Click here to access article by Rick Rozoff from VoltaireNet.
Rozoff provides an excellent history of NATO's strategy to absorb all the states adjacent to Russia to maintain the old Cold War as a neo-Cold War, and creating a "cordon sanitaire severing Russia from Europe". This history refutes the notion that the Empire is merely punishing Russia for their support of the Syrian government and their opposition to other Empire policies in the Middle East. This encroachment appears to be continuing the strategies of the Cold War when the latter was framed as a battle between social-economic systems. The Soviet Union collapsed, state industries were sold off for pennies on the dollar to a new capitalist class. But, as you can see, nothing really changed for our directors of the Empire.
Therefore, Rozoff's history indicates that the history of the conflict-ridden 20th century is still continuing, and the prior contest had little to do with a conflict between social systems. It is a continuing conflict for world domination by capitalist gangs. The US imperial gang simply won't tolerate any interference in their plans for world domination, and Russia's historical independence requires that they must be contained and subdued. And, of course, China can look forward to the same treatment.
The great challenge facing all conscious activists is to throw off this monstrous system which is pillaging and ravaging country after country, destroying human habitat, destroying the biosphere, creating widespread poverty, and amassing fortunes and power for a tiny few. There IS no alternative worth considering. Humanity's very existence is now at stake.