“Had Russia been able to invade earlier after our ill advised NATO expansion move, they surely would have”
What “NATO expansion move”?
You don’t seem to get it - the Baltic states, Poland, Bulgaria etc. all begged NATO to join, they fulfilled criteria to join and they requested to join. Their requests had to be unanimously accepted by the members of the club.
There was no drive “let’s get these guys in”
It does not matter if they begged to join NATO as you claim.
Cuba begged for Russian missiles too.
Venezuela wanted Hugo Chavez and to be aligned with Russia and China, not us.
Panama wanted to have a Chinese firm operate the Panama canal.
All the big powers have a “sphere of influence,” that extends into a military realm (Nations like Germany or even Switzerland also have a sphere of influence but it is economic, political and cultural).
Ironically as we tear open our flap and claim Russia has no right to a sphere of influence (your argument and that made by others) OURS/the US is the biggest of them all, covering all of the Caribbean, Central and South America (the Monroe Doctrine is basically still in effect even though we don’t state such), Western and Central Europe, most the Middle East, and the Pacific Rim.
In fact, it is the US that has invaded more nations, bombed more nations, spends more on war, has sponsored more coups, exports the most weapons, has more troops outside it’s borders, is based in more countries, has the largest mercenary force (shadow military), was the only one to ever use a nuke on someone, has conducted the most nuclear tests to include in outer space, has the largest war industry in terms of people employed... But sure, Russia, Russia, Russia. If we use your reasoning of right and wrong in Ukraine, how do we look? No one on this planet has bombed and invaded as many countries as we have.
The basic premise of your argument: https://www.axios.com/2021/12/01/nato-russia-ukraine-invasion Russia has no right to a sphere of influence.
Ask the Solomon Islands 6,600 miles from our Western sea shore if we respect their “sovereignty?” When the Chinese offer them a sweat deal we come in and coerce them not to do this because we see it in terms of the Chinese expanding their military reach into the Pacific.
Ask the Mexicans how we respect their “sovereignty?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD4kFxyHALo We were talking about invading them, then doing drone and missile strikes...
No major power wants another playing on their border - PERIOD. All the powers of this world have a security sphere of influence: China, the US and Russia.
Had we respected that, no war.
We would have NEVER had dealt with China and the Taiwan issue the way we did Ukraine. What is the difference? China is powerful (militarily and economically), Russia was perceived as weak. China is economically significant to us (market for sales - one of the largest in the world, US securities held by them, as a manufacturing hub for US industry) whereas Russia is merely a competitor in oil and gas sitting on land we want to control.
We simply no longer respect Russia as a near peer conventionally and thought we could steamroll over them. We are not worried about their nuclear arsenal, because contrary to the “madman” garbage we spew about Russia and Putin, we know they are actually extremely predictable (doctrinal, stable, logical, measured). Their (Russia’s) moves are calculated unlike say Iran that is a state where there is a high degree of uncertainty in how they react.
Not saying Russia carries no fault, but this war in Ukraine was MOSTLY caused by us, since we control Ukraine and NATO is our club. This caused a war, and you simply cannot get around that: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-president-zelenskiy-holding-talks-with-biden-adviser-says-2021-12-09/
As to the rest? Junk to rationalize we have some moral superiority/high ground in all of this.