Trying to understand the irrationally Putin

 Many people are trying why Putin is doing evil stupid things 

So they try to blame it on the more rational actor, the West.

West was quite rational, it picked fights that it can win and had a gain of it.

So the narrative that I hear it so often is that actions of rational actor (NATO expansion to the East) triggered actions of an irrational actor (Putin).

Putin was irrational when he used the excuse of bomb exploding in building blocks to attack Chechnya in 1999.

Bombs put by his men: some dwellers notice some strange persons, transporting 'sacks of sugar' in the basement and called the police. Later they announced that it was military exercise.

Invasion of Georgia is not rational, because the gains were minimum, a patch of land, and if he hadn't influence in Europe, he could have harsher sanctions earlier.

Anyway, the main topic is that in its narrative Russia demands justice because US broke it's promise not to expand NATO 

First from legal point of view, there is any treaty? If James Baker promise something verbally in '90, it is James Baker who promised not State Dept. If US and Soviet Union sign a treaty, State dept has to implement the treaty regardless of who is in charge.

Even if this treaty exist, it applicable to a thirty party which doesn't know about it?

Hey, Volodemir, I George and Mikhail, have decided that you owe us some money.

How does this sounds?

Like extortion and robbery.

When Russia condemns US for not keeping it's part of the deal, it is condemning it for not keeping it's part in a conspiracy, a extortion racket.

Third E Europe is composed of people, is not a company that can be sold or bought.

And when great powers trade territories, they trade people, like in Tzarist Russia you traded land with serfs.

So when Russia condemns US for not keeping the deal, it says in fact that US is no longer trading slaves as it use to. US slave trade was a major argument of Russian whataboutism.

Some countries want to match US economically, technologically, culturally. To exceed US in some positive way.

Only Russia tried to match them in atrocities: US killed native Americans, we can kill to natives. US had a slave trade, we have Gulag, they threw 2 nukes, soon we will do it too 

This is my impression from their what about ism.