Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "All of Europe's Overlapping Security Alliances Explained - TLDR News" video.
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A Russian invasion of Poland would be political and economic suicide for Russia, Poland is quite a lot richer than Ukraine and more modern but more importantly, they are in the EU, I know we have article 5 with NATO but it's just a word that hasn't been tested, not really much holds those countries together in NATO because they are not really integrated together.
The EU is quite different, from the early days shortly after the second world war with the Coal and Steel Community which was designed to pool resources among its members and make it almost impossible to go to war with each other, well that impact the same if a country was to invade any of them, basically, it would hurt them all which would compel them to get involved in a much more forceful way than we are seeing in Ukraine out of self-interest, integration is key to how much effort others are willing to do to help.
It's also the reason why with talks of Ukraine going neutral, they are willing to put NATO on the table of not joining but they are not mentioning the EU because the EU is the real prize they want that more or less offers the same security and protection plus a lot of other benefits, the truth is, an attack on an EU and probably a NATO member could quickly escalate into a major war, something I highly doubt Russia is willing to do with its poor performance in Ukraine.
With all that said, Ukraine should try to join both the EU and NATO, every level of protection adds more security and stability to the region, NATO does have its uses but because some of the big members are far away from the conflict zone, it doesn't impact them as much, whereas the EU with a war on its door step, well all of a sudden, there's a much bigger incentive to intervene, the problem is, the EU is quite powerless to do much on the military front as it's mostly a national thing, thats a major problem because the members are pulling in all directions which is the weakness Putin plays on and it really makes me wonder if the EU had its own military and one voice, put 60,000 peace keeping troops in Ukraine before the war started that we could have prevented the war from starting, the US could have done the same but the reality is, they rarely care about things outside it's boarder, the EU being as the war is on its door step would likely intervene because no one wants a war zone on its door step, so basically, Putin is taking advantage of our division in Europe and not just Europe, but even the divisions the EU and US have shown over the last few years.
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@chuckinchina6926 That's not world police, that's self-interest, the US gains a lot by having bases around the world, besides, if it was that simply, why does the US want EU countries to spend more but don't want them to integrate more on the military? They say it would undermine NATO but how would it? the EU would just be a member in NATO, if anything, it would actually make NATO stronger but clearly, if the EU acts as one, it would have a much bigger voice in NATO and the world stage which isn't really what the US wants which considering where China is heading, you would think they would want all the help they can get but not at the expense of losing influence.
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@peterfireflylund With everything going on in Ukraine and this being a big wake-up call, it's looking like military spending will go up for a lot of EU members but I also think we're going to see a lot more cooperation and integration on the military, security and energy policies in the EU.
Some people will think that's a threat to NATO, it's not, the EU could become a member of NATO in the same way the US is now, if anything, it could make NATO a lot stronger than it is now, the EU working as one military, reducing duplications would be a far more effective military than we have now, it would reduce the US role in NATO why the Europeans would have a bigger role but it's high time the EU and US start to realize who the real threats are and it's not each other, it might be a rising China of the future, something I don't think the US or EU on it's own can contain that in the long run.
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