I assume you were talking about me. I think blame is a stupid and fruitless framing for discussion. I do think the Eastward advance of NATO was a strategic and moral mistake.
You have to reconsider who is the bully given the number of countries invaded, governments toppled, and civilians killed by the US in the last 30 years.
The US takes the cake in all categories, but of course we aren't a bully, all the people we kill were the bullies. We are the strongest so we define who is a bully or not.
>We should have snuffed them out like cockroaches. Instead we let them live. To our detriment.
The difference is that the US does not conquer, colonize, or annex the territories where they fight. It's even quite the opposite, since they usually try to give them freedom, independence and long term stability (with variable success and moral standing, but still)...
If that is how you feel about the US motivations and results, then I don't think we will be able to see eye-to-eye on these more specific issue.
I have a much more cynical view of US military interventions, in which they are largely self serving. The ideas of freedom, independence, and stability are platitudes to sell the war, are rarely align with the outcomes for the people in those countries.
The US did a good job of building liberal democracies after WWII, and perhaps up to the Vietnam war. If you look at countries in the last 50 years, the outcomes for the countries the US went into is quite poor.
The whataboutism is heavy. The USA aint no saints, but that doesn't absolve putin's invasion. "They did it first, so we should be allowed" isn't a defensible justification for war.
I am sorry for the tone of that offensive sentence.
Perhaps I should have expressed the feeling in a more diplomatic wording.
We did have them against the mat and let them up.
Howz that for a PC version.
There was cold war and we could have defeated the opponent.
Instead we funded them.
If the world demonstrates that possession of nuclear weapons is sufficient to ensure safety even while committing indefensible wars of conquest and aggression, then WW3 becomes more likely, not less. Our response to unacceptable behavior by nation-states should be swift and painful.
If I lived in Lithuania I would probably feel very scared of Russia, and not care much about what is good for NATO, the US, and the world. If I thought I would be accepted without repercussions, I would probably want that.
Lithuanians disagrees. This is why they applied for EU and NATO membership as quickly as they can. The Baltic states also was the first to leave the USSR. They always wanted to be free.
Apply to what? Lithuania has been a NATO member since 2004. This is literally the "eastward advance of NATO" which you referred to as a "moral mistake". You contradict yourself.
The question of what is a strategic and moral mistake for this US is entirely separate from what makes Lithuania happy.
If someone asks me how I would feel if I were Russian, Lithuanian, or Chinese I provide an answer from that perspective. That doesn't mean I agree with it or it is moral.
To be absolutely clear, I can understand why Lithuania would want to be part of NATO, but I do not think it was wise or moral for the US to grant such a request.
This is not a radical position, and was held by many NATO members at the time. They required significant persuasion from the US to allow Lithuania entry to NATO.
Similarly, France, Germany, and many NATO countries did not want to open the door to Georgia and Ukraine in 2008. They felt that it would lead to war in Europe. Again they were overruled by the US and we got a war in Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the largest war in Europe since WW2 today.
That is the only reason NATO still exists.
We literally paid hundreds millions of dollars to prop up Russia and their nuke labs during Yeltsin.
Look what it got us. We should have snuffed them out like cockroaches. Instead we let them live. To our detriment.
We needed to keep the boogeyman alive.