Why wasn't NATO disbanded immediately after the Warsaw Pact was?

[PA19062024]

At some point during the late 80's or early 90's. The chance to make a real, lasting difference to global affairs was missed.

Maybe this question is too high-brow for a site like 'GirlsAskGuys', because I've noticed that most of the questions on this site are about dick lengths and whether or not cheating is okay if a person can get away with it.

Oh well.

Updates

+1 y

For 'NamerofStars' (below), who couldn't form a coherent case for why Russia should be feared, and so he blocked me.

"Repeating a lie will not make it true. Ask yourself this: what would the U. S. government do, if either Canada or Mexico were to join an alliance that was openly hostile to the United States? Would the U. S. president just sit on his ass, and say, "Oh well, they're free to do that, we won't intervene"? Of course not!"

Updates

+1 y

"Look at a map of the NATO nations in 1991, and compare to a current map. See the expansion to the East, right to Russia's borders. Kaliningrad is now surrounded by NATO territory. The Baltic States, which belonged to the USSR, are now in NATO."

[Drewtate]

Power & greed. It should have been disbanded in 1991 as what it had been formed for had dissolved but instead NATO expanded and has grown by about 60% or maybe more threatening Russia which in the 2000s realised it had to invest in its military to protect itself from NATO.

[PA19062024]

Correct! We have a winner!
Nice chicky-babes :) The two Milas, Jovovich and Kunis <3

[SkatPak392]

what does the pictures of women have to do with nato?

[Drewtate]

@SkatPak392 Ukrainian.

[SkatPak392]

@Deewtate send a message to these women to tell their President I want my goddamn tax dollars back.

[Drewtate]

@SkatPak392 it's a loan. They get us loans and from those loans they buy US military equipment that the us military is replacing anyhow.

[SkatPak392]

at the expense of the US gov printing insane amounts of money, devaluing the dollar, and making me and millions of low income Americans poor?

Do you not understand how high shit is?

Is supporting Ukraine worth me being poor? IS IT WORTH IT?

[Drewtate]

@SkatPak392 the us is printing money due to Biden economics. The whole Ukraine support is small fish and an attempt to stop further inflation through the military industrial complex. The us is selling us military equipment because virtually every piece of military equipment designed in the cold war is being replaced which is pretty much everything.

[SkatPak392]

the military industrial complex shouldn't exist in the first fucking place!!! this government sent my daddy on the fucking Vietnam and hecame back mentally unfit and hooked on drugs. this country isn't even worth lifting a finger to save.

[Drewtate]

@SkatPak392 not arguing the morality of it all, just what it is.

[SkatPak392]

so you're just gonna accept this, when we, the people have the power to drag these psychopaths in the middle of the street execute them?

I'm f****** done. I am f****** done

[SkatPak392]

our u-s government was always dead set on fucking around with Russia... the united states will get what they're asking for very soon.

[RebelinSteel]

A number of reasons, to keep peace in Europe, historically Europeans are happy to have wars with each other, it’s been a pastime for a few thousand years. With the Chechen wars and then the break up of Yugoslavia and subsequent wars due to this, there was zero chance of NATO standing down.

There was also the fact that former Warsaw pact countries wanted to join nato as they did not trust Russia (Chechen, Georgia, Moldova,). Then you have the likes of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia trying to stop Russia taking them over.
The wars in the Balkans reinforced the need for NATO,

When you create something that works, that can operate together very quickly, why get rid of it. As we are seeing now, it’s a pretty good reason not to have dissolved NATO.

[PA19062024]

Keep the peace in Europe? Why can't the Europeans do that? Why involve an outsider like the United States?

[RebelinSteel]

Who says they are an outsider?
They have been involved in European conflicts since before the country existed.

[PA19062024]

Actually, no, that's not true. And yes, of course they're an outsider! The USA isn't in Europe you know (or maybe you didn't know that - geography is something Americans tend to be really bad at).

[RebelinSteel]

Oh gee I never realised that North America was not attached to Europe, obviously I meant politically and militarily.
There were overtures to Gorbachev and to Yeltsin, however the Chechen wars kicked off, then Balkans. Then the West realised towards the end of 1990’s that Yeltsin was not fully in control, shock horror 1999, Putin was elected. The rest is history. In among all of that was the Russian statement to build at least one new Navy ship every 5 years.
When you have a former adversary engaged in wars, internal conflict and rearming, that is not the time to take a weaker stance. Also in all of that was the constant Russian Air incursions which generate QRA launches and in 2004 the establishment of QRA Baltic Air Policing started.
At no real point has there been a peaceful Russia to engage with diplomatically.

[PA19062024]

You make it seem as though the United States, in particular the CIA, had absolutely nothing to do with the elections in Russia back in 1996 being rigged in favour of Boris Yeltsin. Gee, how convenient of you to have such selective amnesia!

