[crateless]

CIA Director, William Burns wrote this in 2008.

Edit: Nyet means Nyet: Russia's NATO Enlargement Redlines : https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Cart before the horse, cause before effect, really.

Russia's belligerence towards nations that should be allowed to freely choose their own path, has sent them all running towards EU and NATO.

[crateless]

Of course nations should be free to choose their own path. No-one is arguing against that.

Mearsheimer argues that when the path that a country chooses comes into conflict with a great power's security interests, those interests become the overriding concern of both parties. He points out that Cuba was not allowed to ally itself with USSR with nuclear war being put on the table.

I can't help but wonder what the US would do if Mexico signed a security pact with China to put a military base on its soil.

As a minor example consider the Solomon islands brouhaha[1].

[1]. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60896824

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> I can't help but wonder what the US would do if Mexico signed a security pact with China

The only interesting part is where this is the exact same BS talking point as from the most extreme of the pro-Russia/ "Maidan was a CIA coup" shills. e.g. (but not the only example) here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30882756

[SideburnsOfDoom]

And who is the "great power" in the current situation, and why do you deem them so?