"The Left." is in a weird place. Objection within NATO countries to Afghanistan and Iraq (coalition, NATO, whatever) has led to many leftists seeing their job a

"The Left." is in a weird place. Objection within NATO countries to Afghanistan and Iraq (coalition, NATO, whatever) has led to many leftists seeing their job as critics of their own country. A part of that is trying to cut through the propaganda where your country is always innocent and other other guys are always malevolent. Getting the US/Coalition to accept culpability for its role in the collapse of Iraq. Etc. A lot of those things are positive. Internal criticism is extremely important. But, there is a danger of going down an enemy-of-my-enemy route and turning yourself into a dumb reflection of the thing you are objecting to. In the UK, the parody hard left produced MPs actively supporting the Syrian Baathist party up until recently. Russia does feel threatened by NATO. They have for a while. But mores, Russia's objection to NATO is a nationalistic ego thing, and shouldn't be excused. Most of the "aggression" in Eastern Europe, of countries joining NATO and encouraging NATO presence in their territory is fear based. It's based on a terrible experience of Russian dominance a generation ago and a fear of Russian invasion now. Russia's neighbors are afraid of them. They are afraid of invasion, interference, stuff like that. They want NATO presence because they are afraid of Russia. At the same time the baseline political rhetoric in Russia is belligerent, democratic rights like free press are diminishing and human rights are receding.