Comment by brabel

I can see that you understand some of the incentives. But how can you conclude that the West bears no responsibility? I am not biased either way since I am not natively from Europe or the US, but I do live in Europe. From my perspective, the west was pushing all buttons necessary to cause this tragedy, knowing too well what those buttons were from the Russians. Yes, I agree Putin had to shoot first for what happened next, but his alternative was to allow complete encroachment from hostile powers. Don’t tell me Europe and the US were not hostile before 2014. I talked to people back then, and always wondered why they couldn’t move on and stop openly calling for Russia to be excluded from deals, for nuclear weapons to be stationed near their borders, for their ships to not be allowed passage, and many many more things only a hostile nation would suggest. Now they feel vindicated and think they were right, failing to notice that perhaps if they hadn’t been so hostile, none of this would have happened in the first place!!

Now, Greenland, as an example, would be wise to seek protection from the US, if we use the same logic, since it’s clearly being threatened, more clearly than the Baltic countries ever were by Russia since they joined NATO , at least. Imagine how the US would react if China was asked to help! Now, imagine Greenland actually had ties to the US going back several hundred years and a large population of “ethnic” Americans (bear with me). Would the US quietly sit while China initiated the process of establishing military presence in Greenland, at Greenlanders own request? Do you think they should, even if the current administration obviously wouldn’t entertain that for a second? Quite honestly, I think it would be foolish for the Americans to allow a sovereign nation near its borders to do something like that , and the Bay of Pigs conundrum shows that the US is not dumb and this will simply never happen. Now, the situation between Ukraine and Russia is not exactly the same , but if anything the incentive Russia has to prevent NATO there is even stronger than in the imaginary scenario I outlined above, I think that is as clear as anything can be in geopolitics.