@Subaltern@mastodon.social but they didn't move Ukraine into NATO. Not only did Ukraine not join NATO, it didn't have an invitation, application, promise, or anything of the sort. Barely a vague "hey, right, maybe it'll work out someday..." All else is revisionist history to deflect blame.

Maybe if it HAD become part of NATO, it would have prevented the war, but that's not something we ever talk about. Maybe NATO should've pushed protection for Ukraine through, but that wasn't possible at the time.

Instead, because we treat the West as the only part of the world with any real agency in international affairs, we blame them for Russia deciding that Ukraine might someday join, NATO might allow it, Ukraine might not be willing to negotiate assurances about it, and that might threaten Russia more than the borders it already shares with NATO and that might end up worse for them then starting an ambush war after lying about their intentions. We're supposed to indulge this whole train of "mights" to justify Russia's own decisions. All for a scenario that hadn't happened, wasn't happening, wasn't even decided. You could also build a string of mights around Russia negotiating deals with Ukraine that drew them into Russia's orbit instead, since any membership was still years away at best.

But sure, speculation a generation ago about how things might end up based on Russia's track record is definitely proof this is all a 5-D Plot. Gj.