I appreciate, and agree with, your sentiments. They are far richer and more nuanced than the ones I have expressed. My comments on this thread are me in analytical mode. It is similar to reductionism in science. You have to winnow your focus to essentials to draw conclusions in a reasonable amount of time. Yet every factor you ignore constitutes a loss of information. It is, of necessity, a parochial endeavor.

As to the motivations of prominent people please consider that there are very few, if any, lone wolves. They are the faces of institutions or power centers in a society. They are constrained. For example, all of the presidents in my life, from Truman to Biden, have been blamed or credited with actions taken by people in departments that they didn’t even know existed. Such is the curse of leadership.

In closing, thank you for one of the more enjoyable discussions I have had in many a year. —Smily Face—

“First, the analysis I presented is not my own but rather the concensus of any number of people who were in the business of shooting and getting shot at.”

Fair enough, that wasn’t as clear before.

I for myself am an amateur historian and lifelong civilian. I admit I am mostly in the peanut gallery and heavily reliant upon secondary sources and what primary ones are declassified for the obvious reasons (I imagine the thrill of being “gangsta” or an “outlaw” starts to dull after your friends start to get arrested). So I admit I largely speak for myself, though I will talk about the stances and opinions of others and where I agree or disagree with them. After all, we all have to try as we can.

This is also why I care a great deal more about motivation in my research, even if this may not be the most important aspect the agendas of institutions, factions, or even individuals can be incredibly important. Which is why I disputed it.

” It has developed over the years influenced by my participation in the Minuteman II program and various other activities. I don’t delve into motivations or grand movements in history. I tend to put more emphasis on CEP (Circular Error Probable) and fratricide (friendly fire). ”

Understandable, and that is probably the right call. I am nowhere near as versed in that and I admit it.

I also care a great deal more about motivation in my research, even if this may not be the most important aspect the agendas of institutions, factions, or even individuals can be incredibly important. Which is why I disputed it.

It also helps that motivations are generally a lot clearer and somewhat more telling by actions and declarations, even if obviously subject to misinformation and so on.

“Peoples’ attitudes and perceptions, there are billions of them, are fun to talk about but the real measure lies in body counts or the lack thereof.”

Agreed, but that is part of the question of motive. Who would be willing to crunch those numbers and what outcomes would meet their approval. Obviously it is only part of the puzzle and arguably a less important part compared to body counts, concrete policy, and so forth but that plays out against the backdrop of wills and agendas shaping how that plays out.

First, the analysis I presented is not my own but rather the concensus of any number of people who were in the business of shooting and getting shot at. It has developed over the years influenced by my participation in the Minuteman II program and various other activities. I don’t delve into motivations or grand movements in history. I tend to put more emphasis on CEP (Circular Error Probable) and fratricide (friendly fire). Peoples’ attitudes and perceptions, there are billions of them, are fun to talk about but the real measure lies in body counts or the lack thereof.

“I am referring to information that is, as far as I know, still Top Secret+.”

Which is fair enough, and why I added in the caveat that

“I will not claim that I have as much knowledge about things in the non-public domain that you do, let alone the experience or credentials. ”

Precisely because I thought it might be something like this, which has the dual problem of being unprovable without breaking legal covenants and hard to use. Also because I was merely giving vague details of my own experience and connections, not trying to engage in a measurement contest or Stealing Valor I have never earned.

” If you looked at the declassified NSA document that I linked you saw that half of it is redacted.”

Indeed, as is pretty typical.

” Aside from legal liability it is the culture that you just don’t talk about sensitive information. If you do you are very careful.”

Agreed, Loose Lips Sink Ships and all that. That is something I have noticed with my other friends, and why

To quote another friend I had:

“So if I can’t speak on specifics from inside a SCIF, why have I shared with Turtler? Because he asks questions I can usually answer referring to outside sources. I can usually safely point him in a certain direction without violating my oaths or laws. When that fails, I can give him a simple answer that requires no special knowledge. If that fails, I can tell him “”I cannot speak on that” and he understands to not pursue further.

For most people, what I share would be nearly useless…because most people don’t do the research Turtler does. Shit, man, I wouldn’t even do it.”

