> Russia has good reason to be worried about their defense. The western powers have been doing most of the invading lately.
Show me a recent Western intervention that threatens Russia's legitimate security interests. Syria? Perhaps. Aside from that your assertion is unsupported.
Disclaimer: Russia is an authoritarian country and not a shining example of freedom.
That being said....
If you were Russian and you'd spent the last century watching the West undercut you and try and control you at every step (for valid reasons in a lot of cases), you'd be threatened, too.
They went from being a superpower to having 100 million more people than California with the same GDP, while watching their own neighboring states get courted by the West.
Russia isn't justified in what they've done, but put yourself in their shoes. Of course it doesn't help that history has been exceedingly cruel to the Russian people, but it's given them a lot of pride and being dictated to by the US has upset that pride.
If the Russians believed that he US genuinely had their best interests in mind, things might be different.
>Russia isn't justified in what they've done, but put yourself in their shoes. Of course it doesn't help that history has been exceedingly cruel to the Russian people, but it's given them a lot of pride and being dictated to by the US has upset that pride.
This sounds a lot like apologizing for Germany's feelings in 1930. Except, of course, the Russians had their 1933 in 2010 or so.
They did get shafted! They've also responded to that shafting by becoming a heavily authoritarian military aggressor.
I'm not apologizing for them, just saying there are centuries of history wrapped up into this.
Russia has done some evil things to others and its own people (understatement), but it's not US (good) vs Russia (evil). It's a little here and a little there and if we ever want to reach across the table and have real peace it's by treating them and every other country with respect instead of as a doormat.
Do American policy makers care if the average Russian has a hard life? Not really. But Russians certainly do and they are doing what they perceive to be protecting their own interests, for right and wrong.
Cornered animals fight. We've backed a starving bear into a corner and are surprised when it lashes out.
Countries either stand for something or they don't. The countries who give enough lip service, money and legislative attention to egalitarian principles always outperform countries who do not. What does Russia stand for and how has it made the world a better place?
If Canada were to allow China to start building military bases and anti-ICBM defense sites on the Canada/US border, there'd be regime change on Parliament Hill within the week.
Every empire needs aligned, friendly, or at least, neutral buffer states on their borders - and will violently defend incursions into their buffer zones. Observe the shitshow over Cuba - sixty years of sanctions, terrorism, assassination attempts, an invasion, and a nuclear crisis later, the United States still hasn't forgiven it.
The United States was ready to bathe the entire world in nuclear fire - because a neighbouring country entered into a military alliance with the USSR. Let that sink in... And then consider what expanding NATO into Eastern Europe, US support of Georgia, regime change in Syria looks like from the Russian point of view.
At the time, Turkey (Which shared a border with the USSR) had US missile bases, full of nuclear missiles pointed at Moscow. [0] When the situation was equalized, the US lost its mind.
Meanwhile, in the present, 21st century, the US is busy building a missile defense shield in Poland. [1] (While claiming that it is built to defend against, of all places, Iran. [2] Seriously?) It is intended to neuter Russian nuclear capability... Meanwhile, Minutemen ICBMs continue to be able to strike Russia.
I ask again - how would the US react if China, or Russia started building army bases, and anti-ICBM installations in Canada, Mexico, and Cuba? How would the American empire respond to a political incursion into its buffer states?
Show me a recent Western intervention that threatens Russia's legitimate security interests. Syria? Perhaps. Aside from that your assertion is unsupported.