No country was forced to join NATO. In fact, it took years and years of lobbying from Eastern European countries before the first new members were allowed to join in 1999. Even then, plenty of care was taken to signal to Russia that it was strictly seen as a defensive measure, from allowing the Russian government in as an observer at all levels, to limiting the military capacity of the Baltics and putting a very low cap on the number and type of NATO assets that could be deployed in countries bordering Russia.
The intellectual mistake that Chomsky and many who share his ideas make is to believe that just because Russia might reasonably feel aggrieved at no longer being able to politically and economically dominate the countries around it through the use of military force as it could as the USSR, that it somehow has a right to have that situation reversed and is therefore justified at launching an unprovoked attack on a neighbouring democratic country to gain back that power. There should be no such right in the modern era, and believing in it is a betrayal of traditional left-wing ideals.
Ironically, returning to a might-makes-right global order as envisioned by Russia would mean the United States could behave far worse in future, pulling off the same kinds of annexations and similar as it did as a young power, and when it was far less powerful than it is now.
