but still think nato will send troops, they can't let Russia take over another country.
Yeah, no. I'm 99.99998% sure that will never happen.
I haven’t read thru the NATO treaty, but I’m pretty certain it would be narrowly drawn. Member nations aren’t give NATO council a blank check to get their country entangled into any war that comes around. They are only signing on to commit their militaries in the event of another member nation being under attack.
That wouldn’t include personnel who happen to be in Ukraine training, etc. That is not an attack on a member nation. Possibly an attack on our embassy would as that is considered sovereign territory, but that is putting a fine point on things.
That’s why NATO was with us in Afghanistan; because the US homeland had been attacked from bases there and so triggered the NATO treaty. They however did NOT choose to follow us on into Iraq. They simple told us there is no evidence the Iraq attacked the US homeland or territories so that is outside NATO’s purview. Good luck.
It’s why they did not send NATO troops to defend Georgia. It’s why they did not send NATO troops to defend Crimea. It’s why they won’t send NATO troops to defend Ukraine.
That doesn’t mean nations that happen to be in NATO might coordinate to provide military assistance under their individual nations flag. Like our “Coalition of the Willing.” Several NATO countries in that. But that didn’t make it NATO.
NATO will deploy troops to eastern NATO member countries. To calm them and let them know we WILL not accept any attack on them. We have a treaty obligation to do so. Many of them border Russia. Their concern is reasonable. We will beef up shows of our muscle there, but not in Ukraine, but NATO members near Ukraine.
It’s really an EU problem, not a NATO problem. If they want to sit at the grown-ups table it’s time for them to run their own house. The next logical jurisdiction would be the UN. But that would be pointless as China and Russia are in cahoots and each will use their security council veto to shield the other from the actions they will both be undertaking soon. They both have vetoes. Russia gets Ukraine, China get Taiwan. So the UN is powerless here. Back to the EU then. You can’t tell me this is a US problem more than a German or French problem. We don’t live on that continent.
I can see the US helping out with money and equipment and intel and supplies and training outside of Ukraine. I can see us raising holy hell and coordination sanctions and economic punishments including seizing the electronic funds of many of Vlad’s wealthy client oligarchs. How happy would they be to see all their accounts wiped to zero with a note, “You can thank Vlad for this. When he’s gone, your money reappears.”