“A major part of intelligence analysis is devoted to figuring out if the information you have is valid or purposeful disinformation. A major part of counter-intelligence is planting disinformation to mislead the other guys. Anything you read might be a red herring. ”

Indeed, especially when dealing with the Soviets and to a lesser degree Russia as a whole, which for all of its myriad flaws and problems (as the war in Ukraine is revealing) has internalized and refined Maskirovka and other mass-deception and information warfare strategies like few others. Helped by the fact that a lot of contrary evidence has been locked in archives or “disappeared.” Which is why you have so many lingering traces of their narratives (like the idea that the Gulf of Tonkin was a “false flag” attack (it wasn’t; the First Incident saw the North Vietnamese attack a USN ship and get beaten, while the Second Incident was caused by the crew of that ship being so nervous they misinterpreted white noise on the radar and started shooting at fish) still remain.

“I regard anything that I find plausible as merely possible, subject to verification. Michael Crichton wrote an essay about what he termed the “Gell-Mann Effect”. You read a story about something of which you have personal knowledge and see that it is mostly wrong. You read the next story and assume that it is accurate. Go figure.”

Quite, which is also why I try to maintain a good deal of skepticism. And also why I have not mentioned or sourced the likes of Humberto Fontova (sort of the Right’s PoP Culture source on Che and the Castro Regime, and where a lot of the more salacious quotes and claims seem to originate from) because I cannot trace the ‘evidence’ or ‘sources’ they are presenting beyond them, even with some rudimentary knowledge of Spanish and quite a lot of patience.

“Post WWII stability was, and still is, grounded in MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction. A first strike capability negated MAD. ”

The big problem with this is that MAD was far more of a focus and ends to Western strategists than it was to the Soviets or Communist Chinese. While it can be hard to filter out the apocalyptic bluster of people like Mao talking about how he would ask the Soviets to nuke China in order to destroy American forces there, the fact is we now know that the Soviets thought far more seriously about nuclear weapons as war-winners and gradients of escalation than we previously believed, and certainly more than the Kumbayaya “Russians love their children too” school of mass media liked to admit.

The truth is, Marxist-Leninism was founded as an aggressive, messianic ideology with global pretensions of exporting the revolution worldwide. It did not believe in “Stability” in and of itself, particularly not for its own reasons. Which is why so much of Soviet and other Communist doctrine in the first half of the Soviet Union’s existence was geared towards *destroying* stability in order to help fuel the revolution.

This is easily traceable from public resources, whether it’s looking at Marxists.org’s transcripts of Lenin talking about how there would never be peace between the Bolshevik revolution and the wider world, his attempts to jump-start a World War in 1919 (which largely faltered on the stumbling blocks of Poland, the Baltics, and Romania accompanied by the sheer devastation Russia had), the interwar Soviet support of German rearmament in order to destabilize the Versailles peace settlement and create room for maneuver, subversion throughout the world (IIRC the first “Chekist” captured in Vietnam was grabbed by the British in 1945), the muted level of Soviet demobilization after WWII, or Soviet Civil Defense doctrine. Even if you discount much of this as a false positive, rendered obsolete by changing policy, or simple bluster it clearly points to the Soviets’ strategic culture being predominantly offensive in a way that NATO’s simply was not.

This was up to and including serious consideration for how nuclear weapons and other WMD would be used in a war of conquest.

http://insidethecoldwar.org/sites/default/files/documents/NI%20IIM%2077-029%20Soviet%20Civil%20Defense%20Objectives%2C%20Pace%20and%20Effectiveness%2C%20December%201977.pdf

In essence, the Soviets responded to the end of WWII and particularly the use of atomic weapons by the West by trying to launch a crash program to nuclearize in order to gain a nuclear umbrella against potential retaliation or aggression by the West (especially in an era that marked the high point of Western discussions of “Massive Retaliation” and the use of nuclear weapons in wars from Korea to Vietnam). This was meant to not only ward off attacks on the “Peoples’ State” as the Soviets liked to bring up by drumbeating about Operation Barbarossa, but also to provide a counterbalance to help launch offensive operations in the West, whether more surgical subversion or the sort of a “1919 but we’ll do it right this time!”

