This is a really well written story, typical for your writing.

There are a lot of compelling points. I disagree with a lot of it, but not for the reasons some others might.

International politics aren't really about bad guys versus good guys (unless you consider all politicians bad guys, which I kind of do). They involve real people who make bread in the morning and vainly hope for a better series of governments.

There are very few of these governments. Sri Lanka is not a model, and neither are 95% of the other world governments (at least). All politicians seek power ahead of the welfare of their people. Full stop. This is not an American phenomenon. This is not a Russian phenomenon. This is as true in Brazil and Mexico and America as it is in Sri Lanka, China, and Nigeria.

When there's a "people's revolution," eventually those who emerge as leaders crave the same power as those they displaced.

This seems to be immutable.

The U.S. and NATO were too aggressive about NATO expansion. But the aggressiveness was fueled in large part by fear over Russia's history of its domination of its flanks. Trust me when I say that Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, and Poland do not have the same regrets over NATO expansion that you do. They remember life under Soviet rule in a visceral way.

The U.S., meanwhile, is hypocritcal in its opposition to the invasion of Ukraine. There are half a million dead Iraqis from its own illegal invasion who can testify to this hypocrisy.

But it's complicated. I have Ukrainian friends who are very, very happy to have American weapons. These are people who were lugging their children to school a year ago and a month later were building molotov cocktails in their basements. One Ukrainian woman I know was on a Zoom call with me one day, the next she was fleeing to Poland, kid in tow.

Two wrongs, in other words, does not equal one right.

As the two countries choke each other in their own blood, America is in the process of beginning to make a choice between two octogenarians as president. One of them is bat shit crazy and a stooge for Putin, the other is probably going to finish his term a near vegetable, drooling in his morning cereal while contemplating whether or not to take the next battle to China.

The people who are baking their bread in the morning need to do a better job of taking control of their destiniies and stop letting themselves get run over by the power structures that run their countries. If they live in democracies, they need to pay attention and fucking vote for change.

In the final analysis, we all get what we deserve, which, if one is to look at it from a purely negative standpoint, is a world at war, again, and a burning planet with billions of climate refugees.

Thanks for the well written article, and apologies for the length of this comment.

The fact that your story has so many negative comments is a testament to the quality of the writing.

Final Note: I think the Russian military is incredibly incompetent and full of soldiers who only fight because they're scared not to. This will doom the Russian invasion to its appropriate failure.