Nato members have pledged their support for an “irreversible path” to future membership for Ukraine, as well as more aid.
While a formal timeline for it to join the military alliance was not agreed at a summit in Washington DC, the military alliance’s 32 members said they had “unwavering” support for Ukraine’s war effort.
Nato has also announced further integration with Ukraine’s military and members have committed €40bn ($43.3bn, £33.7bn) in aid in the next year, including F-16 fighter jets and air defence support.
The bloc’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said: “Support to Ukraine is not charity - it is in our own security interest.”
Cuba (country right next to the US) aligned itself with the USSR after Castro’s revolution, and the US has attempted to coup them, invade them, murder their leaders, then sink them in isolation and starvation. I’ve always defended that Cuba had the right of self-determination for their own foreign and domestic policy, and that the US was in the wrong for retaliating against them.
It would be extremely hypocritical of me to defend that Ukraine has no right to self-determine whether they want to be in a defensive pact or not, and whether they want to join the EU or not, just because a third country would like them not to do so - just as it’s extremely hypocritical of tankies and campists to say that Cuba had the right to choose their own future but Ukraine doesn’t.
Yeah, Cuba decided to choose sides in a (cold)war AND become a very real threat to US civilians. As was their right, as you said. Decisions have consequences.
The coups and assassinations were a means of punching them in the decision-makers so maybe the next ones would see the value of remaining out of the fight. The isolation and blockading was to make their population decide the fight wasn’t worth it and call upon their leadership to change stance back to at least neutral. We could have just hit everything they had with long range missiles and bombers and said “don’t join our enemies or else!” as their cities fell over and their island burned
They absolutely had the right to make those decisions and ally with who they want…and had the war gone hot, we would not have taken the time to pick off leaders here and there or blockade them and wag a finger. We would have carpet bombed cities that we heard rumors of leadership being near before entrenched soviet troops could have launched missiles from said cities (they wouldn’t care, it isn’t their country).
It wasn’t retaliation, it was striking a very real and very bad threat before it could get dug in and become permanent.
The parallel with Ukraine isn’t really the same. The US is an international bully and does some vile shit, but we, and our allies, don’t care about Russia (before this)…it was just a big sleeping threat to guard against (say…incase they start conquering neighbors…). Even if the US has bases inside a NATO Ukraine, we wouldn’t start shit with Russia or take their land…people don’t want another world war. Also, we already have all the capability and power to do whatever we want to anywhere in the world. Cuba was a threat because we were pretty much logistically untouchable when it came to prosecuting a war against us…Cuba changed that. These days, we can stuff more insane destructive power inside ONE of our cargo planes that reaches out farther than any plans for Cuba ever had. We don’t have to have a base next door to do war. We could ONLY have a base in Spain and still be an existential threat to Russia these days…and they aren’t taking all of Europe. Honestly, with how empty Russia is, we could set up launchers INSIDE their country and attack them if we really wanted to…
Sorry, I got way ranty…I don’t think your position is without some reason, but I can’t say, for as awful as it was, that Cuba was handled incorrectly given the time frame and threat. I also respect that you stick to your idea that “it is their right to decide” in any case. I just don’t think you realize how fundimentally different those scenarios are beyond a very surface level.
