"backfired" makes it sound like you believe the US started the war
Even Donald Trump now admits that stalling NATO expansion and not treating Russian security concerns with utter contempt could have prevented this.
It's very vulnerable position being a prospective member of a gang. The fact that you try to join one for protection doesnt mean you wont end up being sacrificed when the gang leaders demand you "prove yourself" first.
Those are democratic, sovereign countries, in an international order governed by law. Joining voluntarily a _defense_ alliance.
And one bully country that keeps on bullying, and pretends to be the victim of everyone, and unlawfully attacks a neighbouring country.
Despite its own twisted narrative, if someone took the wrong decision, that's Russia.
The horseshoe theory applies here. Putin's supporters take equally orwellian positions to this.
NATO's command in 2003 in Afghanistan came following an unanimous UN Security Council resolution; Russia even provided support. But yeah, let's count 1 here, given the disaster of the whole thing.
Involvement during the Libya campaign in 2011? under a UN mandate again; Russia didn't veto, abstained, and afterwise criticised how it's been interpreted on the ground. Let's count 1.
That makes 2.
NATO did not join the USA in Iraq.
Kosovo Force is a peacekeeping mission.
Ocean Shield was an anti-piracy mission.
Baltic Air Policing, following the Baltic states joining NATO in 2004, is practically a shared border patrol across these states.
Enhanced Forward Presence, since 2016 is a deterrence in response to Russia actions in 2014 in Crimea.
It puzzles me why some people (you, but you're not the only one) think that gaining the UN mandate to conduct a humanitarian mission under false pretensions and THEN saying "we came. we saw. he died" exculpates NATO. It makes it so much fucking worse.
The orwellian/Putinesque thinking is evident here also. If you can excuse this you can excuse the invasion of Ukraine just as easily.
The problem is proving it was a lie and not a change of circumstances/opportunities during the operation (which doesn't make it right either, but at least dismisses the disingenuous intent).
So your attribution to my thinking is pretty unwelcome. I don't think it was ok, I don't think either it makes Putin's perspective more reasonable or acceptable.
Putin's track record is way worse than that: multiple military or mercenary invasions, journalists, activists and politicians murders, multiple meddling with foreign elections.
This does not diminish the defence fundamentals of NATO. Putin's strategy only reinforced NATO making sense for its own members and for candidates. He could have acted differently, and favour democratic changes rather than making himself a defence to autocratic regimes, both at home and abroad.
Even person who panders to Putin repeat bullshit Russian propaganda? How surprising. The NATO expansion excuse is just ignorant talking point. Russian imperialism is the very reason why every neighbour of Russia (apart from the ones that are it's puppet states) want to be in NATO, not the other way around.
Putin sees the fall of the USSR as a historical wrong that must be righted. He uses NATO Expansion as an easy excuse to sell to the rubes, but it's just that, an excuse.
He was going to go after Ukraine and Georgia NATO or not.
Georgia was, obviously, left alone after it dropped its NATO ambitions, disproving the rather quaint theory that Putin is intent on reforming the USSR.
Serbia did not get Kosovo back did it?
If you wish to grandstand on this issue you must condemn the war against Serbia also.
If you wish to understand this issue, you must condemn the russian invasions and annexations in Poland, Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, and many others.
Also it's not clear what "Even Donald Trump now admits..."is intended to mean here. Donald Trump has always repeated Kremlin talking points so I'm not sure why anyone would think of this as novel.
Obviously American left coast DNC die hards and neoliberals hate him with a passion that beggars belief but he's basically still a different face of American imperialism repesenting similar goals with a changed strategy. Patching things up with Russia is part of that.
The conspiracy theory that he's a Russian plant is amusing, but a delusion to which even the most die hard Putin supporter cannot reach. I guess it's easier to admit than the idea that America lost.
EVEN Donald Trump? As if minihands is the staunchest critic of Russia? I mean, c’mon. Pretty much _only_ Donald Trump claims this outside the context of actual Russian propaganda.
It’s a terribly flimsy argument. Like, no-one has ever, as far as I know, said that Poland should invade Belarus because it joined the CSTO, say. Because that would be obviously ridiculous; actually joining, never mind wanting to join, a defensive treaty organisation is no sort of excuse for invasion. None of this makes any sense unless you accept to start with that Russia has some sort of rights over Ukraine, and no-one really buys that except for Russia.
Allying with other countries is not illegal, therefore it cannot be a cause of a war.
russia invading a sovereign country is illegal, therefore it was the cause of the war.
I'm confused why you would phrase it as "even Donald Trump", as if we should somehow expect Trump to not buy in to Putin's propaganda line? The fact that Trump "admits" that he agrees with Putin should not give any weight to what Putin claims.