Germany, UK, France, and Italy as a subset of NATO spend more than double Russia's expenditures and have a relatively narrow focus on Europe/North Africa/Med security in general.

That's a difficult comparison to make because of the difference in purchasing power parity between Russia and the EU nations. And Russia doesn't have to attack the core of Europe; brinksmanship, sabre rattling, and superior initiative have gotten Putin most of what he wants up until now.

The fact you somehow think NATO stops Russia from bullying non-NATO countries is hilarious

O_o

, largely because of the fact the US's power wasn't enough to stop Russia from bullying those countries because the US doesn't respond militarily to Russia and never will short of Russia invading a NATO country.

There are a lot of people who live in those countries, especially Georgia, who were hoping otherwise.

Georgia in particular had and has a close relationship with their treaty ally, the US; their post-soviet military was largely trained by and worked closely with the US military, both in eastern Europe and abroad. Their invasion was a humiliating black-eye for American diplomacy, signalled the beginning of a belligerent new foreign policy in Moscow, and set the stage for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

If you were to argue that the United States shouldn't have put it's reputation on the line in eastern Europe the way they did, I would agree with you. What these countries really needed was their own military alliance to counter Russia. In the 90's that was a non-starter though; Poland and the Baltic states were sufficiently economically sophisticated and had established enough trade with Germany to achieve EU membership - membership in an overlapping eastern european alt-NATO wouldn't have worked for them. Belarus was firmly aligned with Russia. Ukraine was largely non-aligned. And it wasn't at all clear that Russia would ever want to exercise military control over their 'sphere of influence'.

Look,

O_o

the reality is, military muscle only helps to the point you are on the same level as everyone else. Past that point, there isn't alot of intimidation factor due to the nuclear power of countries like Russia. They know exactly where the line is on their use and they won't cross that line. Short of that, they are going to do WTF they want.

I disagree. I believe the invasion of Georgia was Putin's Sudetenland-moment. We can only be thankful that the Russian economy and productivity won't support his ambitions.

But if this is really what you think, would you agree that NATO should expand eastward as soon as possible? Or should the weak suffer what they must?

There is also Greece, the UK, and Estonia.

Estonia is in the same situation as Poland and proves my point. They probably wouldn't have their independence anymore if they hadn't secured EU/NATO membership.

The UK is ideologically aligned with the US.

Greece is only on that list because their economy shrunk faster than their military spending did.

Why are you trying to paint me as arrogant & ignorant when you repeat bad propaganda that is publicly verifiable as false based on NATO's own publications?

Nothing you've presented amounts to counter-verification. Condemning other's arguments as 'propaganda' is intellectually lazy. And my post didn't 'paint' you as 'arrogant & ignorant', but I will say that you seem to have a persecution complex.