I found this a very helpful article to make sense of the current situation.

What it does seem to leave out is that Cuban Missle Crisis argument:

Wouldn't the U.S., too, consider military intervention if a direct neighbor country of the U.S. was preparing to essentially become a base for Russian missiles?

This article here [1] makes that point. And some commenters here have also made similar comparisons.

The question here is not if Putin's actions can be "excused". Let's not make the mistake of thinking that to explain someone's behavior was equal to approving of it.

On the contrary. No amount of disapproval will have any effect unless one first has a good handle on what is truly causing that behavior. And telling yourself stories like that the other party is just "a bad person" or is just "acting irrationally" are really just a band-aid on one's own helplessness. They can comfort, but they distract from defusing the actual problem.

One can say that Putin is just following a kind of salami tactic. Taking one small slice after another, making sure that each individual slice is small enough for him to get away with it. Just like Hitler did in 1938 (and before, internally, in 1933).

But I do find that the counter-point also "computes". Namely that Putin's main goal is to stay in power. And that he feels threatened in this regard by an ever-encroaching NATO at his borders. And that he isn't acting much different than Kennedy acted in 1962, when nuclear war became a possibility because the U.S. could not tolerate Russian missiles at their doorstep, in Cuba.

The blog I linked to also points out another curious similarity. The crisis in 1962 was defused by Kennedy agreeing to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey. But this concession had to be made in secret, without the public's knowledge. Because any concessions to Russia would have been political suicide.

And I do find that a little odd. I mean, take marriage counseling. That you have to compromise, and take at least part of the responsibility for the problem, that is the only thing that can save a relationship. That other strategy, where you claim you are right and the other person is wrong, that is called stonewalling. And if you do that, the relationship is fucked.

It is one thing to say "What you're doing inside of your country is not democratic, and we don't like it". But to translate this into "We're not going to make any concessions, ever, because doing that would mean that we become like you" - that's irrational. Making concessions to a dictator doesn't necessarily mean giving up democratic values. But a refusal to even discuss ways of compromise does.

When everybody seems to agree that Putin is "just another Hitler", and opinions that do try to make sense of the situation do not get discussed, but flagged and ousted instead, that does make me concerned.

When a question becomes taboo, we're no longer being that free and democratic society that we're claiming to protect.

I do not know what the right answer is. But I do think that this one question should not be brushed aside, but openly discussed. Which is: What merit, if any, is there to the claim that the actions of NATO and the U.S. are putting Putin in a position where what we're seeing now becomes inevitable when you factor in his need for self-preservation?

And sure, I get it: Dictators shouldn't want to preserve their power. Just as thieves shouldn't steal. But they do. This is the real world. That Putin will act in ways that preserve his power is a known fact which any rational actor cannot leave out of his calculations.

I admit, there's a fine line between not pushing a dictator into a corner and provoking an escalation on the one hand, and drawing clear boundaries without falling prey to salami tactics on the other. Everyone who is a parent here knows what I'm talking about.

Thanks for the discussion.

[1] https://lt3000.blogspot.com/2022/02/russia-update-road-to-wa...