A defeated Russia will likely remain revanchist and authoritarian, like Germany after 1918 and other half-defeated empires that don't experience occupation by the victors. Or it will splinter into warlordism, as it did from 1918-21 and in the late 17th century Time of Troubles that preceded the accession of the Romanovs in 1613. This movie is a rerun.
The point is that Russia be rendered impotently revanchist and openly renounce ALL claims to intervention in what Russia calls its "near abroad".
Since Muscovy's empire-building predates the existence of the USA by three centuries (ask Novgorod and Pskov), its correlation with American and NATO behavior is a very simple number: zero.
Ukrainians know exactly what fate they avoid by not surrendering, as Mr. Dunn has advised them to do repeatedly: https://medium.com/illumination-curated/time-to-blow-up-blame-nato-disinformation-4b3e93b69320
Having worked in early post-Soviet Latvia since 1998, I can assure readers that, if the Communist Party was the mafia with a flag, in 1992 they changed the flag. Corruption was rampant in the entire post-Soviet space. I lived in Italy for 16 years before Latvia and the main difference was that in Italy the corruption was far more professional. But corruption undermines, but doesn't necessarily destroy democracy, civil liberties and a functioning legal system. Latvia experienced plenty of pirate privatization without taking an authoritarian and then totalitarian turn as Putin's Russia did. In the Baltics and the ex-Warsaw Pact states, rapacious oligarchs are still in business. So the correlation between oligarchs, corruption and Russia's authoritarian and expansionist turn is another simple number: zero. And, far from just taming the oligarchs, Putin had his team join them in looting the state and Russia's natural resources.
Russia's authoritarian and expansionist pivot all comes from having the wrong idea and weaponized history in their empire-building heads, just as Bushido Japan and Nazi Germany did. They simply think of Ukraine as their colony and the Ukrainians as just another ethnic minority that won't get in line with their half-millenium-old empire program. Russians are pan-Slavic slavophiles as long as they're running the show. Ask any Bulgarian, Slovak, Czech, Pole, Croat, Belarussian, Chechen, Georgian, Azeri, Armenian....(I could list 100 more peoples subjugated by Russia). https://nadinbrzezinski.medium.com/the-imperial-mindset-fce2500a2863
The probability of BP, ENI, Total or Exxon going back to get burned again in Russia is very low. Wall St has learned that ignoring the difference between rule of law and rule by law systems can get very expensive. That's why Apple is pivoting away from China to India and onshoring and reshoring and short supply chains are the order of the day.
And Russia can't run its energy industry without western tech and oil service firms. Ask any petroleum engineer or oil exec about Gazprom's pipeline maintenance. The route to Russia rejoining Europe after paying reparations and its leaders sitting in The Hague instead of becoming a Chinese resource colony runs through Gazprom and Rosneft. Their energy industry is toast without western oil and gas tech.
NATO never closed the door on Russia since Russia never applied to join. NATO isn't an aid organization or an NGO. It's a military alliance. Or can you not tell the difference?
Nuclear blackmail: If you want proliferation on steroids, let Russia freeze the conflict with its annexations in place. Ukraine will be the first to acquire a nuke. Brazil, South Africa, Saudi, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan won't be far behind.
Aid to Ukraine: most of it went BOOM! on top of Russian armor, ammo and troops. Or haven't you been watching the war on youtube?
