Changes

==Post-Soviet Europe==

==Post-Soviet Europe==

Beginning in 1989, the [[Soviet]] [[empire]] and then the [[Soviet Union]] itself imploded, disappearing as a [[security]] threat to the rest of [[Europe]], [[China]], the [[Middle East]], and the world. [[NATO]]'s "[[Partnership for Peace]]" briefly held out the promise of a Europe-wide cooperative security architecture in which the reconstituted [[Russian Federation]] as well as the [[United States]] would both participate and play a stabilizing role. But instead of dismantling the alliances and protective arrangements it had established to deal with now vanished [[Cold War]] threats, as the 1990s proceeded, [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] embraced the [[Russophobia]] of [[Central Europe|central]] and [[eastern Europe]]an countries and their [[America]]n [[diaspora]]s by reemphasizing NATO as a defense against possible threats from a revived [[Russia]]. The United States undertook to [[NATO expansion|expand NATO]] not just to the frontiers of the former USSR but beyond them. This was an impulse born of America's so-called "[[unipolar moment]]," in which it sought universal deference to its [[values]] and interests and began to launch massive [[intervention]]s to [[regime change|change regime]]s that refused to comply. In doing so, it set aside the [[UN Charter]] and other foundational elements of [[international law]].

Beginning in 1989, the [[Soviet]] [[empire]] and then the [[Soviet Union]] itself imploded, disappearing as a [[security]] threat to the rest of [[Europe]], [[China]], the [[Middle East]], and the world. [[NATO]]'s "[[Partnership for Peace]]" briefly held out the promise of a Europe-wide cooperative security architecture in which the reconstituted [[Russian Federation]] as well as the [[United States]] would both participate and play a stabilizing role. But instead of dismantling the alliances and protective arrangements it had established to deal with now vanished [[Cold War]] threats, as the 1990s proceeded, [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] embraced the [[Russophobia]] of [[Central Europe|central]] and [[eastern Europe]]an countries and their [[America]]n [[diaspora]]s by reemphasizing NATO as a defense against possible threats from a revived [[Russia]]. The United States undertook to [[NATO expansion|expand NATO]] not just to the frontiers of the former USSR but beyond them, breaking its pledge not to expand NATO "one inch East" beyond the [[Oder-Neise Line]] after [[German Reunification]]. This was an impulse born of America's so-called "[[unipolar moment]]," in which it sought universal deference to its [[values]] and interests and began to launch massive [[intervention]]s to [[regime change|change regime]]s that refused to comply. In doing so, it set aside the [[UN Charter]] and other foundational elements of [[international law]].

Belying its original purely defensive ''raison d'être'', NATO then vivisected [[Serbia]] (ripping [[Kosovo]] from it), joined the post-[[9/11]] American effort to pacify and transform [[Afghanistan]], and helped Libyan war|overthrow the government of Libya]]. Russia and other great powers came to see NATO as a threateningly offensive tool of [[American foreign policy]]. Meanwhile, the alliance, which was coterminous with an American sphere of [[politico]]-[[military]] influence in [[Europe]] and the [[Mediterranean]], resumed justifying its continued existence by reference to the threats from Russia it had helped to resurrect. Eventually, Russia resorted to shows of force followed by military intervention in [[Ukraine]] to block any further expansion of the American military sphere of influence in Europe.

Belying its original purely defensive ''raison d'être'', NATO then vivisected [[Serbia]] (ripping [[Kosovo]] from it), joined the post-[[9/11]] American effort to pacify and transform [[Afghanistan]], and helped Libyan war|overthrow the government of Libya]]. Russia and other great powers came to see NATO as a threateningly offensive tool of [[American foreign policy]]. Meanwhile, the alliance, which was coterminous with an American sphere of [[politico]]-[[military]] influence in [[Europe]] and the [[Mediterranean]], resumed justifying its continued existence by reference to the threats from Russia it had helped to resurrect. Eventually, Russia resorted to shows of force followed by military intervention in [[Ukraine]] to block any further expansion of the American military sphere of influence in Europe.