All these countries applied to NATO, but it was NATO that accepted their application. It could also refuse their application or just tell them they won’t be accepted if they apply, like they did when Russia joined NATO partnership and wanted to become a member. Inserted NATO decided to expand to Russian borders but not accept Russia. Which was logical, what is a purpose of a military alliance without a powerful enemy?
> All these countries applied to NATO, but it was NATO that accepted their application.
As an eastern european, I hate this rhetoric. Some country feels threatened by Russia, joins NATO, and this is presented as NATO bullying Russia. The country that joined, its citizens and their will is not a subject in this discussion. The country is a thing, discussed like you would discuss a nuclear warhead or military base - it's just a tool the powerful use for their means.
How about you consider what the sovereign people want and stop thinking about them as political playthings.
This "Russia wanted to join NATO but was denied" argument is the same sort of half-truth revisionism like that "NATO promised to not expand east-ward" thing. What may have been "promised" in private conversations behind closed doors by people who most likely weren't even qualified to give such promises doesn't count much unless there's some sort of written agreement.
There is a formal agreement that Germany doesn't station foreign NATO troops in former East Germany. And guess what? There are no foreign NATO troops stationed in former East Germany to this day.
Russia didn't apply to join though, they (Putin) expected special treatment.
The Labour peer recalled an early meeting with Putin, who became Russian president in 2000.
“Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join Nato, they apply to join Nato.’
And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”
> It could also refuse their application or just tell them they won’t be accepted if they apply, like they did when Russia joined NATO partnership and wanted to become a member.
Russia never applied, they wanted to be special and be asked to apply, they where told that they would have to apply like everyone else.
Number of times Russia attacked any NATO state is exactly 0, same as number of times NATO invaded Russia. What’s your point here?
On the other side, why so limited question? Why not comparing the number of times NATO states invaded some country, and compare with the number of times Russia invaded some country. The relation would probably be somewhere between 10:1 and 100:1.
And btw, why do you call NATO a defensive alliance when it wasn’t involved in a defensive war, only in criminal aggression, if we use international law classification.
> Why not comparing the number of times NATO states invaded some country, and compare with the number of times Russia invaded some country. The relation would probably be somewhere between 10:1 and 100:1.
Are you actually citing all the wars Russia was involved in since IX century? I don’t even know where to start with this, but maybe consider that “Russia” is not some thousand year old unchanging state, it has been morphing and changing drastically. Even reasoning about USSR and modern Russia as equivalent entities is just plain wrong - different economies, different basis, different system of government, ownership and decision making, vastly different territories even.
So I would stick comparing modern states between each other, not some small feudal entities from IX century
