The current conflict in Europe is just another in a long line of foreign policy blunders. Russia made it clear for years they didn't want Ukraine to be too closely tied to the West, and that they were willing to take aggressive action if needed to prevent it. And yet, we continued to make half-hearted overtures and promises to Ukraine, knowing full well we had no intention of fully embracing them. We led Ukraine to this slaughter. We tried to have the best of both worlds - a West leaning Ukraine without the commitment of NATO or EU membership, either of which could have been accomplished previously if we truly had the desire. Yes, Putin should be condemned. But, we are not without fault here, either. We also need to be careful not to do to Russia what we did to Germany after WWI - humiliate and impoverish the country to the point of having the people turn to even more radical leadership.
Hopefully we don't make the same mistakes with China/Taiwan when their time comes in the near future.
- Quetzalcoatl
I agree. US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War has been a disaster, from both parties in power (and really, it was a disaster throughout the Cold War for that matter - the Vietnam War was started and lost by the US State Dept.). Any myth that NATO is a purely defensive organization was shattered back in 1999 when the Clinton administration convinced NATO to authorize an attack on Serbia over Kosovo. That myth was further shattered by the Bush Jr. administration with NATO operations in Afghanistan.
Putin has every reason to fear NATO's encroachment. At the end of the Cold War the US said that it would not expand NATO into Eastern Europe and sure enough it lied. Not only are most of the nations of Eastern Europe in NATO but so are the three Baltic nations (former SSR's) - Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Although I can understand Lithuania following the same path as Eastern Europe since it has always had much stronger ties there than in Russia (and the dissolution of the USSR began in Lithuania) but Latvia and Estonia are a bit different. Not only do they have slightly stronger ties to Russia (although the majority of the people in both countries do still hate Russia) but the eastern borders of both are right smack up against Russia. Not only that but both are also close to Moscow and St. Petersburg.
If Putin decided to call NATO's bluff and invade Estonia, citing militarily strategic reasons (the same reasons Stalin gave for invading the Karelian Isthmus in 1940), would NATO be willing to fight WWIII over it? If not then the reason for the very existence of NATO has become inverted. Rather than being a purely defensive organization it has become a purely offensive organization, intended to advance US foreign policy interests around the world but give just the illusion of protection to its members.
And the disgraceful manner by which the Biden administration had the US military withdraw from Afghanistan only further projects American weakness and cowardice, further emboldening bullies like Putin. The incredible thing too is that the decision to withdraw was not a controversial political issue - most of both parties supported it. The manner was a disgrace, though.
Turkey is already breaking NATO boycotts of Russian energy and I would not be surprised if other NATO countries start doing soon.
US foreign policy has been egging on Ukraine since the Russian invasion of Crimea. The vast majority of the people in Crimea voted to separate from Ukraine and join Russia but that did not matter to Ukraine nor to the West. Historically Crimea has always been Russian but Khrushchev transferred administration of it to the Ukraine SSR back in the 50's for purely reasons of administrative convenience and because he never envisioned a time when the USSR would dissolve. Despite this, since 2014 the US has been encouraging Ukraine to build up its military around Crimea and to take more aggressive positions.
The intelligent thing after the dissolution of the USSR would have been to also dissolve NATO, encourage a purely European military alliance (without the US), and to try to help Russia transfer to a real democracy of some sort or another. While things started out like this the West vilified Russia and cut off most dialog after Yeltsin cracked down in Chechnya (and that crackdown, which was certainly supported by Putin back then, illustrates the hypocrisy of Putin as he seems to think that it is ok for Donetsk to break free of Ukraine, with its significant Ukrainian minority, but not ok for Chechnya to break free of Russia). While the crackdown in Chechnya was unfortunate the West should have continued to engage in dialog and help Russia transform into a modern democracy that respects human rights.
And now Biden just made the statement "Putin cannot remain in power", from Poland. Good like with dialog now. At this point Putin has every reason to not only overrun of all of Ukraine but also call NATO's bluff regarding Eastern Europe. I swear there are forces at work that are trying to get the US and Russia to destroy each other in WWIII so that China can take over the world.
