Germany, Japan, Russia, Great Britain, and the United States all within the last 125 years… The headshot was from within mainly self-inflicted.

He wants enlarge the imperium, get back what he feels was taken from the Russia - the territory they could control and now they cant.

I think Putin was and remains a rational actor, I know a lot of how that war is understood in the west is colored by a very effective propaganda campaign that I don’t have the time nor energy to counter.

But I will say, in a very broad stroke, we’re heading for a great power conflict and the US has two primary factions on foreign policy; the primacists vs the restrainers, both want to take on China (contain with war) but the primicits want to topple Iran first and set up Israel as a regional hegemony where the restrainers want to build up locally first. China knows this and Russia is a junior partner / quasi vassal state to China. China lacks modern war fighting experience which the Russian Ukraine war has been very helpful in fixing. Yes it’s very expensive, but so is losing a great powers conflict.