With frightening regularity, I see western media (including high-profile outlets like NYT and Daily Telegraph) echo the line that Russia has “valid security concerns regarding NATO expansion”. I was hoping this line would be buried under the weight of the invaders’ brutality, but it keeps surviving and rearing its ugly head like a radioactive cockroach.
Full disclosure, this is not an objective assessment. This is an opinion piece written by a citizen of the former eastern bloc, meant to share a local’s perspective, which you can hopefully use to refine your own opinions.
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I would like to start with pointing out the obvious: Every country has the full right to worry about its security. This is probably not even a controversial statement. Does this not mean that Russia has this very same right as well?
And see, here is the pitfall that the western media never seem to spot. Here is my point 1: Russia has the right to worry about its security, but so does every other country.
Poland has its security concerns, so do the Baltics, so does Czechia, Slovakia, and everyone else. And for all of us here in the former eastern bloc, the main security concern is the same: Soviet Union was a nightmare, this must never happen again.
Understandably, even though the Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union, we approach them with the same suspicion. They were happy to claim their spot as spiritual successors to the Union, even going as far as inheriting their spot in the UN Security Council. Now, there are essentially two ways a country could secure itself against future Russian aggression:
1) Seek a military alliance. In these parts, it means applying for NATO membership; there is not really a good alternative.
2) Seek diplomatic ties with Russia. That means signing a non-aggression pact, maintaining good relations, hopefully even building economic and cultural ties (not too hard to do in theory, since most of us are some flavor of a Slav).
Every country in eastern Europe sought one of these options, often settling in some form of compromise. Since I was born, there has always been a hot debate about which approach is better — some preferred to befriend Russia, others shunned it.
Then the question was forever answered in 2014. A country that picked option 2 had sorely regretted its decision — its territory was seized, and it became embroiled in a war with Russia-sponsored separatists. Can you guess which country I am talking about?
This was a paradigm shift in our way of thinking. Russia had demonstrated its willingness to use cultural ties as an excuse for aggression, as well as total disregard for agreements that it found inconvenient. Option 2 was forever discredited in the eyes of everyone but the communists and russophiles, or as we call them here: fifth column.
So if you are a country in eastern Europe, you essentially had to join NATO, because Russia made the alternative impossible. It is our right to seek NATO membership, since we have valid security concerns. Russia lashes out against NATO expansion, but one’s freedom ends where another’s freedom begins. They can have security concerns, but they have no right to deny ours.
Western media that peddle this farce about “Russia’s security concerns” do not understand that the initiative for NATO expansion came from the applicants, not from NATO. We wanted to huddle under the NATO umbrella, it was our sovereign decision that we have every right to make. Deal. With. It.
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The first point I try to get across is that what Russia is trying to sell as a “security concern” is not valid. But my point 2 will take the headline a bit more literally: Russia does NOT have a security concern regarding NATO expansion. Valid or not, it literally does not exist.
My proof is two-fold:
1) Russia drew its defensive forces from around Moscow, St. Petersburg and its western flank in general, and redeployed them to Ukraine. This includes troops, supplies, and even air defense. From Russia’s own actions it is evident they are not worried about NATO. And if they are, their appetite for war of conquest far outweighs their ”concerns”.
2) “As far as expansion goes, including new members Finland and Sweden, Russia has no problems with these states - none. And so in this sense there is no immediate threat to Russia from an expansion to include these countries.”
- Vladimir Putin
Straight from the horse’s mouth. If the Führer himself claims that Russia is not concerned about NATO expansion, then I guess they really are not. Unless Putin is lying, but that doesn’t sound like him at all.
You could play devil’s advocate and say that Putin is concerned about NATO expanding into former Soviet territory specifically, and does not care about the Nordics. But Finland is big, strong, and right on Russia’s border, how come he does not care about it at all? Why is he emptying the Murmansk military bases?
Actions speak louder than words, but that doesn’t matter here, since they are both saying the same thing. Russia is not concerned about NATO expansion, period.
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And just to thoroughly murder this dumb take, point 3: Ukraine has valid security concerns.
With love from Czechia