I am not seeing the gap between our two takes that you are seeing. Putin and Russia are solely responsible for the conflict with Ukraine and the complete breakdown in their relationship with the US.Unit2Sucks said:
I don't see how anyone can presume a different course of action would have prevented Putin's revanchism. He wants to recreate mother russia. I do concede it's possible that a more conciliatory approach or appeasement or whatever you want to call it could have had a different result, but we don't really know. We know if Putin wasn't a malevolent ***** he wouldn't have attacked a peaceful neighbor.
That's why I think it's unproductive to shift blame from Putin to western leaders. We don't know if other actions we could have taken would have changed anything but we do know with absolute certainty that Putin took this action unilaterally.
To me, talking about decades-old decisions is like fouling Draymond green beyond the 3 point line with 0.5 left on the shot clock. We should never let Putin off the hook for his aggression.
And Cal88 isn't accidentally simping for Putin.
What I am remembering is the close ties Russia and US had during Clinton and Yeltsin years that went a bit sideways after the NATO airstrikes in Yugoslavia. Even with Bush and Putin, there was an attempt to work together and build alliances. Obama and Medvedev had a good working relationship and signed a new arms reduction treaty. Then Georgia happened, Medvedev became more aggressive and Putin became the villain that he is now. As you recall, there was so little conflict between Russia and US that Obama made that comment during his debate with Romney that did not age well. Just a bit tragic that the world lost the small window of opportunity for Russia and US to form an alliance and work together against what would have been a mutual adversary in China. Russia is not looking to take over as the singular world power and displace US like China is. China is the much greater risk to our way of life.