> The NATO mutual defence pact is based on the theory of “first they came for my friends, etc. etc., then when they came for me there was no one left to defend me”, implicitly believing that a local expansion is a prelude to a global expansion.
I don't know what you are basing this on. NATO concern is that multiple of its members are threatened by Russia directly. Now ever more so after Russia explicitly demanded to "roll-back" NATO to its 1997 state.
> And there may indeed have been some truth to this in the part of the 20th century when communism was a globalist totalitarian ideology.
"Some"?
> So I don’t think it’s a straw man at all, but rather the entire basis of NATO.
Entire basis of NATO is security of its members. Including eastern European ones. Care to provide reference to any NATO treaty/document that states that NATO is only concerned with threats of "global domination" (whatever you think that means)?
> The US is also militarily active far outside its territory but I also don’t believe this is a world domination plot either.
Of course it is? Or it was, since US successfully achieved it in early nineties and then found out that they don't really want it anyway? US, with some notable recent exceptions, has been targeting status of "world police" in some form since the end of WW2.