NATO’s fundamental values and principles — as cited in the article — are deterrent in nature, not offensive. And their actions toward Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union have largely been that of disarmament and peace. NATO has never attacked Russia. In fact, the only attack has come from Putin when he’s poisoned and murdered dissidents on NATO soil.

NATO and the U.S. are not completely without blame here — expanding NATO in the late 90s and early 2000s was needlessly antagonizing towards Russia, but Putin was not really against it at the time.

Given NATO’s mission and history, it’s a fairly unsubstantiated to argue that “NATO’s primary mission has always been to threaten Russia with military force.”

I wrote another piece that goes into more detail here: https://medium.com/the-millennial-republican/to-those-blaming-nato-or-the-united-states-for-russian-aggression-c98524de1436