Editor’s note: In the chess match that is imperial politics, entire nations and ecosystems are pawns that are bargained with and sacrificed. As war tears across Ukraine, we insist that neither the U.S. nor NATO or Russia is innocent. The dire truth is that empires produce wars, and thus the path towards peace ultimately means dismantling empires.
Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine is undoubtedly illegal and immoral. From the point of view of Russian interests, it is also likely to prove a costly mistake. The primary question now, however, is what to do about this, and the answers presented thus far by those outraged by the invasion are dangerously counterproductive.
“Putin must be punished,” the Americans and Europeans insist. But the forms of punishment now being implemented – severe economic sanctions and military aid to Ukraine – are designed to prolong the military struggle and to cripple the Russian economy, apparently on the theory that Russia’s discontented masses and oligarchs will then replace Putin with a leader more to the West’s liking. Pardon me, but this makes little sense. Prolonging the conflict will kill more Ukrainians and Russians, inspire their compatriots and loved ones to seek revenge. It may also bring the world close to nuclear war. Moreover, making a whole people suffer usually unites them against their adversary rather than turning them against their leader.
The array of punishments administered and proposed also indicate that many Westerners consider Putin analogous to Adolf Hitler and a return to the negotiating table the equivalent of Munich-style appeasement. But this betrays a profound misunderstanding of what drives the conflict and who the conflicting parties really are. Vladimir Putin is not an evil mastermind bent on world domination and the genocidal destruction of “inferior” races. He is the brutal leader of a once great empire playing the imperial game in a world of competitive empires. More brutal than Harry Truman in Korea, Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, or George W. Bush in Iraq? Obviously not. Then why consider his bad character the primary cause of the struggle?
One reason seems clear. As conflict analysts recognize, it is common for each side in a violent struggle to consider the opponent’s malice and cruelty to be the conflict’s sole cause. “They are evil aggressors who choose to fight. We are virtuous defenders who fight because we have to.” This is exactly how the editors of the New York Times describe the war in Ukraine. They put it like this:
. . . none of the pretexts for war that Mr. Putin churned out in recent days and weeks contained much truth or any justification whatsoever for waging war on a weaker neighbor. This is a war of choice for all the wrong reasons, and Mr. Putin and his coterie are solely and fully responsible for every drop of Ukrainian – and Russian – blood, for every livelihood destroyed and for all the economic pain engendered by the conflict.[1]
I suppose that half a truth is better than no truth at all, and this is precisely half the truth. Putin did invade Ukraine without being militarily attacked. Some of the reasons for war he offered (for example, the alleged non-existence of a Ukrainian nationality) were fabrications. Other reasons, such as the U.S./European refusal to halt the expansion of NATO, were quite true, but they do not justify bombing and killing innocent people.
Where the Times editorial goes off the tracks, however, is in asserting that the Russian leaders are “solely and fully” responsible for the violence engulfing Ukraine. In fact, they are one of the responsible parties, but only one. The causes of this struggle go far beyond Mr. Putin’s bad choices, and solving the problems that produced the conflict go far beyond punishing the Russians. The causes of this conflict are systemic, which means that others in addition to Putin and his cohorts must share responsibility for the current violence.
“Systemic” means that there is a system – a form of social organization supported by patterns of thought, speech, and behavior – that structures the relations between states and peoples involved in conflict. The word that best describes our current system is imperial. Four major empires currently compete for regional hegemony and global superiority. In order of economic and military power, they are the multinational blocs dominated by the United States, China, Europe, and Russia. Several up-and-coming regional powers like Turkey and Iran have also asserted their influence in imperial style, but the major players in the Ukraine crisis are the U.S., Europe, and Russia, with China a potential participant.
The eruption of violence in this case should not have come as a surprise. Imperial systems produce violent conflict as a regular product of their operations. Often, subject peoples rebel, inciting imperial leaders to repress the dissidents, and enticing competing empires to come to their support. Often, empires challenge each other’s right to rule, particularly in disputed boundary areas – a form of competition that has produced both proxy wars and world wars. Ukraine is a prize in the competition between the American empire, assisted by its European junior partner, and Russia, morally supported by its Chinese ally. There are many historical analogies to this situation, some of them quite frightening. For example, the competition over independence-seeking Serbia between the Austro-Hungarian empire, supported by imperial Germany, and the Russian empire, supported by Great Britain and France, led directly to World War I.
