You’re going too far for me. Russia does have an authoritarian drive toward domination outside its borders. Something of its own caliphatic-type sense of destiny for global domination, and that is a risk that should be recognized. It is, for example, an implicit ally of Iran’s, and Iran has a stated goal of destroying the US militarily.
Squashing ISIS may be a good outcome, but naivete and romanticism re: Russia is not a good thing.
I am not convinced. They have said over and over that the spread of NATO toward their borders was viewed as a threat. We negotiated one thing but did another. They claim their actions are a response to that, and to the fact that they see us as violating our negotiated agreement with them regarding those issues. So which is it? An aggression or a response? I’ll be honest, I see their point. If the tables were turned, what would we do? It does not look like moves to conquer. It looks like moves to secure.
But I respect your view and fully recognize I could be wrong. I cannot deny how it looks to me. I don’t think it is naivete and romanticism at all. I take no sides and stay cautious. But what I see on our side is a bunch of dug in attitudes that are not based on reality. I’m still stuck on “Trust but verify.” Many have moved to just plain distrust, vilify and squash and betray. We then get a reaction from them and say AHA!!!! Look! I told you they were aggressive. But which came first? We are a long way from the things Reagan said back when they were much more of a threat as the USSR. He worked to build trust saying, “we do not distrust because we are armed, we are armed because we distrust.” He discovered that they REALLY BELIEVED we would one day instigate a first strike. To us that sounds crazy. To them it was a solid belief. Do we really want to return to that?
Too many of the wise minds in our Country have died out and we have seen a rise in either hot heads or fruitcakes holding power, sometimes both at the same time.