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Notes -
I strongly believe the US would act in exactly the same way as Russia if put in the same circumstances. Imagine if there were a
couprevolution in Mexico tomorrow, throwing out the elected pro American government for one that is decidedly pro China. So much so that Mexico wants to join an alliance with China, stop trade with the US, possibly disallow the US military and civilian ships access to the Gulf of Mexico, provide accommodations for military bases for China in Mexico on the border, and possibly station Chinese nuclear weapons pointing north. While the US has never been to war directly with China, and they aren’t threatening to invade, we would invade Mexico and not think twice. We would field tactical nukes in the case we were losing ground with Mexican troops approaching San Diego and not think twice.Believe me, things like the Cuban Missile Crisis are almost perpetually part of my thinking that I like to challenge myself with. But I try to avoid too-crazy what-ifs because nothing in foreign policy is ever divorced entirely from history or circumstance. Lack of realism proportionally decreases the usefulness of thought exercises. A better thought exercise is, for example, if the US gets in a shooting war with China and loses a major fleet, does it use a tactical nuke? What if instead China air-nukes a fleet, do we air-nuke a city in response? What do we do if China preemptively shoots down a ton of our GPS or other satellites, but takes no other action, how would we respond? All of those are much more relevant and important questions to ask and plan for rather than... whatever weird fiction that is. Or, talk about for example the actual real-world case of US putting pressure on Panama to kick out the nearby Chinese ports near the canal (and whatever other crock Trump is spouting). Maybe engage in some reasoning about what if those ports were militarized or something. Would the US be justified in invading Panama to stop Chinese influence in this case? Well, treaty-wise I think we'd have some latitude, but practically speaking I think that that would be bad and the world would be wise to try and stop it from happening.
To the extent that moral reasoning matters (which is, not much, mostly when convenient and/or don't infringe too much on the more core responsibilities) I similarly think it's enough to put yourself in their shoes and better understand context rather than conjure up some kind of convoluted alter-history just to reason through a low-relevance moral point.
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