Of course, empires do not always assert their interests by going to war. Negotiations can be used to settle their disputes at least temporarily, even if the system as a whole tends to generate mass violence. The current tragedy befalling Ukraine was avoidable, but avoiding it required more than patience or a change of heart by Mr. Putin. The invasion could almost certainly have been averted if the Americans and Europeans had agreed to stop expanding NATO and to treat Ukraine as a neutral buffer state, as they did after World War II in the cases of Austria and Finland. As in those cases, Ukraine’s rights to autonomy in certain spheres (e.g., economic decision-making) could have been recognized while restricting its right to become a military ally of either empire. But there is no evidence that the Western powers took the Russian demands seriously enough to entertain any such proposal.
Why not? On Putin’s watch NATO doubled its size, established army and air bases throughout Eastern Europe, and created two “super-bases” including missile facilities in Poland and Romania. Meanwhile, the U.S. continued to maintain more than 800 military bases around the globe and to modernize its nuclear facilities with the aim of threatening (or “deterring”) its Russian and Chinese competitors. The rationale for this aggressive posture was the adversary’s alleged tendency to aggress – a classic piece of circular conflict reasoning. In 2013, Ukraine’s elected leader supported a move to link his nation more closely with Russia than with Europe. In response, an uprising backed by the West overthrew him and installed a pro-Western regime in Kyiv. Russia responded to this apparent aggression by seizing Crimea, a former Russian territory inhabited by Russian-speakers, and by supporting separatists in the Donbass region. This alleged aggression then became a reason for Ukrainian and Western leaders to intensify their campaign to bring Ukraine into the Western orbit.
All this was part of a larger pattern of conflict between empires. What Putin had been demanding for years was an end to the post-Cold War system that treated Russia as a defeated but hostile power forbidden to assert its own security concerns and to increase its influence in the world. In 2019, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, hardly a pro-Russian organization, summarized this policy accurately:
U.S. policy toward Russia since the end of the Cold War is a story of different administrations pursuing essentially the same set of policies. Two aspects stand out as major irritants in the bilateral relationship: a refusal to accept Russia as it is, as evidenced by repeated initiatives to reform and remake its political system; and the extension of the Euro-Atlantic security architecture into the Eurasian space surrounding Russia. Both of these highly ambitious pursuits have been attempted repeatedly and unsuccessfully, yet both continue to be cornerstones of official U.S. policy toward Russia. In retrospect, it is hard to escape the conclusion that a less ambitious U.S. approach to dealing with Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union could have established a better basis for a less rocky U.S.-Russian relationship.[2] (Emphasis added)
What the Carnegie analysis did not recognize, however, was that this is how empires customarily operate. If they do not entirely erase their enemies, as the Romans did to Carthage, or remake their societies from the ground up, as the U.S. did to the Axis powers after World War II, they treat them as political and military adversaries that must be kept weak and dependent. Unsurprisingly, those subject to such restrictions and humiliations resent their subordination, dream of restoring lost glory, and insist on holding fast to what remains of a diminished empire. Untrusted and scorned by their victors, they return that distrust and view the weapons pointed at them as intolerable existential threats.
For this reason, Vladimir Putin’s cruelly mistaken decision to invade Ukraine was not only the result of the Russian leader’s hubris and insecurity. It was also the result of a desperation created by the hubris and insecurity of the Western empires. To ignore that conflict’s deeply structural nature is to take sides in a game of “blame the evil enemy” that attributes violence to a leader’s bad character rather than holding the imperial system itself responsible. Moreover, it impoverishes our understanding of the conflict by simplifying the narrative to the point that the only relevant issue seems to be Ukraine’s right to self-determination. In a world dominated by competing empires, movements for national self-determination frequently trigger violent conflicts – and sometimes world wars.
What can be done in this case to head off an increasingly destructive and dangerous escalation of the conflict? The immediate answer is to continue the peace negotiations now taking place between Russia and Ukraine. Despite propagandistic depictions of the Russians as engaged in an all-out war to kill civilians and destroy Ukrainian society, their relatively slow and discriminating advance, at this point without air support, suggests a continuing willingness to negotiate a solution that does not require either “shock and awe” military tactics or occupation of the country. If these negotiations do achieve a cease-fire, the next step will be to convene a peace conference that could reconsider Russia’s original demands, as well as dealing with the new fears and concerns created by the war itself.
