Exactly the same would have been said of the Warsaw Pact on the other side of the fence.
“Russia was never formally offered NATO membership, but there were discussions about the possibility. In 1954, the Soviet Union proposed joining NATO, but the alliance rejected the idea, stating that it was incompatible with its democratic and defensive aims”
and
Unless we understand how these problems have arisen we’ll never solve them.
Justifying Russia’s military invasion of Ukrainian Crimea does somewhat equate with justifying Isreal’s military invasion of Palestinian Gaza.
Lives should not hinge on principles. There can be no justification for Russia (Putin) forcibly invading another country, causing catastrophic destruction and loss of life, solely on the excuse that NATO may one day reach Russia’s border. This power play is not honestly defensive, it’s because Russia wants back the minerals and rich farmland that it feels were pried out of its cold dead hand in the demise of the USSR.
Adding our voices to that of the grand apologist Trump does us, and the Ukraine, no honour.
It’s worth reading NATOs debunking of the Russian propaganda that we see used to justify the invasion.
If I could give this link 
I would
Clinton wrote a piece available on The Atlantic, in which he is very clear that NATO expansion was not limited in discussion with the Russians. Again, I suspect this to be a piece of propaganda used to justify the unjustifiable.
The mere fact that the “debunking the myths” document had to be produced speaks for itself. It tells no lies, but it certainly doesn’t tell the whole truth, and it is far too focussed on a post Ukrainian invasion perspective. I am focussed on way before that.
It admits there were discussions between James Baker, Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Soviet leaders on non-expansion, I’m old enough to remember that at the time, but they came to nothing. It’s a disgrace that they didn’t, because that would have been a roadmap that didn’t lead to today’s disaster. The statement “Describing NATO’s open door policy as “expansion” is already part of the myth” is risible, expansion is expansion, no matter how achieved.
Frankly I don’t really care if people want to believe the avalanche of Western propaganda we are hit with. We were desensitised at a young age, we grew up watching John Wayne shooting those pesky ijuns and the Donna Reed show selling the American dream.
But now I’m old enough and have seen enough to form my own opinions. We (the West) are not always the “good guys” and Russia always the “bad guys”. Both sides have done very bad things, on balance IMO and in my lifetime, the West more than Russia.
I feel know how we have come to sorry pass, and it is the West’s mismanagement of the interface with Russia that’s to blame. If you mismanage a alligator and it bites you don’t blame the alligator.
The NATO document states “Russia wants to establish spheres of influence and control other countries through coercion, subversion, aggression and annexation. It uses conventional, cyber and hybrid means – including disinformation – against NATO Allies and partners.”
Indeed that’s true, but it wasn’t true thirty years ago. Let’s try and figure out how it all went wrong. The word Russia could be substituted for China today and the statement would still be true. That also wasn’t true thirty years ago.
So the West’s strategies haven’t been working, have they? And now there’s a lunatic at the helm.
I don’t condone Russia’s action Susannah, however the circumstances whereby it felt invasion was required were not created by Russia. Isreal created the toxic Gaza environment and then left it to stew until it blew up. Then they slaughtered innocent Palestinian women and children who for Israeli politicians mistakes.
The thing is that you (and others) frame this almost as though NATO expansion is the same as an agressive force taking over countries against their will.
It is not.
NATO is only a threat if Russia’s intentions were malign from the beginning.
Yes, you can go further back to the break up of the iron curtain and loss of territory that Russia used to control to democracy - if that is a problem for the modern state of Russia it is clear that it views democracy itself as a threat, not the “West”, because those nations were not invaded by European armies. They (the populace) saw western democracy and protection of individual rights and wanted that for themselves.
Which is why Trump is such a useful ally - because he wants to throw aside Western democracy as well.
Oh, look, Trump is now planning to send Ukranian refugees back.
But I don’t Billy, not at all. I frame it from the perception of a paranoid dictator seeing his buffer zones eroded. Since everyone knew he was a paranoid dictator that expansion should have been handled in a way that mitigated him blowing up. It wasn’t. And then everyone’s shocked when it happens. It doesn’t make Putin right, but it makes our guys look bloody stupid. What I expect from them is to avoid this stuff, not precipitate it.
That just sounds like you think appeasing a bully works.
Generally it doesn’t
Good article, until the self serving and somewhat rushed summing up in the third and second from last paragraphs.
Only to the extent that 2 of those means didn’t really exist 30 years ago but the goals were certainly there from the moment Putin took power, admittedly not quite 30 years ago.
No, progress had to be made, but festina lente. Some halfway house mechanism or roadmaps over a longer period or some form of reassurances for the madman in the Kremlin. I don’t know, there’s a shed load of smart cookies in the diplomatic world that could/should have devised a more subtile approach.
I also feel likewise about the big bang expansion of the EU.
And there’s the rub 
How John? The only reason there are Russian troops in Ukraine today is exactly because Ukraine is not a NATO member. Even his bloated belief in Russia’s strength persuaded him to cross that border. If he had once believed that 3 years later he was hardly further foreward I doubt he would even have considered it. As a NATO member, Ukraine would have been even more of a deterrent for him.
Maybe David. Then the expansion plan should have been completed it total, not in part.
Though I do wonder why no other potential expansion triggered Russian action before?
It did, Georgia, Moldova, Chechnya etc. all highly unlikely but who knows what Putin believed and thus lashed out as in Ukraine?
Were they ever candidates?
Absolutely no doubt, what Isreal has done to the Palestinian people of Gaza is insupportable. Using the excuse that Hamas hiding amongst them makes all Gazans complicit and therefore an enemy, and therefore expendable, is absolutely indefensible.
I would premise that both Russia and Israel had long term intentions long in the planning. Israel was preempted by Hamas’ horrific day of death. Russia manufactured, online and internal propaganda, the ‘threat’ of big bad NATO a peace keeping corp, in order to camouflage its real intentions.
Certainly, two wrongs do not make a right. But we need to be so careful about how we balance our views.