If Mexico signed a military alliance with Russia and accepted to have russian military bases on its soil, what would be the reaction of the US? Of course, Russia is never going to invade a country twice bigger in terms of population than it.
It's a matter of threat management. Even if you know that the guy who's pointing the gun at your head isn't going to fire it, you'd prefer him to stop, or at least throw his gun. Once NATO will have cornered Russia with ultrasonic missiles, then the NATO's ultimatums will have much more power.
I'm against war, and I don't think personally that opting for an aggressive behavior toward our neighbors will wage peace. The US has a very long history of bombing every possible threat on the globe, either economical or military, so I guess your question is quite moot if you think a bit more about it.
But isn't he creating himself NATO neighbors by expanding his borders up to it? Whereas the alternative status quo is NATO not daring to add Ukraine to it's ranks. Tho I guess the calculation could've been that Ukraine was on track to become more powerful than he'd like it to be, economically or militarily, and thus wanted to cripple it while he was expecting it to be easy, both in terms of retaliation from the West and Ukraine's self defense.
It's a matter of threat management. Even if you know that the guy who's pointing the gun at your head isn't going to fire it, you'd prefer him to stop, or at least throw his gun. Once NATO will have cornered Russia with ultrasonic missiles, then the NATO's ultimatums will have much more power.
I'm against war, and I don't think personally that opting for an aggressive behavior toward our neighbors will wage peace. The US has a very long history of bombing every possible threat on the globe, either economical or military, so I guess your question is quite moot if you think a bit more about it.