NATO is not a threat to Russia. Don't believe Putin's propaganda.
Don't believe Russian propaganda:
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s central argument has always been that NATO enlargement poses a grave security threat to the Russian Federation. However, his own actions convincingly demonstrate that he doesn’t actually believe this himself. ...
While NATO represents no plausible threat to Russian national security, it does create substantial obstacles for Russian imperialism.
In other words, NATO prevents Russia from bullying its neighbors.
... [Putin] has repeatedly claimed to be returning “historically Russian lands” and has compared his invasion to the eighteenth-century imperial conquests of Czar Peter the Great.
It’s no surprise to learn, then, that on the first day of the invasion, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reportedly quipped that Putin has only three advisors, “Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great.”
Russia invaded Ukraine because it feared it was running out of time to easily conquer Ukraine. Either Ukraine would become more Western state with too much economic strength or it would join NATO and Russia would risk general war to re-conquer Ukraine.
NATO is a defensive alliance that relies on member states voluntarily choosing to fight. This is in contrast to the Warsaw Pact "alliance" that was nothing more than a propaganda veneer over what were vassal ground forces integrated into the Soviet army. NATO never posed a threat to invade Russia's eastern European vassal states.
After NATO won the Cold War, NATO "expansion" consisted of former vassals eagerly applying for membership to protect themselves from renewed Russian imperialism. And even as NATO expanded back into contact with the Russian imperial border, NATO member states slashed their military strength. America slashed its forces in Europe, even withdrawing all of its tanks at one point.
NATO lacked the plans or logistics capability for--or interest in--invading Russia.
And even now, after Sweden and Finland joined NATO, pushed by Russia's open invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has moved troops from the Finnish border to commit to Ukraine.
So why does Russia screech about NATO so much? In my view, it is because Russia needed to conceal its appeasement of China by loudly proclaiming a threat from a weak NATO that frankly--and insultingly from Russia's point of view--didn't even think much about Russia, let alone plan to invade it.
Perhaps over time Russians began to believe their own BS. Although I think Russia knew, and expected a short and glorious war to burnish Russian military credibility enough for Russia to pivot to face China before the non-aggression pact expired and allow Russia to deter China from erasing the stain of Russia's conquest of Chinese territory in the "century of humiliation."
But Russia has provoked NATO into rearming and making plans for fighting Russia. And Russia has only given China reason to see opportunity at Russia's expense because Putin wrecked rather than burnished the reputation of the Russian military.
#WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.