Russia makes up enough BS excuses for being aggressive a-holes. Why do Westerners have to add to the excuses?
It is worth noting that Moscow sought to deal with the growing threat on its borders through aggressive diplomacy, but the United States and its allies were unwilling to accommodate Russia’s security concerns. On 17 December 2021, Russia put forward a proposal to solve the growing crisis that envisaged a neutral Ukraine and the withdrawal of Nato forces from Eastern Europe to their positions in 1997. But the United States rejected it out of hand.Is he effing kidding me? Russia issued crazy demands based on crazy assumptions that NATO rejected. And NATO's rejection of that kind of insanity was justification for Putin's war? Somehow that doesn't count as restoring Russia's empire?
One, the empire--which Putin has said losing was a great tragedy--was created repeatedly because of that fear. So that's a fine distinction with no difference.
Two, saying that Russia didn't start out wanting to control all of Ukraine ignores Putin's effort to seize Kiev to decapitate Ukraine and then march across a Ukraine he expected to welcome its rescue from Nazi domination.
Three, nobody in the West wants to invade Russia. The threat was and remains BS. Even with Russia's aggression, NATO simply wants to be able to defeat bigger Russian aggression--not invade Russia. Russia has been NATO's best recruiter. That expansion has been a series of rational choices given the apparently insatiable nature of Putin's quest for territorial security in the west.
Honest to God, Putin is foolishly ignoring the real threat in the east to create Western hostility--that is wholly justified given Putin's quest for western buffer-based security. The stupidity is astounding. When will Putin act to resist the real threat?
Indeed, I think Putin really does know where the real threat is. I suspect that the
invasion of Ukraine was intended to get some buffer territory and break NATO in a
short and glorious war in order to pivot to face China before it is too
late. But that didn't work out as planned.
Putin--or his replacement when Russians get sufficiently worried about the empire of dirt Putin is pursuing--will need to suck it up and pivot anyway before it is too late.
And in bonus territory, why doesn't Putin have to understand and accept America's policies designed to prevent an attack on America? Stopping Russia as far east as possible is a fully rational American and NATO objective.
Russia is acting like an a-hole. An a-hole with nukes, delusions of grandeur, and a victim complex that is astounding to behold. Yes, yes, the author says he is only trying to understand Russia's perspective of rationality. That narrow point is completely correct. Our rationality is not necessarily a foe's rationality.
Yet "understanding" an enemy so easily transforms into "justifying" its objectives, doesn't it?
We can't possibly accommodate that as a path to peace.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
