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From your logic they are already have culturally conquored by the west. So it doesn’t even matter if their militarily conquored. Our military occupation would just be forcing their kids to go to pride events and love black people.
Your logic leads to a conclusion that this war is just about ego. They weren’t happy being a junior partner in western instititions. They wanted the respect of a peer. They weren’t happy with Ukraine becoming a full western member and their ego wanted Ukraine to be their junior partner.
Fearful no. Ego yes.
Maybe I'm saying the quiet part out loud here, but Russia is not a peer. It's the rump-state left behind by the collapse of the USSR. The countries in Eastern Europe are its peers, not Western Europe or America.
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I think that some countries, which have little hope of competing internationally by themselves, willingly subordinate themselves to more powerful coalition leaders like the US, whereas other countries, which have the hope of standing on their own two feet, are reluctant to do this and instead try and act as autonomous agents. Subordinate agents don't hatch geopolitical complots by themselves, they instead go along with whatever the coalition leader organizes, sometimes leveraging their support in order to extract aid or benefits. Autonomous agents do attempt to move and shape things by themselves, generally with a view to maintaining or enhancing their relative power, with this being in view of maximizing their security. This describes how all states operate, including the US, either subordinating themselves or attempting to carve out their own fates.
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That's true. The fear may not be about NATO attacking Russia's land, but it's about attacking its sphere of influence. Is Russia entitled to the sphere of influence it inherited from USSR? We're finding it out now.
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