There's a very large difference between arguing in favor of Russia's actions versus attempting to posit any degree of complexity and nuance in explaining how we reached this point, who shoulders responsibility, what a realistic end to the conflict is likely to look like, etc.
The recent piece in Harper's does a good job of laying out "the other side" i.e. realism and historical context against the "Putin is a delusional Hitlerian madman bent on dominating Europe" theory: https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/
On the current trajectory though, the west's belief in its own eschatological hegemony looks like it's already collapsed the "unipolar moment" of the last 30 years and there's a good chance of us continuing to climb the escalation ladder into World War 3, so the narrative that none of the sowing of this conflict was remotely our fault is providing an important psychological bulwark to steel everyone's nerves for what we may reap.
Thanks, I've been looking for an article like this for over a year. Whenever I've requested this perspective in the past, the only reply I've received is that I'm an ignorant, brainwashed American.
The recent piece in Harper's does a good job of laying out "the other side" i.e. realism and historical context against the "Putin is a delusional Hitlerian madman bent on dominating Europe" theory: https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/
On the current trajectory though, the west's belief in its own eschatological hegemony looks like it's already collapsed the "unipolar moment" of the last 30 years and there's a good chance of us continuing to climb the escalation ladder into World War 3, so the narrative that none of the sowing of this conflict was remotely our fault is providing an important psychological bulwark to steel everyone's nerves for what we may reap.