Lumifer comments on Calibrating your probability estimates of world events: Russia vs Ukraine, 6 months later. - Less Wrong

19 Post author: shminux 28 August 2014 11:37PM

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Comment author: James_Miller 29 August 2014 01:34:02PM 8 points [-]

Why will the Baltics be different? Do you think that the dead hand of the past (in the form of the NATO treaty) will compel Obama to act to protect nations that most Americans have never heard of? If yes keep this in mind

By 1996, Ukraine voluntarily gave up all of its nuclear arms and acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In exchange for making the world a safer place, it received security assurances from Britain, the United States and Russia in the form of the Budapest Memorandum, signed by Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and John Major, with pledges to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and the “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.”

Do Baltic members spend lots of time and money building their political support among American politicians like Israel and Taiwan do? If not why will these politicians care if Russia retakes the Baltics?

Comment author: Lumifer 29 August 2014 02:40:48PM *  15 points [-]

Why will the Baltics be different?

Because they are members of NATO.

If NATO doesn't react to the Russian invasion, it will be clearly and very publicly dead. And that would radically change the power equation in Europe and may e.g. lead to Western Europe rearming itself.

I am not saying that if Putin, say, starts grabbing chunks of Estonia, NATO will necessarily intervene. It might decide to die instead. But the odds are very different from the Ukraine case.

And, of course, NATO's original purpose and whole reason for existence is precisely to contain the Russian/Soviet expansion to the west.

Comment author: DanArmak 29 August 2014 10:50:02PM 5 points [-]

And, of course, NATO's original purpose and whole reason for existence is precisely to contain the Russian/Soviet expansion to the west.

I don't think the reasons for forming NATO in 1949 are, or should be, relevant today. Upholding treaties is a legitimate concern, but what people cared about two generations ago when they formed them isn't.

Comment author: simplicio 11 September 2014 10:46:08PM 2 points [-]

East Europeans wanted into NATO for protection both from Communism and from Russian domination simpliciter. The latter consideration has not fundamentally changed.