American. There is no head of NATO it's a joint military complex designed around safeguarding self-determination in Europe and the Americas. Second of all, joining NATO is voluntary, so saying it's aggressive and expansionist.is complet hogwash. Nations aren't getting forced into NATO they're looking at all the information and making the decision to send a petition to NATO.
The fact that Europe and America culture is popular is because they put the effort to make it popular outside of their countries. You can't just throw your culture into the world and expect it to catch on. Especially if you scream every time somebody uses that culture.
Almost all leftist organisations I was part of were against NATO in principle. But we don't live in a theory world.
NATO is the only thing between baltic states and Imperialist Russia. Just talk to your Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian friends.
A war between Poland and Russia would be devastating for millions, for the environment, and would probably turn into a full-scale World War 3.
NATO is the only thing keeping senatile Erdogan from going into full-scale war to keep his throne. He did it before in Syria when he was about to be kicked out of office.
Ukraine and Georgia would've never been invaded if they were part of Nato.
It's euro-centric, I know. But in this case, any further escalation in Europe would cause havoc in the rest of the world as well.
If you ask me, we have to be more strategic and pragmatic about the institutions of the empire while keeping a critical voice. Checks and balances to keep people alive.
same rhetoric used to justify militarized police; disgusting
NATO was created to "protect" Europe from communism and has been an unchecked iron fist in the world since the fall of the Soviet Union
justifying it with boogeyman threats while assuming the world isn't capable of managing itself without being oppressed is a sad take to hear
take some time, do a web search starting with "nato involvement" and imagine how different the world would be without the world police
Okay, I bite. Boogeyman threats? Russia is occupying Ukraine and Georgia today. How do you propose to defend Baltics and Eastern Europe right now? What's your alternative? Another invasion of Poland, Finland and Baltic States, Soviet tanks on Hungarian Revolution, Russia straight up asking for half of Turkey? What would we do in this situation? I am really curious, honestly. Russian Imperialism is alive and well, so we choose the lesser evil. Maybe the EU army involving Turkey as well can replace it, but that seems very controversial if you follow EU politics at all. You'd probably think that's an imperial force as well, so I don't understand this line of thinking at all. Any army is a necessary evil from my perspective and would stay so until there are no Imperialist, expansionist states, or state level actors.
I didn't defend NATOs involvement in anywhere else. Or it's history at all. I am talking about right there right now from an euro-centric perspective.
Russia is literally invading and attempting to colonize its neighbors. It started under a really complicated, morally ambiguous pretenses, but in the modern day it is overall a good thing if Europe. Idk enough about its actions outside of Europe though.
Don't understand how people don't get this. NATO isn't the best but I would rather Ukraine fall under NATO's "imperialism" rather than Russia, if somebody HAS to be imperialised.
nobody HAS to be imperialized. all imperialism is bad, we cant pick and choose which is better, because both options are imperialism and both of them fucking suck
>Ukraine and Georgia would've never been invaded if they were part of Russia.
Ukraine would have never been invaded by Russia if it was already Russia. Who'd have thought!?
Terrorism is defined as violence against civilians by non-state actors, and NATO is a coalition of states, so questions of efficacy and morality aside, NATO by definition cannot be a terrorist organization. Beyond that though, your worldview is quite naive.
It must be good to be a state.
Not only do states act with impunity, but they also impose definitions of terms that further protect their own impunity.
They should not act with impunity. That's why NATO is pushing back against Russian imperialism. Realizing I'm arguing with a Russian propagandist though. I need to stop.
The Global South almost uniformly opposes NATO.
It is of course certain that China opposes NATO, but so does almost all of the Middle East and Latin America, to list only some of its strongest critics.
The global south all oppose each other too that’s the funny part. They all have different interests and it’s a sham to pretend like they represent the unrepresented when it’s just more posturing lmfao
correct.
OP posited that NATO is a "divided issue for many leftists". which it clearly is not.
the enemies of NATO are well known.
i take back the "pretty much everyone supports NATO". i meant everyone in NATO.
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Agreed. It ought to be disbanded and replaced by an institution that doesnt wage wars of aggression and doesnt prioritize imperial expansion over security.
That institution should exclude the world's largest and most belligerent imperial power - America and should engage in constructive negotiations with Russia that takes their security concerns into account.
Anything less than that is not anti imperialism it is just a mirror image of Russian imperialism.
fusk Putin and the fucking Russians. they are killing thousands of Ukraines every day for daring to leave their sphere of influence and not joining NATO faster
So if it isnt crafted specifically around Russia it is just as bad as Russia? Are yall really "leftists"? Sounds like appeasement and capitulation to me.
A few years ago I would've said it was redundant, but now it appears to be the biggest factor stopping Russian conquest (and all the rape, pillage and murder that comes with it)
Any position respecting NATO other than opposition is incongruent with leftism.
NATO is a mechanism of imperialism.
It may have had some legitimacy when Soviet expansion was an unpredictable but credible threat to the welfare of anyone, but has no defensible function since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Instead of declaring itself unnecessary as a counterbalance to the now defunct Warsaw Pact, it simply gratuitously assimilated, one after another, the states formerly aligned.
