Under NATO’s 1949 founding treaty, decisions on enlargement are made “by unanimous agreement,” meaning that Fico’s opposition to Ukraine joining the alliance could indeed block its membership at least until the end of the Slovak leader’s current term in power in 2027. Other Russia-friendly NATO members could also seek to frustrate Ukraine’s membership aspirations.
Good effort but they were never actually getting the carrot. Just the stick. Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, or Estonia could literally eat a tactical nuke without a strategic response from NATO. They openly break their own agreements to hide their unwillingness to tread further across Russia’s red lines. They will poke and prod from a distance, but not enough to do more than make the Russians fear and suffer a bit. The same is true of Iran. The global south rivals picked out by the US are growing & further modernizing their industrial base faster than the US can arrest that growth. The west itself is too bogged down by imports and the labor costs from debt housing and inflation etcetera to get financiers to expand industry. Military production is not able to keep up with the Russian front alone, but with the Middle East getting hotter it is making war with China a silly prospect. If Yemen’s anti-ship missiles offend our aircraft carriers just imagine what the PLA is going to be capable of with their industrial production. The good thing is nobody wants that, yikes.
Anyways Ukraine was never joining NATO as that would create too much risk for the US, which wanted to pressure Russia into economic collapse and regime change via sanctions. They never had a realistic plan to win on the battlefield.
“Let’s create a block to protect ourselves against Russia.”
Member supports Russia
“The fuck you doing?”
Orban’s mouthpiece.
Nothing a few weapons shipments from the US won’t fix
Imagine that, people in struggling countries don’t want to get dragged into a forever proxy war between the US and Russia.
A proxy war would be imply that neither the US nor Russia are involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine on a direct military basis. As that’s not the case in this context, while the conflict has some similarities to a proxy war in terms of pitting the resources of the West against those of Russia, financially sustained by its trade deals with Iran, India, and China, it is a gross mischaracterization to even imply that neither size is more to blame than the other in the conflict when all Russia needs to do to end the war, financial restitutions aside, is simply return to Ukraine all of its stolen lands and kidnapped citizens.
I mean, technically speaking and using a rather lax definition, this is a proxy war between north and South Korea - also one between Israel and Iran, and between USA and China.
We’re on the same side, but I find the notion of Russia being the proxy instead of the major power to be very funny, so for what I’m concerned I’m ok with calling it a proxy war - as long as we get the countries right.
Also, fuck fico and his Slovakia. As a former nazi and then soviet puppet they should know better.
On the subject of Slovakia, I agree to an extent. They were pushed to give Germany land in the late 1930s due to the Munich Agreement, which gave Nazis a foothold in the country itself. However, they quickly surrendered the rest of the country when the nazis said “Let’s have it”
Complete misunderstanding of the war…
It might have more to do with corruption than struggles.
