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I appreciate the clarification (and would have not assumed worse than a hasty generalization), and can concur with your thought.
I think there is an opposite end of the spectrum, people who dismiss real threats because they don't take them seriously enough, but that's a separate thing and also not intended to characterize you or your view.
You are welcome, then, and I hope you have a good day.
I don't categorically disagree with your model in and of itself, but would point out that EU institutional soft power has been a target of Russia for well over a decade.
People forget it now due to the time-distance and the propaganda at the time, but even Ukraine wasn't about the Americans and NATO as much as the EU. Euromaidan initiated over the EU association agreement, not NATO, and the pre-Ukraine invasion demands weren't simply at the expense of NATO, but at the expense of EU institutions (including revaunchist claims that would target non-NATO EU members). I made a post a few years ago noting how the early Russia-Ukraine conflict was in some respects a Russia-German conflict, as Germany was a major driver in eastern European expansion of the EU and Germany pursued an international-media-influence strategy that set the groundwork for a lot of the pro-EU movements in eastern europe like Euromaidan. Russia's influence efforts follow a generally consistent divide model, and while the highest priority is the most obvious (Americans from Europeans), the EU itself is a not-at-all rare secondary (nations from the EU).
So if you wanted to say that the EU is more to blame for its failures than Russia, I'd be inclined to agree, but Russia is trying to make it fail, and for reasons that make otherwise acceptable things more problematic. It's fine, for example, if you can't find what you lost in your own house because you are disorganized, but it's another if you know there's a would-be-thief who is trying to steal.
If there's one part of your model I'd raise as questionable, it's Germany. Specifically where I suspect your model would run into issues on the categorical divide of what is / is not considered 'Eastern Europe.'
Merkel's dominance of German politics for a decade and a half created an impression of a German consensus that wasn't really so, particularly since it was sold on assumptions of Russian behavior (Russia is a reliable economic partner, Russia would never try to blackmail us) that were publicly demonstrated in the lead-up to the Ukraine War, where Russia deliberately caused gas shortages in Germany, publicly boasted about the expectations of freezing Germans, and generally attempted economic blackmail that, while resisted, has led to the major macroeconomic consequences to the Germans both as a matter of adapting (the considerable cost of gas-import infrastructure) but the second-order effects of rebalancing (significant sectors of the German economy no longer being cost-competitive without Russian gas that was kept as cheap as it was to build such dependencies).
While there is a lot of viewpoint diversity in a country of nearly 85 million people, the Ukraine War brought a significant and justified fear of Russian intent and interests to the German viewpoint. It wasn't just that the Eastern Europeans got to say 'I told you so,' it was that the Russians deliberately took a swing at the national economic foundation of the German society, demonstrated Germany's inability to functionally defend itself or others, and did so with an invasion that is figuratively next door. (It is only about a 16 hour drive from Berlin to Kyiv.) This is not just a strategic shock, but even a culture-shock.
Not only does this matter in the sense of Germany itself as the divider between East and West Europe, but Germany's institutional influence on the EU means that whatever Germany cares about, the EU will be more concerned about. Especially if France is also concerned... but here we get to the point that while France was not the leader of pro-Ukrainian support by any means, pro-French states in Africa were where Russia was able to make its most demonstrative retaliatory gains, meaning that the German-French motor of the EU was even more in alignment of Russia, creating its own feedback loops.
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