A well argued piece. I took this point of view initially, I read a couple of John Mearshiemer's books.

Then I changed my mind.

The Moscow apartment bombs of 1999 were blamed on Chechen terrorists but there is good evidence they were performed by the FSB. There is the farcical Ryazan incident. Most likely these bombings were a false flag operation ordered by Putin to rile the public to ensure his re-election and also justify to the destruction policies in Grozny.

We also have to consider the multiple assassinations including Alexander Litvinenko, Anna Politskaya (murdered on his birthday as a present) undoubtably ordered by Putin and designed to make it obvious that he did.

With these character references we have to consider the counterfactual where Eastern European countries and the Baltics were not admitted into a military alliance.

Putin's Russia would have acted to destabilise these countries and try and install puppet governments.

Putin spent his KGB time in East Germany reportedly providing support to the Baader-Meinhof gang, trying to destabilise West Germany.

This is what he does, its his job.

The disaster traces back to the fall of the Soviet Union and the west's inability to manage the situation. Putin rose to power by being of service to Yeltsin's kleptocratic family. It is hard to see how the West could have prevented this (not being omnipotent) also Putin convinced many westerners that he was a good guy.

Yes the west is arrogant, aggressive and incompetent. There is plenty of evidence for this. This does not mean that Putin's Russia would have behaved more peacefully under other circumstances.

The situation could have been managed better but now we are where we are.