For the same reason no one in the West believed Putin when he said expanding NATO was not necessary since Russia was not the enemy anymore. The West still wanted to allow ex Soviet countries to join NATO even if that would cause hostility from Russia. It really is a self fulfilling prophecy caused by mistrust from both sides. It’s always so easy to blame only one side when you’re strongly biased towards one of the sides, but if you look at it from a neutral perspective, clearly both sides behaved in a way as to make the current situation completely unavoidable. And neither is willing to make a change now and will just double down until one side is completely defeated. Russia alone has no chance, but if when shit hits the fan its BRICS friends continue to back it up, we may be heading to something even more disastrous than WWII. I am not optimistic.

"I only broke into your house because you threatened to join the neighborhood watch" isn't the apology you were perhaps reaching for.

Russia has a history of raping, pillaging, and stealing land from their neighbors with NATO acting as the only (somewhat) successful defense against that so far.

Your idea of ‘containment’ in this sense means you’re defending the equivalent of a gang of serial rapists and murderers entering innocent people’s homes, taking their families hostage, and saying the home is now theirs.

I'm asking seriously: do you really believe that if Ukraine ever joined NATO (which is dubious as they already requested in 2008 but their request was denied), it would actually attack Russia?

The question is whether NATO would attack Russia through Ukraine. And if you don’t think that’s absolutely possible you need to read history books. I think it’s actually very possible it will happen within the next few years, in fact, given the rhetoric coming from the UK, Baltic states and some other EU countries.

So explain why the countries neighboring Russia are building all possible border fortifications, spending large sums of money for something that would make any invasion much more difficult.

(Shrug) When there's a mad dog running loose in the neighborhood, you don't negotiate with it, you put it down.

Those who actually have read history books -- the kind not written by Dugin -- know this all too well.

"Contain", LOL.

Contain yourself.

> The West still wanted to allow ex Soviet countries to join NATO even if that would cause hostility from Russia.

I find it hard to understand people still use this argument with the straight face. NATO is not an entity that expands itself - individual countries, like Sweden or Finland, request to join it to protect themselves from the situation when Russia attacks them and they have to fight alone like Ukraine. Of course Putin hates that as he cannot fulfill his dream of expanding Russia to the borders of Soviet Union, but this argument doesn't stand any scrutiny.

Why do you think it is that any country had an interest in joining NATO even after 2000?

Hostilities and fear of Russia. Whether that was well founded or not, hostility can only spread more hostility.