Voevoda
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30:47 · 2.5M views · Nov 20, 2015
Vladimir Putin's February 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference, criticizing a unipolar world and US use of force and NATO expansion. This upload presents the full speech with a sympathetic framing.
HN cites it as a primary source for Russia's grievances over NATO expansion, mostly in threads about Ukraine.
6 comments from Hacker News
"good aggression" Be aware that most people cannot read Chinese or Russian, and as such their whole world perspective is fed by an one sided narrative. I suggest you listen to these[1][2] talks, and Putin's speech[3] on NATO expansion in Munich in 2007. Pozner[1] pointed out that up to 2007, Putin really tried to be friend with the West, including asking to join NATO. Of course they were "the enemy". [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK] [3] this video
That argument does not work since you have not come up with a new security argument after a pointed out there was not concrete security argument after you withdrew the nuclear threat: [LINK] For the argument to work, for the analogy to work, NATO's threat to Russia needs to substantially change if Ukraine joins NATO. Russia does not trust NATO and especially the USA, any neighboring country joining NATO allows them place more military assets close to the Russian border and having military assets close to a target is obviously more threatening. Russia had all those assets that are in Ukraine now all the time but moving them to the Ukrainian border made a heck of a difference. I have now also looked at more resources and they mostly support what I researched before. I am somewhat worried that I accidently got trapped in a bubble as the pieces fit together almost to well, so I will have to look more for opposing opinions. M. E. Sarotte: Not One Inch - America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (2022) [1] John Mearsheimer: Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? (2015) [2] Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin (2018) [3] Vladimir Putin: Speech at Munich Security Conference (2007) [4] As a probably opposing opinion I found »Documents Talk - NATO-RUSSIA Relations after the Cold War« [5] but it is 600 pages and I really only read a few paragraphs from a few documents so far. It is however co-sponsored by NATO, so there is certainly the possibility of
The joke is Russia has always been incompetent. McCain was actually on the money in 2008. He was in the audience when Putin gave that famous "warning to the west" speech in Germany [1]. The quip that Russia is a "gas station with nuclear weapons" about sums it up. The United States being weak or not really has nothing to do with it. They counted on Zelensky cutting and running, the attempted decapitation of Kyiv failed. Russia is swirling the toilet. Without the energy reserves their oligarchs would be worthless. Since most of what is actually valuable about their country is land (where the resources sit) that is sparsely inhabited the end state of China controlling most of what is now Russia is inevitable. By failing in Europe and tying himself to China, Putin has ensured Russian power will continue to erode. Of course, it's not great for China, having to deal with two nuclear armed pariahs on their borders. The United States is truly blessed simply by being two oceans away from anyone who could remotely challenge it. Properly understood, the Monroe (or "Donroe" doctrine) is less about foreign intervention and more an understanding that if a peer power ever emerged in the Western Hemisphere, most of what appears to make the United States singular would rapidly disappear. [1] this video
I think I have seen this before and skipped through it slowly enough the get the gist, all the details and which fake news were spread is not really too interesting to me. I have no reason to doubt that the USSR or Russia did use those active measures. The interesting thing is the gap in the timeline which aligns with other resources I found. There was a time when all the current mess was avoidable, a time at which Russia was eager to work with the West, a time at which Russia was heading towards a NATO membership through the Partnership for Peace program. But things went south and Russia turned against NATO and the USA again, Putin's 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference is probably the most well known expression of Russia's or Putin's frustration [4]. M. E. Sarotte: Not One Inch - America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (2022) [1] John Mearsheimer: Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? (2015) [2] Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin (2018) [3] Vladimir Putin: Speech at Munich Security Conference (2007) [4] [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK] [4] this video
Instead of discussing many different points, let us focus on one. You're not referring to any primary sources here. [...] The first is evidence based - Russia is expanding. The second has the convenient property that it backwards rationalizes Russia's violent actions [...] Give me a pre-invasion source that says that Russia has expansionist ambitions, bonus points if that claim is substantiated by evidence. I give you Putin's speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference [1] and the draft Agreement on measures to ensure the security of The Russian Federation and member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [2]. And just to be clear, I think that declaring that Russia has expansionist ambitions is backwards rationalization, nobody claimed that before the invasion. Russia warning about the consequences of further NATO expansion, especially Ukraine, on the other hand has been stated countless times and for decades now. [1] this video [2] [LINK]