“No wonder they are not blasé about having a hostile alliance like NATO right up to that border.”
That is bass ackwards.
Putin did not have to maintain a hostile stance toward the west, did not have to push the former Soviet Warsaw pact countries into thinking they too should be part of NATO. It was Putin who decided to keep the hostile “standoff” with the west.
Canada and the U.S. share a border like Ukraine and Russia.
The parallel to what Putin was doing would be if the peace between Canada and the U.S. was not gpod enough for the U.S., that the U.S. demanded Canada become part of the U.S.
That does not happen because neither Canada or the U.S. is ruled by a dictator bent on reviving a lost empire.
Sharing a long and vulnerable border does not automatically make belligerents. But when one is striving to develop a real democracy and the other is ruled by a dictator who does not want the other to be independent, then that border can be a problem.
With a fully free and democratic Russia, the Russians would have been able to see that an indpendent Urkaine was not a threat. But that is not the Russia we have.
Canada and the U.S. share a border like Ukraine and Russia.
The parallel to what Putin was doing would be if the peace between Canada and the U.S. was not gpod enough for the U.S.,
You got to be kidding !
If by some miracle we could break free of the Trudeau Regime, and started reversing course, on abortion, LGBT, NATO, “free trade”, mass immigration... the first thing that would happen is we would get a US directed “Color Revolution” and a Canadian Zelensky would be installed.
Exit from the USA Globohomo Empire is no more possible than Hungary ‘56, Prague ‘68.