NATO didn't encroach, Countries expressed their free will by asking to join and were accepted and given the actions of Putin in Moldova Georgia and Ukraine they were fully justified in joining NATO to stop them being next. Giving Putin an excuse now is behaving just like those who gave Hitler excuses in the build up to WW2
I guess you should'nt listen to me on politics, but i'll stick with Labour landsliding it, read that somewhere, i'm not voting an i'm keeping mi comments to misen as i aint got a clue what i'm on abart, sorry for any distress caused, same guy told me we signed Asbaghi, sorry.
Since the annexation of crimea (or in other words since Russia stoke it while everyone let it happen) he was always going after a portion of Ukraine to link crimea to Russia. Any excuse is just an apology.
Nobody said anything about excuses or justification, and I agree with the points that both of you have made. I was merely pointing out that the build-up to a conflict usually involves several factors that come together to create a perfect storm. NATO sees itself as a purely defensive organisation. The perception in other countries is markedly different. As another poster mentioned, I can't imagine the USA sitting and doing nothing if Russia stationed weapons in Mexico, for example, no matter how "peaceful" Russia claimed its intentions were. The Cuban missile crisis is a case in point. This is the reality of geopolitics.