“There are two ways of thinking about the causes of the present crisis, which now, of course, involves war in Ukraine. The first view, which is the conventional wisdom for sure in the west and certainly in the US, is that Putin is to blame and that Putin is revanchist (…) The other view, which is my view, is, this is all about NATO expansion and the tap root of the problem is the April 2008 NATO decision (…)  to include both Georgia and Ukraine in NATO. The russians said at the time – Putin in particular, but all the russian elites, that this is categorically unacceptable, we are drawing a red line in the sand – Georgia and Ukraine are not going to become a part of NATO.” Booknotes+ Podcast: John Mearsheimer on Ukraine, International Relations, and the Military (C-SPAN, Youtube), ab 28:14