Comment by anonym29

A citizen of the west saying what you just said is analogous to a Soviet citizen saying:

The "existential threat to the USA's security interests" is a bit of an American propaganda thing. No one was out to attack the USA. They have the world's largest nuclear arsenal. Cuba was peaceful, hadn't joined the Warsaw Pact and wasn't formally planning to.

regarding the Cuban missile crisis. The only difference is that Cuba was more than twice the distance to DC that NATO nuclear warheads are from Moscow and nuclear missiles travelled much slower in the 1960s than they do today. You are welcome to have your perspective, just remember that your perspective is shaped by a media landscape that is just as partisan, just as biased, and just as shaped by propaganda as Russian perspectives are.

Further, consider that NATO's 2008 Bucharest declaration stated Ukraine would become a member. It's not like Russian concerns about Ukraine NATO membership came to them in a fever dream, these were concerns rooted in real, credible, public diplomatic discussions.

It is frustrating that Western audiences accept framings about US security interests that they dismiss as propaganda when applied to adversaries. It's a double standard that betrays a lack of principled willingness to apply "defense" philosophy equally and impartially. If your application of principles isn't impartial, that's not principled reasoning, that's just cheer-leading for your own team.

Of course, this isn't to deny that Russia was still wrong to invade Ukraine, or that the Russian military's actions are most accurately described as an invasion. Like I said before, two wrongs do not make a right. It doesn't matter whether Russia or the US refers to their military activity as "special military operations" rather than an invasion, it doesn't matter whether or not they have cited legitimate security interests before starting the invasion, invading another sovereign country, "firing the first shot", is a clear violation of the non-aggression principle.

As this relates back to the original discussion, I'd further add that even if you don't care about principled consistency whatsoever, the US/NATO (essentially the same thing, NATO without US troops and ISR capabilities is mostly bureaucrats disseminating .pptx files in Brussels) track record on regime change (Iraq, Libya, etc.) doesn't inspire confidence that "taking down" the Venezuelan government would even be likely to produce good outcomes. Principled reasoning, consequentialist reasoning: the logical conclusion is the same: the US should not invade Venezuela for regime change.