The idea of static national borders has been something the U.S. has comitted to in the post WWII era. Right, wrong, or indifferent, that was the basis for the global coalition against Iraq in 1991. And it's one of the bases for opposing Russia's annexation of Crimea and invasion into Ukraine. Crimea was probably distinct from Ukraine in the pre-WWI days. Since then? It was Soviet, then Ukranian, but under the Soviet model it was technically Ukranian.
There is a lot of history that, if not repeating itself, is at least very familiar to Russia's recent past. By any reasonable measure, Putin thought Russia would cripple Ukraine in a matter of days. Not unlike the Winter War against Finland, a vastly larger and better equipped Russian army ran into a more committed foe than it was prepared for, which turned the war into a grind that Russia did not expect. Rather than reestablishing Russia as a great power, in many ways it has exposed Russia as a very large, very dangerous, but not very effective adversary.
Was Ukraine's flirtation with NATO part of the reason for the invasion? Perhaps, although before Russia's invasion, the U.S. was pretty clear that it wasn't interested in Ukraine's membership, among other things because Ukraine's history of corruption made it a bad bet. But more likely was Russia's (1) desire for a warm water port; and (2) Putin's belief that his military would achieve his objective in a matter of days, which--like with Crimea--would lead to a new reality that the "West" was not prepared to shed blood over. That didn't happen, and ever since Putin has needed an exit that didn't expose what a blunder he's made.
Is the expansion of NATO a bad idea? To refer back to MDT's other thread, I don't know, but in my personal life I'm risk averse and little "c" conservative. I've never understood (nor have I made the effort to understand) the need to expand NATO as we have in the post-Cold War posture. The Baltic states no doubt wanted protection from an unstable Russia. Poland, too. Did they have good reason for wanting that protection? Looks like it. Did the U.S. and other original NATO countries need to swear total war if Russia invaded those countries? I don't know.
I read an interesting thought piece in Foreign Affairs the other day focused on how a Trump presidency could help lead to an acceptable outcome for Ukraine. The author's point was that because Trump very clearly does not believe in the traditional U.S. committment to an ordered Europe, he might be a more welcome negotiating partner--one that Putin (and Xi) believe is more likely to come to the table without the standard U.S. preconditions about maintaining existing borders, which could--if Trump isn't a pushover for Putin--lead to a realistic outcome that hasn't been available because of the existing U.S. preconditions. It is an optimistic take, and maybe that's where we are headed. After last weekend, I'm not holding my breath.
