NATO aggressively bombed Serbia over the issue of Kosovo. I don't know how anyone can seriously claim "NATO is purely a defensive pact" with a straight face.
I think that bombing Serbia was probably the rupture that has led us to the terrible situation we have in Ukraine now.
What is really telling is your admission that NATO is also an Offensive Alliance, which is exactly the point I was making, and which has led directly to this tragedy.
What tragedy? I don't see any tragedy caused by NATO. The war started before NATO involvement. The same with Yugoslavia. Years of war and attrocities, massive refugee crisis in early 90's, ended in a month by NATO.
Preventing genocide next door is defense, not offense. Just like in Ukraine now. The most Offensive thing here is your defense of genocidal wars of aggression.
The problem here is that when you give a defensive alliance a mandate to defend entities that are not covered by it's mandate it becomes a de-facto offensive alliance.
No it does not. They did not initiate the aggression.
There's a question of semantics here of course. We're contrasting aggressive and defensive military action. I don't see how characterising military action in defence of others as aggressive is a useful or meaningful characterisation. It's defensive, just not defensive of yourself.
Also let's look at the objectives. The intention in Kosovo wasn't to invade Serbia but to end ethnic cleansing. The fact it took force to achieve that was a means to and end, not an end in itself. Without the ethnic cleansing there would have been no military action, so it wasn't about territory or aggression.
That's what he wants people to believe he is doing. But he actually started aggressive. Even if you don't take Crimea cause supposedly there was not much blood spilled, the invasion into Ukraine started on April 13, 2014 when Russian special forces killed a group of Ukrainian internal security officers deep into Ukrainian territory. There were no "victims" to defend at that point.
> Being a "defensive pact" does not exclude preventing genocide next to it's borders.
Actually, it does. Kosovo and Iraq are clear evidence that NATO is not a defensive pact. Neither attack was preceded by a judicial ruling that genocide was occurring (and genocide is very difficult to prove).
I'm afraid those attacks seriously undermined NATO's moral authority as a "defensive pact".
AFAIK, the Iraq invasion had nothing to do with NATO.
It was done by the US with some NATO (and non-NATO) countries joining it.
For example, France was strongly opposed.
Surely you mean the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia? Unless you're implying that was a sham political cover for naked Serbian self interest. Perish the thought.
NATO was defending Kosovo from a war of aggression and ongoing genocide.
>NATO was defending Kosovo from a war of aggression and ongoing genocide.
Except that Kosovo was not a part of NATO so you can't say that NATO is a defensive alliance unless you are going the Roman way of pre-emptive defence[1].
[1] All Roman wars were officially defensive because they believed gods would not support an offensive war
I think that bombing Serbia was probably the rupture that has led us to the terrible situation we have in Ukraine now.