You know what’s great about the “comparable” piece you cited? It’s an opinion piece. NATO has broader defense guarantees (as cited in my article) to counter Russian expansion in Eastern Europe. They didn’t simply disappear with the fall of the Soviet Union. NATO countries and specially the US are simply reading their alliance agreement (and Article 5) narrowly for diplomatic reasons. I think that’s a mistake, but time will tell.

But to think China is completely ignoring how the world reacts to Ukraine’s compromised sovereignty is the height of naïveté. Talk about IR 101. Yes, there is a defense guarantee between U.S. and Taiwan, but what you are choosing or neglecting to mention is the VERY complicated relationship between the countries. The U.S. doesn’t even recognize Taiwan formally, nor do many UN countries. Russia’s intense desire to bring Ukraine under its control is directly analogous to China’s push to do the same with Taiwan - shared culture, history, etc. You can point to differences, but they are not material.

I never said the U.S. has unclean hands. We are not a country of Boy Scouts. But instead of excusing someone who silences dissidents with poison and commits countless other human rights atrocities, we should be honest about what Putin wants here. I cited to it. Read his diatribe on Ukraine and Russia. It will tell you everything you need to know.

Yes you can argue that the US is empire building and flexing its geopolitical muscles but at the end of the day nobody - not even NATO - provoked Putin to put hundreds of thousands of troops on Ukraine’s border, assault the country with cyber attacks, and spread anti-western propaganda. Tell the Ukrainians this is not about democracy and human rights at all. Many would tell you to stop watching RT.