I am citing polls of the population, from mainstream poll organizations. Pew Research and Gallup published these polls.

I cited Pew Research in 2010 and here is Gallup in 2008 which puts the lie to “open door policy”: https://news.gallup.com/poll/104356/ukrainians-see-more-valu...

My whole point as a libertarian is that these governments fail to serve the people well or even represent the people. The people themselves don’t want to fight and kill the other population, or to escalate. You’re attacking a strawman.

When Yanukovich blocks the EU association agreement, to accept a $15B loan and cheap fuel from Russia, you say he is a stooge of Russia, and support a popular uprising that ousted him and destabilized the country (much like happened in Yemen).

But when Yuschenko his predecessor works to get Ukraine into NATO despite a solid majority of Ukrainians opposing it (as per mainstream polls), you don’t call him a stooge of NATO or a Western puppet. Why?

The labels are just tools of public propaganda. Putin and Assad are called brutal dictators, but the Saudi monarchy who don’t even have the pretense of elections are not called unelected dictators, nor are Saudi war crimes and starving of Yemen described in the same terms by USA as they do for lesser things by our stated enemies (Shias mostly). In short, not only is there “room for debate” but every government + media including our own is super biased and selectively paints some groups as bad while other far worse groups are given a pass.

By any measure, Ukrainians did not want to be in NATO any more than Iraqis wanted to be liberated, or Muslims hated us for our freedoms. These were all slogans cooked up by the politicians during Bush admin (“Islamofascist” didn’t poll well so they changed the rhetoric to fit — that’s what they do.)

USA was always going to push for Ukraine and Georgia in NATO, and oust Assad in Syria, not because of anything they publicly say but because that would take away Russia’s last allies, get them surrounded, and we’d rather they fight Ukraine over there than us over here after they got stronger. That’s the real geopolitical calculus, and same coming up with QUAD in China.

This isn’t even that hard to believe — sadly, no country’s government wants its geopolitical rivals healing divisions with their neighbors and getting stronger. They want them divided and fighting. And if they can increase their own influence around the world, they will do it. This is how every proxy war started.

And frankly, if as you say NATO accepted countries when their governments wanted to join, they’d accept Russia. They officially rejected USSR in 1954 “without discussion” calling the application a joke. After USSR fell apart, Yeltsin did everything the Americans wanted, pushing thru Chicago-school “shock therapy” reforms and even firing on the parliament building and arresting his own parliament in the 1993 constitutonal crisis as a result. The USA proudly meddled in Russian elections in 1996 to get him reelected after a 6% (!!) approval rating and Times Magazine featured Yeltsin holding an American flag with “Yanks to the Rescue” on the cover (imagine the reverse). Surely Yeltsin was so much “our guy” that we’d listen to his security concerns, right? WRONG.

Yeltsin officially protesting NATO expansion during Clinton’s admin was met with “sit down boy and be quiet”. And Putin asking for Russia to get into NATO was rejected. Is Russia less democratic than Turkey, a NATO member? Is it more corrupt than Ukraine and Georgia? All these rationalizations for why Ukraine and Georgia but not Russia — never Russia — are a smokescreen for what I said above. It’s realpolitik.