LR — firstly, NATO did not “move eastwards” — Countries like Poland, Estonia, Romania etc. requested to join and did the reforms necessary to join NATO. Why? Because they were afraid of Russian invasion (and they were correct as 2008/2014/2022 shows)
secondly you are talking about “gut feelings” and how Russia suffered “three invasions from the west” - but have you looked into the history of that?
1. Napoleon — the Russians first attacked the French. Emperor Alexander I in the war of the 3rd coalition fought alongside the Austro-Hungarians and British against Napoleon and were defeated. The Russians were not innocents.
2. The invasion by Wilhelm II - again, Russia was far from innocent - it declared war on the Austro-Hungarians knowing that Imperial Germany would come in. And they attacked first at Tannenberg. The Russians thought they would use their artillery and numbers and win just as in the current war. And they lost
3. “one from Hitler” — perhaps you forget that the USSR was Nazi Germany’s ally from 1939? And they jointly invaded Poland? Russia was no innocent.
You then say “it is reasonable” to not want NATO on its borders.
Should Poland or Estonia or Lativa or Finland cite the presence of Russia on their borders as a threat and create “buffer zones”??
Or even more so - if the Russians WANTED their neighbours not to join NATO, they shouldn’t be constantly threatening invasions.
I agree with everything you said in your post #140 . And thank you for the reasoned response. Too often the topic degenerates into name-calling matches.
My post #47 was not meant to be from a neutral point of view. Instead I wanted the reader to look at things from the Russian point of view. That does not mean the Russian view is correct!
However, when dealing with any adversary you must take into account how he views things, even if he’s viewing things wrong.
I suppose, in a way, it’s like playing heads-up poker. You shouldn’t consider who has the best hand. Instead, you should consider who your opponent THINKS has the best hand.
See what I mean?