0 sats \ 14 replies \ @Bell_curve OP 17 Apr \ parent \ on: "Should Congress Stop Funding the War in Ukraine?" Yes! econ
West is the original NATO members.
New members after 1991 are not Western Europe and USA
New members that were former Warsaw Pact members are not considered West.
Baltic countries are not the West.
Ukraine cannot win because they lack manpower.
USA cannot give blank check to Ukraine
These countries were part of Western European cultural sphere for centuries, before Warsaw Pact come into existence. Riga, for example, was one of the main cities of Hanseatic League in Medieval Europe, Poland-Lithuania saved Europe from takeover by Ottomans, etc.
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Anything east of the iron curtain is not Western Europe
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That's less than 100 years old definition of what is West. Geographically centre of Europe is in Baltics.
West as a culture started with Roman Empire, not Soviet Union.
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It’s the geopolitical definition since 1946
That is more relevant
Roman Empire fell because of over extension.
NATO will collapse if it continues to over extend
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By modern UN definitions division is like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Europe#/media/File:Europe_subregion_map_UN_geoscheme.svg
But by the "West" we usually mean culture, not geography. Otherwise, UK, for example, is also not part of the West.
That is more relevant
I disagree, we aren't living in times of Cold War anymore.
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Ukraine will never be part of the west culturally or geographically or geopolitically
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Yes, Ukraine will not be part of Western Europe culturally, they are different (I have been in Kyiv). But they are key for other nations to be able to exist as independent countries. Architect of Latvian independence war general Peteris Radzins wrote about that ~100 years ago. He also precisely predicted back then that without independent strong Ukraine Latvia has 20 years of existence, until Russians will invade again.
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Latvian independence general said this in 1920?
When did Ukraine lose independence in 20th century?
1918? 1931?