Comment by mopsi
> Or they could integrate it within a wider framework of allyship, or at least let it be, as both of which it has been asking for several decades, instead of advancing towards, ramping up the rhetoric, fueling millitarism, and crossing red lines.
This approach worked so well that missiles are now raining down on European cities every night, killing innocent people in their homes, with no end in sight, as the Russian dictator relentlessly demands a return to the Cold War era, when half of Europe was a Russian prison camp.
>This is exactly what happened and how we got here: turning a blind eye to the destruction of democracy and the growing authoritarianism in Russia
That was never their problem. The latter not selling out to their conglomerates was (even if that was because local scumbags kept that loot). The elites could not give a rats arse for "authoritarianism", when 'allies' embrace it, like Bibi and his ethnocide, or the new Syrian ISIS guy, they are fine with it. Just a pretext to increase arms spending and gather special powers.
The elites couldn't care less about the direct toll to "innocent people in their homes" either. When that toll specifically and shamelessly targetted an enclosed population of millions, including children, the sick, and the elderly, they kept full diplomatic ties and supported the thing with arms, trade, and other methods of collaboration. (Russia too of course, only a few shining examples like Ireland didn't).
As for the "Cold War era, when half of Europe was a Russian prison camp", funny times those. Are we to believe that, the, no stranger to enslaving people France, still fighting wars to keep its colonies in the 1950s and 1960s, and ever since keeping its grubby hands in Africa, was so heartbroken at the plight of eastern Europe having to suffer "really existing socialism"?
Or, maybe it was Germany who was moved to tears about it, after first having no problem supporting the mustache man for over a decade, ethnically cleaning those same eastern provinces, gassing several million, and voting and maintaining ex-Nazis in positions of power well into the 70s.
With so much democratic sensitivity, it's strange then that most of Europe didn't appear much concerned with several European countries having western-approved dictaroships - anything as long as it wasn't that pesky communism!