Sort of a chicken/egg problem, eh what? IF: Ukraine was in NATO THEN: Russia would risk a hot war invading it. LIST OF COUNTRIES THAT BORDER RUSSIA: - Azerbaijan - Belarus - China - Estonia (NATO since 2004) - Finland (NATO since Russia invaded Ukraine) - Georgia - Kazakhstan - North Korea - Latvia (NATO since 2004) - Lithuania (NATO since 2004) - Mongolia - Norway (NATO since 1949) - Poland (NATO since 1999) - Ukraine IF: Expansion of NATO = "hot nuclear war" THEN: The world ended in a gigantic cataclysm on March 29, 2004 and again just this past April. Or maybe Russia is a paper tiger, and always has been. If you allow a country into NATO that means that we go to hot war with any country that invades it (in this case Russia) no matter what.
Add in that we’d basically be surrounding Russia,