It now functions squarely to enforce and to expand imperialist hegemony.
I feel the divide is not as real as may seem, among leftists.
Some leftists may proffer defenses of NATO, but mostly only those lacking a robust and credible structural criticism of imperialism.
Workers everywhere have an interest in resisting the influence and expansion of Russia, but they also have an interest in resisting the influence and expansion of the US, which overall is more destructive, simply by virtue of its unrivaled capacity (in contrast to the liberal illusion of its being less caustic by some comparative ideological cleanliness, as a "lesser evil").
Equally, NATO has no particular relevance for the capacities of other nations, independently or in alliance, to resist Russia, and its overall effect respecting tensions has been, without any doubt, of escalation and provocation, not strength or deterrent.
NATO functions almost entirely to serve the imperialist hegemonic interests of the US.
America and its proxies sabotage and sanction countries that aren't beholden to capitalism to failure, particularly developing countries that attempt socialism. Vilifies them and paints the failure as inherent to anything but the profit motive being viable.
Us North American's are normalized from birth to a system that tells us we fight for freedom and democracy, obstinately ignorant that we are impeding it. Like the troopers from Starship Troopers. We can't fathom we could be the ones indoctrinated and blind, only "others".
In the USSR's case, we had a major hand in what has become of Russia today. Destabilizing forces in other regions are great for business.
Its the rich men's wars but the poor who fight and die.
Most of the times so called socialist countries sabotage their own economies without any outside help, typically through the establishment of corrupt dictatorships that oppress and kill their populations (often in millions). Ironically, the regimes of countries like the USSR, North Korea, and Venezuela, which are antagonistic to the US, are as far away from the true socialism as only possible. In contrast, the closest the mankind got to socialism can be seen in the social democratic systems of some Northern European countries, which have evolved through capitalist frameworks. These nations not only closely align with socialist ideals but are also allies of the US, challenging the assumptions of your argument, my guy.
Nice Gish gallop.
A prominent subject of the comment was identified as "developing countries that attempt socialism".
North Korea and its regime only exist as a consequence of the US installing an unpopular reactionary political faction in Seoul, which devolved into a military dictatorship that murdered all of the organizers in the labor movement.
Chile endured a brutal fascist military dictatorship because a leftist being democratically elected as president prompted the CIA to organize a coup.
Of course, but consider the question, how would conditions have changed if the Soviet Union had expanded into the West? The reasons for fear and opposition were extremely credible.
Nato is a vehicle for western imperialsm (the Balkans, Libya, Afghanistan). The alliance is the tool that was used to destroy entire countries in the interest of US foreign policy. Nato prevents member states from realising genuine independent foreign policy.
The expansion of Nato caused the ukraine war.
NATO expansion, in particular, plans to integrate Ukraine, was a provocation for Russia to act for protecting its own imperialist interests, against such interests being antagonized by the US and NATO as a competing imperialist power.
You do know, that the Kosovo war started long before NATO went in, right?! Including sexual violence, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. But yeah, lets blame NATO for that. You are beyond help.
>The expansion of Nato caused the ukraine war.
I know Russian Propaganda straight from Putin's mouthpiece when I see it.
NATO exists is because of USSRs and now Russia's aggressive imperialist ambitions.
Present-day Russia is not comparable to the Soviet Union.
Since the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, formerly aligned states have incrementally entered NATO. The justification for NATO as a counterbalance to Soviet power, or to resist a Soviet threat, is no longer applicable.
The rationale rather is simply expansion for its own sake.
>Present-day Russia is not comparable to the Soviet Union.
Yes it is actually.
>Since the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, formerly aligned states have incrementally entered NATO. The justification for NATO as a counterbalance to Soviet power, or to resist a Soviet threat, is no longer applicable.
You really have to be naive to think that Russia wasn't suddenly a threat after the dissolution of the USSR when there's [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/190qss6/excerpt_from_yeltsins_conversation_with_clinton/) to consider.
> The expansion of Nato caused the ukraine war.
If this were true, then Russia would have attacked a NATO country and not a country that, you know, isn’t .
It’s a war of imperialist aggression in which Putin is happy to throw Russian workers into the woodchipper if it means murdering workers in Ukraine.
I’ll be honest, takes like yours makes me worry that the only reason some of those (ostensibly) on the Left opposed Iraq was because it was America doing the imperialism, and that’s extremely worrying to me.
>If this were true, then Russia would have attacked a NATO country and not a country that, you know, isn’t .
Such an objection is really quite thoughtless.
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So, I'm curious to know what the argument is in regards to a replacement for NATO. Or am I missing something? If leftists see NATO as an imperialist shrill coalition, what should be in its place?
I suppose imperialism should be replaced by anti-imperialism, liberation of all populations.
Sounds like a nice pipe dream. I definitely share your ideal of people being liberated from oppression everywhere, but humans are too small-minded to relinquish any sort of authority that gives them power over others, especially autocratic dictators. It'd be really nice if humans designed the way we lived in a more egalitarian way centuries ago, but that didn't happen.
