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You and WR talk as if the United States:
A. Won the great ideological battle against Soviet communism; and
B. Is still fighting a great ideological battle against Soviet communism.
Both of those things can't be true. If we caused the Soviet "system" to collapse, as WR argues, that begs the question of what system we're fighting now, whether we're just fighting Russia because they're Russia, and whether that may have been the case all along.
Both of those are not true because that part in bold is a straw man.
We are not fighting a great ideological battle against Soviet Communism. That collapsed, because we resisted it everywhere and we were stronger than they were. Today, we are fighting plain old Russian imperialism. That, too, will collapse, because we are stronger than they are (assuming we are wise enough to resist them to their end). No question that garden variety Russian imperialism was a constituent part of Soviet world-wide communism. That does not mean we should not resist garden variety Russian imperialism whenever such impacts our security interests.
If Russia wants to win the shatter zone all the way thru Central Asia up to the borders of China and India, fine. It's not really terribly interesting to us, so long as no one has hegemony. We can ally with China or india as needed to ensure balance. But when Russia moves west as part of a stated goal of removing parts of Nato and attaching them to a Russian security zone.....we have a big problem. And we should not cede them an inch on such a policy agendz. Not one. Make them pay for it, and defeat them if we can. That includes inflicting strategic disadvantages from the status quo ante. There must be a Pavlovian lesson to Russian aggression - you invade neutral neighbors, you can expect those neighbors to no longer be neutral.
We have the same overriding goal for the Eurasian land mass that Britain had in the Napoleonic Age: We have no interesting in dominating that space; our interest is to makes sure one one else dominates that space. We ally with whomever we need to ally to keep the balance. And right now, the proper balance is an intact, sovereign, neutral Ukraine. If that cannot be maintained, then fine....find some alternative solution which does not involve Ukraine becoming a Russian puppet state.
Russia does not have a right to be a hegemon.
Countries EARN the right to be a hegemon.
We have.
Russia hasn't.
They need to make peace with that and do a lot of homework.
Until they do, we need to keep reminding them that they have a lot homework to do.
I don't think Russia ever stated any goal to remove parts of NATO. Maintaining a neutral buffer in Ukraine is a good idea. Unfortunately it's not consistent with our stated goal of admitting Ukraine to NATO.
We didn't fight the Russians in Afghanistan just because they were there. We fought them because we knowingly drew them there, and we justified it as part of an existential struggle. We're doing the same kind of thing in Ukraine, but the rationale is no longer clear. If all we're doing is resisting garden variety imperialism, there are other ways of doing that. There's no need to invite conflict in order to incapacitate the military or change the regime of a country we're not at war with.
Don't be a Russian apologist. 
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/ukraine-putin-russia-nato-20220111.html?outputType=amp
Put has made numerous statements over the years that he wants to reconstitute a Russian security zone comparable to the Warsaw Pact. Indeed, the power-geopolitics critique of current Ukraine policy - that NATO forced Russia into this war - is in no small part premised on those statement.
If you're going to level the critique, it would be wise to understand it's foundations.
So for decades the US accepted Ukraine as part of the Soviet Union …..that Ukraine was obviously within Russia's sphere of influence ( as it has been for centuries ) .
But now this Biden led administration is spending billions of dollars, blowing up international pipelines , and sending troops within drone range of a war zone ….to insure Ukraine's new desire to join NATO.
All of a sudden Ukraine has magically become of vital strategic interest to the United States. One worth risking WW3 .
A dementia suffering Biden more clear visioned than FDR , Kennedy, Nixon , Reagan , Clinton and Trump .
Who knew ?
Things change.
Empires collapse.
Countries switch sides.
Friends become enemies, and vice versa.
Ukraine does, in fact, have a history separate from Russia. In fact, Russia sprang FROM Ukraine. And Ukraine has, for the last two decades been trending away from Russia. This war has not just hastened that trend, but cleaved a clean break in the remaining ties. Russian speaking Ukrainians have psychologically become Ukrainian nationalists.
And you keep dropping two straw man: Ukraine is not a "vital strategic interest" of the United States. But NATO is. And the fate of Ukraine is a strategic interest to Nato. So, in fact, what happens in Ukraine is not irrelevant to the United States of America. We do, in fact, benefit from a sovereign, independent Ukraine. To say that Ukraine is not a strategic interest of the USA is not synonymous with saying Ukraine is of zero interests to the USA. Ukraine is an important country and what happens to it matters to US national interests. The second straw man is the inevitability of direct involvement of Nato troops. That is a contrivance. There is no reasonable scenario of the current conflict that involves NATO troops entering Ukraine, or Russian troops invading Nato to shake Russia loose from the Ukrainian tar baby
Those who believe Ukraine should be part of NATO have a good case to argue. So do those who believe Ukraine should not be a part of NATO. I agree with the direction of US policy....to move Ukraine TOWARD Nato membership....to transition Ukraine toward becoming a part of Europe. The argument is merely about the pace and the conditions. I am leery of admitting Ukraine until they are ready......and I'm thinking decades away. And I'd be prepared to deal with setbacks, reversals, and even Ukraine trending back into the Russian orbit rather than admit Ukraine to Nato too early. If we admit a nation that is unstable, then we risk the institution of Nato.....
Truly powerful nations have institutions. My daughter left EUR this summer for DOD, where she is in the unit that games scenarios MORE than 10 years into the future. It's a cubicle farm full of PhD nerds in uniform.....nerds so nerdy they make up nerd jokes about being nerds. Highly complicated/sophisticated scenarios run for budgeting and planning purposes. NO OTHER NATION ON EARTH DOES THAT. We are in a league our own. We almost always win the conflicts we enter, even in those that in decades of gaming we lost most (sometimes all) of the time. Because we play a lesser hand so well that we usually beat a power playing what should be a stronger hand. The power of the US military is more than the sum of its parts. It's multiplied by the power of the institution. We are really, really good.....
Now, reasonable people can harrumph about policy. I do that from time to time. But what I don't do is make up stuff to justify the harrumph... If you want to adopt a more isolationist policy and just let the rest of the world float along in response to the agendas of other powers like Russian, China, Brazil, France, Nigeria, India, etc....fine. There is a cogent argument for that, too. Not a very strong one, but like most arguments, some points are better than others. America is a rare thing - the greatest power of its age with a strong tradition of isolationist sentiment being tugged toward pragmatic balance by more idealistic notions of the liberal order promoting democracy around the world. We're arguing about that balance. I 'm far from the jingoist here. I'm, well...a lot closer to the pragmatic center on this issue than most of the critics of current policy. Stop Russian expansionism, slow down Ukrainian entry to EU/Nato until the timing is right, if it ever does become "right."
The argument for just letting Russia have Ukraine is among the weakest of all that can be made. We gain nothing yet incur additional risks, current and future. And we can avoid that for nominal expenditures by letting highly motivated others do the hard work for us. It is a win/win that will benefit us. All. Except Russia. Those mother-****ers need to grow up and join the modern age. Not going to attend to their highly romantic notions of Russian imperialism. Potemkin what a helluva dude in his day, but it's rime for Russia forge a better future than holding on to the bones of a guy who's been moldering in the grave for 220 years or so, if for no other reason than we are quite a bit better in our day than he was in his. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, Vlad.....
