> deliberately chosen path that wasnt hard to avoid if we'd wanted to - simply by withdrawing an invitation.
Yes, imagine what would have happened to Chechnya or Georgia if we had let them into NATO. No, that would have been an invitation to attack Ukraine, we should have let them in.
And what did we do to Chechnya? Have you considered you've got your causality backwards? These countries want to join NATO because they are sick of Russian meddling. No country is being forced into NATO.