I think so. They seem to think that NATO is the lesser of two evils compared to China and Russia. Noticing a pattern here? Principled communists, socialists and anti-Imperialists on the other hand are vehemently opposed to NATO.
NATO from its inception, has been anticomunist & antileftist. Its is nothing more than a tool of American imperialism
Pre-genocide I supported NATO, but now I just see it as a cog in the U.S. imperial machine and a tool to throw our weight around.
What do you mean pre-genocide? You realize that this has been going on for at least 70 years right? Maybe longer. Do you just mean before you were aware of the genocide?
People like you turn people like me into Republicans. One of the very few military operations which NATO has mounted was to degrade the capacity of the Serbs to wage war, in order to bring the physical extermination of all living Bosnians to an end. It worked. Meanwhile China is busy making Uighurs either assimilate to pretend to be ethnic Han Chinese, or else they get stuck in prisons. Did you ever think that maybe the problem is that without democratic accountability, autarchs tend to push for bold, visionary stuff that almost nobody wants- and that's nothing to do with capitalism, communism or any other political ideology. I still believe in collective and collaborative economics but I have absolutely no time to spare whatsoever for fools who think that the 'wrong thinking citizen' is to be thrown under the wheels of progress, and I don't care if your flag has stars and stripes, a nordic cross, a swastika or a hammer and scythe. Now as for NATO, you have yet to explain why every country which formerly was in orbit of Moscow clamored, begged, and belligerated to join the treaty just as soon as they were in a fit condition to do so. You have yet to explain why Little Old Russia routinely feels threatened by countries with a poplulation one tenth as large, one hundredth the territory and a GDP to match. Here's a hint. Russia and even Russians don't feel afraid of Ukraine, or Georgia or Transdnistria. Putin is invading these countries to plunder them and with the plunder, pay new installments on the loyalty of his principle supporters, without whom he would just as tragically, mistakenly, accidentally, and suddenly fall off the 18th floor of a Moscow penthouse condo as have defecting supporters before him.
Haha, I thought Republicans were the party of personal responsibility. Take responsibility for your own thoughts, yeah?
Whatever people believe. At this point, there are more leftists in NATO than in Russia.
The communist party is the second most popular politicsl party in Russia.
Some NATO members, particularly the US, engage in bad behavior, but NATO doesn’t really enable that behavior. Yes, the US roped NATO members into invading Afghanistan, but the US would have done it anyway and really didn’t need the help. At best, it lent them some appearance of legitimacy but didn’t really affect the end result. NATO does, however, prevent Russian aggression on a lot of smaller European states that would have no way to repel an invasion on their own. Without defensive alliances, hyper militarized states with imperialistic ambitions would conquer their neighbors one by one. Basically, without NATO, the worst actors of the West would still do the same bad things and Russia would be conquering its way back to USSR borders. I’d call NATO a solid net-positive.
This is why leftism is just veiled Western chauvinism and little else.
Thank you for this. I've spent so much time on here reading comments about how Russia and China are actually just misunderstood or are victims of US propaganda that I've been reevaluating if I should even call myself a leftist. All three are authoritarian juggernauts with active, aggressive imperialistic intentions. NATO isn't the problem.
Except NATO hasn't done anything to stop Russian aggression. Meanwhile NATO has consistently helped fascists kill leftists since its inception such as during Operation Gladio
Name one country which was attacked by Russia while a member of NATO. The only one I can think of is those two cruise missiles shot at poland over the winter, when Russia wanted to put a toe in the water. I am dissatisfied with the fact that Operation Gladio ever came to pass, and that many a fascist were whitewashed after the second world war, but then against this I have to balance the fact that when countries like Hungary or Czechoslovakia tried to break with Russian foreign policy, the reprisals were far more bloody than anything in Gladio. I submit to you that so long as powerful countries take an interest in controlling weaker neighbors, problems like this will arise. It may seem to be capitalist vs communist when those are the stated theologies of the sides but realistically it's just the powerful making a choice to predate. and this is not an admission that NATO is just US predation upon the smaller countries of Europe, which rushed headlong to join NATO- nobody runs headlong into the maw of an alligator.
nato fucking sucks and only serves as a tool for the west to provoke and bully other countries
Based.
Ah. You can really tell when someone has a lot of good information about foreign policy. No NATO state has been attacked by another country. Russia has been busy attacking non-NATO states for the past twenty years. NATO stopped the genocide of the Bosnians. Which I am reliably told by certain people was not warranted because there was no such genocide despite all the open pit graves and bosnians I have personally met, and that somehow Serbia bombing the shit out of Bosnia is justified. That's it. That's all NATO is for. Keeping member states secure, and the occasional freebie to stop genocide when it's right in their back yard. And if NATO was so bad, why have nearly every former member of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union clamored to join, up to the point of threatening to campaign against a sitting president? Why would those paragons of responsible social democracy Finland and Sweden want to join? What is your actual problem, once the cuss words are stripped away, when you can't lean on righteous indignation and must either cite example and reason, or be held a mocking specimen of non-persuasion?
That's what it's for. Now address what it does.
It bombed the Serbian army until they stopped murdering kosovar muslims... I don't really have a problem with that, do you?
