The Ultimate End of NATO — Scott Ritter

Important backgrounder.

Scott Ritter mentions in passing that it was the offense posture of NATO in Yugoslavia and in particular the bombing of Serbia that put Russia on guard. 

Russians have emphasized that until then, Russia had been pro-American following the collapse of the USSR. But the "rape" of Russia economically by US-led shock therapy and then the attack on Serbia, a Slavic nation, led Yeltsin to promote Putin as his successor. The rest is history.

America had Russia wrapped around it little pinky through the whole '90s. We did everything you told us. And we were eager to do more and more. The whole nation - Russian nation was like, 'Tell us what else we can do to please you. We want to be like you. We love you.' And then in 1999, bam. You bomb Yugoslavia. And that was the end of it.
— Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT broadcaster and Sputnik news agency

Scott Ritter walks us through the details of the history of NATO and how it subsequently became a tool of the US to impose global hegemony regardless of the interests of NATO's member states.

The fractures exposed in NATO’s membership when it comes to Ukraine will only grow larger over time. It may take years for NATO to go away, but let no one be fooled by what is happening—NATO is finished as an alliance.

Consortium News

The Ultimate End of NATO

Scott Ritter, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, serving in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, on General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/02/11/the-ultimate-end-of-nato/

See also

Instead of reporting factual information, US media outlets have flooded their audiences with what one Western intelligence official calls a "strategic communications campaign." This campaign is described uncritically by CNN as a series of "alarming headlines" and a "drumbeat of official disclosures" that have come from "agency spokesmen and officials" who "have provided little by way of evidence -- in effect, asking reporters to report the material without confirmation." In short, a "strategic communications campaign" of state propaganda.

One glaring omission in reporting is the fact that Ukraine has deployed a force of 150,000 troops to the ceasefire line of contact in the Donbas, often breaking the ceasefire.  But all the emphasis in the US media has been on the Russian force of 100,000 troops positioned within Russia.

 

Aaron Maté
Stoking war with Russia, US media is Biden admin's top ally

https://mate.substack.com/p/stoking-war-with-russia-us-media