I know that many people here believe that Russia has provoked and is responsible for the current heightened tensions in Europe. I realize that I won't likely convince many people of the opposite, but in posting this article I will one, last, time, make my general case. I may respond to replies or I may not, but I am not going to engage in extended polemics about this issue on a message board for a book club.

I believe that the cycle of escalating tensions started much earlier than the article suggests. It can all be traced back to 2003 and the Iraq War. Russian oil companies had significant stakes in Iraqi fields and refineries, and I believe that Russia opposed the war for economic reasons primarily and secondarily on the grounds that countries just can't invade other countries.

The US proved to Russia that it had no problems causing economic harm to Russia and that it didn't respect sovereignty. We twisted UN authorizations and we invaded. But we didn't just do that. The neocons decided to expand NATO into the Baltics, and then the Georgian Rose Revolution happened. The next year was Ukraine, and the year after that, Kyrgyzstan.

The Bush Administration also started talking about anti-missile defense shields in Poland and put both Ukraine and Georgia in the "Partnership for Peace" program, which was assumed to be a precursor to NATO membership. (Yes, Russia was also in the program, but with no NATO membership anticipated, promised or ever likely)

From Russia's perspective, they haven't done anything we haven't, and there's a lot they haven't done that we have. We have troops on Russia's borders - they have none near ours. We have systematically encouraged regime change in the post-Soviet states around Russia to replace them with US-friendly governments whom we encourage to seek NATO membership. We decided to put missile defense systems in Poland, and we have missiles in Europe. Russia has no missiles in the Americas. We routinely fly planes along Russia's borders. Russia doesn't fly planes along US borders; it has flown bombers at the edges of UK airspace but only recently - we have routinely flown spy planes and regular military planes right along Russia's borders. We routinely intervene to manipulate foreign governments with economic, political and even military power without a grounding in international law.

In 2008, when the Georgian President (now governor of Odessa province in Ukraine) Saakashvili attempted to launch a surprise attack to regain Abkhazia and South Ossetia, breakaway regions of his country that stopped fighting Georgia in 1994 pursuant to a brokered ceasefire that saw Russian peacekeepers stationed there, after Russian troops were killed, Medvedev (then President of Russia) sent in troops. When Sarkozy told Putin (then Prime Minister) Russia couldn't just invade, he reportedly said, "Why not? We're going to Tbilisi and we're going to hang Saakashvili. The Americans did it to Saddam." Even so, Sarkozy got Russia to pull back. Georgia lost Abkhazia and South Ossetia, most likely permanently at this point, but the EU inquiry showed Georgia started the war. Its initial statements were that it acted to "liberate" the territory, and only after the assault failed did the lie that "Russia was preparing to attack" come into play.

When the Maidan occurred, it was clear to me from the moment that Victoria Nuland was caught on tape coordinating the opposition that if the Maidan succeeded, Russia would intervene in some way. I actually thought Russia was going to invade the entire country to reinstate Yanukovich, and I'm somewhat surprised Russia has been as reticent as it has been.

People can go on and on about "Ukrainian sovereignty", about territorial expansionism, but the reality is that the US doesn't respect sovereignty of states when it suits us. Just ask Serbia, Haiti, Iraq, Libya, Indonesia, Sudan and many of the countries in Latin America if we respected their sovereignty in the past. Look at where our military bases are. Look at where our missiles are placed. Look at our projection of military power. Then ask: is Putin really the aggressor here? He sees his country slowly being encircled by states that are hostile to him. By playing the Western Ukrainian card so heavily in a nation divided right down the middle, the US intentionally favored the anti-Russian elements in that country, thus ensuring that a country where half the people or more were pro-Russian were controlled by the people who hate Russia. That's why Crimea happened. That's why Eastern Ukraine has a separatist issue. That's why Russia is supporting the separatism. It's real, too. The Eastern Ukrainians are pro-Russian, on both sides of the front line.

Unless and until we're willing to see Russia's current view of things, we are pushing closer and closer to World War III. The flowchart in the article is very instructive as to possible outcomes of a hypothetical flashpoint.