Unilateral Action

Unilateral action is when one country (with no allies or other countries) takes military action on another country. I have looked through my Russian History books (in Russian) and my American History books (in English) and have found a pattern from what Russian is currently doing in the Ukraine with that of it's past. I have included wars fought during Czarist, Soviet and modern times since the current Russian Federation has declared it was the successor-state to the USSR and the USSR was the successor-state to Czarist Russia. I have only included the wars from around the 1770s (even though there were dozens more examples before that) as that was when the current United States became independent. The end result - ie who won  - doesn't matter here. The only thing that matters is who started the war.

Russian Unilateral Military Action:

- Russo-Persian War: 1804-1813

-  Polish-Soviet War: 1919-1921

- Winter War:  1939-1940

- Continuation War:  1941-1944

- Occupation of Poland: 1939-1941

- Occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina: 1940, 1944-1991

- Occupation of Latvia: 1939-1941, 1944-1991

- Occupation of Lithuania: 1939-1941, 1944-1991

- Occupation of Estonia: 1939-1944, 1944-1991

- Invasion of Hungary: 1956

- Afghanistan War: 1979-1989

- First Chechen War: 1994-1996

- Dagestan War: 1999-1999

- Second Chechen War: 1999-2009

- Occupation of the Crimea: 2014

United States Unilateral Military Action:

- American Revolution: 1775-1783

- Northwest Indian War: 1785-1795

- Quasi War: 1798-1800

- Indian Wars: 1800s

- War of 1812: 1812-1815

- Hawaii: 1893

As you can see the last time the US unilaterally attacked a nation was in 1893. Whether it was right or not is besides the point. The point is that it has clearly learned its lesson that doing things "alone" without an international-mandate or allies is wrong (something Russia clearly hasn't learned as it continues to do unilateral actions to this day.) So much for them pretending to play the great "liberator" as they are simply doing what has been done throughout Russian history: see something you want ad take it.