- the Afghanistan invasion was an actual reaction to a direct attack, not a “you are close to joining an opponent alliance”
- in the west people were free to criticize the invasion, while Russians have much to fear if they are anti-war.
The first point is more moral, while both wars are ridiculous, they are different scale of ridiculous, but not important from business perspective.
This is extremely important from a business perspective, as it shows the state heavy arm on its people and therefore its business. If it controls people’s speech, people’s business are under even more control.
So, as a business, you face a much bigger risk depending on some compony from a “controlling state”, then a more free state.
This doesn’t mean that USA/the west, doesn’t use it’s private companies, it’s just a difference on scale, and how easy/entrenched that control is.
Another example, is that many european PMs lost the next election cycle with major reason being supporting that war effort. Also, people were actually allowed to protest. Checkout how russian protests are handled.
Just like even today in eastern eurocountries there are some sons of ex wealthy soviets nicknamed “homo sovietis”, with their soviet themed bars, which are perfectly allowed today, but i wonder what would happened if during their youth they opened a “capitalist/ocidental” bar.