By Alexander Baunov, Carnegie Moscow Center, 12/1/21

…Russia, for its part, is discovering its own worst option. For three decades, the greatest fear of the Russian leadership was that Ukraine (and Belarus) would join NATO and move Western military infrastructure right up to Russia’s borders. Now it turns out that that can happen even without NATO, and in more real and long-term and less predictable ways. An aggrieved country that is building its entire identity on the rejection of everything Russian is far easier to turn into a fortified area on Russia’s border than a country confined by NATO procedures. In the absence of any security guarantees from a bloc, that country will be ready at the drop of a hat to welcome foreign aircraft, ships, and troops, and to equip its own army, leaping into action out of fear…

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