There was actually some talk of Russia joining NATO 20 years ago. But then Putin wanted Russia to be fast-tracked without meeting the requirements while "unimportant countries" would be ignored, and I guess at that moment it became clear he didn't really get what NATO was about.

Putin actually did not mind joining NATO. [0]. It would make a lot of sense. Mind you, this is after Ugoslavia bombings by NATO.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-s...

> NATO is a devensive alliance.

I think Serbs may disagree on that. In the end, NATO is the US and it's dependent vassal states. With neighbors like these, I can sympathize with Russia not being too comfortable.

I admit that the NATO operation against Serbia in 1999 was of course not purely devensive with regard to NATO territory (as Kosovo was not a member). Its nature was that of a "humanitarian intervention" in favour of Kosovo; as such it was afterwards acknowledged by the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

I personally would have preferred, if the operation had not been carried out under the label of NATO, but instead in the names of the participating countries or something else. Anyway, in later conflicts where NATO was involved it avoided to participate directly under its own name. For instance the operations in Afghanistan, though under offcial NATO leadership, was carried out by an "International Security Assistance Force" (ISAF).

Nevertheless, I still hold that NATO is, at its core, a defensive alliance, since there is no obligation for the members to assist each other in anything else than an unprovoked attack on their territories. Beyond that, NATO structures have been used for various missions, often including non-members -- even Russia itself, as in the NATO-led "Stabilisation Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina" (SFOR) in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Such mission had always been case-by-case decisions, not imposed by the NATO treaty. Furthermore, there have been numerous examples where individual NATO members have been extremely critical of US missions or certain measures. For this reason in particular, I consider the talk of "vassal states" to be quite unobjective.

Serbs had a choice - they could have avoided starting a genocide, for example.

You mean that genocide that UN courts later decided wasn't actually a genocide[1]?

Yeah... I guess if you are convinced you're on the side of the good guys(tm), you really can't do wrong.

[1] https://www.upi.com/Archives/2001/09/07/UN-court-rules-no-ge...

No, I mean this one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_genocide

... which was not the reason given for the war of aggression initiated by NATO.

Oh, so now the problem is that NATO stopped the wrong genocide? :-D

The one genocide you mentioned stopped by itself four years earlier.

But, just like with Germany, it would take some "de-Nazification" (de-totalitarianization) first... And I'm not talking of Ukraine here.