So the goal was less about deterring a Western or Chinese attack (which the Soviets were concerned about but also deterring Western recourse to nuclear weapons in a conventional war they were losing, in essence trying to overcome the threshold for MAD.

The issue is that the Soviets were never able to be confident they had amassed enough nuclear weapons to do so, even as the balance of power went from an anemic conventional Western military (post-WWII Empires, Pentomic era US) with immense nuclear power against a conventional Soviet juggernaut (albeit one trying to adjust to the loss of logistical support from Lend-Lease) with underpowered nuclear arms to a gradually atrophying nuclear-powered Soviet military with an increasingly out-nuked but militarily competent US military at the end of the Cold War.

It’s hard to tell exactly when the Soviet leadership more or less gave up their ambitions of a conventional aggression against the West, but it was almost certainly some time after the Cuban Missile Crisis and Khruschev’s fall.

Which is part of the reason why the two sides came to the field with different objectives. US doctrine was focused primarily on containment at all costs, with the potential to “rollback.” The Soviets, however, were determined to export the revolution by subversion or open arms. Which is ultimately what did them in: the US ultimately had to “not lose” in order to win the Cold War.

“The Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Italy were 10 minutes from the Soviet strategic bomber bases which comprised almost all of their retaliatory capabilities. They were a first strike threat. The missiles in Cuba posed the same threat to the US. The removal of all the IRBMs, Russian and US, was what Khruschev wanted. It was also what both sides needed as evidenced by you and I having a conversation today.”

Agreed, but there are a couple caveats.

Firstly: the fact that while this is the primary goal Khruschev wanted, it discounts the secondary goal he had and the primary goal his vassals in Habana wanted. Namely to have nuclear weapons stockpiled on their island in order to stave off another Bay of Pigs or outright invasion by the US (and in the case of Castro, to maintain the possibility of using said nuclear weapons as leverage against his patrons).

It’s not a coincidence that the Soviet positioning of weapons in Cuba came after Fidel lobbied for their placement and even offered as such.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/twe-remembers-secret-soviet-tactical-nuclear-weapons-cuba-cuban-missile-crisis-coda

Nor is it a coincidence that his feelings and conduct loomed so relatively large in 1960-2 as an unpredictable wild card, heavily aligned with the Soviets and in sympathy with them but pursuing his own agenda that did not always line up with them.

Secondly: one key reason for the interest in Soviet nuclear disarmament was because of the Kremlin’s belief up to this point that doing so would strengthen the Soviet Union’s hand in conventional war and possibly open the door towards an attack at a more convenient time.

“Castro was irrelevant.”

Unlikely, especially from what is public knowledge. He was not the main force involved, nor one of the main players, but he was the host of the nuclear weapons and quite capable of pursuing his own agenda within the limits of Great Power politics (and to a limited extent even beyond then, hence Khruschev’s growing concerns).

There is a brilliant little quote a friend gave me, which they claimed came from a Chess-themed play, though I cannot verify it.

It was: “Even pawns can make moves of their own.” Which is worth remembeirng.

“The Cuban situation was existential but transitory. Both sides subsequently implemented their triads – bombers, land based missiles and sea based missiles – which eliminated the first strike threat.”

Indeed, but that is also why I do think the Cuban Missile Crisis marked a foundational moment in Soviet policy, and particularly a growing leeriness towards an aggressive forward policy, helpfully underlined by the construction of massive fortifications across the border lines, aimed at both deterring invasion and above all stemming the tides of defection.

The fact that these fortifications were designed for strategic demolition by the Soviet Bloc in order to do things like launch an invasion of the West shows that the Soviets had not completely given up the possibility of an aggressive move West or at least heavy counterattacks, but it does show a significant part of their policy had shifted from trying to plan the export of the revolution to consolidating and protecting it on its own soil.

Even the people who made that shift probably did not realize how important or lasting it would be, but so it was.

“They’re both dead and we are not.”

Quite, but that is rather irrelevant when discussing their actions while they were alive, no?

1. “I know things that are not in the public domain.” Good for you. So do I.

