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The problem there is that you (and Putin) are viewing NATO's expansion as a curtailing of "Russia's sovereignty". Doing this probably means you take the view that the Spheres of Influence concept was correct: big blocs (Russia, China, US, EU) have an area of political/military/ideological influence that extends past their physical borders, and any other country exerting influence over the countries within those boundaries is de-facto threatening them, even if this influence is by and large the will of the people living in those regions. The problem with this view is that you are completely alienating the sovereignty of countries within those buffer regions. As an example, take the Baltics: they were under Soviet influence (and actual control, at some points), fought it off, and never felt safe in their independence, because they were within Russia's sphere of influence, even if they weren't within Russia's borders. Within these people's minds, they weren't truly sovereign - the actions of their governments had to appease Russia, or otherwise risk military conflict with a major power, which they would very likely lose, losing what little sovereignty they had. You can certainly see why this would be undesirable for these buffer regions, I hope? NATO (and later, to a lesser extent militarily but a larger extent economically and culturally, the EU) gave these countries a way out, a hope to get out of the "Russkiy Mir" - Russian World. While Russia was weakened and unwilling to engage in military conflict, they joined NATO, which meant that they no longer needed to pay any mind to Russian influence and sensibilities: if Russia wanted them back, they'd have a fighting chance, instead of being rolled over. |