Ask the central Europeans if they are naturally in the Russian sphere of influence (required to kowtow to Moscow) and you will find that they actually consider themselves free peoples. Go figure.
The Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, etc. entered NATO not because we are trying to force Russia’s borders, but because they do not want to be left out in the cold to deal with an aggressive Russia on their own.
NATO expansion did not take off until Moscow headed back toward totalitarianism. At which the free people in central Europe and the Americans (to our credit) saw a window of opportunity to provide a measure of safety to them. Had they not been included in NATO when they were, I’m sure that we would already be seeing well funded militant movements throughout these countries.
The Russians/Soviets may be paranoid, but that doesn’t excuse their behavior. We extended the olive branch and more to the Russians after ‘91 and they chose instead to climb back within the dark paranoia of the past.
I believe this was a completely planned and orchestrated move by Russia.
Russia wants to control all energy exportation to Europe and the region. The US was invisioning Georgia being a serious transport coridor from the oil areas by the caspian sea in Azerbaijan across Georgia and into Turkey and the black sea ports of Georgia. Russia wants total control of this.
They also want to derail any attempt by Georgia to become a NATO member. Now that the Kremlin has seized control and nationalized most of its natural resources, squashed any political opposition to Putin’s party, and control all the media again, their next move to is re-exert itself to superpower status by expanding its “sphere of influence” completely into the caucasus and start thuging eastern europe again with a mixture of military threats and energy.
The move by them on Georgia is meant to be a message to the west.