> And Cuba is further from the US than Ukraine is from Russia. Not a great analogy. Ukraine had not joined NATO, and there seemed to be no prospect of it. The

> And Cuba is further from the US than Ukraine is from Russia. Not a great analogy. Ukraine had not joined NATO, and there seemed to be no prospect of it. The countries that actually did join NATO appear to be safe from Russian invasion. If the Baltic states hadn't been allowed to join NATO then Russia might already have a land bridge to Kaliningrad and we'd have lost some more liberal democracies.