East-West love affairs often hide western expansionist intentions

It was over 200 years ago that a French Emperor led his Grand Army across the Neman, a river now located in Belarus, its significance was as epoch-defining as Caesar crossing the Rubicon. The young Russian Tzar Alexander I was attending social engagements in Saint Petersburg at the time the French emperor led his army eastward. Tzar Alexander I was attending a celebration where young Russian aristocrats were dancing wearing the latest French fashions to the strains of the latest European music written by German and Italian composers. Russia admired all things European. 

Napoleon I and Alexander I, a short-lived romance

Confident that Napoleon I would not invade his country over a simple matter of trade and that the Treaty of Tilsit he signed with the French Emperor on a raft on the very same Neman river would hold, Tzar Alexander I wasn't worried, but he should have been.

Often conflicting interests are what turn friendly countries into adversaries. Napoleon wanted to enforce a strict blockade of the British Isles via his treaty with Russia, but Russia kept trading with British merchants via proxies. Napoleon's response to what he saw as Russia's breach of the treaty was to invade the whole country.

This was the first of many spats between East and West, and in all Russia was caught off guard, betrayed and often underestimated by the haughty West. Whether it was Napoleon or Adolf Hitler, in both cases, major treaty breaches by the West was followed by an all out invasion. Russia never had ambition to occupy Paris in 1807, nor did the Soviet Union have any ambition to invade Berlin in 1939. In both cases, Russia wanted peace and to be kept out of Europe's problems. 

But Russia has learned from those bitter lessons to never let its guard down and never trust the West not to invade and march Eastward. Today, NATO is another Western threat on Russia's Western border that poses a serious threat to its security. If a limited military operation in Ukraine is needed to demonstrate Russia's seriousness and determination to the West, so be it. 

One is always sorry for the lives lost on both sides, but it is NATO and its member countries that are at fault here, they ignored Russia's legitimate security concerns and goaded the Russian President at their own peril. One only hopes the war ends soon with the least casualties. As for Western sanctions, shit happens!


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