I am referring to information that is, as far as I know, still Top Secret+. If you looked at the declassified NSA document that I linked you saw that half of it is redacted. Aside from legal liability it is the culture that you just don’t talk about sensitive information. If you do you are very careful.

2. However, I do do research,

A major part of intelligence analysis is devoted to figuring out if the information you have is valid or purposeful disinformation. A major part of counter-intelligence is planting disinformation to mislead the other guys. Anything you read might be a red herring. I regard anything that I find plausible as merely possible, subject to verification. Michael Crichton wrote an essay about what he termed the “Gell-Mann Effect”. You read a story about something of which you have personal knowledge and see that it is mostly wrong. You read the next story and assume that it is accurate. Go figure.

3. why a braggart like Khruschev would have allowed such an asymmetrical resolution

Post WWII stability was, and still is, grounded in MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction. A first strike capability negated MAD. The Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Italy were 10 minutes from the Soviet strategic bomber bases which comprised almost all of their retaliatory capabilities. They were a first strike threat. The missiles in Cuba posed the same threat to the US. The removal of all the IRBMs, Russian and US, was what Khruschev wanted. It was also what both sides needed as evidenced by you and I having a conversation today.

4. and the missing Castro component.

Castro was irrelevant.

5. But this goes back to the similar issue that the Soviets never fully denuclearized Cuba, they merely withdrew the vulnerable land based systems from it while continuing to keep ports of call for their Boomers there

The Cuban situation was existential but transitory. Both sides subsequently implemented their triads – bombers, land based missiles and sea based missiles – which eliminated the first strike threat.

6. It also does not address the rather apocalyptic lunacy on the parts of Castro and Che.

They’re both dead and we are not.

“I know things that are not in the public domain.”

Good for you. So do I. I will not claim that I have as much knowledge about things in the non-public domain that you do, let alone the experience or credentials. However, I do do research, and know some others in something like your position.

Which is why I go back to the asymmetrical nature of the Cuban Missile Crisis Resolution, why a braggart like Khruschev would have allowed such an asymmetrical resolution, and the missing Castro component.

” If I am not certain that something is in the public domain then I am necessarily vague about it.”

Understandable enough, and I can’t fault you for that. After all while I myself have always been a civilian not all of my friends and acquaintances can say the same, and they have to deal with similar.

But this goes back to the similar issue that the Soviets never fully denuclearized Cuba, they merely withdrew the vulnerable land based systems from it while continuing to keep ports of call for their Boomers there. It also does not address the rather apocalyptic lunacy on the parts of Castro and Che.

“ I posted the Astana 2010 agreement first, as it shows that the assurances made in 1990 were still valid.”

That is a rather dramatic and fanciful reading of Astana on a couple levels. First and foremost because it contains terms bluntly and comprehensively repudiate the core of “No NATO expansion.”

And I will quote:

“ 3. The security of each participating State is inseparably linked to that of all others. Each participating State has an equal right to security. WE REAFFIRM THE INHERENT RIGHT OF EACH AND EVERY PARTICIPATING STATE TO BE FREE TO CHOOSE OR CHANGE ITS SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS, INCLUDING TREaTIES OF ALLIANCE, AS THEY EVOLVE. Each State also has the right to neutrality.”

There it is, in black and white, bluntly stating that any prior “promises” that NATO would not expand East of Germany were and are null and void.

You HAD to have read at least some of this in the process of copying the “Equal right to Security” and “At the expense of-“ text, since this occurs right before the latter. And yet you did not mention this. Why?!?

Especially since it handily underlines my case: that the 1990 reassurances, such as they are (given how they are almost always less sweeping and restrictive than the likes of the file hosted wished to claim), were handily outpaced by events as well as the wishes of the later NATO applicants.

Which brings me back to the systematic problem you and Velouria have had with citing these documents: that they were never absolut, unconditional, or binding agreements from *Insert Western actor* to Russia, but always conditional on the will and interests of other nations like the future NATO entries and neutrals, AS WELL AS on Russian Good Behavior and adherence to international agreements.

