NATO expansion has pretty much always been a reaction to Russian aggression, including the most recent accessions following Russia's takeover of Crimea and now their invasion if the Ukraine.
Painting NATO expansion as an aggressive act that forces Russia to retaliate with their own belligerance is a reversal of cause & effect at best and a willful blindness or belief in propaganda at worst. The truth is that since the fall of the Soviet Union Russia has been free to participate in global affairs & economics as much or as little as it wants, and while geopolitical games are played on all sides there have been no efforts to prevent Russia's peaceful participation such things. The rest of the world has even turned a blind eye to some fairly brutal conflicts they waged to consolidate what power they could among former Soviet states. Such is that nature of realpolitik.
Russian leadership's desire to take that to an entirely new level right now is of course scaring the shit our of other close neighbors who rightfully fear that they would be next on the list.
US actions in, e.g., Iraq and Afghanistan are irrelevant "whataboutism". If you have a problem with US actions then complain about them, advocate for US sanctions or a NATO-like alliance against US aggression or whatever you thing is appropriate. But none of it excuses Russia's actions and the very reasonable response from other countries that now seek protection from becoming their next target.
Complaining about NATO expansion as an instigator of Russian aggression is like complaining that a playground bully is justified in beating up kids just because a group of those kids decided they would defend themselves collectively if the bully went after them again.
No it's not whataboutism it's just to make sure that when we say that Russia is crazy and US is some sort of holy state, we are trusting the wrong people to tell us what is just and correct and what is not
So I am sorry but when the US tries to tell us about criminals and that what it takes to be just, I think only that it is the most criminal country in the history of the world, the only one to drop nuclear bombs on cilivian target cities or killing kids in Iraq and Afghanistan then jailing journalists or try to get them extradited, or spying on citizens of the world or backing israeli regime killing kids and journalists. Just as a way to remember who is telling us to give up everything we have and our stability, to be aware of the interlocutor, somehow.
So at this point, we realise that US is a criminal state pursuing his own interest at the expense of the rest of the world, once we've established that, and that they don't care about human rights and freedom of press, since they support countries against that around the world for their interests, would we give up that?
So when Biden speaks to Europeans saying you need to give up Russian gas for the track record of Russia, why Europeans don't reply that US need to give up its relationship with Saudi Arabia and Israel?
Because the world is not unjust but european leaders are now pursuing US interests at their own expenses, and that is not good
It shows either a fundamental disinterest in or inability to argue the issue on its own merits, and you continue that flawed course of arguments in your above comment. By all means condemn the US for any actions you believe are wrong. Argue for the same sorts of sanctions or other measure that you believe are merited if you think the US should be held to account for those things.
But don't mistake your criticisms of the US or anyone else as coming anywhere close to a valid argument for why Russia is justified in its current course of actions. Don't mistake them for a valid argument against new NATO applicants fearful that they are next on Russia's hit list. No, instead you need to understand that you are defending Russia's actions as though they are a necessary response, when nothing could be further from the truth. In the wake of the Soviet breakup the remaining Russian Federation was extremely well poised to break out of its isolation and contribute significantly to the world with its rich culture & strong scientific tradition instead of just its commoditized natural resources. Instead it was coopted by oligarchical kleptocrats that stifled its vast potential. The world is poorer for Russian leadership's self-interests & self-dealing, and their short-sightedness now requires it to response with force to situations it could have managed to the net benefit of itself and its partners.
Russia is not the victim here. Russia is not justified in its actions. It's been outplayed in economics & geopolitics only because its leadership never considered cooperation as a first-line stance on the world stage. If it feels "forced" into violence now it is only because its leadership has always extended the mailed fist instead of trying the velvet glove first. So it is no surprise that countries would flee that approach in favor the velvet glove that offers prosperity through cooperation before it extends the threat of force.
The result is a military failure the will achieve every strategic horror it thought to fight against. It is severely weakened militarily, unable to defeat an enemy it should easily have bested even with the light weaponry aid provided to Ukraine, much of which only made it there after their initial failed invasion. This has shown the world how poorly prepared it is to project military power beyond its own borders, except by nuclear threat. From here on out, it can do very little militarily without resorting to threat of nuclear war. It now has almost not option in-between minor skirmish & nuclear bombs because its weak logistics and untrained troops are revealed to the world.
In the broader geopolitical game it has reversed a decades-long decline in the relevance of NATO, a long sought strategic goal of theirs, and instead injected new life into the organization making it more relevant and stronger than it has been for a very long time. Just a few years ago there was strong support among many in the US to dismantle NATO or at least gut it by withdrawing, but now you'd be hard pressed to find more than a slim minority who believe NATO has outlived its purpose.
Russia, by taking steps that you seem ready to support & justify, has weakened itself in every conceivable way. Point fingers at other awful things done by other countries all you want, you cannot get around this. You cannot avoid the fact that, even if Russia's actions were even minimally justified (they're not) they are a strategic disaster that will leave its unfortunate population worse off for at least a generation.
