>But I do absolutely understand Mearsheimer's perspective that this is basically a Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0 moment. There was no hope of Ukraine joining NATO w

>But I do absolutely understand Mearsheimer's perspective that this is basically a Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0 moment. There was no hope of Ukraine joining NATO without the resolving of the Crimea/eastern Ukraine territories. In other words, not in the foreseeable future. Same with the EU, in practice. Even if Ukraine were to a) resolve the territorial issues and b) convince the rest of NATO (any one member country being able to veto accession), this would not have brought NATO to the Russian border; Norway was a founding NATO member in 1949, and Poland and the Baltic states joined 15 years ago.