And this is IF I treat Astana 2019 as a serious accord. And to be brutally honest I am not inclined to do so. They were a multinational anniversary spectacle meant more for good will than enforceable law. And I know this because by the time they were signed- to cite just one nation’s violations- Russia had already aggrandized itself at the expense of Georgian and Moldavian security.

Trying to argue that ideas like preventing the expansion of “military jurisdiction” for NATO East of Germany was still enforceable or binding in 2010 is not only a fanciful interpretation of international law, it is BLUNTLY AND COMPLETELY REJECTED by what the Astana Agreement actually says.

“I only referenced Baker’s assurances to demonstrate that the Russians are correct in stating that the West has continually reassured the Russians of the West’s peaceful intent, while simultaneously acting militarily in a passive/aggressive manner. “

This is rich coming from a series of regimes that have exacerbated violent conflicts in Georgia and Moldavia, and Ukraine. The truth is, the West has maintained peaceful intention to Russia even in the face of truly outrageous behavior, such as the 2008 Georgian War (timed to occur while the best units of the Georgian Army were fighting in Iraq under Polish control).

And it is not like this is some recent or new development, as Transnistria 1991 shows.

“Continually blaming the Russians with a “they made us do it’ meme.”

Again, this is rich coming from a regime that has repeatedly sewed violent Balkanization or nonviolent but disruptive strongarn diplomacy (such as the trad wars with Ukraine and Belarus) and is then absolutely AMAZED when other nations and NATO rethink ideas like not wanting NATO Expansion.

Not helped by the Russian governments following their sadly historical tradition of paying short shrift to international agreements, as the Russian military happily mincing Astana in its invasion of Ukraine in 2014 shows.

So please do not DARE try and cite Astana and its terms to make a serious legal point, let alone that Astana ratified previous reassurances that NATO would not expand., because not only is that NOT what it says, the Kremlin is frankly lucky that nobody seems to take it very seriously for the reasons I outlined above.

“Baker proposed to Shevardnadze that NATO was going to shift away from a military focus to a political focus designed to sustain Europe’s stability. Then, when Russia under Yeltsin put forward the proposal that Russia join a now politically focused NATO, Russia was refused entry upon the basis that if Russia was accepted into NATO membership, it would remove NATO’s very reason for existing, which can only be ascribed to a military focus.”

Once again, you seem to be “conveniently” skipping over parts of the story. Such as the Transnistrian War, the internal Russian instability in Chechnya, and above all the start of the Yugoslavia breakdown that handily dominated NATO focus during these years.

As well as residual uncertainty about NATO enlargement, which features strongly in the documents cited by Vel and which feature Baker himself, but which you seem to be discounting to the point of exclusion. And this in spite of the fact that such residual hesitation during the early and mid 1990s being cited as a contributory reason for why the deal was stillborn by that bastion of right wing Atlanticism, “The Grauniad.”

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/31/russia-associate-membership-nato-malcolm-rifkind-chequers-boris-yeltsin

Which brings me back to how self-defeating, unhelpful, and borderline dishonest it is to look at these agreements in isolation from their context. Because otherwise that leads you to doing things like claiming that “the assurances made in 1990 (presumably largely about NATO enlargement) were still valid” when the text of Astana underlines NO, NO THEY WERE NOT.

“No wonder some Russians began to perceive the West as being duplicitous.”

But pointedly ignoring large swaths of actual international agreements expressly guaranteeing national sovereignty in choosing alliances or neutrality is not duplicitous?

I am far from the person to Rah Rah for the integrity of Foggy Bottom or the Quay d’’Orsay the most, but even grafting a timeline onto these documents puts them in so much more context and reveals they are nowhere near as “duplicitous” or inexplicable as they seemed.

“Russia has consistently repeated its view that NATO in the Ukraine is a red line for them, by any strategic military calculus, “

Then perhaps they should have thought twice before guaranteeing Ukrainian independence or integrity, including the ability to choose any alliance it chooses in treaties like Budapest 1994 and Astana 2010?

Funny how THAT is not being mentioned.

As well as the fact that the Kremlin blathering about how “Ukraine in NATO is a red line” is proof positive of what I said: that the Kremlin did not take its obligations under Budapest 1994 or Astana 2010 seriously.

