I get what you said about Poutine wanting to control.
Anyway...What I do not get is why people, from ordinary to the pols, do not get no. 1 and 2. Often I ask myself: Am I too old? But no, that is not it. Many of our political class are as old as I am or older, and lived thru the dive-under-the-table exercise Cold War yrs. I would have thought that yrs plus experience equals cynicism. But what really stuck in my craw is no. 2: Appeasement does not work. Why do people persists in believing the opposite? How do such weak people got elected?
What I said about club membership being explicit and implicit, I learned from a US Army 1SG, or 'First Shirt' as we AF call them, when I passed thru Baumholder back in '87. In our conversation, he also added that a country maybe neutral, but implicitly allied with another country and covertly working inside that alliance. I wonder if that is what Poutine worried about, that while NATO stamped 'Rejected' on Ukraine's application, the fact that Ukraine did expressed interest opened the door for that covert alliance, or at least unlocked the door. In his KGB-minded world, the unofficial realm is where the work get done. A long time ago, I read that according to a Congressional staffer, many deals were made by the urinals, and I have no doubt about that.