Thread by @UmlandAndreas

THREAD ON CHINA'S (AND OTHER CONTRIES') CONTINUED MISUNDERSTANDING OF

- NATO'S ROLE IN EASTERN EUROPE,

-MOSCOW'S PERCEPTION OF NATO ENLARGEMENT, AND

- THE RUSSIAN OCCUPATION OF TERRITORIES OF UKRAINE (AS WELL AS NEUTRAL MOLDOVA AND TINY GEORGIA)

/1
reuters.com/world/planned-…

Explanations of Beijing & other capitals for their officially neutral positions on the Russo-Ukrainian War continue to refer to the vagaries of NATO's enlargement since 1999. Supposedly, Russia merely reacted to this process, with its ever more aggressive assault on Ukraine.

/2

Yet, the Chinese & similar understanding or/and presentations of the issue ignore the actual course of NATO's eastward move and Russia's material reaction to - rather than rhetorical acrobatics on - it. Counterintuitively, Moscow was & is relaxed about NATO's enlargement.

/3

With NATO's expansions of 1999 and 2004, for instance, Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast became fully surrounded by NATO countries. Yet, at the time, there were no major material (rather than merely rhetorical) responses to this new situation - either before or after these events.

/4

With the NATO's most recent northern enlargement of 2023-24, the NATO-Russia border approximately doubled.

Moreover, Putin's, Medvedev's & Patrushev's hometown of St. Petersburg became half-"encircled" by NATO states, i. e. by Estonia in the west & Finland in the north.

/5

Yet, during Finland's and Sweden's NATO accession in 2022-24, Moscow was relaxed and not increasing but removing its troops in the Western and Northern Military Districts close to the Russo-Finnish border - an area now covered by the revised Leningrad Military District.

/6

Even in its official rhetoric, Moscow did not react that negatively to NATO's 2023-24 northern enlargement. Instead, Putin himself explicitly & publicly characterized NATO & its enlargement as constituting, by themselves, no security threat to Russia.

/7
aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukra…

Since completion of NATO's northern enlargement, Russia has continued moving troops away from the Kaliningrad Oblast and Russo-Finnish border. If NATO wanted to snap Russia's formerly German or Finnish lands, this would be a good moment to do so.

/8
mil.in.ua/en/news/russia…

But NATO never wanted to, does not want to & will not want to do so. And Moscow knows that well. That is why moving Russia's troops from the borders to NATO to those of Ukraine does not decrease Russian security. Instead, Ukraine's democracy threatens Russia's autocracy.

/9

Ukraine has neither a NATO Membership Action Plan nor any other road map to accession to NATO.

All colonialist wars of expansion were justified with good reasons by the imperial center - self-defence, historical justice, international solidarity, foreign mission...

/10

We Germans, for instance, were just "returning fire" against the irresponsible Poles when we started - in close collaboration, secret agreement, and official friendship with Stalin's USSR (see below) - the Second World War in September 1939.

/11

Today, Moscow, Beijing, Wagenknecht, Mearsheimer & many others around the world say that NATO enlargement is responsible for the war. But Ukraine has only its nebulous 2008 membership perspective. There was & is no chance that Ukraine actually accedes to NATO any time soon.

/12

Other countries bordering with Russia instead had a much clearer chance to actually enter NATO. They applied thus successfully for membership, went subsequently through a more or less prolonged ratification process, and eventually acceded to the Alliance as full members.

/13

Ukraine has been attacked by Russia although none of the above has ever applied to the Ukrainian NATO aspirations. If the popular NATO enlargement explanation for the Russo-Ukrainian War were true: Why was there no Russo-Polish War before Poland's accession to NATO in 1999?

/14

Why was there no Russo-Estonian War before Estonia acceded in 2004? Estonia hosts the most Russian city outside Russia. The Estonian town of Narva is more Russian than Sevastopol whose Russianness is another popular explanation for the Russo-Ukrainian War's start in 2014.

/15

Why did a Russo-Finnish War not break out when Helsinki applied successfully for NATO membership in 2022? Finland's accession is geostrategically especially consequential as Russia has a long border with this militarily formidable country close to the second Russian capital.

/16

Instead, Putin announced that Finland's and Sweden's NATO accessions are unproblematic for Russia.

How does all that not mean that NATO enlargement is in general not seen as a national security threat in Moscow?

/END

@threadreaderapp #unroll