I appreciate your comments, largely disagree at least about why this war happened. You have made your points clear, here are mine.
This war has nothing to do with Ukranian Nazis, or protecting Russian speakers (largely Russian speakers are in Ukraine because they displaced Ukrainians during Soviet Union days or were forced to learn Russian over Ukrainian, nor is it about NATO expansion or Russian security.
NATO has been on Russia’s border for decades, no war, no invasion, quite the opposite the west including EU had invested heavily in Russia, and had become energy dependent on Russia. Meanwhile letting their militaries degrade. Not exactly the position of nations looking to invade.
Putin likes to talk about Russia being invaded, all the while not talking of all the invading of neighbors it has done, Finland (winter war), Poland (allied with nazi germany), Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary, Georgia, Chechnya as well as China(would be worried about XI and his “historical claims”)and of course Ukraine
My position is and has been, this is all about Putin’s often discussed lament of the fall of the Soviet Union and the resulting loss of power and prestige
As to not being able to settle because of losses, and I agree. If he does he is gone, that makes it an existential threat to him, not Russia.
The losses are on his head
“My position is and has been, this is all about Putin’s often discussed lament of the fall of the Soviet Union and the resulting loss of power and prestige”
If that were true, then Neocons SHOULD have chosen to work with Putin to try to prevent the war, and then stop it early on, rather than simply telling Putin that Ukraine is “None of their Business”.
By your theory, this approach would have been futile and Putin would have invaded anyway, but the world would have known who to blame for that, and in that hypothetical situation, there’s a good chance that Putin and his people would have been booted from power, or at least the rest of the world would have seen Putin as another Hitler...rather than just the Biden Girls and their captive countries in Europe.
So, if nothing else, the Neocons played RIGHT INTO the hands of Putin, made him super-popular in Russia (and many, many, other countries) and now the Neocons are in the process of losing Ukraine, for good.