I wrote a long answer and then accidentally hit the back button and don’t have the patience to retype it.
The short version is that Vladimir Putin is responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. I don’t want any confusion about that.
NATO’s influence was that the US has been advancing against Russia for decades even after their country collapsed, and it was obviously nakedly escalatory. Combined with the US is overall foreign policy, which has always been imperial, we’ve acted as though putting a gun to someone’s head and telling them to stay cool was an actual way of calming things rather than the exact opposite.
I’m not saying that a version of NATO couldn’t have done what it claims to do. But that’s never been the version that has existed.
If by “advancing against Russia” you mean that a bunch of countries were extremely eager to sign up when given the chance, then arguably its Russia’s own fault that they felt the need to join a defense alliance so that their sovereignty would not be threatened in the future. And given that Ukraine has been invaded multiple times by Russia exactly because it does not have a NATO mutual defense guarantee, it sure looks like they had the right idea.
I wrote a long answer and then accidentally hit the back button and don’t have the patience to retype it.
The short version is that Vladimir Putin is responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. I don’t want any confusion about that.
NATO’s influence was that the US has been advancing against Russia for decades even after their country collapsed, and it was obviously nakedly escalatory. Combined with the US is overall foreign policy, which has always been imperial, we’ve acted as though putting a gun to someone’s head and telling them to stay cool was an actual way of calming things rather than the exact opposite.
I’m not saying that a version of NATO couldn’t have done what it claims to do. But that’s never been the version that has existed.
If by “advancing against Russia” you mean that a bunch of countries were extremely eager to sign up when given the chance, then arguably its Russia’s own fault that they felt the need to join a defense alliance so that their sovereignty would not be threatened in the future. And given that Ukraine has been invaded multiple times by Russia exactly because it does not have a NATO mutual defense guarantee, it sure looks like they had the right idea.