It's fair to say there has rarely been a conflict that so many strategic thinkers from the other camp saw coming and warned against for so many years, yet had their advice ignored. This begs the question: why?
Show this thread
-
Thank you
@LedaAlepi! This is British journalist@Itwitius, former Sky News foreign affairs editor, in his 2015 book Prisoners of Geography: for Russia "a pro-Western Ukraine with ambitions to join [EU or NATO] could not stand" and "could spark a war".https://twitter.com/LedaAlepi/status/1499166203855740936 …
Show this thread
Thank you @dekathlos!
In 1997, 50 prominent foreign policy experts (former senators, military officers, diplomats, etc.) sent an open letter to Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion.
It's a "policy error of historic proportions" they write
https://twitter.com/dekathlos/status/1499882364855631881?s=20&t=x6t_iu40IosfptDMIqNyCg …pic.twitter.com/sFWcm67xPG
-
-
Another one, George Beebe who used to be the CIA's top Russia analyst who in January this year linked Russia's actions in Ukraine directly to NATO expansion, explaining that Russia "feels threatened" and "inaction on [the Kremlin’s] part is risky".https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1499999760551399427?s=20&t=LLENTAXUNQwGKHSyMSrnNg …
Show this thread -
Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato Institute's senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies, wrote in a 1994 book that NATO expansion “would constitute a needless provocation of Russia.” Today he adds "we are now paying the price for the US’s arrogance".https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1499008965534838785?s=20&t=LLENTAXUNQwGKHSyMSrnNg …
Ted Galen Carpenter (the author of this article
) is another one who saw it coming, writing in a 1994 book: "It would be extraordinarily difficult to expand Nato eastward without that action’s being viewed by Russia as unfriendly."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/28/nato-expansion-war-russia-ukraine …Show this threadShow this thread -
Thank you
@TonySim79012667! This is Frank Blackaby, former director of SIPRI, writing in 1996 that "any Russian Government will react, militarily as well as politically to [NATO’s expansion]" and that it makes "Europe drift [...] towards Cold War II". https://twitter.com/TonySim79012667/status/1500127804029034496?s=20&t=kAEMUWNwZF1rB1_7ysBmKg …pic.twitter.com/GI78QeAY7g
Show this thread -
Thank you
@mystery_dave! This is legendary journalist@johnpilger who wrote this article in 2014: https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukraine-us-war-russia-john-pilger … He describes Ukraine as having become a "CIA theme park", a situation that he foresaw would lead to "a Nato-run guerrilla war" https://twitter.com/mystery_dave/status/1501002966886715393?s=20&t=b6lrZhC2hFAMO_8Cn5lDkA …pic.twitter.com/3NDABDo0GC
Show this thread -
Chinese experts also saw it coming long ago. This is Shiping Tang, one of China's foremost International Relations scholars, writing in 2009. His entire text has recently been re-published in
@ZichenWanghere's excellent Pekingnology substack: https://pekingnology.substack.com/p/ukraine-as-a-solution-by-shiping …pic.twitter.com/gJUxtyBAuI
Show this thread -
This is Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych in 2015. He says that if Ukraine continues down the path of joining NATO "it will prompt Russia to launch a large scale military operation [...] before we join NATO", "with a probability of 99.9%", likely "in 2021-2022".pic.twitter.com/j0V0oTQQXF
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
Salam, here is your unroll: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1498491107902062592.html … Share this if you think it's interesting.
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
Thanks. Twitter will use this info to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
But having Yeltsin eating out of his hands, Clinton was on a high. He loved the fact that he could get away by pushing NATO into Russians faces. Yeltsins love for Vodka and inability to understand the strategic games Clinton was playing has lead the world to this mess.
-
NATO had no raison d'etre after 1992 . Bush sr knew it .Clinton knew it. Germans knew it. NATO should hv been disbanded or restructured. Everyone knew the risks but no one had the will to act.
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.