Aggression is not excusable. I am fond of American values, but unprovoked aggression is not one of them.

Controversial to be sure. But I'd challenge down-voters to instead (additionally?) provide a framework of their envisioned "conceivable alternative" new world order which would be more peaceful, just, and better to live in.

I'm sure that the millions of dead Iraqis, the embargoed Cubans, the millions of dead under brutal regimes sponsored by the US all over Latin America, Africa and Asia, the people kidnapped to be tortured by the CIA due to their name or watch type would be thrilled to hear about how peaceful, just and better to live things are.

The US isn't a benevolent force for good, it's pure old capitalistic greed and realpolitik. That lots of good has happened thanks to it is mostly accidental.

Rational, non-ideologues, always use phrases like "Pax Americana" and "any other conceivable alternative."

I am saying this as the "other". I am Russian (though not living in the country anymore). My country has started an unforgivable war of aggression. It is my imperative to do anything I can to remedy this.

Some things are quite morally clear.

Yes, the aggressor would be the one to call out, not the defender.

If you want to live (and prosper), you can't put everyone's interests and morals at the same level as yours. There needs to be some self perseverance.

Not always, but definitely in the Russia-Ukraine case it is.

I fully agree. Defense is the moral imperative of free nations.

No, it would have not. Even under their super optimistic plans they expected to capture Ukraine within 3 days, which was still plenty of time to launch nukes

But that is a moot question because there was no universe in which Ukraine keeps nuclear weapons. They didn't have control over the ones they inherited (KGB did), and while retrofitting them was possible... Ukraine after independence didn't have the money for anything, let alone reverse engineering nuclear weapons and maintaining them.

Also, while on the micro level it might make sense for a certain country to have nukes to protect itself from attacks, on the macro for the world it doesn't. The higher amounts of countries with nuclear weapons, the bigger the risk something goes wrong - a crazy dictator decides to do a murder-suicide pact, poor maintenance leads to radiation leaks, etc. etc.

I respect Iran's desire to acquire nuclear weapons to be on par with Israel and prevent the Americans and Saudis from invading them (reminder that high ranking American politicians and cabinet members have clearly and openly talked about war with Iran)... but it would be devastating to the region. Iran's regime isn't stable, has lots of enemies around (US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent the other Gulf monarchies), some of which don't hesitate at all to provoke and attack them. The risk of nukes flying if Iran has them is too great for the wider international community to accept it - which is why there was a deal with a carrot to get Iran to stop, which was working until the braindead Americans decided to kill it for no good reason. So now... nothing can be done to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons outside of an even more flagrant violation of Iran's sovereignty than what Israel has already done by assassinating top nuclear scientists and sabotaging their facilities.

Is your goal to support the idea or not? Universal acceptance of a moral perspective throughout history would typically be considered justification to continue accepting that perspective.

Unless of course a new angle was provided that called into question said perspective. Which you have not done here.