I can sympathize. I'm sure there are a lot of countries in Central and South America that have similar memories of how America operates, as well as various other places around the world.

That doesn't make it wise to let it color your view of what is happening today. We could take this conversation back thousands of years, with all the invasions of Europe and Western Asia by people from further East. Yet actions begat reactions. The political elites in the US are not that concerned with Ukraine. They only see it as an opportunity to poke Russia in the eye. Which, in the long run, will prove to be a monumental strategic mistake, as the real opposite power is China and driving both Russia and Iran into China's orbit, while fracturing Europe in the process, will go down in the history books as monumental stupidity. The fact is that American strategy is largely based on money flowing to the poohbahs running the banks and big corporations and actual, long term geostrategy is not a factor. Such as outsourcing much of the manufacturing base to China and various other countries.

So, best of luck, but Ukraine, not matter how it is configured, will have to come to terms with Russia in the long run and that requires more vision than just getting more guns from the West.

As for younger, I'm 61. I've been reading the news since the early 70's.