GrothendieckA
Can't you see that Ukraine war is the direct consequence of this decision? To reinforce the statement: all public polls in 90s showed Russians to be very enthusiastic about cooperating with West, they truly believed that the Western model is just and brings prosperity. But it is US' political arrogance and notorious "exceptionality" distracted not only authorities, but people from believing US. People lost trust in US even before propaganda started to arise. Think about it, my American friend.
Of course, living in such a safe island as USA, far from potential enemies and with insanely huge military budget you might think it is not your problem. And obviously you do. But keep in mind that every consequence has a cause.
In 90s US had a unique chance to make this world a better and safer place, but instead US planted seeds of nowadays' wars. Have you heard of Wolfowitz Doctrine (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine)? Even written in diplomatic language, it is horrific. Current US foreign policy is no better.
So please don't BS us that US "defends and promotes democracy across the world", because it simply doesn't. You accuse people on HN of "living in cloister", but it is you who transmits US slogans without slightest hint of critical thinking. Dixi
He choses some (very cherry picking) facts and anecdotes from Russian history, cites them with factual mistakes, but he choses and interpretes them so they meet his theory. This is not scientific approach at all.
But what outraged me the most and made me sceptical about his theory - it is his interpretation of "two layers of truth" in Russian, namely "pravda" and "istina". Even Nabokov wrote about the difference of these words and claimed they are one of those Russian words that are lacking in other languages.
The difference is the following: - "pravda" is mere facts, something that is not false - "istina" is the whole picture
The best example of difference between these concepts is this lecture itself: mainly it consists of valid facts (i.e. it is "pravda"), but the whole analysis and conclusions he makes are flawed (i.e. it is NOT "istina").
And this intelligence colonel claims he had been studying Russia for 15 years? Hmm, then he either spent them in vain, or he was misinforming the audience. Or both.
He cites Kennan, the architect of the Cold war, and Kennan was way much better in understanding Russia. Maybe, because Kennan was practioner and not fascinated about making up groundless theories. I invite you to read Kennan's article in NYT (1997) and understand why Kennan considered NATO's expansion to Russian borders to be fateful error: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-error.h...
And the consequences of this error are thoroughly explained in this FPRI article (2022): https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/01/moscows-compellence-str...
These two articles will be more insightful than (sorry) any made up theories from Finnish intelligence colonel.