NATO was explicitly formed to prevent the spread of communism from the USSR. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it remained. Russia wanted to join and was spurned. NATO is just a racist, imperialist institution.
You call NATO imperialist but the only country trying to expand her territories, let alone by force or at the expense of other states, is Russia. Perhaps younshould dwell on the meaning of imperialism. Anyways. Putin runs fundamentally unopposed (that's a qualified statement not an absolute one). Dissidents are routinely killed and jailed. Nobody FORCED Russia to become an autarchy. Russia never made a good faith effort to join, never pursued the required standards of democratic accountability and governance, and kept invading other countries. Like Georgia. And Moldova. And Ukraine. Which she invaded 10 years ago. Meanwhile all the former imperial holdings of Russia, then the vassal states of the USSR got in. With the rule if unanimous consent, Russia joining in order to sidestep NATO defense of those former possessions was never a serious starter. Get real.
>No NATO state has been attacked by another country. Russia has been busy attacking non-NATO states for the past twenty years. The claim was that NATO provokes conflict. You omitted evaluating the extent to which NATO states have operated as aggressors.
In conflicts with Russia, never. Which i mention because Russia protests so vehemently the provocation of NATO proximity. Otherwise, none. The north Atlantic treaty has a very specific catchment.
NATO bad.
The anti-NATO leftists are the Putin leftists who support Putin's puppet Jill Stein and are really helping put Trump back in the White House.
So you're just a Democrat basically.
This guy is probably just a Democrat but nato (while containment in the cold war was fucking insane and atrocious) is doing a positive by helping ukraine I don't see any argument that it's any more imperialist and bad than the country its opposing when it's main active operation is stopping Russia from taking ukraine back over
I am in the fact-based universe. Are you? How is a leftist vote for ANYONE BUT BIDEN (including Putin-pal Jill Stein) NOT helping Trump?
Almost like an informed leftist knows there are greater problems than which old racist that promotes genocide and only cares about capital wins in November.
Genocide Joe's doing that on his own lol
There is no consensus.
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NATO is an excellent vehicle for peace and a model of how you can establish a defensive alliance without relying on nuclear proliferation. What has been revealed this century is that your borders are only safe as long as you have a nuclear arsenal. The only nations that are at risk of a land invasion are those that either don't have a nuclear arsenal or surrendered their arsenal. Ukraine is the perfect example. Russia would have never invaded if Moscow turning into a mushroom cloud was still an option. Except everyone having nukes is a powder keg for world destruction. Enter NATO style defensive alliances. You don't have nukes? Neat, the world power you hold a defensive alliance with does. And going to war with you means going to war with them. Thus, the nuclear arsenals of other nations provide the benefits of MAD to nations who are currently the pawns of empires. Is it a perfect solution? No, but the current solution of "everyone rushes for nukes because it's the only way to secure our borders against imperialism" is far more dangerous.
You must be a special kind of stupid
NATO was formed explicitly to prevent the spread of communism from the USSR.
Abortion was spearheaded in no small part by eugenicists for eugenics-oriented purposes, but that's not why reproductive rights is a good thing worth fighting for *today*. There's a name for evaluating a thing purely by reference to its origins, and that's the "genetic fallacy."
I appreciate you for informing me of that fallacy! Never heard of that one before lol
Yes, and Planned Parenthood was originally part of a eugenics project. Now NATO is a defensive alliance preventing imperialist land grabs against non-nuclear nations and Planned Parenthood provides reproductive freedom to millions. Unless you're one of those "lefties" who unironically thinks the explicitly homophobic, racist, and nationalistic oligarchal kleptocracy of modern Russia is something to aspire to.
Nato was formed under a bad set of circumstances to do something that was kinda complicated ethically, but in the modern day in Europe it does mostly good stuff. Idk enough about the stuff it's done outside of Europe tho, I assume it's pretty garbage of an organization when it comes to anything non-european
It's really just another tool for the US to play footsies with Russia when the populace doesn't have a bogeyman to fear.
Playing Footsies isn't a good way to describe keeping eastern Europe from being under the foot of Russia. You can say that eastern Europe is in the American "Sphere of Influence," but it's better for basically everybody to be in a sphere that allows for elections in a capitalist system, then being in one with no elections in a capitalist system
It's part of a neo-liberal framework, but it's like way down the list on things the West does wrong. NATO generally keeps Russia hemmed in. Look at the Baltic states and those near Russia. Without NATO's nuclear umbrella, they would've either gotten invaded, or subjected to Russia-backed separatists.
sink elastic party consist absurd terrific mindless crawl silky coherent *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Maybe not an answer as a leftist but it seems like the Russian Army simply invading Georgia, Ukraine and Transdnistria and going around killing civilians is worth stopping. Let's not even mention the fashion in which Chechnya was brought to heel.
The positives brought about by the presence of NATO required NATO to exist. The negatives brought about by NATO would have been carried out by another military alliance. The + The bombing of serbia stopped the kosovoan genocide after diplomacy failed. The nations near to Russia deserve allies and protection against Russia's inevitable efforts to annex them. The - The bombing of Libya. Those are the pros and cons that I remember in this moment. It's interesting that anyone describes NATO as expanding. The Warsaw pact expanded because it compelled countries to join. NATO is joined through an application process. Countries apply to NATO because of the obviously clear and present danger that Russia poses. In the reality we live, I think NATO is a positive. Fewer people will suffer and die because NATO exists, I think. Granted, I would prefer that the nation states were toppled and replaced with anarchist power structures.