This sort of negotiation is clearly preferable to continued escalation, but one must recognize that, in a world still dominated by competing empires, power-based negotiations are unlikely to resolve conflicts sustainably. The imperial system itself, linked to an elite-driven, predatory capitalism and militarism, desperately needs to be transformed. Popular movements to dismantle the empires and to create a more democratic and peaceful world order are the only real alternative to a competition that is likely to end in nuclear war.
To some, this hope may seem like “pie in the sky,” but there is far more support for anti-imperial, pro-human mobilizations than you may think. To stop demonizing leaders and shine the full light of criticism on the empires could be a first step toward unleashing this potential.
Notes.
[1] “Mr.Putin Launches a Sequel to the Cold War,” New York Times, February 24, 2022.
Rich Rubenstein was educated at Harvard College (B.A. 1959), Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar (M.A. 1961), and Harvard Law School (J.D. 1963). Before joining the George Mason faculty in 1987, he practiced law in Washington, D.C., taught political science at Roosevelt University in Chicago, and was professor of law at the Antioch School of Law. He is the author of eight books, including REBELS IN EDEN (1970), ALCHEMISTS OF REVOLUTION: TERRORISM IN THE MODERN WORLD (1985), and three books about religious conflict: WHEN JESUS BECAME GOD (1999), ARISTOTLE’S CHILDREN (2003), and THUS SAITH THE LORD: THE REVOLUTIONARY MORAL VISION OF ISAIAH AND JEREMIAH (2006).
Rich is an expert on American foreign policy, religious conflict, terrorism, and methods of resolving serious international and domestic disputes. He teaches courses at ICAR on Critical Conflict Theory, Religion and Conflict, Popular Narratives of War and Peace, Political Violence, and other subjects. He has lectured throughout the U.S.A. and Europe on topics ranging from the philosophy and practice of conflict resolution to the war on terrorism and current conflicts in the Middle East, and has appeared on numerous radio and television shows and in filmed documentaries discussing these issues. He is a frequent speaker at churches, synagogues, mosques, and religious seminaries, as well as universities and NGOs. He currently lives in Washington, D.C.
Image Courtesy: www.kremlin.ru, Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported | Wikimedia Commons.
This is an infinitely better analysis of the current situation in Ukraine than anything in the mainstream/corporate/establishment media, and than in alternative media also. My guess is that this analysis is so good because it takes a holistic view of the situation, including what empires are and how they behave. Good luck getting anything like that from propaganda machines disguised as “news” media. I have the small disagreements below, but overall, excellent column!
“’Putin must be punished,’ the Americans and Europeans insist. But the forms of punishment now being implemented – severe economic sanctions and military aid to Ukraine – are designed to prolong the military struggle and to cripple the Russian economy, apparently on the theory that Russia’s discontented masses and oligarchs will then replace Putin with a leader more to the West’s liking. Pardon me, but this makes little sense.”
First and foremost, the entire idea that Putin must be punished is immoral and totally hypocritical if coming from the West. If any nation must be punished, it’s the U.S. In the last 20 or so years, the U.S. has invaded, either directly or through proxies, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and is now bombing Somalia. All of this without ANY justification, all of this causing more death and destruction than the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and all these countries halfway around the world, whereas Ukraine is on the Russian border. While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is wrong because all war is wrong, Russia clearly has very legitimate concerns about things like NATO expansion eastward all the way to its borders, the U.S.-fomented coup in Ukraine, killing of Russia-identifying Ukrainians by the Ukraine government (and by a Nazi faction of the military no less), Nazis in major positions in both the military and the government, and Ukraine being on Russia’s border with all of these concerns. The gross extreme overreaction to this invasion by the west considering its total lack of reaction to U.S. invasions is so over-the-top that it’s beyond words to describe.
Second, attacking Russia’s economy in order to make Russian people miserable enough to force a regime change makes PERFECT SENSE if you’re part of the U.S. establishment (ruling class, military/intelligence/industrial complex, etc.). The U.S. is by far the most dominant empire on the planet, and if they can eliminate the competition, they’ll be that much more powerful, dominant, and rich. What makes no sense TO SANE, CLEAR-THINKING PEOPLE is doing things like destroying Russia’s economy, which could cause Russia to escalate this situation into nuclear war. But world leaders and their ruling class masters are psychopaths who consider regular people to be their cannon fodder and pawns in their geopolitical games of empire. There are Dr. Strangeloves and General Rippers in positions of power in both the U.S. and Russia, and if any of these psychos get their way, we could easily be looking at nuclear war. The psychotic and extremely dangerous calls for a no-fly zone over Ukraine by members of Congress and large corporate media would create a very high chance of nuclear war with Russia.