“NATO upon Russia’s closest border is a legitimate national security concern.”

Of course it is. And like other legitimate national security concerns it is grounds for exercise, preparing military readiness, and planning.

But legitimate national security concerns hardly justify utterly illegitimate and perfidious crimes against the peace. Or if you want to argue they DO, they at a minimum mitigate the amount that can be excused by them.

“Thus, as referenced above in the 2010 Astana agreement , the other 56 nations party to that agreement lack any legal basis for ignoring its relevant provisions.”

Again, did you even read the freaking Astana agreement?

The Astana Agreement CLEARLY SPELLS OUT the right of ANY of its signatories to choose any alliance it chooses. Which utterly destroys the grievance narrative thrust NATO was and is obliged to have never expanded, and that Russia has legitimate cause to prevent Ukraine joining NATO, OPEC, or any other foreign alliance it chooses at the point of Russian bayonets.

“The West is basically saying our security concerns in NATO expanding eastward are valid. But Russia has no valid security concerns because they’re a bunch of paranoid bad guys and we’re the good guys.”

This is a nice little inversion of reality, and basically the Kremlin’s propagandists projecting their own egocentric, lunatic, and criminal mindset onto those they view as their enemies.

The West has repeatedly agreed that Russia has valid security concerns, at least in paying lip service to them. Astana outlines this, as do things like what I pointed out regarding Baker’s previous statements about Germany’s Eastern neighbors.

The problem is that the West’s argument for how to resolve these has always been with Russia agreeing to the rules of the road by which Russia and its neighbors would be protected by international law and interlocking security agreements (which we might laugh bitterly at now due to their “efficiency” but do as it is).

In contrast, it is the Russian Government that seems to define its “legitimate national security concerns” as only being sustainable or meeting by trampling on the legitimate sovereign rights of other nations, particularly those in its near abroad.

The fault line of this friction is clearly shown by that article of the Astana agreement, which features both grants for nations not aggrandizing their security at the expense of others and free choice of any alliance or none at all by the signatories.

The Kremlin’s argument, such as it is, is that the free ability of nations (or at least some nations) to choose whatever alliance they wish is a threat to its security and a case of those nations increasing their security at its expense.

Which points to this being a “Yoi problem@ with the Kremlin.

“Talk about a simplistic narrative and one that conveniently ignores inconvenient facts that call into question the veracity of that narrative.”

Mate, don’t you DARE peddle that after you got caught leaving our one hell of a relevant part of Astana that utterly destroys the idea that reassurances against NATO expansion in 1990 were still binding in 2010.

“ The 2010 Astana agreement is a binding agreement. “

Eh, I suppose it theoretically is (certainly moreso than the cited “reassurances”) in spite of how dysfunctional and unenforceable it is.

“See my comment at 11:23 as to why it permanently settles the Ukraine joining NATO issue. “

Actually, Astana DOES permanently settle the question if Ukraine (not “the” Ukraine) joining NATO, but NOT In THE WAY you are implying.

Again, let us bring up what the ACTUALLY RELEVANT part of the Astana Agreement SAYS.

“ “ 3. The security of each participating State is inseparably linked to that of all others. Each participating State has an equal right to security. WE REAFFIRM THE INHERENT RIGHT OF EACH AND EVERY PARTICIPATING STATE TO BE FREE TO CHOOSE OR CHANGE ITS SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS, INCLUDING TREaTIES OF ALLIANCE, AS THEY EVOLVE. Each State also has the right to neutrality.”

So what part of “We reaffirm the inherent right of each and every state to be free to choose or change its security arraignments, including treaties of alliance…” is so hard to comprehend?

This has Infinitely clearer and more direct applications to the legality of Ukraine joining NATO than vague statements about respecting each others’ national security (especially when you realize these two were recognized to be consistent, with a part of national security being the right to choose alliance policy)

“That NATO announced in 2020 its intention to welcome the Ukraine into NATO is demonstrable proof of the West’s political leadership’s willingness to directly violate its agreements.”

