black321 wrote: 
um, it's not actually. This all comes back to what gives a government - any government - legitimacy. In Putin's world it is naked power and coercion and mass indoctrination. Given his popular support, he's justified in thinking that is how it is done.

Most other countries have different histories to draw on. 

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
I already understand your narrative. I can read it in most Western newspapers.

 R_P wrote: 
No doubt. but can't you see you are trying to justify one wrong by listing the wrongs of the supposed adversary? Is it so difficult to simply say both suck?

The last three decades, we assured ourselves that liberal democracy won, case closed., and went about aggressively spreading the good word. 
For years Putin has been saying, not so fast. Do what you want in your world, but not mine...and I suppose we did listen to an extent, to the point we paused the Nato issue, but we paused it, and did not cancel. 

Whether liberal democracy or Putin's form of corruption is better is another argument. 

 steeler wrote:
Just one example of exerting influence in the name of a "rules-based order". There are many more directed at both foes and allies.

 R_P wrote: 
Sorry, Richard but that is another piece of crap that posits all the little nations as just pawns between major powers as though they had no will of their own.

People from little nations like me give a shit about this kind of dialectic. We are quite able to decide how we want to live, who we want to be aligned with and what values we want to live by. 

In other words, it was not the US that weaponised (poor passive, submissive) Ukraine but Ukrainians who (quite right as it turns out) had an existential fear of being overrun, who looked for any way to protect themselves.

 black321 wrote:
 No, I said that the West did support and encourage those transitions, and I am sure there was politicking involved. Not at all sure, though, that the free will of those countries was contravened. 
.
That the US has had a sketchy foreign policy (“sketchy” is putting it mildly, especially when looking at Central and South America) does not mean that the transition of these former Soviet republics was coerced. 
.
As for Cuba, to my knowledge, we have not invaded since the Bay of Pigs fiasco!  We did come to near war over Russian missiles being installed in Cuba, though, which is what you are referencing. And we have continued to impose an economic blockade that I oppose and I recognize that it is coercive. I get the notion that having NATO on its doorstep can be seen by Russia as threatening. Again, however, it has been 30 years in some cases. The only country in Europe I see that has “invaded” militarily other European countries in that time has been Russia.

 black321 wrote: 
This is, once again, giving Russia more slack because the US has done the same in the past. I can understand where you are coming from but not being from the States myself I find the argument bizarre. 

and btw I don't think the analogy to the Cuban missile crisis holds water, though I realize the Russians are peddling this line. But think of the differences: The Cuban missile crisis was predominantly based on the technological advantage that the proximity of Cuba afforded back in the day. Ukraine does not occupy the same position. Its threat to Russia is political. 

 black321 wrote:
Venezuela & Cuba are obviously major threats to U.S. national security/interests...

‘Gods of War’: How the US weaponized Ukraine against Russia

 black321 wrote: 
This sphere of influence thing is not fixed in stone..   there are myriad factors affecting where geopolitical lines get set and they change constantly. I would contend that Russia has overplayed its hand, primarily because it deceived itself about its role in the world (old empires tend to do this sort of thing). The truth of the matter is that the current Russian regime has little to offer that seriously attracts people. It is old, decrepit and defunct. Stripped of its exports of oil & gas, its economic production is abysmal. It can't tolerate plurality and is repressive. The only people it manages to attract are the disaffected far right in the west who see some kind of resolution for their perceived grievances (which IMO are almost entirely imagined) and hold up Russia as some kind of bulwark against (supposed) US hegemony. This is the target group that the Russian troll factories have targeted (surprisingly effectively). But these are negative voices. Voices of protest. They are not constructive and were they to ever gain power, things would fall apart very quickly.

 steeler wrote:

Hmm, a bit naive, no? 
The West are just innocent bystanders, that never got politically involved?
We should have ignored Cuba? 
Venezuela?

 black321 wrote:
This reasoning seems to be that if the US and Western European countries had not allowed Eastern European countries, formerly within the USSR, into NATO and not supported/encouraged democratic transitions in those countries, then Putin would have had no reason to invade. No argument there, but it would have required the US and the Western European countries to essentially refuse to recognize those Eastern European countries as sovereign nations and to acquiesce to Russia’s insistence that those countries remain satellites. The disintegration of the USSR was 30 years ago, and, as noenz has noted, those are sovereign nations that made choices and are unlikely to voluntarily return to Russia’s sphere of influence.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:

but that doesn't seem likely, as the "sphere of influence" argument seems to be holding.

 black321 wrote: 
My Lithuanian neighbour has been saying that from the beginning. Personally, I don't think he's going to have the firepower left to do it. And the fear of NATO will stop him.

Quite frankly, I think the EU should be arming Ukraine to the hilt. Call his bluff on the nuclear threat and drive him out of  Ukraine. That would leave two options:

Putin decides to nuke his way to victory in Ukraine
or
he concedes defeat

Both are kind of unattractive propositions for him whatever way you look at it. 

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:

so latvia, estonia... next?

black321 wrote: 
ok, so to get back to your question, would he have invaded regardless of the NATO expansion issue? Yes, I think he would have.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:

I'm not saying that, Putin is saying that.

 black321 wrote: 
Well, he didn't have a puppet government installed there, which was what triggered the problem.
But are you trying to say all satellite states of large states should have puppet governments so that the big neighbour is happy? 

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:

In general,  don't disagree with this...but ask, regardless of what the U.S./West did with Ukraine/Nato, would Putin still invade? 
Why bother, if he could have simply kept his puppet leadership? Will he invade Belarus?
We acted as if the cold war was over (same with globalization), and ignored Putin, who clearly thought otherwise.
Putin has insisted for decades Ukraine is not a real country (which he told Bush).