like “NATO is inherently escalatory”, with no further explanation on why banding together against an aggressor to preserve everyone’s peace is somehow “escalation” while publicly plotting attacks against all your European neighbours

Operation Gladio (support for Nazis and other far-right groups in Turkey, West Germany, Greece, etc., use of false-flag terrorism and propaganda to rig elections in Italy to prevent the rise of communist countries that would align with the Soviets), Libya (bombing of innocents and destruction of the country, support for racist mercenaries who later brought back the open slave trade), participation in the brutal imperialist bombing of Afghanistan, this is the history of NATO’s “preservation of peace.” NATO is an organization created to maintain Western supremacy, and to act like it’s simply a “defensive alliance” “banding together against an aggressor” is fundamentally dishonest nonsense. Who is not thinking (let alone critically)?

As others in the comments have shown, Angela Merkel already admitted peace agreements were made to stall and arm Ukraine against Russia, so who is “publicly plotting attacks against European neighbors”?