Geography and Memory: Why Ukraine Matters So Much to Russia

“If Cuba Was Our Red Line, Why Isn’t Ukraine Theirs?”

Russia, Ukraine, Trump, and the Monroe Doctrine: A Realist Take on a Messy War

If you only listened to Western media for the last decade, you’d think the story of Russia and Ukraine is simple: a madman in Moscow, an innocent democracy in Kyiv, and America as the heroic savior of freedom. Layer on top of that years of “Russia, Russia, Russia” hysteria aimed at Donald Trump, and you get a moral soap opera instead of an honest geopolitical conversation.

My starting point is simpler and far less emotional:

• Ukraine sits right under Russia.
• It has been in Russia’s orbit, to varying degrees, for centuries.
• The United States itself claims a “sphere of influence” over the entire Western Hemisphere via the Monroe Doctrine.

So if we insist no rival great power can park hostile forces in Cuba or Mexico, I understand why Russia doesn’t want NATO right on its border in Ukraine—and why it wants that frontier secured on its terms.

This isn’t about liking Putin. It’s about admitting that powerful nations behave according to cold reality, not hashtags.

Geography and Memory: Why Ukraine Matters So Much to Russia

Start with a map, not a speech.

From France all the way through Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and into Russia, there’s a broad, mostly flat corridor called the North European Plain. It’s an invasion highway. For 500 years, Russia has been repeatedly attacked from the west across that open land: Poles in the early 1600s, Swedes under Charles XII in 1708, Napoleon in 1812, and the Germans in both world wars.

Each time, the route runs through today’s Ukraine or right alongside it. This history isn’t “ancient” to Russian planners—it’s burned into their strategic DNA. Ukraine is not just a neighbor; it’s the main gate.

On top of that geography, you’ve got history and culture:

• Large Russian-speaking populations in eastern and southern Ukraine.
• Long stretches where Ukraine was governed from Moscow—Tsarist Empire, USSR, and periods of tight Soviet control.
• Economies, pipelines, and military industry intertwined for decades.

So from Moscow’s perspective, Ukraine isn’t a random country; it’s the buffer that determines whether hostile NATO infrastructure can sit within easy missile and troop range of Russia’s core.

You don’t have to approve of Russia’s invasion to understand why Ukraine is not “just another” state in its eyes. It’s the equivalent of Mexico or Cuba for us—only closer and more historically integrated.

Our Monroe Doctrine and Their “Near Abroad”

In 1823, President James Monroe laid down a simple rule: Europe stays out of the Americas, and the U.S. stays out of Europe’s internal affairs. Any European attempt to colonize or interfere in the Western Hemisphere would be treated as a hostile act against the United States.

Over time, this grew into a pillar of U.S. foreign policy. We enforced it repeatedly:

• Pushing back European influence in Latin America.
• Justifying interventions in Central America and the Caribbean.
• Treating any foreign military foothold in our neighborhood as unacceptable.

The most dramatic example was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. When the Soviets placed nuclear missiles in Cuba—still outside U.S. borders—the Kennedy administration treated it as an existential threat and was prepared to use force to remove them. We literally went to the brink of nuclear war rather than accept enemy weapons sitting 90 miles off Florida.

Now compare that to what NATO has been doing since the 1990s:

• 1999: First big eastward expansion—Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic join.
• 2004: Seven more countries, including the Baltic states, all ex–Warsaw Pact or former Soviet republics, join NATO.
• 2008 Bucharest Summit: NATO declares that Ukraine “will become a member” someday and sets out a reform track.

Meanwhile, Ukraine steadily moves toward the alliance—partner status, joint exercises, and reforms aimed at integration. It’s still not a member today, but NATO publicly supports its “irreversible path” toward membership, even if some leaders now hedge about timing.

Imagine Russia forming a military alliance with Mexico, parking missiles in Baja California, and talking about an “irreversible path” to full Russian security guarantees over North America. Washington would lose its mind—and rightly so, under our own logic.

We call it “national security” when we push others away from our borders, but “aggression” when Russia does the same thing in its backyard. That’s a double standard.

Warnings the West Ignored: Kennan, Kissinger, and Realists

What’s remarkable is how many Western strategists predicted this mess.

George Kennan, the architect of Cold War containment, warned in the 1990s that expanding NATO eastward would be “the most fateful error of American foreign policy in the entire post-Cold War era,” because it would fuel Russian resentment and nationalism.

Henry Kissinger, hardly a Russia apologist, argued in 2014 that Ukraine should be:

• Free to choose its economic ties (including with Europe),
• Militarily neutral—not in NATO,
• A bridge between East and West, not a forward base for either.

His logic was straightforward: turning Ukraine into a NATO frontline state would invite exactly the confrontation we’re seeing now. Later, he even admitted that before the 2022 escalation, he opposed Ukrainian NATO membership because he feared it would start “exactly the process that we have seen now.”

Realists saw it coming. Politicians ignored them.

Instead of working out a status for Ukraine that both Russia and the West could live with—neutral, sovereign, heavily armed for self-defense but not part of any anti-Russian alliance—policymakers kept dangling NATO membership while knowing it was unlikely to ever be formally delivered.

