Multiple rounds of enlargement, they argue, exacerbated Russia’s sense of insecurity as NATO forces crept closer to Russia’s borders, finally provoking Putin to lash out violently, first by invading Georgia in 2008, then Ukraine in 2014, and now a second, likely far larger, invasion of Ukraine today. 1 This notion has been repeated not only in Moscow but in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere by politicians, analysts, and writers. Following John Mearsheimer’s provocative 2014 Foreign Affairs article arguing that “the Ukraine crisis is the West’s fault,” the narrative of Russian backlash against NATO expansion has become a dominant framework for explaining-if not justifying-Moscow’s ongoing war against Ukraine. He has frequently claimed that NATO expansion-not the 200,000 Russian soldiers and sailors attacking Ukraine’s ports, airfields, roads, railways, and cities-is the central driver of this crisis. Russian president Vladimir Putin wants you to believe that NATO is to blame. Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has ignited the largest war in Europe since the Second World War, indiscriminately spilling the blood of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and innocent civilians. His declared goal of the invasion, the “denazification” of Ukraine, is a code for his real aim: antidemocratic regime change. This highlights a second flaw: Since Putin fears democracy and the threat that it poses to his regime, and not expanded NATO membership, taking the latter off the table will not quell his insecurity. Moscow has in the past acknowledged Ukraine’s right to join NATO the Kremlin’s complaints about the alliance spike in a clear pattern after democratic breakthroughs in the post-Soviet space. First, NATO has been a variable and not a constant source of tension between Russia and the West.
Russian president Vladimir Putin wants you to believe that NATO is responsible for his February 24 invasion of Ukraine-that rounds of NATO enlargement made Russia insecure, forcing Putin to lash out.
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