It’s really hard to say, and for us armchair military theorists it’s also kinda pointless to spend the mental energy to try to put together all of the pieces to come up with a definitive answer. But with any complex situation that has valid arguments from both sides, we should examine both major arguments.

Firstly, the argument that is positive for NATO’s goals. Mind you, that’s not necessarily pro-NATO, but rather just acknowledges that it may be exactly what NATO wanted. This argument being that NATO counted on the war in Ukraine to happen (and if not in Ukraine, then in any of the countries they’ve been operating in, like Latvia or Georgia for instance.) and wanted to use it to drive a secondary goal. That goal could be resource acquisition, propaganda, you name it. This argument pivots around the idea that NATO could manipulate the war so they benefit from it, regardless of the outcome of the war. If my assessment is correct, then I’d assume they’re leaning more towards the propaganda end of that spectrum. I.E. by getting Russia to invade Ukraine, they can use it to inspire a new age of pro-western fascism and cripple the leftist movements in NATO’s member countries. That can be used to justify military spending, for instance. Or to justify the signing of laws that remove freedoms from some or all of the nation’s population (such as the call to put Russians in internment camps and seize all of their property and wealth.)

Secondly, the argument that is negative for NATO’s aims. They planned for something that didn’t happen, or didn’t happen the way they wanted, and are floundering to pick up the pieces. This argument being that, either for the acquisition of resources, political power, whatever, NATO continued pushing for expansion into Russia’s sphere of influence against the objections of Russia, and it blew up in their face in a way they weren’t ready for. Maybe they expected a war to happen in Ukraine eventually, but didn’t expect it yet, and got caught with their pants down and weren’t ready to do what they were initially planning. If this is the case, then yes, it would just be the actions of a multinational empire in decline that will only suffer from it. We’ve already seen that their aggressive expansion has resulted in Russia and China growing closer, and I believe as the situation progresses, we’ll see the rest of the imperialized world grow closer with the two too (and further from NATO).

I believe it might’ve been a lil column A, a lil column B. They didn’t expect the war so soon and they’ve lost certain things from it, notably hegemony. But they’ve gained a source of propaganda that’s powerful enough to make liberals support politics they’ve claimed to oppose, and move NATO’s member states closer to nationalistic fascism, thus making a lot of rich people even richer, and the small group of people in the member states who hold the power even more powerful.

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Seems like Zelinsky has stated now that NATO won’t accept Ukraine. I can only guess but judging from his earlier insistence of a NATO-backed no fly zone, he was probably harbouring the delusion that a membership was on the cards.

EU should not end up relying only on US for fuel because that will be disasterous for them. If those making the decision have more than two brain cells they will continue to buy fuel from Russia while hastening the transition to alternative energy sources.

Russia and China are already allied. Their usage of dollars among themselves is going down every year. Regarding India I have no idea what the future holds. Looks like America’a dog only when it comes to China. The administration refused to condemn Russia for the invasion and now social media is full of sanghi buttholes wanting Russia to shed blood in Ukraine. I think India is still in west’s clutches. They have the control of our communication and ecommerce infrastructure. Because of how much Indian businesses rely on American and European businesses I don’t think any sort of decoupling is anywhere on the horizon right now.

But still only Russia and China trading fluidly will be a win for the non-“international community”. As much as I personally want there to be no wars I can’t imagine how else this could have gone. There was no “diplomatic solution” to America’s chicanery to try and balkanise Russia.

I think the strategy was to find an enemy that they could paste all over the news and so they could justify spending a trillion dollars every year on military budgets. (The combined NATO budget is about 1 trillion, and the USA is ~80% of that)

I think they were having a hard time getting China to take the bait with Taiwan and manufacturing consent with Xinjiang was starting to wear off as people very slowly figured out it wasn’t true, though it’s still a huge problem with misinformation.

Russia has been warning NATO for years that if they kept pushing their membership closer to Russian borders then they’d have to take action and I think NATO wanted that to happen.

making mistakes typical of dying empires?

This

However EU will suffer more damage than the US from this.

The west wanted this war to happen. They kept putting Ukraine on the edge of joining NATO To drag Russia into this. Military companies profit big time.

Europe can’t survive on US gas and its impossible for the US to provide gas as cheap as the Russians’; this will weaken Europe hurting its strongest ally. Also probably this op was started 20 years ago when Russia was more isolated since China wasn’t as powerful and all of the Middle East was being rampaged by them, now there are socialist economical blocks, which puts Russia in a position where it can counter attack without suffering as much, they probably didn’t change the idea much and are thinking only in short term gains instead of structured well planned long term strategy, as capitalism usually does.

it feels to me that the escalation in Ukraine had un urgent character for the US. They have been seeing the economic giant China growing year after year interpenetrating EVERY country with sound investments (ports, airports, hospitals, dams etc) and there is no time… but they not only underestimated Russia and Putin in particular, but the whole situation altogether. It is obvious that the economic agreements between Russia - China, the immediate integration in China’s equivalent of swift and others, that were put in place within a week(!), were being prepared for years, at least since 2014… when i learned about the situation in Donbass i wondered why it took Russia so many years to intervene… only sensible answer that came to mind was that the timing was not correct. Perhaps back then Russia wasnt able to handdle the sanctions so remarkably well. I dont know if US knew about those plans, but even if they knew they couldnt stop them. What amazed me though is how the rest of the major players in geopolitical arena reacted, almost immediately siding with Russia - China. That i wouldnt expect and perhaps neither the US. West appeared quite isolated very soon. When boris johnson went to saudi arabia to ask for oil he got a no. At the same time Bassar al Ashad visited the UAE. And at the moment they are pretty much isolated. Africa, India and others side with the coalition, most recently Turkey. I believe that US were too arrogant to see in time the shifting, typical of a dying empire. A comrade here mentioned in a comment that the US after 3 generations of domination totally lost sight of reality. I would agree. And they are still in denial, its like they believe their own propaganda. President Bassar al Ashad’s speech about the whole empire’s history and how it has alaways been hand to hand with nazism was something else. Speeches like this have never been heard before from presidents. Such public exposure. He also said that they cannot actually quarantee anything to anybody apart from their tight interests, turning the world into a jungle where they only win. And since by now almost half of the world’s countries have at least felt it, they decided to grab the chance. Sound choice. It seems that the other capitalists decided to get rid of their bullying, at least.