You are probably right to some degree, I do not know how much, but Russia responding with "You joining my enemies? Ok, I annex you." is not appropriate, in my opinion. There needs to be negotiations with the country. In this specific case, US were discussion with Russia if Ukrain can join NATO? What I am seeing is a missing party in this negotiation - Ukrain. Without it, it doesn't even matter what do these negotiations result with. AFAIK US couldn't even officially veto a country joining, if the country meets the alliance requirements. Of course, it might make it really hard to join since US is the biggest military force in NATO with great influence, but I doubt US is against more countries joining NATO.
And that is why, I think, NATO has not disbanded. Everyone who has read a history book know that USSR is still there. Just under a different name.
The alliance map might look the same as a result, but people lives and future prospects greatly change if the parties involved are for the statue quo. If Russia did not like the map, then they should have asked the countries joining not to join. I know Russia likes the facade of being the great oligarch, but at this point they are just begging US to resolve their past mistakes they refuse to even acknowledge. Ukrain exist, it's people exist, and they don't want USSR, or Russia. They didn't even want NATO and look where we are now. All I see are reason for other countries to join NATO against Russia.
I did write that I understand Russia responds like this to nearby countries joining NATO but I backed my statement that it was only Russias fault due to Russias past actions towards these countries, not due to some broken promises between Russia and the US. Honestly, I do not know what US has promised Russia regarding Ukrain. Not that it matters, since it's Ukrains decision, just like it was other post-soviet countries decision to join NATO.
I understand that Russia is threatened, but, in my opinion, it is well deserved. Russia has not proven that it has moved past forcing people to do what they want, so all post-soviet countries have no real choice other than joining NATO. I don't think even all post-soviet countries could fight Russia without a lot of help from other NATO countries.
Of course, Russia probably thinks that the territories previously occupied by USSR also belong to them, that is why it asked NATO to remove countries that joined it since 1992. So the plan was to rinse and repeat the strategy with Crimea on non-NATO countries, I guess.
