ScottCDunn, I think you have the wrong end of the stick.

Post USSR countries joined NATO as a defensive action to protect them from exactly what has happened to Ukraine. The U.S. did not have the Baltic countries, Poland, Romania and others on the rack asking them to join NATO. They applied and were accepted. Did America encourage them joining? Yes, as a mutual protection against who knows what could happen from an authoritarian Russia.

Now we know what can happen. To blame NATO for demolishing Ukraine is ludicrous. Absolutely, Putin would be opposed to NATO and I am sure it got up his nose. Mainly because it was preventing him from expanding Putin's Russia back to the old days.

Putin is most of all a gangster boss who wanted Ukraine subordinate to him and paying rent. When Ukraine wanted OUT of this arrangement and didn't respond to his threats, he took took action. Ukraine had to be punished into submission. Over the last weeks that has failed and now Ukraine has to be killed.

It's mobster stuff that Starlin did. Stalin, at least, was following an ideology.

I think it's just fine for you to point out the short falls of America and the West. The post USSR transition to a market driven economy could have been handled differently to safeguard the even small livelihoods that most Russians had. There were possibilities for Putin to have been handled differently by the West and Russia to head more into an information economy.

Should Russia, under some circumstances, place offensive weapons in Mexico, the U.S. would certainly do something about it. But it would NOT be us blowing up Mexico.

The other big consideration, often absent in discussion, is INTENT.

NATO has never intended to move into Russian sovereign territory. Russia (namely Putin) has done exactly this to its neighbors.

Many thanks.