This post is a testament to the absolute divorce between the mind of the super patriotic american clown and reality:
1 - NATO is no threat to Russia.
In which planet of the solar system a military organization with the blatant, ouert geopolitical goal of surrounding another country's borders (european Russia) does not represent an extremely grave geopolitical threat?
It must be Jupiter or Neptune because here on Earth military encirclements by foreign powers are universally regarded as a danger by all nation states.
In order to understand this bizarre concept we have to delve into the subjective perception of the super patriotic american clown.
The SPAC perceives
NATO as a "benelovent", "benign", "strictly defensive" military organization just like his counterpart, the super patriotic soviet clown perceived the Warsaw Pact.
The most cursory reality check immediately destroys his romantized perception and reveals that NATO, just like any other military organization, do whatever their members consider to be their best geopolitical interest not constrained by any "democratic clause", "defensive nature" or any other "noble ideal" the SPAC attributes to it:
1 Democratic clause:
The organization has no problem with autocracies or dictatorships as long as they serve its geopolical interests:
2 Defensive nature:
As people jokingly say, Nato is a defensive organization except when it's not:
Now you can clearly see the gigantic abysm that separates the objective nature of
NATO from the subjective perception of the super patriotic american clown.
NATO'S OBJETIVE REALITY: an amoral, defensive/aggressive military organization that pursues whatever geopolitical interests the "tribes" that control it order it to pursue just like any other military organization in the world.
SPAC's subjective perception of NATO: a benevolent military organization that strictly follows its democratic and defensive principles.
So when the SPAC toomuchtime says "
NATO in no way posed a threat to Russia's security" the real tragedy is that he really believes this. He's probably not debating in bad faith he's just expressing his subjective perception of NATO.
Military organizations are not "good" or "bad", "righteous" or "wicked", they are just military organizations. Period. Full Stop. End of discussion. Don't try and attribute moral qualities to amoral social constructs that do exactly what their masters tell them to do.
And this subjective perception of the western military alliance is so deeply entrenched in the mindset of westerners that even Tom Payne who isn't a super patriotic american clown by any stretch of the imagination cannot escape from this perception completely.
In the middle of a scathing criticism of NATO's expansionism he adds the following:
All we can say is Russian state paranoia runs deep and our policies did not help.
Nation states fearing foreign powers implementing a geopolitical plan whose end result is the military encirclement of their borders is anything but "paranoia", it's sheer common sense.
As you can see, the supposedly "benign", "benevolent" nature of the military organization created and run by America runs so deep that not even serious political thinkers like Tom are 100% immune to it.
If Tom couldn't avoid it completely, super patriotic american clowns don't stand a chance in Hell.