I agree with you, the root cause of this war is collective low self-esteem on the part of the Russians. The Russian elites couldn't accept being a normal European country. They had to throw their weight around to feel strong. In that case maybe we listened and we heard but realistically there wasn't anything acceptable that could be done except prepare for war just in case. If a criminal says they will commit a crime in the future that doesn't make the crime any better or put any moral responsibility on us if we don't cave to the criminal's demands.