From Moscow’s perspective, that looked less like confusion and more like slow-motion encirclement.

Trump, “Russia, Russia, Russia,” and the Ukraine Narrative

Then comes Donald Trump.

From the moment he showed up on the political stage, everything about Russia became radioactive. Any attempt to talk about Russian security concerns was treated as “doing Putin’s bidding.” The entire conversation got poisoned by:

• Years of debunked or exaggerated “collusion” narratives.
• Endless claims that Trump was a Russian asset.
• An impeachment over a phone call with Ukraine, framed as if he were sabotaging them for Moscow’s benefit.

Whatever you think of Trump personally, that hysteria made it almost impossible to have an adult discussion about the underlying issues:

• NATO expansion.
• Spheres of influence.
• The risks of turning Ukraine into a proxy battleground between the U.S. and Russia.

Trump’s actual instincts on Ukraine and Russia were more transactional and realist than ideological. He repeatedly:

• Pushed NATO allies to pay more for their own defense.
• Questioned why the U.S. was shouldering endless security burdens in Europe.
• Said, bluntly, that he wanted the war ended through negotiations, not permanent escalation.

You can disagree with his style or his specifics. But at minimum, he recognized what the D.C. establishment pretended not to see: endless war in Ukraine is not a long-term win for America.

Meanwhile, the same people who cheered regime change in Iraq and state-building in Afghanistan suddenly discovered their inner moral philosopher over Russia and Ukraine. They turned a brutal but predictable power struggle into a simplistic cartoon:

• Trump and anyone questioning escalation = “pro-Russia.”
• Endless weapons shipments and blank checks = “defending democracy.”

That’s not analysis. That’s branding.

Ukraine: Pawn, Buffer, or Bridge?

So where does this leave Ukraine itself?

On paper, Ukraine is a sovereign state with every right to choose its allies. In practice, it sits at the intersection of two clashing realities:

1. Russia’s insistence that its “near abroad” not host hostile alliances right on its border.
2. NATO’s “open-door” policy and political desire to prove it won’t be intimidated by Moscow.
3. 
   

Those two positions are fundamentally incompatible. Someone has to yield:

• Either NATO quietly accepts that some states near Russia will remain neutral buffers,
• Or Russia eventually uses force to prevent those buffers from flipping fully into the Western camp.

That doesn’t make Russia “right” in a moral sense. But in power politics, “right” and “real” aren’t the same word. Russia’s willingness to use hard power is a fact. Our willingness to risk global war for Ukraine is not.

From Kyiv’s perspective, of course they want NATO membership. After repeated Russian attacks, you’d be crazy not to want a security guarantee. But NATO itself acknowledges Ukraine isn’t a member and isn’t covered by Article 5; it’s a partner, not a protected ally.

In other words, Ukraine has all the risks of being a frontline state and none of the actual treaty protection.

That is the tragedy:

Ukraine became too Western to be acceptable to Russia, but not Western enough for the West to defend it outright. That’s the worst possible spot to occupy on the geopolitical chessboard.

Russia’s Security Logic: Not Just “Imperialism”

We keep hearing that Russia’s actions are purely imperial or ideological. No doubt, there’s nostalgia for empire in parts of the Russian leadership. But if you strip away the rhetoric and look at the strategic logic, it’s very familiar.

Consider three elements:

1. Historical invasions from the west
   Russia has repeatedly been attacked across those flat plains. Strategic depth—space between Moscow and enemy armies—has been its survival mechanism.
2. NATO’s steady crawl eastward
   What began as a defensive alliance in Western Europe has expanded right up to Russia’s borders. Each wave—1999, 2004, 2009, 2017, 2020, and after 2022 Finland and Sweden—deepened Russian fears that its post-Cold War “opening” was answered with encirclement instead of partnership.
3. Explicit talk of Ukrainian NATO membership
   The 2008 Bucharest declaration that Ukraine “will become a member of NATO” crossed what Moscow had long warned was a red line, even if membership was still years or decades away. NATO

Put those together, and Russia’s actions look less like random madness and more like a ruthless enforcement of its own version of the Monroe Doctrine: no hostile military bloc in its immediate neighborhood, period.

We did the same with Cuba in 1962. We’d almost certainly do it again if a foreign power tried to establish a comparable foothold in Mexico or Canada.

Again: understanding is not endorsement. But any serious analysis has to start with, “How would we react if the roles were reversed?”

The American Cost: Billions Abroad, Crumbling at Home

While think tankers and cable hosts cheer every new aid package, a few inconvenient questions are being asked—especially by people like Trump:

• How many hundreds of billions will this ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers?
• What’s the endgame—total Ukrainian victory, negotiated partition, frozen conflict? Nobody can answer clearly.
• What happens if a desperate Russia escalates in ways we didn’t plan for?
• Why are our borders, infrastructure, debt, and domestic chaos somehow always secondary to another foreign project?

NATO officials talk openly about multi-year “security guarantees” for Ukraine, even while quietly admitting full membership is not on the table in the near term. That means an open-ended commitment without clear limits.