[RebelinSteel]

Even assuming that was the case, it has nothing to do with the question. Aside from that if Yeltsin had of remained in power then there would have been more work done on the partnership for peace. by the way you seem happy to be rather uncivil in your replies.
Back on to the question, taking into account the US meddling, then that just builds up the case for not dissolving NATO, as they needed to be something bad to meddle against.
Thank you for proving that NATO needed to and still needs to remain in place.

[PA19062024]

"... assuming it was the case..." - No need to assume; it WAS the case.

[RebelinSteel]

@pa19062024 ref your update, hmmm I wonder why they Wanted to join NATO, 1956 Hungary, Czechoslovakia 1956, 1968, Lithuania 1991 (after 500,000 people formed a human chain linking the Baltic states). The treatment of East Germany and other Warsaw pact countries by the Russians was fairly brutal, mass deportations and replacing native people with Russians.
I really wonder why they wanted to leave Russian control… hmmm 🤣🤣🤣

Back to the original question, because no one sane trusts Russia and so far have not been proved wrong with Chechen War, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, constant attempted intrusions into various countries sovereign airspace, a huge number of nuclear weapons that they refused to disband, the constant rhetoric for them to use those nukes if they did not get their way.

[PA19062024]

You believe Germans in East Germany were replaced by Russians? Really? Where are those "Russians" now in (united) Germany? Germany is still German, not Russian. Same goes for Poland, it's still Polish. And Hungary is the same. They haven't been "replaced".
Now you're being dishonest, and all for the sake of "winning the argument". Don't be such a troll.

[RebelinSteel]

Not trolling, it’s factual. Also it’s a percentage not all.
Just Google Soviet forced removal. They even did it with Finland, it’s a standard Russian thing, they did it with Mariupol in Ukraine fairly recently.
It is a percentage added to the population.

[RebelinSteel]

This is basic history, look at the Children deported by Russia from Ukraine. It is and always has been a Russian method to gain control of a country, Russification is a thing.

[NamerOfStars]

Because the threat posed by Russia and the CIS didn't magically cease to exist because the formal alliance had ended. Just ask Tajikistan. Or Chechnya. Or Georgia. Or Ukraine. Or Ukraine again.

[PA19062024]

But there never was a "threat" from Russia. I know, I was around back then. The mainstream media would constantly lie to us about "the Russian threat", but the whole thing was a lie.

[NamerOfStars]

Ukrainian slaves are dying by the day on the battlefield. Are you going to claim someone is FRAMING Russia? Are you also going to claim that the world's largest nuclear stockpile is just, say, painted cardboard?

There's a VERY REAL threat from Russia.

[PA19062024]

Ukrainian slaves? If Ukraine is a slave to anyone at the moment, it's the government in Kiev and those in the West who control it. This war wouldn't have happened if the nations of NATO, in particular the United States, hadn't consistently pushed for other countries within Eastern Europe to join that alliance, a trend started under the Clinton regime back in the 1990's.
And as for nuclear weapons, the United States has a stockpile that is just as large, so I don't know what your point is there.
Examine the history of Russia and you will understand why they've always felt the need to maintain a large military.

[NamerOfStars]

... Yes, that's exactly my point. The battle thralls of Ukraine are dying because their country is being invaded by the Russians. They're not the first, or the second, or even the TENTH to be invaded by Russia since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. The threat has not gone away, therefore, neither has the alliance.

I am also EXCEPTIONALLY curious how you think countries joining the alliance started under President Clinton, when it was President REAGAN who told Gorbachev that it would be expanded no further east, unless you think the 90's were somehow BEFORE the 80's.

And while the US has the world's second-largest nuclear weapons stockpile, that means Russia's is larger, as basic familiarity with mathematically causality will tell you. And the US is ONE country in NATO, not all of them.

Nor does expansion of NATO have anything to do with the current invasion; it's simply Putin attempting to regain Russian relevance and rebuild glory atop a mountain of skulls; unless your alternative is "America, Germany, and probably the UK as well cease to exist", NATO has nothing to do with it.

And prior mismanagement doesn't justify current evil, much less cause it to cease to exist because, again, RUSSIA IS STILL A THREAT.

[PA19062024]

It was the first president Bush who told Gorbachev that the NATO alliance wouldn't expand East. Not Reagan!
You can't even get your facts straight.

[PA19062024]

There is NO threat from Russia. There never was, not now, not back in the 1980's. The whole "Russia threat" was used to justify excessive military spending by the West, particularly the USA under the Reagan regime.

[NamerOfStars]

The passage of two weeks is not enough to make me forget what I wrote, and even if it WAS, it's written directly above what you've said. Here it is again: Ukrainian slaves are dying by the day on the battlefield. Are you going to claim someone is FRAMING Russia? Are you also going to claim that the world's largest nuclear stockpile is just, say, painted cardboard?

There's a VERY REAL threat from Russia.

Come talk to me when you've learned to read.