In addition to sounding like a protection racket, this sounds stupid because NATO was about having US forward positions against the USSR—thus the defense of the USA. I mean, the calculation was all about the the most likely initial move for Soviet conventional warfare *and* about surveillance and first-strike options in a nuclear exchange.

What bugs me is how eerily this mirrors the ressentiment that the Russians have nurtured about “saving Europe” from Hitler, Napoleon, and the various “Tartar hordes.” ETA: and thus fell entitled to order Europe around, lean on neighboring state, and mock more progressive nations as weak and effiminate.