US militarism and the ongoing geopolitical security dilemma

Amid the fogs and complexities there are some pretty simple and straightforward aspects of the current geopolitical reality:

* The end of the Cold War was supposed to present an opportunity to allocate less in the way of budget resources toward the military and more toward social expenditures. That never happened. And now the United States spends more on militarism than the next ten powers combined:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-backs-sweeping-defense-bill-voting-continues-2022-12-08/

1. United States $858 billion
2. China $293 billion
3. India $76
4. Russia $68
5. United Kingdom $66
6. France $57
7. Germany $56
8. Saudi Arabia $56
9. Japan $54
10. South Korea $50
11. Italy $32
- — — — -
12. Australia $32
13. Canada $26
14. Iran $25
15. Israel $24
16. Spain $20
17. Brazil $19
18. Turkey $15
19. Netherlands $14
20. Poland $14

* The United States maintains over 800 military bases in foreign countries; no other country has as many as 30.

* Except briefly during the War of 1812 the United States has never been territorially invaded.

Russia has been invaded from the west countless times over the centuries; most recently by the French under Napoleon in the nineteenth century, by Germany during WWI and again during WWII.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/27/the-ukraine-crisis-is-a-classic-security-dilemma/

After the end of the Cold War, both sides cooperated with major reductions in their nuclear arsenals, but the United States gradually withdrew from a succession of arms control treaties, violated its promises not to expand NATO into Eastern Europe, and used military force in ways that directly violated the UN Charter’s prohibition against the “threat or use of force.” US leaders claimed that the conjunction of terrorism and the existence of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons gave them a new right to wage “preemptive war,” but neither the UN nor any other country ever agreed to that. US aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere was alarming to people all over the world, so it was no wonder that Russian leaders were especially worried by America’s renewed post-Cold War militarism.

This is not to excuse Putin’s aggression, but we should understand that as NATO incorporated more and more countries in Eastern Europe, a classic security dilemma began to play out for Russia.