I do not exaggerate, nor was my comment fatuous. There is a huge difference between acknowledging Russian aggression and pursuing the course of WWI, you are completely correct here. Where you err is in expecting NATO to get it right.
How well have European diplomats ever done in preventing stupid wars? More recently, how well have American diplomats done?
You could have grabbed any random FReeper at any point in the last six years and they’d have known that Russia was trouble and that its former colonies were at risk. How is it the pros missed it?
The Soviet empire merely had colonies?