“I suppose that half a truth is better than no truth at all …” No, dead wrong. As Mark Twain put it, it’s much better to be uninformed than to be misinformed. The New York Times is primarily propaganda in service to the ruling class, the establishment, the military/intelligence/industrial complex, etc. We’d be much better off without corporate/mainstream/establishment propaganda, despite whatever partial or out-of-context true facts they occasionally provide.
The U.S. and NATO don’t just “share responsibility” for this situation; they are the root cause of it. Again, Russia should be condemned for invading Ukraine because war is NEVER justified and always wrong — as our local Earth First! chapter used to say, “War is bad for all species” — but if you refuse to consider the real cause of this problem because it’s YOU, then you act immorally and think wrongly. NATO should have been disbanded after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Alternatively, NATO should have admitted Russia when Russia asked it to do so, and should never have expanded eastward. Failing to recognize that those wrongful actions and decisions by NATO (which, let’s face it, is run by the U.S.) along with the U.S.-led coup in Ukraine were the root causes of the Russian invasion and instead just saying that they are additional reasons for it is false equivalence. Root problems must always be addressed and are the fundamental causes of problems, not just additional causes.
The attack on Russia’s economy (the ruble has already rebounded) would not provoke Russia into a nuclear war, but the Ukrainians wanting nuclear weapons would. Russia is never going to allow another invasion of its territory, and I know that’s hard for Americans to understand since we go around the world invading other people’s countries. I fear Russia not one iota, but the U.S. government is unmitigated evil.
@Susan Siens
I didn’t say or mean that attacking Russia’s economy could directly lead to nuclear war. I said that it could cause an escalation of this conflict that could cause nuclear war. I’m glad that Russia’s economy has rebounded, because I strongly opposed the sanctions to begin with. The sanctions also look like they might hurt the U.S. and Europe far more than Russia, which would be just desserts.
I don’t specifically or necessarily fear Russia, but Putin DID threaten to use nuclear weapons near the beginning of this war. That was totally insane and immoral, and I don’t accept the excuse that he was just warning other countries not to attack Russia where they left a border open to fight in Ukraine.
I agree with you that the U.S. is the MOST evil country in the world because it’s the most powerful militarily and does the most harm, but all big countries are evil or they wouldn’t be big. Just because I oppose attacking Russia and want to live in peace with it doesn’t mean that I like it or that it’s not evil, because I don’t and it is. All large countries should be broken up into much smaller ones, including the U.S. and Russia.
Well, breaking up Russia is just what the U.S. government wants to do, so I have to assume you are in favor of Balkanization. Read Diana Johnstone’s A Fools’ Crusade if you think Balkanization is such a good idea.
And Putin had every right to threaten to use weapons only the U.S. has used (if you count depleted uranium-surfaced shells I think we can then throw Israel into the mix). The ONLY thing the U.S. understands is threats, which is why it spends a great deal of time threatening everyone on the planet’s surface. I don’t think Russia’s size is any of your business, frankly.
Occam’s Razor = the editors note. Shoulda stopped right there.
I could imagine Mr Rubenstein counseling a battered woman:
“You aren’t blameless in this – remember the time you did that thing to that other person? And you need to stop pissing him off. If you would just spread your legs when he wants you to he wouldn’t have to rape you and if you would just obey his demands he wouldn’t have to beat you. Just talk to him like he is a normal person – I know he lies even when there is no benefit for him but you have to take him at his word if you don’t want him to kill you. And give him the keys to your house. He would not have had to break in in the middle of the night if you hadn’t changed the locks. And oh yeah – don’t get a restraining order. You have to understand that ANY attempt to protect yourself from his assaults will make it worse for you.”
