Behemoth of 'NATO!' New Town Bully?

NATO, RUSSIA, UKRAINE HISTORY

On 4 March 1947, the Treaty of Dunkirk was signed by France and the United Kingdom as a Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance in the event of a possible attack by Germany or the Soviet Union in the aftermath of World War II. [..] Currently it evolved into the "The North Atlantic Treaty" that was largely dormant until the Korean War [1950-1953 Dem Pres Truman]; by means of an integrated military structure: This included the formation of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in 1951.

NATO Thirty Member States:
 Some of these nations also have territory on multiple continents, which can be covered only as far south as the Tropic of Cancer in the Atlantic Ocean:
​Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States.

Another Crimean War? Why Ukraine… RUSSIA and BLACK SEA, January 24, 2022 
After a long period of domination by Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, and Russia, we did not see a fully independent Ukraine until late in the last century.  In size, Ukraine is second only to Russia on the European continent.  Between 1921-1991, Ukraine was part of the U.S.S.R.  Today, around one-quarter of the people living in Ukraine are ethnic Russians — and this matters because Russia and Ukraine are in a state of war. (..)
In 1990, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) involved fifteen countries of Eastern Europe comprising more than 8.6 million square miles.  The largest of these was Russia.  The next largest Soviet Republic was Ukraine.  When the U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1991, its fifteen separate republics declared their independence, and Russia lost most of its regional influence, particularly in the area of the Black Sea.
Bulgaria and Romania not only became independent nations, but they also joined the alliance of western European states known as NATO.  Worse for Russia, Georgia and Ukraine announced their intent to follow suit, and Turkey began to cultivate relationships with former Soviet republics, mainly Moslem and Turkic speaking countries, including Ukraine and Crimea (an autonomous state of Ukraine).
Within two decades, Russia began to feel the pressure of encroaching NATO states in the area of the Black Sea, significant because 15 buffer states no longer protected the Russian heartland.  When Georgia attempted to join the NATO alliance in 2008, Russia engineered a breakaway effort among ethnic Ossetians and then used those disturbances as a pretense for military intervention.
Similarly, Russia had no intention of allowing Ukraine to join the NATO alliance or control its access to the Black Sea region.  Consequently, in 2014, Russia invaded portions of Ukraine and seized and annexed the Crimean Peninsula for the second time. More here: https://bunkerville.wordpress.com/2022/01/24/another-crimean-war/#comments
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Linguistic Map of Ukraine source here: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ethnolingusitic_map_of_ukraine.png

Is NATO the New Bully in Town?
1-24-22, * -- In light of the current situation in Ukraine, I think the U.S. State Dept is inept. [..]
After 1992 did anyone stop to consider that the Russian Federation lost half of its population, that its economy was in shambles and that every Russian leader after Gorbachev would have to spend a great deal of their time addressing these and related issues at home?  Should the “free world” have welcomed Russia to their new era rather than blame them for the 72 or so years of communism?  Isn’t that much like living in the past at the expense of the present and future? [..]
 
One criticism of the U.S. military between 1960 and 2001 was that it had lost sight that Russia was no longer the global threat that it once was under the Soviet Union it collapsed in 1991. 

• Why, then, has NATO continued to treat Russia as if it were still a massive communist juggernaut? 
• Why has the U.S. State Dept pushed NATO into ignoring its primary mission statement: to foster an alliance of democracies? 
• Can we say that the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were democracies in 1997?  No.  They were working in that direction, but democracy takes time. 
• It took Spain 40 years to achieve democracy

Yet NATO put these former Soviet client states of Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland on the fast track.  Why?  Can we see an effect of this today as we mull the Ukraine vs. Russia? Several former Soviet states have achieved capitalism; few have achieved democracy. 

• Has NATO’s focus on the Balkan states reduced stress in that region or created more of it?
• Did NATO learn any lessons at all from the Bosnian Civil War?
• Currently where is Ukraine?  It may not be pure capitalism, but it’s working on it.  It has corruption down well enough; but is Ukraine a democracy?

NATO today is not too far off the mark from Otto von Bismarck’s Austro-Hungarian apparatus that led us into World War I … with the tables turned.  Rather than "NATO," it's become the European Treaty Organization and a damnable bully. 
 
Is this what we Americans are paying for?  If so then none of us should be surprised by the perilous situation in Ukraine.  Russia has legitimate concerns — and we ought to at least listen to what they are.
 
*Excerpted and adapted full original report by ‘Mustang’ here https://bunkerville.wordpress.com/2022/01/25/is-nato-the-new-bully-in-town/