“On the other hand, it’s not NATO-phobia (if there is such a term) to criticize NATO for taking actions Russia saw as provocative.”
Not true. NATO did nothing provocative. pooty thought no-one would care about Ukraine. He badly miscalculated!
> NATO did nothing provocative. <
That’s not exactly what I said. I said that NATO did things that Russia saw as provocative. Consider the Baltic states. Like it or not, they are in Russia’s backyard. Then one day, *poof* they are in NATO.
That had to been seen as provocative by Russia. Just as putting Soviet missiles in Cuba back in 1962 was seen as provocative by the United States.
As I said earlier, there are no clean hands here. NATO did things that weren’t very friendly (for lack of a better word). And then Putin wildly overreacted.
It’s kind of like what set off WW I. Let’s just hope that Trump 2.0 can stop a WW III.