left/right – same shit, different pile
@Heidi Hall
Your comment is no different than all the U.S. and western propaganda about this situation. Richard Rubenstein took a very broad view of this situation and showed its causes in his EXCELLENT analysis. You clearly choose to ignore context and instead provided a totally false analogy of the situation. The U.S. and its NATO lackeys did far more than what your false analogy describes; they have actively threatened Russia by moving right up to its border and placing missiles near it. I’d love to see the reaction by people like you if Russia were to foment a coup in Mexico and put its puppet in power there (like the U.S. did in Ukraine) and put missiles there. We already know what the U.S. would do in a similar situation, just see the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Taking facts out of context and refusing to consider the entire situation is just propaganda for the purpose of shaping public opinion to support your side. Yes, Russia was wrong to invade, but that’s all anyone in the U.S. or western Europe should be saying or doing about this. As Americans, we should be fighting to stop the U.S. arming of Saudi Arabia, which is committing genocide in Yemen and for which the U.S. is also responsible. We should be fighting to get the U.S. out of Syria, which it has invaded by proxy and immorally occupied a third of. We should be fighting to stop the current U.S. bombing of Somalia. And as to this situation, we should be fighting to stop and reverse the eastern expansion of NATO. Look in the mirror and stop complaining about what Russia or any other country does. We live in Mordor, the Evil Empire whatever you want to call it. No country is as harmful or destructive as this one, and this is where your focus should be as an American.
To be fair Frank said:
“Had the Ukraine chosen to join the EU, it would have represented no threat to Russia, and indeed Russia itself would be welcome to join.”
And again Frank was talking about the EU not NATO when he said:
“…the 27 member EU which is an economic and political union with almost zero independent military capacity”
I think it’s important to recognize the distinction being made between the EU and NATO. They are separate entities with different members and different goals.
I have been hearing others analyze the situation very similarly to Mr Rubenstein.
Yanis Varoufakis is interviewed here and gives very similar analysis and solutions for stopping the killing:
https://youtu.be/DNbad82plR0
Thank you for civil discussion. Thank you, dgr news service, for sharing Mr Rubenstein’s article.
@Deni Moon
You’re correct that I wrote “NATO” instead of the EU in my response. However, Frank is still wrong, because Russia also tried to join the EU and was also denied. So there is no distinction between NATO and the EU for the purpose of this discussion. Frank was just parroting the U.S. line, which is propaganda and lies.
You’ve got it right, Heidi. I totally support Russia in this war because you don’t sit by and let fascism expand. It is now clear that much of Europe is pro-fascist as well as the United States, who just celebrated the appearance of a Georgian fascist in the U.S. Congress. Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine agreed on the Minsk Accords, which Ukraine then promptly broke; if Germany and France had done their duty, they would have insisted Ukraine abide by the accords.
Apparently the U.S. and Ukraine were planning to attack Russia, and that led to the Russian invasion. Watch videos and see people in various cities thanking the Russians for finally coming to their aid. The people in Donetsk and Luhansk had been begging the Russians for eight years for assistance, and at last they are getting it. The nonsense that passes for news in this country would be at times funny if it weren’t so sick; they have no understanding of Russia’s feint to the west, which one commenter said was exactly what the Soviets did when fighting the Wehrmacht. Their retreat to the east, which is the area of Ukraine they care about, that and the Black Sea coast, are their concern and they see the people of eastern Ukraine as their family, something Americans cannot begin to comprehend.
And I have come to agree about left/right because of the idiocy of those supporting the U.S. government narrative, including Democracy Now!, Angela Davis, etc. I tend to now call myself a radical eco-feminist and not a radical leftist.
@Susan Siens
There is virtually no “left” in this country. I have no idea what Angela Davis is doing or saying now, but something went very wrong with Democracy Now! and Pacifica in general 2 or 3 years before Trump got elected, after which they all got TDS and totally lost it. These people and media are not left. If you want left in the U.S., watch Jimmy Dore or Lee Camp, two political comedians. Good left journalists include Chris Hedges, Aaron Mate, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Abby Martin, and Max Blumenthal. Crystal Ball is pretty left on most issues. The Grey Zone provides some good left news & commentary, and antiwar.com is a good left website. But overall, the left is a tiny fraction in this country and barely exists.
FYI for context, I’m NOT a leftist, even though I agree with the real left as I described here on most issues. I’m a radical environmentalist and deep ecologist, and those issues are my priorities, not social or economic issues that only affect humans.
I tried to comment above, but it wouldn’t take. Just to let you know, I am familiar with everyone you mentioned, so I don’t need any mansplaining. Angela Davis apparently jumped on the bandwagon with Chomsky et al and declared Putin a dictator. Her brain is gone, very sad.
Well, breaking up Russia is just what the U.S. government wants to do, so I have to assume you are in favor of Balkanization. Read Diana Johnstone’s A Fools’ Crusade if you think Balkanization is such a good idea.
