KUCOVA, Albania, March 4 (Reuters) - NATO member Albania, which has no fighter jets of its own, opened a rebuilt Soviet-era air base to serve NATO aircraft on Monday amid an increased threat from Russia, Prime Minister Edi Rama said.
NATO has spent over 50 million euros ($54.26 million) on the Kucova Air Base to bolster its presence in the region. Airspace in the Adriatic country of Albania, which borders Greece to the south and Montenegro to the north, is protected by Italy and Greece.
If Russia believed that countries freely joined NATO, then they would try to get them alligned with them via “courtship” (aka, not being a jerk to others)
You’re missing my point. I’m not making a comment on what Russia believes the reasons are for countries joining NATO.
It doesn’t matter to Russia how countries end up in NATO. What matters to them is that they view NATO as an existential threat that is coming closer to their borders.
But if they were engaging in “good faith”, they’d try much cheaper, peaceful endeavours to try and court those nations into the CSTO (kinda like what China is trying to achieve with the Belt and Road initiative, except that that is very expensive)
Again, all that matters is Russia believes NATO is an existential threat that is getting closer to their border. Good faith diplomacy has nothing to do with it.
Furthermore, Russia (and the USSR) has always used sticks rather than carrots in diplomacy. It’s not like they immediately went from friendly relations in Ukraine to boots on the ground. It was preceeded by their version of “diplomatic” bullying for years. You can see this now in many other countries.
To be clear, I’m not justifying their actions. I’m just saying you can’t look at their actions through a western diplomatic lens if you want to understand their behavior. They have a completely different modus operandi.