Leadership: Learning From Past Mistakes
November 7, 2022: The Ukraine War has been a unique conflict. It was largely unexpected, although for the last two decades Russian “president for life” Vladimir Putin has been talking about NATO reviving the Cold War by trying to limit Russian territorial ambitions. At the same time, Putin, like many former KGB officers and nostalgic Russians in general, believed the dissolution of the Soviet Union (the centuries old Russian empires) was a great tragedy. That sort of attitude is nothing new and it is still a factor in many parts of the world. It was clear in 2014, when Putin acted on his imperial nostalgia and seized Crimea and tried to grab two east Ukrainian provinces. This was naked aggression and a cause for alarm among NATO members, especially the ones that joined after 1991 when they were finally free of Russian occupation or domination. The original (pre-1991) NATO members were alarmed at these Russian actions in Ukraine and offered to assist Ukraine in dealing with the continued fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces in the two partially occupied eastern (Donbas) provinces. For the new NATO members this Russian aggression was a much more threatening move by their traditional enemy.
This disagreement continued even after Russia tried to take all of Ukraine in early 2022. That war is still underway and the differences between NATO members are still there, only more intense and more in need of resolution. That is happening, but slowly and painfully. NATO united to assist Ukrainians in fighting the Russian invasion. What was still lacking was agreement on how to move forward with a war NATO did not want or expect. Because Ukraine was not yet a NATO member, NATO could not automatically join the fight against Russia. To do so anyway would, as Putin announced, trigger another World War. This was more of a psychological ploy than substantial threat but it worked and it soon became clear that Putin may have lacked the military power he thought he had, but was still a contender, and effective, when it came to the war of words.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20221107.aspx
