I don’t think people realize how fucked up that war was. It seems to get lumped in with post-Soviet chaos rather than a separate thing that happened because world leaders made specific choices that we need to learn from.

I mean, Europe and the U.S. made awful decisions but the diplomacy to end it also required the U.S. and Europe. Almost nothing about that conflict is a simple story of good vs. evil. And it happened before most people had constant access to news so it was often unclear what was happening until later.

Edit: I’m not defending any country there. I’m just saying it was a fucking mess.