The West did not cause Russia to fear NATO.
Yes:
Former security officials insist that the United States made every effort to integrate Russia, rejecting claims that America 'tried to humiliate' the former Soviet Union.
"I will go out on a limb here and say that I think everybody from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration, to the Obama administration, to the Trump administration did everything possible to try to integrate Russia into the international system," Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said Friday at the Aspen Security Forum.
The Russians are seriously annoying. They could have been part of the West but instead they've decided to just be a thorn in our side out of some strange Cold War nostalgia for their glory days when people feared them.
The proto-thugs in Moscow actually have the nerve to be upset that joining NATO has become fairly popular amongst the formerly Soviet satellite nations and even parts of the old Soviet Union. Instead of wondering why the tender loving attention of Mother Russia scares the crap out of these people eager to join NATO, the Russians are busy whining and blustering even as their military continues to rot and their economy enjoys a temporary oil-fueled bubble that will leave Russia like any other Third World oil exporter--poorer and unfree.
Putin has been eager to restore the Russian/Soviet empire.
Were we to tell those liberated countries that escaped the USSR's grasp that they were condemned to live in a purgatory tainted by once being owned by Russia, forever doomed to reconquest when Russia moved on them? Really? For too many in the West, the West was to be complicit in an updated Brezhnev Doctrine?
The author seems to have internalized the Brezhnev Doctrine that stated once you go Soviet-controlled, you never go back. The Nation holds this is an inviolable law even after the communist state that established the rule of perpetual control ceased to exist. There is no freedom to associate once you are embraced by the Soviets or their Russian successors. That's amazing.
Ukraine (and not just this year) and Georgia have experienced the joys of that status. Sweden and Finland (once part of the Russian Empire, don't forget) applied this year because Russian territorial ambitions suddenly became hard to ignore.
Russian hostility under Putin is mindbogglingly stupid when you consider that while it would be nice for America if Russia was our friend, Russia really needs America as a friend to secure Russia's western border and pivot east. Where the real threat to Russian territory is.
Stop making excuses for Putin's Russia. Putin decided to reject the West when the West was eager for a post-Cold War peace dividend and continental European states wanted to complete their disarmament.
And the Treaty of Versailles charge is wrong in its very premise.
NOTE: War coverage continues here.
