Everyone knew it in 1997 — including then Senator Biden — and the hubris reaches legendary status a la the Roman Empire. Everything stated some 27 years ago has come to pass.

When Russia wanted to join NATO in the 1990s, that should have been the end of that alliance. When your mission statement was the creation of a treaty organization to protect you against the very same country that now would like to be your ally, you've attained your objective. This is how we know for sure that the deep state military industrial congressional complex is a 12-headed Hydra that does not have our country's best interests at heart, but it's own existence at any cost.

Sadly, as mostly all government programs operate, success is measured by how much budgets grow instead of how well objectives are attained. The US foreign policy establishment has knowingly done everything possible to recreate the cold war and its boogeyman in Vladimir Putin. In so doing, the US has pushed Russia and China closer together, isolated Europe from cheap natural resources acquired from trade with Russia, and therefore stagnated the standard of living of people from Europe to the US.  All the while making us less safe from war.  This is an absolute failure using any reasonable and measurable standard.  In fact and instead we are agitating and instigating for war.

More importantly, the US foreign policy establishment has cut off its nose to spite its face by also putting dollar denominated trade in decline by driving Middle East oil countries also into the hands of Russia and China via our alignment with Israel at any cost and the facilitation of pitting one country against another in another failed attempt at ensuring hegemonic domination of those resources.