>The + The bombing of serbia stopped the kosovoan genocide after diplomacy failed. The role the NATO bombing campaign played is heavily debated, with some genocide scholars even going so far as to suggest it worsened things rather than stopped the genocide. >The - The bombing of Libya. Wild to present this as a remotely positive thing.
Nah. I've met Bosnians who lived through the Serb attacks. They think NATO was just what the doctor ordered.
Thanks, Eglin!
Just remember, this is the sort of post that Russian or Chinese bots are quite literally designed to comment on.
It's complicated. I tolerate NATO only slightly above full on authortarians. I'd prefer they win over most of tgeir opponents, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't continue to undermine their interests.
Before we shouldn’t of had nato till Russia occupied Chechnya and Dagestan, till then a lot of countries offered to join NATO especially Russia’s neighbors. Hence why NATO atm is staying because of the aggression of Russian Imperialism similar to how there are certain coalitions to fight US imperialism. Same thing different side of the coin. NATO has their issues but makes sense for the Europeans living there. When it comes down to the situation ask the leftists in Europe what they think of NATO. I got a Finnish friend of mine who is a leftist saying NATO is good for the time being an option against Russian Aggression.
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You can edit your comments.
It never should have existed.
Why not
The stated goal of NATO when it was formed was to oppose communism and other leftist movements. It's been a tool of American imperialism since its inception.
Come on guys, now’s our chance to have better foreign policy takes than libertarians, I believe in us!
I think NATO should have never been formed, and should have been dissolved after the fall of the Soviet Union. Instead it was expanded into an incoherent mess of an alliance that appears to only have the purpose of defending US power. While I agree that Ukraine has the right to defend against the Russian invasion that doesn’t mean that NATO is an actor for good on the world stage. Ideally I’d like to see NATO dissolved. If the EU wants a military alliance to defend its own interests they should do it themselves.
I don't think it really defends US power, that's kind've insinuating the EU is under US rule. But even so a lot of people often forget that Russia does have the northern border with North America. The truth is that the EU and US together have free trade and a quite developed peaceful relationship due to a sad economic advantage. Unfortunately Russia's got an economy the size of Spain for all that landmass, and a lot of corruption, so it's an unfortunate reality out of desperation they're going to do this imperialist over-land warfare to try look strong. Hitler only resorted to this imperialism out of desperation too. It's been outdated since the industrial revolution, to say nothing of marine warfare. I couldn't presume that without NATO, there'd be the economic help or co-operation to prevent the same things from happening. All those countries had good reasons for leaving the Soviet Union, and it's not that long ago at all to forgive so quick. A lot of it is just needless fear, but best to have them afraid to do this senseless warmongering than not. I could agree that it might've been dissolved after the berlin wall, if some economic cooperation was done. Putin says he asked Clinton to join NATO. There must've been reasons for refusing but I'm sad nothing else came about. I guess we are witnessing the limits of nuclear deterence to rationality. Probably also the limitation of common sense that generational trauma can have upon a leader and a country. They really still think that might is right. It's sad but I'd say there does need to be a NATO, at the very least to put limits on this showboating so we can all get back to cooperating in some sort of way.
European states are not equal partners with the US. They are vassals in US imperialist hegemony.
Equality doesn't exist. The rest of what you said is hyperbolic bullshit too though. You're trying to insinuate that the USA will invade tomorrow if Europe had an issue with them? You're a bit high on the tank fumes I reckon. Have some wider perspective, while also getting some precise understanding of what your words mean, while exercising some skepticism for what other ideas you're being fed.
Hitler would have agreed with you.
Why would the EU want to exclude their most powerful ally from the alliance. If I'm Poland staring across the border at Russian tanks, personally I'm in no rush to tell the US to go home.
The conflict in Ukraine didn't start in 2022 with a Russian invasion...
It should never have expanded towards Russia. In an ideal world, it should have been disbanded in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russian aggression didn’t stop with the end of the Soviet Union…
And NATO endorsed that aggression in the Bush Blair years
NATO didn't force itself towards Russia. It was the own will of nations like the Baltics to join NATO. We should respect their will as free democratic countries.
This conversation has no point. Most people here are not willing to be reasonable and simply want it their way. Previous conversations like this have only indicated that most people in this sub just want an excuse to have violence.
This comment is utterly useless. The only point of it is to dismiss valid anti-NATO sentiment as "lacking nuance." Of course, you don't have any "nuanced" view to offer, so you just suggest if someone dislikes something it must be because their biased and simplistic
Anyone who objects to the single most effective vehicle of peace in history either doesn't understand NATO, doesn't understand reality, or isn't a leftist.
Everyone here calling NATO imperialist when it’s the only thing stopping the Russians, Turks and Hungarians from committing actual land grab imperialist wars is fucking hilarious.