Maybe if Russia stopped invading all its neighbours and all the prior USSR states, these states would stop joining NATO.
The only thing NATO stops is Russian imperialism.
"These are just some people who bought their uniforms in the military store"
"That was not a NATO operation but an operation carried out by NATO countries"
Meanwhile for the whole world, NATO has waged war in Iraq. Yugoslavia before that. Lybia after that.
It was an ill-conceived conflict yes, but not an actual NATO conflict. In fact the lack of support from key NATO allies led to a very acrimonious relationship with founding NATO members that did not participate. To characterize Iraq military operations as a NATO operation in the face of these facts is simply ridiculous, especially when the actual contributions by NATO members that did join the coalition, with the possible exception of the UK, were very small. (Though their soldiers should still be honored for their willingness to serve and sacrifices made) It was not approved by NATO and if the US had officially sought Article 5 support for the conflict it very well may have been denied, a likely reason why they didn't invoke it to avoid embarrassment. After the country fell to US & coalition forces, only then did NATO send humanitarian assistance & resources to help rebuild, and they were strictly limited in scope.
The Iraq invasion was no more a NATO operation than the Suez Crisis was, with both giving their countries black eyes on reputation and credibility.
As for the other conflicts you mention, NATO's intervention with Yugoslavia was brutal & likely excessive, but it did stop a genocide in its tracks. It's rightfully criticized for its methods but it's difficult to fault their involvement itself. Libya on the other hand I agree was a complete mess. Regardless, none of that justifies Russia's own actions.
That's easy: by choosing to not be belligerent to countries exercising their sovereign autonomy.
"You're making me hit you!" No.
This is the failing of the tankie argument: "but but the evil US" (and to be clear, the US has done plenty of awful things) ignores that Russia's other problem here is that they do nothing to make anybody actually want to support them. And it just so happens that Russia doesn't have the friends they'd need to do what they want--who knew?--and that is a historical failing.
Appealing to power politics only works when the parties attempting to exert power aren't bad at it. It's why the weirdos online have to insist that it's a "CIA op" making Sweden and Finland look at the aggressive power next door and go "hello, NATO": because reality has kneecapped the myth.
> How is Russia going to not be belligerent if we are even thinking about letting Sweden and Finland in NATO?
And this is the argument you are making about what Russia needs. Maybe consider why Sweden and Finland wants to join NATO.
Take Kazakhstan. It's a country which is in several bloc-like agreements with Russia: СНГ, ОДКБ, ЕАЕС. How are you going to listen to it? I will tell you how the West do it every time:
You are going to find some opposition crackpot who will badmouth Russia and crap on Kazakhstan regime, and you will ignore all other voices.
The one who may as well be on some Western "free press" aid program and therefore not really speaking for themself but for you. You are only going to listen to yourself.
Honestly, no. But that doesn't mean they aren't worth listening to, it just means we need to find someone who is capable of listening to them.
And it's equally worth pointing out that listening to Kazakhstan through a Russian filter is as dangerously misguided as listening to it through a Western filter.
"Let them be neither" does not work, as demonstrated by the NATO expansion.
Germany for example has very strong economic interests with both the US & Russia, and until the Ukrainian invasion there wasn't too much of a problem with that. The US warned that Russia would use its fossil fuel exports as a political weapon (as it turns out, correctly, but the US wields economic influence in similar, if more subtle ways) but Germany was still free to enter into an agreement despite that, and it did so, along with many other European countries to a lesser extent.
Finland & Sweden were perfectly content to "be neither" for three quarters of a century! But now, faced with a belligerent Russian regime, they're driven to the extreme of knowing they could be next on Russia's list. Russia has brought this on itself, and if more countries are choosing a closer alliance to the west it is in no way through pressure or threats of violence by the west (or the US in particular) but instead due to fear of violence from a their neighbor to the east. Russia has created a situation where "we don't need to pick a side, we can be neither" is now a choice that risks annihilation of national sovereignty.
Ukraine got on the bad side of Russia because it was trying to do just that. It gained leadership that was willing to develop stronger ties with the West and Russia perceived it as a threat, annexing Crimea as stage-1 in their plan to eliminate Ukrainian sovereignty.
Instead they might simply have played nice, continue being the region's key supplier of natural gas/oil/etc., Used those proceeds to develop other areas of it's economy... You get the idea. Their leadership's nostalgia for empire building is, ironically, getting in the way of them building an economic empire. Their scientific tradition should have them at the forefront of new breakthroughs alongside other large nations. Instead, we get a fruitless invasion and another generation of isolation.
"Continue being the region's key supplier of natural gas/oil/etc" is not enough for Russia.
I'm not worried about nuclear weapons, and this is why: nuclear weapons are the last form of escalation possible. If Putin uses nuclear weapons, there is nothing he can do to further deter NATO from invading Russia, and I strongly suspect that public opinion would be in favor of NATO doing so. I don't see any scenario where the use of nuclear weapons wouldn't harm Russian positions, let alone a scenario where nuclear weapons are actually helpful.