NATO is being humiliated by Russia and it has no one to blame but itself

Russia is closing in on a Ukrainian victory while the U.S. and Europeans continue to engage in counter-productive, often childish rhetoric, with no clear vision for the future.

With all the attention recently on Israel, Iran and the wars in the Middle East, most Westerners have forgotten about the war still raging in Ukraine. The Russians have stepped up their attacks massively and Ukraine is on the edge of collapse.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has no answers, but he likes to stir the pot. He stepped up his war rhetoric over the weekend with a blunt warning that China and Russia might take things to the next level, with what he described as simultaneous invasions of Taiwan and Europe in an effort to destabilize the Western alliance.

But if the Western military alliance lacks stability, it has no one to blame but itself following decades of foolish and provocative maneuvers, which seem geared toward posturing for potential future battles that will be expensive to fight and just as impossible to win as the Ukraine mission. The sad thing is, these battles don’t need to be fought. All they needed to do was embrace Russia, treat it as an equal trading partner, and it would have been a win-win for all. That ship has now sailed. Europe seems resigned to making war, not trade.

Let’s break it down.