I've blown up this blame NATO nonsense elsewhere: https://medium.com/illumination-curated/time-to-blow-up-blame-nato-disinformation-4b3e93b69320
Russia's Ukraine erasure project predates NATO expansion by more than three centuries. Anyone who believes it hasn't been listening to Peter, Catherine, Nicholas, Crimean Loser 1.0, Alexander I, II and III and Nicholas II, Holodomor Stalin.
Margaret MacMillan blew up the blame Versailles caused the Nazis' rise to power myth: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26348.Paris_1919 This one is almost as old as the Nazis' stab in the back myth. The rhetoric about Jews started in 1916 before the Nazis existed when Jews were widely accused of "shirking", even though 16000 German Jews gave their lives for the fatherland that would later murder them.
Mr. Dunn has previously written that his customer service skill set in de-escalation is applicable to all conflict situations, with no exceptions. I have asked him if Warsaw in 1943 and 1944, Nanjing in 1937-38, the Philippines in 1942-45 and the USA in 1861-65 would constitute exceptions. He has never written back to acknowledge that they would be. This narcissistic hubris equates to never fighting, even in an Article Five situation. You, and Mr. Dunn, refuse to recognize that there are conflicts between irreconciliable opposites, as in the foregoing examples. Russia's genocidal war to erase Ukraine is one such example, as the Russians themselves have said: https://www.justsecurity.org/81789/russias-eliminationist-rhetoric-against-ukraine-a-collection/
But Russia as geopolitical victim appeasers refuse to listen to Russian media and its leaders no matter how loudly they shout genocide at Ukraine.
We de-imperialized Nazi Germany and Bushido Japan through occupation that told them "here's a new suit of institutional and geopolitical clothes, we guarantee that it'll fit you very well."
De-imperializing Russia can't be done that way. We tried occupying parts of Russia during its civil war a century ago to prevent the Bolshevik monster from seizing power. This proved Russia cannot be occupied to change its domestic politics.
Khodorkovsky and Kasparov have already written how it's up to the Russian people to de-imperialize their state through wholly voluntary federation. The outside world will have precious little influence in this process. Tim Snyder has highlighted this enduring fact of Russian history numerous times.
As in 1917-18, only catastrophic defeat can free Russia's people from their empire addiction:
That may be possible without the state fragmenting into several or many different independent countries. But that outcome is not up to us, but the Tatars, Bashkiris, Chechens, Dagestanis, Karelians, etc. But the odds of an empire built on genocidal conquest and enserfment of its subjugated peoples holding together with a common identity are slim.
