War in Ukraine
Look at Ukraine from Russia's point of view.
Who cares what they think? Russia does.
The trouble with having empathy is that it makes moral clarity more difficult. It is more comfortable to have good guys and bad guys. And, of course, we are the good guys.
Let's look at maps. First, a map of the railway system in Europe.
There is no need to overthink this because my point is simple and obvious at first glance. I could have used a map of lights at night or GDP statistics. Russia, in the eastern quarter of this map, is adjacent to an extraordinary concentration of economic and potential military power, and they are relatively lacking in it. Russia is next door to a giant, especially when the various countries included in that concentration are all working together.
Map two is a topographical map of Europe. The Alps are visible and the "C-shaped" mountains to their east, the Carpathian Mountains, are as well. Both are a barrier to easy transport which is why they show as an edge to rail lines. Notice, too, the broad plain from France, across the Low Countries, Germany, Eastern Europe and into Russia. Someone could bicycle from the small Baltic countries or from Paris or Berlin straight into Russia without encountering any natural impediment.
Map three is the famous flow map created by French engineer Charles Joseph Minard, showing the route of Napoleon's failed and disastrous march across that flat plains to Moscow and back. The distance, the supply lines, the cold, and the Russian army stopped them.
Map four shows the directions of Nazi attacks on the USSR, directly to the east to Moscow and to the southeast, around the Carpathian Mountains toward Stalingrad. About 25 million citizens of the USSR died in that war.
Americans take our national security for granted. We are surrounded by oceans on two and a half sides, by a friendly Canada on the third side, most of which is almost uninhabited, and by the deserts in the Southwest. The USSR--now Russia--has an entirely different situation and mindset. They are surrounded by potential enemies. Russians know it in their bones. Strategic depth is what saves them. We took it away.
In the collapse of the USSR a major nuclear power disintegrated, and yet we avoided world war. As part of mutual understanding, the USA and NATO made assurances to Russia that we understood its national imperatives for strategic space. We broke our word. The Baltic countries became part of NATO. We encouraged a revolution in Ukraine to install a Western-facing government and posited that Ukraine, too, become fully part of NATO.
Map five: NATO, showing the movement of troops into Poland and the Baltic countries in 2014, to reassure them of NATO's commitment. Russia responded by moving troops. It tightened its relationship with Belarus. It took back Crimea. It sent unmarked troops into eastern Ukraine, where the native language is Russian, not Ukrainian.
American exceptionalism.
Many Americans presume with unquestioned confidence that:
***World War Two was primarily fought and won by Americans defeating Germany from the west.
***God gave a special providential blessing to America and no one else, but most certainly not to Russia.
***American-style liberal democracy of our civics textbooks is what we have in America, and we have a moral obligation to share the "American Way" because it is, objectively, the best.
From that naïveté and hubris came the American thought that Russia would sit back and allow the USA and NATO to put them into what their history tells them is mortal danger. We felt entitled to do it.
Their national pride tells them not to accept that. Incredibly enough, they don't think the USA pretty much won WWII single-handedly, they don't think America is the exceptional and all-good country, and they think we are hypocrites regarding our supposed liberal democracy. They have their own point of view. They think the USA was the aggressor, intentionally putting them into danger. They don't think we are the good guys. They think they are.
It isn't surprising. Indeed, it is inevitable. We created a mess and are going to have to live with it.