There are some issues with this article. First, the account of the ukranian revolution is neither very accurate nor balanced: generally speaking, shadowy US interference in far-away states ('color revolutions', etc) is more complicated, and a far more marginal factor than people like Putin would have you believe.<p>It also continues to follow the Russian line in the section where it discusses the build-up to the conflict. I think this idea of 'NATO expansion pushing into the Russian sphere' is also wrongheaded: countries get a sphere of influence when they are powerful enough to exert control over their neighbors by simple size disparity, primarily economic, but also military, to such an extent that their neighbors are simply always by default in a weaker position when they negotiate. The USSR had the economic, cultural, and military power to maintain this. The Russians don't. That Putin does not realize this is <i>his</i> failing, not NATO's.<p>The economic section is also profoundly mistaken. You talk about recessions and inflation as if the Russian economy and the US economy are comparable. They are not: the Russian economy is marginally larger than that of Spain. It is smaller than California or Texas. Any economic confrontation between the West and Russia is modulated by the fact the Russian economy is simply so much smaller: the West is basically a collection of the world's largest economic blocs, minus China and India. An economic fight between the EU and Russia would be a ridiculous mismatch. An economic fight between Russia and <i>the entire West</i> is so unbalanced that it may as well be a trade war between Kentucky and the rest of the US: there is simply no way that Russia can inflict a proportionate amount of economic damage to the west, and the only limit to how much damage the west can inflict on Russia is how willing they are to suffer even a tiny bit in return.