Don’t blame the West

The Cold War didn’t “end” — it was won.

— George H. W. Bush, 1992

As U.S.–Russian relations reach a post–Cold War low, a growing number of observers have concluded that Western behavior, not Russian belligerence, ultimately lies at fault. According to this analysis, the United States and its European allies “humiliated” Russia by enlarging NATO, undertaking military action in the Balkans, extending trade and other forms of soft power to the former Eastern Bloc, and generally not affording Moscow the respect it supposedly deserved as a great (albeit territorially smaller and militarily weaker than it once was) power.

“The West will …