[vkou]

Parts of the US are able to put itself in those shoes. The DOS isn't staffed by morons, it fully understands why Russia felt threatened by encirclement, even if the press didn't.

It pursued that direction anyways, because what (aside from nuclear war) is the worst that could happen..?

(A full invasion of Ukraine, as it turns out is the worst thing that can happen - so far. But that's no sweat off the backs of anyone on this side of the Atlantic.)

[mc32]

I think those people exist, but they don't have much influence or defer to more bellicose factions within. Another ironically "great" example was the Iraq war. Who the hell let that go though and then not leak that the words coming out of the mouths of the higher ups were pure bulls--t. "Greeted with flowers, alright".

Now, where are these people, why don't they pipe up and tell us that they told the higher ups what would happen but got ignored? Why can't we be honest that we made a grave mistake in this case?