NP: I'll call your Kennan and raise you a Mearshiemer

[Thomas Eckhardt]

"Vladimir Putin's decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is
a monstrous act of aggression that has plunged the world into a perilous
situation. By any reasonable standard, his move was an over-the-top
response to any Ukrainian or NATO provocations. However, that conclusion
is different from saying that there were no provocations, as far too
many policymakers and pundits in the West are doing now.

It has become especially fashionable in such circles to insist that
NATO's expansion to Russia's border was in no way responsible for the
current Ukraine crisis. Many dismiss all arguments to the contrary as
"echoing Putin's talking points," "siding with Putin," or circulating
Russian propaganda and "disinformation." Leaving aside the ugly miasma
of McCarthyism enveloping such allegations, the underlying argument is
factually wrong."

https://www.newsweek.com/us-nato-helped-trigger-ukraine-war-its-not-