The value of those policies is monetary, in service to the military industrial complex (MIC). The fantasy held by people not directly involved in the service to MIC is a result of successful propaganda disguised, among other things, as nationalism or patriotism. — DingoJones

Obviously, this (the U.S. setback) is a temporary phenomenon. America will continue its involvement in this conflict, in fact direct involvement. But we have repeatedly said before that according to our forecasts fatigue from this conflict, fatigue from the completely absurd sponsorship of the Kyiv regime, will grow in various countries, including the United States. And this fatigue will lead to the fragmentation of the political establishment and the growth of contradictions. — Dmitry Peskov · via Reuters · Oct 2, 2023

This is what distinguishes a true world leader from the people we call temporary caretakers, who come for five minutes to show off on the international platform, and then disappear just as quietly. — Vladimir Putin · via Newsweek · Oct 17, 2023

One thing I have thought about a lot, starting in the early 1990s - Gorbachev gave us the gift of a new eastern Europe and western Asia. How did we handle it? Even knowing Russia's historical paranoia about being surrounded and invaded, we immediately started expanding NATO right up to it's borders. Now it's enclosed by hostile countries backed by the US and western European militaries. No wonder Putin is furious. We blew it. — T Clark

The OP brings to mind the ongoing discussion here on the forum - "In Support of Western Supremacy, Nationalism, and Imperialism." That thread displays the US's superpower mania at a scale that dwarfs even our past adventures. The fact that that kind of fantasy still holds power always confounds me. The worst part is that the desire for military solutions to political problems is still strong in mainstream political leadership. — T Clark

The attitude of Putin towards democracy and democratic leadership with term limits is shown perfectly clearly in this comment. — ssu

I can look at this from a different angle as my summer cottage is very close to the Russian border. — ssu

Please understand that the US isn't almighty, it's just one actor in Europe. The World doesn't circle around the US. Russia itself is the really big actor here. The Soviet leadership avoided the largest wars when the USSR collapsed, but the problem was that Russia knew just one thing, that it was an Empire. It has all these minorities, — ssu

If there was a theoretical window of opportunity to link Russia into Europe, it would have been immediately when the Soviet Union collapsed. Yet that would have needed larger than life politicians both in Moscow and Washington DC, but those political Houdini's didn't exist. — ssu

NATO enlargement is one of Putin's lines, but so is the artificiality of the state of Ukraine and it being natural of Ukraine being part of Russia. — ssu

Also please understand that key players in the NATO enlargement were the new countries themselves. — ssu

Hence it was for the "near abroad" countries this brief opportunity to get out of Russia's stranglehold. — ssu

Bob Ross likely wanted to stir up a heated debate, luckily didn't get banned. — ssu

The last true excess were the neocons, who didn't themselves believe at first they got the power. — ssu

A Dolchstoss given to Ukraine with Europe just watching from the side just what the hell happened is the worst outcome. But that hasn't happened. — ssu

Even knowing Russia's historical paranoia about being surrounded and invaded, we immediately started expanding NATO right up to it's borders. Now it's enclosed by hostile countries backed by the US and western European militaries. No wonder Putin is furious. We blew it. — T Clark

Russians and Ukrainians will live exactly as befits brothers and good neighbors after the implementation of the goals of the special operation. — Sergey Lavrov · Jan 22, 2024

NATO enlargement is one of Putin's lines, but so is the artificiality of the state of Ukraine and it being natural of Ukraine being part of Russia. — ssu

NATO isn't seeking to take over countries. Countries seek to be part of NATO for defense and have to qualify (which can take some years). — jorndoe

For a country the size and geography of Russia it might be easy enough to list all kinds of "hostile countries" in the vicinity. — jorndoe

• Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' (1237–1242), a series of invasions that resulted in the Rus' states becoming vassals of the Golden Horde.
• Livonian campaign against Rus' (1240–1242), an unsuccessful Teutonic invasion of the Novgorod and Pskov Republics, in order to convert them to Catholicism.
• Russo-Crimean Wars (1570–1572), an Ottoman invasion that penetrated Russia and destroyed Moscow.
• Polish–Muscovite War (1609–1618), Poland gained Severia and Smolensk.
• Ingrian War (1610–1617), a Swedish invasion which captured Novgorod and Pskov.
• Swedish invasion of Russia (1708–1709), an unsuccessful Swedish invasion, as part of the Great Northern War (1700–1721).
• French invasion of Russia (1812), an unsuccessful invasion by Napoleon's French Empire and its allies, as part of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).
• Crimean War (1853–1856), a series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, the French Empire, Sardinia, and the Russian Empire, including an Allied invasion of the Crimean Peninsula.
• Japanese invasion of Sakhalin (1905), an invasion and annexation by the Japanese, as part of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905).
• Eastern Front (World War I) (1914–1918), Russia was forced to cede Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states to Germany as the Russian Empire collapsed.
• Caucasus campaign (1914–1918), a series of conflicts between the Russian Empire, its various successor states, and the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
• Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War (1918–1925) and the contemporaneous Polish–Soviet War (1918/9–1921), the Polish occupation of Belarus and West Ukraine.
• Japanese intervention in Siberia (1918–1922), an occupation of the Russian Far East by Japanese soldiers during the Russian Civil War (1917–1923).
• Operation Barbarossa (1941), an unsuccessful invasion of the Soviet Union led by Nazi Germany that started the Eastern Front (World War II) of 1941–1945.
• Continuation War (1941–1944), an unsuccessful German-Finnish invasion of the Soviet Union, as part of World War II.
• Kantokuen (1941), an aborted plan for a major Japanese invasion of the Russian Far East during World War II.
• Operation Unthinkable (1945), a proposed contingency plan for an Anglo-American invasion of the Soviet Union developed by the British Chiefs of Staff during the later stages of World War II.
• War in Dagestan (1999), a repulsed Chechen invasion of Dagestan.
• Kursk Oblast incursion (2024), an ongoing August invasion of Russia's Kursk Oblast by the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU).