And Putin had every right to threaten to use weapons only the U.S. has used (if you count depleted uranium-surfaced shells I think we can then throw Israel into the mix). The ONLY thing the U.S. understands is threats, which is why it spends a great deal of time threatening everyone on the planet’s surface. I don’t think Russia’s size is any of your business, frankly.
@Susan Siens
First and foremost, I care about and prioritize what’s good or bad for the Earth and all life on it. Aside from human problems, large countries and the homogenization & dominance that they require are bad for the Earth and the life on it. Therefore, Russia’s size and the size of EVERY country is everyone’s business. I don’t support balkanization, I support biological and cultural DIVERSITY, which large countries destroy by their very nature.
If I weren’t anti-war, I’d be squarely on Russia’s side in this situation. However, war is bad for all species, so I strongly and unequivocally oppose anyone invading anyone else. I fully understand that the U.S. is the root and ultimate cause of this situation, and as an American my wrath is focused here, not on Russia. But just because the U.S. is evil doesn’t mean that Russia isn’t also. Your comments are those of a Russophile. As I said, I’m not a leftist, a communist, a socialist, nor a Marxist — I’m not a capitalist either — and I see no reason to support Russia just because ours is more evil. I just oppose all the evil stuff the U.S. does around the world, including what it’s been doing with NATO the past 30 years, but I don’t support Russia either.
As to threatening use of nuclear weapons, that’s the height of insanity, immorality, and psychopathy as far as I’m concerned. Putin threatened to wipe out life on Earth and you’re OK with that? That’s as disgusting as it gets. The fact that the U.S. used nuclear weapons almost 80 years ago is irrelevant; that’s like immature kids defending bad behavior by claiming that other kids did it too. Maybe you never learned that two wrongs don’t make a right?
I think it unfair to lump “Europe” in with the list of empires. Europe consists of 40 mostly small and relatively weak states that are no threat to Russia. The nearest you can get to an “imperial bloc” is the 27 member EU which is an economic and political union with almost zero independent military capacity. It has no territorial ambitions beyond its own borders and any European country is free to join or leave provided only that it is a democratic country, broadly defined. Had the Ukraine chosen to join the EU, it would have represented no threat to Russia, and indeed Russia itself would be welcome to join.
Certainly, NATO is an extension of the US imperial project, but it was falling into irrelevance as far as most Europeans were concerned. A deal could have been done to allow the Ukraine into the EU, but not NATO, and Russia’s national interest would not have been threatened. Instead, Putin’s invasion will now re-animate NATO and militarism generally in Europe. Economic sanctions are only the start of it.
Seeing this conflict through an imperial lens only reduces Ukrainians to pawns in somebody else’s game. It may be how Putin sees them, but not how we should see them. If 44 million people can’t determine their own future, who can? The time has come for “Europe” to reassert itself, independent of the US and Russian empires, and dedicated to peaceful co-existent, economic integration, and political cooperation. Military considerations should be absolutely secondary.
@Frank Schnittger
No threat to Russia? No military capacity? Some NATO members have nuclear weapons, and NATO is basically run by the U.S. Furthermore, upon acceptance into NATO, a nation must acquire a certain level and amount of weapons. Your statement is just U.S./NATO propaganda. Russia clearly and rightfully feels VERY threatened by the eastward NATO expansion of the past 30 years.
You’re also dead wrong that Russia would have been welcome to join NATO. The fact is that Russia tried to join decades ago and was rejected. Another fact is that NATO had no even purported legitimate purpose once the Soviet Union collapsed and should have been disbanded at that time.
I agree that Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine, for both moral and logistical reasons. The great harm that Russia has caused to itself by this invasion renders doing so no less than insane, not to mention that we’re getting very close to nuclear war, the ultimate insanity.
Unfortunately, Ukraine IS nothing more than a pawn to both Russia and the U.S./NATO. That’s how geopolitics works, and is a perfect example of why ALL large countries, including the U.S., should be broken up into much smaller ones. As I said to my wife when Russia invaded, no country should be larger than 50 people, then we wouldn’t have crap like this.
I would look at how Diana Johnstone — who has lived in Paris for decades — characterizes the EU. She calls it a bunch of highly dissimilar countries who basically cannot agree on lunch and have therefore chained themselves to U.S. imperial policy, WHICH THEY TAKE PART IN. Seeing Germany double its military budget, which will be larger than Russia’s, is very concerning since Nazism, either openly or with a thin veneer, seems to be very popular there.
Some say the US has a blank check to do what it wants around the world. I think it is more of a coup-on.