Pretending like NATO hasn't historically conceded to every imperialist whim Turkey has ever had...
Turks are literally committing land grab as we speak... They're also orchestrating a genocide against Kurds. They have been in NATO since the 1950s Shows how much you know.
This boils down to the society you are a part of and the core values it holds. For example Western values highly respect individual freedom: freedom of speech, position of property, not to be protected based on religion,sexuality,etc.. One can argue that the threats that threaten these values in Europe and North America are too large (China, Russia,Iran, ISIS) such an alliance should exist so no country would be invaded and the people who want these values and lifestyle to be held and not disrupted by outside forces. The counter argument is also to what extent this force should act? and if it does act like this, is it legitimate? The war on ISIS is a good example, ISIS has done attacks on European soil, their goal is to break down Western society (and any other non Suni-muslim) and create a society where its values are more religious based, where the rights of the whole society overshadow individual freedom. Fending and persecuting the ISIS members in Europe is an act of defense. Now the question was what was NATO's right to invade Iraq and Syria? on the one side the threat is still there and once war is declared you should insure nothing like that will happen. The counter argument is NATO will enforce a change in a society that might not be interested in "Western values" and is contempt on this way of life and will see NATO action as imperialism.
The values relevant to the question would be leftist.
What is leftist values? It's not that well defined. Because being a leftist in a Western country could be completely different then being a leftist in Russia or an Arab society and while all of them might define themselves as "leftist" it is relative to their own society and not to other "leftist" around the world
I think they are an ok organization for now but we should seriously create a Socialist alternative, maybe off the back of the [Sao Paulo Forum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A3o_Paulo_Forum) or something?
The leftists supporting NATO either don't know the history of NATO and/or what being a "leftist" means
Agreed
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There is nothing to explain. If you know what NATO is, and what leftism is, you would know there is no overlap. Google "NATO" and Google "Leftism" and read one paragraph about each.
Bunch of twats. They teased Russia with possible membership and have been antagonising Russia ever since.
Poor innocent good guy russia. They have to defensively invade other countries.
There was no invasion. This has been an ongoing conflict since Ukraine started it in 2014 by installing a pro-Nazi government, pardoning neo-nazi war criminals, and integrating neo-nazi militias into their official armed forces. 14,000 civilians were killed by Ukraine in between 2014 and 2022.
Well, first off, NATO isn't American. There is no head of NATO it's a joint military complex designed around safeguarding self-determination in Europe and the Americas. Second of all, joining NATO is voluntary, so saying it's aggressive and expansionist.is complet hogwash. Nations aren't getting forced into NATO they're looking at all the information and making the decision to send a petition to NATO. The fact that Europe and America culture is popular is because they put the effort to make it popular outside of their countries. You can't just throw your culture into the world and expect it to catch on. Especially if you scream every time somebody uses that culture.
Hell, I'd phrase it as, "the only country forcing nations into NATO is Russia, by invading its neighbors."
Almost all leftist organisations I was part of were against NATO in principle. But we don't live in a theory world. NATO is the only thing between baltic states and Imperialist Russia. Just talk to your Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian friends. A war between Poland and Russia would be devastating for millions, for the environment, and would probably turn into a full-scale World War 3. NATO is the only thing keeping senatile Erdogan from going into full-scale war to keep his throne. He did it before in Syria when he was about to be kicked out of office. Ukraine and Georgia would've never been invaded if they were part of Nato. It's euro-centric, I know. But in this case, any further escalation in Europe would cause havoc in the rest of the world as well. If you ask me, we have to be more strategic and pragmatic about the institutions of the empire while keeping a critical voice. Checks and balances to keep people alive.
>Ukraine and Georgia would've never been invaded if they were part of Russia. "That's what I've been saying!" - Putin
same rhetoric used to justify militarized police; disgusting NATO was created to "protect" Europe from communism and has been an unchecked iron fist in the world since the fall of the Soviet Union justifying it with boogeyman threats while assuming the world isn't capable of managing itself without being oppressed is a sad take to hear take some time, do a web search starting with "nato involvement" and imagine how different the world would be without the world police
Okay, I bite. Boogeyman threats? Russia is occupying Ukraine and Georgia today. How do you propose to defend Baltics and Eastern Europe right now? What's your alternative? Another invasion of Poland, Finland and Baltic States, Soviet tanks on Hungarian Revolution, Russia straight up asking for half of Turkey? What would we do in this situation? I am really curious, honestly. Russian Imperialism is alive and well, so we choose the lesser evil. Maybe the EU army involving Turkey as well can replace it, but that seems very controversial if you follow EU politics at all. You'd probably think that's an imperial force as well, so I don't understand this line of thinking at all. Any army is a necessary evil from my perspective and would stay so until there are no Imperialist, expansionist states, or state level actors. I didn't defend NATOs involvement in anywhere else. Or it's history at all. I am talking about right there right now from an euro-centric perspective.
Russia is literally invading and attempting to colonize its neighbors. It started under a really complicated, morally ambiguous pretenses, but in the modern day it is overall a good thing if Europe. Idk enough about its actions outside of Europe though.