We saw this movie in the Middle East:

• No-clearly defined victory conditions.
• Moral language substituting for strategy.
• Anyone questioning the mission labeled unpatriotic or “pro-enemy.

The difference this time is that Russia is a nuclear power with long-range weapons and a much deeper historical stake in the outcome.

From a realist, America-first perspective, Trump’s instinct—to push Europe to carry more of the burden and to prioritize ending the war over managing its narrative—is far more rational than the Beltway’s addiction to open-ended commitments.

What a Realist Settlement Could Have Looked Like (and Maybe Still Could)

Kissinger’s 2014 outline still reads like a path not taken:

• Ukraine free to choose its internal politics and economic orientation, including close ties with Europe.
• Ukraine explicitly neutral militarily—no NATO membership.
• Security guarantees that deter Russian aggression without turning Ukraine into a NATO launching pad.

Could that have stopped all Russian pressure? Maybe not. But it would at least have recognized reality:

• Russia will never accept NATO on the Dnieper.
• The West will never be able to fully “defend” Ukraine without risking direct war with Moscow.
• Ukraine needs a status that doesn’t force it to choose between being a pawn of one side or a crushed buffer for the other.

Now, after massive bloodshed and destruction, the space for that kind of deal is narrower. Emotions are raw. Positions have hardened. But the underlying geometry hasn’t changed:

• Russia is not going anywhere.
• Ukraine is not moving off the map.
• The West has finite patience and resources.

So either we eventually circle back to something that looks like armed neutrality and a negotiated border, or we keep pouring fuel into a fire that can never burn out cleanly.

Trump, Realism, and the Uncomfortable Mirror

Trump, for all his flaws, did something the foreign policy establishment hates: he held up a mirror.

He forced uncomfortable questions:

• Why is it acceptable for the U.S. to enforce a sphere of influence in the Americas, but “imperialism” when Russia tries to do the same next door?
• Why are we lecturing Moscow about spheres of influence while threatening or sanctioning any Latin American government that gets too cozy with Beijing or Tehran?
• Why is questioning NATO’s mission treated as heresy, when even our own Cold War strategists warned that expanding it could backfire?

You can dislike the man and still admit the questions are valid.

The narrative that any skepticism about endless Ukraine funding or NATO expansion equals “pro-Russia” is a lazy smear. A realist, America-first view doesn’t celebrate Putin. It simply says:

• Great powers have red lines.
• We have our own; Russia has theirs.
• Wise policy recognizes this and avoids showdowns in places where our vital interests are limited and theirs are absolute.

Ukraine, tragically, sits in exactly such a place.

Conclusion: Geography Doesn’t Care About Our Slogans

Strip away the speeches, the flags, and the slogans, and the basics look like this:

• Ukraine is right under Russia, tied to it by geography and history.
• Russia, like the U.S. with the Monroe Doctrine, refuses to accept hostile alliances on its doorstep.
• NATO pushed steadily eastward, publicly promising Ukraine a place in the club while never guaranteeing it full protection.
• The West ignored repeated warnings—from Kennan, from Kissinger, and from simple common sense—that this trajectory was dangerous.
• Trump, whatever else you think of him, at least tried to bring the discussion back to interests instead of ideology.

You don’t have to bless everything Russia has done. You don’t have to deny Ukrainian suffering or agency. But if you’re serious about avoiding a larger catastrophe, you have to drop the fantasy that this is a Marvel movie with clear heroes and villains and start seeing it as what it is: a brutal collision of spheres of influence in which geography, not Twitter, writes the final script.

Realism says:

• Don’t put missiles in someone else’s Cuba and act surprised when they react.
• Don’t pretend your own Monroe Doctrine is sacred while dismissing everyone else’s security concerns.
• Don’t mortgage your country’s future on a war in a region where you will never care as much as the neighbor does.



Ukraine deserves peace. Russia will insist on security. America should insist on a policy grounded in reality, not in slogans or cable news talking points. That means recognizing the uncomfortable truth: in a world of great powers, the map still matters more than the microphone.

References

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. (n.d.). Monroe Doctrine, 1823. Gilder Lehrman Institute

History.com Editors. (2010, January 4). Cuban Missile Crisis. History.com. HISTORY

Kissinger, H. A. (2014, March 5). How the Ukraine crisis ends. The Washington Post. The Washington Post

Marshall, T. (2015, October 31). Russia and the curse of geography. The Atlantic. The Atlantic

NATO. (2024). NATO member countries. NATO

NATO. (2025). Relations with Ukraine. NATO

NATO. (2025). NATO’s support for Ukraine. NATO

National Archives. (2022). Monroe Doctrine (1823). National Archives

NATO Watch. (2025). Fateful errors: Why NATO leaders should have listened to George Kennan (1997). Nato Watch

Tim Marshall analysis as summarized at International School History: Tim Marshall – Russia. internationalschoolhistory.com

Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this post are opinions of the author for educational and commentary purposes only. They are not statements of fact about any individual or organization, and should not be construed as legal, medical, or financial advice. References to public figures and institutions are based on publicly available sources cited in the article. Any resemblance beyond these references is coincidental.