Who said anything about colonialism and conquest not being bad? Countries seek to defend themselves. Russia has consistently been a threat to several EU and NATO states, therefore they seek defences against it
is it just a set of vague guidelines to keep the membership limited to whoever they like?
They don’t need guidelines to do that. Any member state can just say no
My comment on colonialism was in response to you mentioning Russia’s historical conquest of Eastern Europe. European countries were busy colonising other parts of the world during the same time so they’re not better than Russia.
That doesn’t mean that I said anything about colonialism being okay. Don’t put words in my mouth, and especially not those words
The countries I mentioned were not, in general, colonial powers (there is an exception here for part of Latvia)
It is still entirely rational behaviour for a colonial power to defend itself against colonisation. Even if they actually were colonial powers then seeking defence against Russia would be a perfectly sensible thing for them to do.
For an outsider, it seems like Russia gets punished for the same crimes that other western nations have committed and continue to commit even today.
Europe and America still continue to support invasions and occupations in the middle east and hence these sanctions seems especially hipocritical.
Not being welcomed into an alliance or supranational union is not a sanction. Not being in them is the default state for a country.
At no point have I made the argument that the countries Russia has invaded and controlled want to keep Russia out of these organisations as a matter of moral principals. I explicitly said it was a matter of self interest. They are not telling Russia off, they are making themselves safe from Russia.
Who said anything about colonialism and conquest not being bad? Countries seek to defend themselves. Russia has consistently been a threat to several EU and NATO states, therefore they seek defences against it
They don’t need guidelines to do that. Any member state can just say no
My comment on colonialism was in response to you mentioning Russia’s historical conquest of Eastern Europe. European countries were busy colonising other parts of the world during the same time so they’re not better than Russia.
That doesn’t mean that I said anything about colonialism being okay. Don’t put words in my mouth, and especially not those words
The countries I mentioned were not, in general, colonial powers (there is an exception here for part of Latvia)
It is still entirely rational behaviour for a colonial power to defend itself against colonisation. Even if they actually were colonial powers then seeking defence against Russia would be a perfectly sensible thing for them to do.
For an outsider, it seems like Russia gets punished for the same crimes that other western nations have committed and continue to commit even today. Europe and America still continue to support invasions and occupations in the middle east and hence these sanctions seems especially hipocritical.
Not being welcomed into an alliance or supranational union is not a sanction. Not being in them is the default state for a country.
At no point have I made the argument that the countries Russia has invaded and controlled want to keep Russia out of these organisations as a matter of moral principals. I explicitly said it was a matter of self interest. They are not telling Russia off, they are making themselves safe from Russia.
That’s fair i guess.