Except as Astana OBVIOUSLY states, this is not true. Moreover, Russia’s insistence on preventing Ukraine from joining NATO at any cost underlines that it is violating the Astana Agreement and fundamentally entered into it in even worse faith than the other signatories did (since they probably correctly realized it was a bunch of feelgood puffery that was factually unenforceablehz

“Confirming the Russian’s view that the West i.e. the U.S. can’t be trusted to honor its agreements and treaties. “

Again, you’re trying to cite the Astana Agreement- which Russia violated but the West did not- as “confirming the Russians’ view that the West can’t be trusted to honor its agreements and treaties”?

“Given our history of tearing up every treaty the U.S. federal government ever signed with our Native Americans, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that that betrayal extends into the present day.”

Dear God, that is such a stretch that 343 might Sue you for Copyright Infringement.

A few notes. Firstly: the US has hardly been noted (especially in its early history) for treaty adherence, but even it did not break every single treaty signed with Amerindians.

Secondly: Even back when the US did treat treaties with Amerindian nations as written suggestions at best, its track record with what it viewed as “peers” such as European Nations such as the European States was much better (by no means perfect but much better).

Thirdly: even a cursory look at Russian diplomacy with everyone ranging from the assorted Siberian tributaries it gained in the 17th century and other Great Powers underlines how diplomacy is a dirty game and the Kremlin does not have much claim to the high ground in regards to the US’s own track record.

And this is before I talk about how your citation of Astana shows the Russian government violated it far more fundamentally and brazenly than “the West” did.

“All of this reinforces Russia’s distrust that if they allow NATO to park itself upon its doorstep, they will find themselves subject to a strategic vulnerability from which they cannot defend themselves.”

Which brings us back to the Kremlin’s decision to treat the nations it thinks it can get away with bullying so badly and as something less than sovereign, and the ensuing disillusionment and anger that helped propel NATO expansion.

“None of this is meant to deny Putin and Russia’s violation of its agreements. I’m simply not pretending that the violations are not a two way street.”

The issue is, the violations are nowhere near comparable, nor were they equal opportunity. You want to claim the US violated Astana based on tenuous (and out of context) reading of the terms regarding improving security at the expense of other nations. I claim Russia violated Astana by pointing to the clauses in Astana underlining national determination and the ability to choose any alliance a nation wishes or none at all.

These are not alike. Nor is it tenable to claim the 1990 reassurances were still binding or enforceable 20 years and no less than three Russian regimes later.

“So there’s distrust on both sides, resulting in what we have now, another cold war, “

Agreed.

“at least partially the result of the West’s leadership seeking to gain an unmatchable strategic advantage over Russia.”

And primarily as a result of the Russian Kremlin, the CCP, and a bunch of other ne’er-do-wells fundamentally rejecting basic tenants of international law and bilateral diplomacy, and either agreeing in transparently bad faith or outright repudiating them.

But presuming he figures he’s the injured party. So what? Whether he should so consider or not is…irrelevant. It would be irrational to go to war to rearrange some legal issues from years ago. So he’s either irrational, or he thinks something else is the issue. As in….western armies are getting closer.

But there is the other issue: western armies always retreat from Russia broken. One German officer remarked, when things were getting rough on the eastern front, that copies of Caulincourt were being passed around. He wrote about Napoleon’s effort. Point is, the stupidity of invading Russia is baked into western thought.

We don’t know if he does or if he’s using it to cover some other motive. That might mean discussing what the Russian people think about such things and we can only speculate.

For example, sunk cost. Does he feel the sunk cost requires him to go ahead? Or does he think the sunk cost with no useful results is making the Russian people really angry and he can only protect himself through victory? Do we know which? How? For sure?

But, okay, I’ll take it that he’s annoyed about what he sees as a violation. I can say that and have breath left over for….so what and what now.

No, Putin does not give a rat’s behind.

But some people seem to think he does, and that his idea that these agreements have been violated by others (never him!) is an enormous part of the reason for his aggression against Ukraine and other states.

How dare you cut to the chase; what Putin is doing now and has done to Ukraine in the past, when you can chase your tail and divert your mind with speculations of imagined (since you aren’t Russian) threats and motives? Not my game either.