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Notes -
That sounds awfully…charitable.
What advantage does the cultural trauma theory have?
Accusing your enemies of Nazism is a proud tradition in and out of Russia, so you’d expect to see it whether or not the leadership were motivated by such.
Moving your borders closer to NATO does not suggest a fear of invasion. Neither does draining your manpower and weapon stockpiles. Both of those things are more compatible with the five-minute adventure theory, though.
Creating a geographical buffer between your enemies and your core is absolutely valid strategy, even if it costs some -- what it's worth is another question of course.
My current operating model is that Russia and China are both still playing "Great Game" diplomacy, in which military wargame type considerations have a voice at the table -- most of the West is definitely not, with the US being an exception in that it's torn between Deep State 5-d chess and Fukuyama-flavoured quokka-ism.
Hold on.
I agree that Russia feared NATO expansion into Ukraine. I would say that is adequately explained by the “five-minute adventure” model: if Russia thought the cost would be really low, the benefit of a puppet buffer would be easily worth it. Now that the cost is sunk, Russia doesn’t want to back down, because now it definitely gets a hostile neighbor.
What it doesn’t offer is any reason to prefer the cultural trauma theory. I don’t find it reasonable to say having Ukraine as a neighbor was comparable to having the Nazis on the border. That sounds like a post-facto justification, and a pretty silly one.
What do you mean?
I mean that Ukraine is militarily important to Russia in a hypothetical war with tanks rolling (one way or another) through the Fulda Gap and nukes flying, so Russia prioritizes current actions to mitigate the risk of this (low probability) hypothetical. Similarly with China's policies on Tibet and/or Taiwan. (ie. they are mostly due to strategic considerations in the case of war with India or the US, rather than some deep ideological feeling that Tibet or even Taiwan ought to be Chinese)
Europe did this in the 19th century but doesn't anymore; the US kind of does it, but through puppets and diplomacy (plus CIA ops, probably) in far-flung places rather than in their own backyard.
If the US were thinking this way, they would absolutely be serious about military force in Canada (risk of becoming a Chinese puppet) and Greenland (risk of becoming a stepping stone for either China or Russia) -- I don't think Trumps ruminations on this come from the same place, it's more like trolling at this point.
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