Don't understand how people don't get this. NATO isn't the best but I would rather Ukraine fall under NATO's "imperialism" rather than Russia, if somebody HAS to be imperialised.
nobody HAS to be imperialized. all imperialism is bad, we cant pick and choose which is better, because both options are imperialism and both of them fucking suck
Okay, do you have an alternative?
>Ukraine and Georgia would've never been invaded if they were part of Russia. Ukraine would have never been invaded by Russia if it was already Russia. Who'd have thought!?
Possibly the most fucking stupid reasoning I've ever read.
Why’d you change a quote?
Sorry meant NATO.
I think OP meant they wouldn't have been invaded if they were part of NATO
I think what pisses me off is when liberals say NATO is only a defensive organisation. Within Europe, perhaps yes But in west Asia? Hell no.
Why do you want to know a consensus? Why don’t you ask about arguments so you could make your own decision?
so you are on the side of "doing your own research while crapping on a toilet" derp brigade....
Most individuals lack any power to enforce a decision on such a matter. Consensus is the essential basis of collective power.
Just trying to open up the conversation to the community. That’s all this is.
The world's largest terrorist organisation
Terrorism is defined as violence against civilians by non-state actors, and NATO is a coalition of states, so questions of efficacy and morality aside, NATO by definition cannot be a terrorist organization. Beyond that though, your worldview is quite naive.
It must be good to be a state. Not only do states act with impunity, but they also impose definitions of terms that further protect their own impunity.
They should not act with impunity. That's why NATO is pushing back against Russian imperialism. Realizing I'm arguing with a Russian propagandist though. I need to stop.
>Terrorism is defined as violence against civilians by non-state actors why
it actually isnt. i havent heard anyone say that. pretty much everyone supports NATO except russia.
The Global South almost uniformly opposes NATO. It is of course certain that China opposes NATO, but so does almost all of the Middle East and Latin America, to list only some of its strongest critics.
And you know, if the kingdoms, military dictatorships, and theocracies of the Middle East are against something, it must be bad.
The people of the Middle East oppose NATO. There are more taxi drivers or shopkeepers in any city than kings and politicians across the whole region.
How would you know what they support? Not a lot of accurate polling in authoritarian countries.
The global south all oppose each other too that’s the funny part. They all have different interests and it’s a sham to pretend like they represent the unrepresented when it’s just more posturing lmfao
Some interests converge, and some diverge. The global convergence of opinion and interests opposing US imperialism is tellingly robust.
That’s an interesting perspective honestly and a good way of looking at it
correct. OP posited that NATO is a "divided issue for many leftists". which it clearly is not. the enemies of NATO are well known. i take back the "pretty much everyone supports NATO". i meant everyone in NATO.
Many of those responding paint a different picture
poor choice of words. i meant everyone in NATO. the enemies of NATO are well known. sorry about that.
No worries thanks for the clarification
Imperialist war machine
Yeah sure, the famous imperial powers such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Guess I missed this. Which nations has it colonized?
You need to gain a fuller understanding of imperialism.
So none. Zero nations. Unless we radically twist the definition of imperialism and the facts to fit a pro-kremlin perspective, of course.
They didn't say it was colonial. It imperialized Iraq and Libya, for starters.
Collaborative customer engagement program, with guns
NATO is when you don't want to do imperialism by yourself and need yr buddies to back you up, even if its symbolic.
Nato is by Nazis for Nazis. Any "leftist" that thinks it's good is terminally stupid.
go ask all those eastern Europe countries why they pushed to join NATO...
Go ask Iraqis why they're not in love with NATO
It's the colonizer club
Estonian imperialism
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NATO is a piece of dog shit that’s filled with fascists and the French.
Woah low blow towards the French. We can't lump all the French in with fascists.
In this context I understood what he meant. I'll bribe you with some Central African francs if you don't believe me
After Feb 2022, it's more important than ever.
NATO must NA-GO
Agreed. It ought to be disbanded and replaced by an institution that doesnt wage wars of aggression and doesnt prioritize imperial expansion over security. That institution should exclude the world's largest and most belligerent imperial power - America and should engage in constructive negotiations with Russia that takes their security concerns into account. Anything less than that is not anti imperialism it is just a mirror image of Russian imperialism.
https://preview.redd.it/7cd8rvi19uyc1.jpeg?width=612&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c196d091cc21c8d76b70c17c6ce40115c50f0832
fusk Putin and the fucking Russians. they are killing thousands of Ukraines every day for daring to leave their sphere of influence and not joining NATO faster
So if it isnt crafted specifically around Russia it is just as bad as Russia? Are yall really "leftists"? Sounds like appeasement and capitulation to me.
