“Recall how the Soviets occupied eastern Europe. Recall the Berlin Wall. There was no negotiating with them at the time.”
Agree, and I was gun-ho against the Soviets, something that I still think was the right position, back then. But the post you were responding to said AFTER the Cold War. At that point Russia had cut their conventional military down to next to nothing, versus their huge, offensive, ideologically-driven, military posture during the Cold War. But, thanks to the Neocon War in Ukraine, their military has now grown in size by 50%, permanently. So we’ve managed to more or less start another Cold War against them, although it can be reversed, if we can keep the Neocons out of power for a while.
Yep my error.