Making Enemies

A German friend was giving me his slant on the dangerous standoff between the West and Russia.
He was telling me of his grandmother's experience in the Ruhr in the 1920s, of how the French occupying troops troops treated the local German population with scorn and contempt. He contrasted this to the American occupying troops in 1945, how the Americans treated the Germans to bubble gum, cigarettes and respect.
Then he turned to the defeat of Russia in the Cold War, how the West treated Russia with contempt, how by using international institutions such as the IMF and local placemen such as Yeltsin and his corrupt crony capitalist entourage, the West ripped the heart out of Russia, expropriating billions of dollars, causing Russians untold suffering and countless deaths.
From this low point, during the government of Mr. Putin, Russia has risen again, prosperous and proud, fully aware that the West only means to degrade them and reduce them to the level of third world serfs.
And such is the danger of the aggressive policy the West is pursuing against Russia.  NATO, in expanding its empire of bases has already taken over Libya, and is threatening Russia's only Mediterranean base in Syria. By aiming at Russia's historic base on the  Black Sea, NATO is attacking a core interest of the Russian State.
But, twenty five years ago, the West could have brought Russia in as a friend. As my German friend pointed out, the West could have introduced a sort of Marshall Plan, to integrate a prosperous Russia into a Western led world economy.
But it was not to be. Habits of domination die hard.