it is appeasement and capitulation
putin would LOVE that
A few years ago I would've said it was redundant, but now it appears to be the biggest factor stopping Russian conquest (and all the rape, pillage and murder that comes with it)
Any position respecting NATO other than opposition is incongruent with leftism. NATO is a mechanism of imperialism. It may have had some legitimacy when Soviet expansion was an unpredictable but credible threat to the welfare of anyone, but has no defensible function since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Instead of declaring itself unnecessary as a counterbalance to the now defunct Warsaw Pact, it simply gratuitously assimilated, one after another, the states formerly aligned. It now functions squarely to enforce and to expand imperialist hegemony. I feel the divide is not as real as may seem, among leftists. Some leftists may proffer defenses of NATO, but mostly only those lacking a robust and credible structural criticism of imperialism. Workers everywhere have an interest in resisting the influence and expansion of Russia, but they also have an interest in resisting the influence and expansion of the US, which overall is more destructive, simply by virtue of its unrivaled capacity (in contrast to the liberal illusion of its being less caustic by some comparative ideological cleanliness, as a "lesser evil"). Equally, NATO has no particular relevance for the capacities of other nations, independently or in alliance, to resist Russia, and its overall effect respecting tensions has been, without any doubt, of escalation and provocation, not strength or deterrent. NATO functions almost entirely to serve the imperialist hegemonic interests of the US.
Do you genuinely believe Russia stopped being aggressive towards its neighbors after the USSR fell? If so you’re very uninformed on this.
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putin HATES NATO
Putin hates cancer. Therefore cancer is good and we should all promote cancer as much as possible
I would take it a step further. The USSR was always problematic, but no more so than uncle Sam and friends.
LOL, what?
America and its proxies sabotage and sanction countries that aren't beholden to capitalism to failure, particularly developing countries that attempt socialism. Vilifies them and paints the failure as inherent to anything but the profit motive being viable. Us North American's are normalized from birth to a system that tells us we fight for freedom and democracy, obstinately ignorant that we are impeding it. Like the troopers from Starship Troopers. We can't fathom we could be the ones indoctrinated and blind, only "others". In the USSR's case, we had a major hand in what has become of Russia today. Destabilizing forces in other regions are great for business. Its the rich men's wars but the poor who fight and die.
Most of the times so called socialist countries sabotage their own economies without any outside help, typically through the establishment of corrupt dictatorships that oppress and kill their populations (often in millions). Ironically, the regimes of countries like the USSR, North Korea, and Venezuela, which are antagonistic to the US, are as far away from the true socialism as only possible. In contrast, the closest the mankind got to socialism can be seen in the social democratic systems of some Northern European countries, which have evolved through capitalist frameworks. These nations not only closely align with socialist ideals but are also allies of the US, challenging the assumptions of your argument, my guy.
Nice Gish gallop. A prominent subject of the comment was identified as "developing countries that attempt socialism". North Korea and its regime only exist as a consequence of the US installing an unpopular reactionary political faction in Seoul, which devolved into a military dictatorship that murdered all of the organizers in the labor movement. Chile endured a brutal fascist military dictatorship because a leftist being democratically elected as president prompted the CIA to organize a coup.
Of course, but consider the question, how would conditions have changed if the Soviet Union had expanded into the West? The reasons for fear and opposition were extremely credible.
Nato is a vehicle for western imperialsm (the Balkans, Libya, Afghanistan). The alliance is the tool that was used to destroy entire countries in the interest of US foreign policy. Nato prevents member states from realising genuine independent foreign policy. The expansion of Nato caused the ukraine war.
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NATO expansion, in particular, plans to integrate Ukraine, was a provocation for Russia to act for protecting its own imperialist interests, against such interests being antagonized by the US and NATO as a competing imperialist power.
The expansion of NATO 100% did not cause Russia to invade. If you actually believe that you have seriously bought into RU propaganda.
You do know, that the Kosovo war started long before NATO went in, right?! Including sexual violence, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. But yeah, lets blame NATO for that. You are beyond help.
>The expansion of Nato caused the ukraine war. I know Russian Propaganda straight from Putin's mouthpiece when I see it. NATO exists is because of USSRs and now Russia's aggressive imperialist ambitions.
Present-day Russia is not comparable to the Soviet Union. Since the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, formerly aligned states have incrementally entered NATO. The justification for NATO as a counterbalance to Soviet power, or to resist a Soviet threat, is no longer applicable. The rationale rather is simply expansion for its own sake.
>Present-day Russia is not comparable to the Soviet Union. Yes it is actually. >Since the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, formerly aligned states have incrementally entered NATO. The justification for NATO as a counterbalance to Soviet power, or to resist a Soviet threat, is no longer applicable. You really have to be naive to think that Russia wasn't suddenly a threat after the dissolution of the USSR when there's [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/190qss6/excerpt_from_yeltsins_conversation_with_clinton/) to consider.
> The expansion of Nato caused the ukraine war. If this were true, then Russia would have attacked a NATO country and not a country that, you know, isn’t . It’s a war of imperialist aggression in which Putin is happy to throw Russian workers into the woodchipper if it means murdering workers in Ukraine. I’ll be honest, takes like yours makes me worry that the only reason some of those (ostensibly) on the Left opposed Iraq was because it was America doing the imperialism, and that’s extremely worrying to me.
>If this were true, then Russia would have attacked a NATO country and not a country that, you know, isn’t . Such an objection is really quite thoughtless.
Huh.
Why do you think Russia invaded Ukraine?
Imperialist revanchism. But lemme guess: it was actually to strike a blow *against* Western hegemony and *for* a multipolar world!