He's right though, isn't he? The US makes a schizoid global leader when there's no existential threat to keep things on track. The world needs an emperor. Not exactly like a Dune emperor, but similar. — frank

Do you live in the Baltics? — T Clark

Living where you do, you may know more about this than I do. I remember back in the early 1990s when Bill Clinton and the rest of NATO started expanding NATO. Even back then I thought it was a graceless response to a world changing action. — T Clark

I don't necessarily think we should have "linked Russia into Europe." I just think it was a big mistake to move NATO right up to Russia's borders. We reacted very aggressively to Russian weapons in Cuba back in the 1960s. Why would we expect to Russia to feel differently? What benefit did the west get out of it? — T Clark

The Russian Federation maintains an unknown number of soldiers in Transnistria, an unrecognized breakaway state internationally recognized as part of Moldova. This Russian military presence dates back to 1992, when the 14th Guards Army intervened in the Transnistria War in support of the Transnistrian separatist forces. Following the end of the war, which ended in a Russian-backed Transnistrian victory and in the de facto independence of the region, the Russian forces stayed in a purportedly peacekeeping mission

It always seemed to me that was just a rationalization for political and propaganda purposes. Maybe I'm wrong. — T Clark

There are a lot of hawks still around. I kept expecting Israel to attack Iran with strong US military support. — T Clark

I have a fantasy that Europe will step up to take a bigger military and political role in the world, especially in Europe. — T Clark

Something's a bit off ↑ here.

NATO isn't seeking to take over countries. Countries seek to be part of NATO for defense and have to qualify (which can take some years). — jorndoe

As I noted, Russia is historically paranoid about invasion, but as they say, just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. — T Clark

What made these different?

Certainly not the comparative military strength of the opponents. Saddam had a million men under arms, a military with a wealth of relatively recent combat experience, and Iraq had spent lavishly on high the Soviet and French equipment (and this was before the huge technological/qualitative gap between NATO and Russian equipment widened). But the result was an out and out rout. 147 Coalition servicemen were killed while Iraqi casualties were somewhere between 200,000-300,000, with perhaps 50,000 killed in action. — Count Timothy von Icarus

A clear difference with the GWOT is the goal of state building and a transition to liberal democracy, but this wasn't the case in Vietnam (where the US backed a coup and the state was far from a liberal democracy) nor in Korea (an authoritarian dictatorship at the time of the war; also, militarily, a draw). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Far better is that there's simply countries that tolerate each other and don't start wars, even if they disagree on matters. That would be the ideal. — ssu

Ok, but several of those "invasions," are counter invasions in wars Russia started. Particularly, they are former colonies/conquests of Russia fighting for independence or fighting off Russian attempts to recolonize them, and in some cases Russia had carried out sizable genocides against those peoples in living memory. In WWI, Russia mobilized first (Germany last), and invaded Germany first, they just lost. The "Continuation War," is the continuation of the Russian attempt to reconquer Finland, as it reconquered Poland and other lands with its military ally... Nazi Germany. Crimean War? Also kicked off by Russia invading its neighbor. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Second, you could probably generate lists of equal or
even longer length for Germany or France, on which Russia's name would appear as "invader." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Close, but no cigar. I live in Finland. — ssu

The fact is that if the applicant countries themselves wouldn't have been active, NATO enlargement wouldn't have happened...For the applicants their reason to join NATO was Russia. — ssu

One also should understand that in NATO there's Article 1, that member countries refrain from using violence at each other, which is important. Hence for example Greece and Turkey haven't had a border war. — ssu

You do understand then that many other countries, like the Baltic States, would have been treated the same way as Ukraine and Georgia by Russia and likely Russian military bases would be back in the Baltic states, if these countries wouldn't have used the window of opportunity they had. — ssu

The Baltic States wouldn't be independent and so charming that they now are if it wasn't for NATO memership. And is that for you think irrelevant? — ssu

I personally view the reason for this is the large pro-Israeli Evangelist vote in the US. — ssu

no denying in what Napoleon and Hitler attempted. — ssu

Is that true? I doubt it. I'll let you do the homework.

Sure, look up how WWI started and how WWII ended. If starting a war, losing it, and getting invaded counts as "being invaded," then Germany was certainly invaded by Russia (twice in the 20th century), not to mentioned partitioned by it and turned into a puppet state for half a century. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I didn't claim Russia was an innocent victim, only that they had a well justified fear of invasion. It wasn't a secret. US and NATO policy makers knew about it. — T Clark

The world needs an emperor. Not exactly like a Dune emperor, but similar. — frank

We'd need a global government for that. — frank

. I thought Finland was considered one of the Baltic states. Pardon if that is considered an insult. It wasn't intended to be. — T Clark

From your point of view, I can see this is important, but from the perspective of US national security it shouldn't have been the main consideration. — T Clark

After the dissolution of the USSR, any expectation that Russia would give up it's influence, even hegemony, in the region was unrealistic. We knew this, but American triumphalism won out over common sense. — T Clark

Again, I don't fault the various countries for making the decisions they did. I just think that thumbing our noses at Russia was a dangerous idea. — T Clark