Putin Warns The West...
What is your take on this? Russia seems to be increasingly concerned that it is not given sufficient importance on the world's stage. It is obvious that it sees the development of war weaponry as the key to be given more importance to its interests and concerns. What do you reckon the West's response should be? Economic sanctions seem to make the situation worse.
Comments (102)
Putin and his siloviks (a Russian word for politicians from the security or military services) see the West as an existential threat which is intent on attacking and destroying Russia... and intent on taking them out of power. The logic behind this is that because of this imminent "threat" from the US and the West, they can reason their hold on power and the squashing of any opposition forces that may rise against them. This is clear even from the Russian official military doctrine: the threat to Russia no. 1 is the expansion of NATO, international (or domestic) terrorism are far later down the line on the threat list. And naturally it's actions in Georgia and Ukraine have indeed poisoned the relationship.
And what better defence is to go on the offence. Which explains Russia's meddling in the politics in the West.
When it comes to nuclear weapons, it is the most important part of the Russian deterrence and hence the nuclear forces were the only arm of the armed forces that were not left to decay after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Starting with Yeltsin's era, Putin has been all the time being updating and modernizing it's strategic rocket forces.
The US on the hand has basically forgotten it's strategic deterrence and now has a huge task of modernizing it's extremely old missile systems.
The problem is that Putin needs the West to be an adversary, and after attacking two of it's neighbours, likely has succeeded in that. (Attacking one country didn't sour the relationship, before Crimea the relationship Russia was enjoying in the West was great)
After all, likely Putin is the richest man in the World, so in any democracy the brazen theft of public wealth would end the career of any leader.
Really?
I thought a couple of Muslim fanatics do the job quite well.
To say that the West is truly hostile towards Russia is nonsense. The West is surely is truly arrogant and ignorant when it comes to Russia, but it's not out to get Russia. Not a lot of people with similar ideas as Napoleon or Hitler in the West today.
Just look at the times how many times the American President has tried to "restart" the Russia-US relations. Clinton tried it. Bush tried it. Obama did it (much to annoyance of many NATO countries after the Russo-Georgian war). Germany built a gas pipeline from Russia. NATO above all, had to REINVENT itself into being an organization for international operations from a defence pact. For a long time it even didn't have ANY plans to defend the Baltic States and didn't excersize at all in the new member states. The idea of NATO existing as a defence pact against an outside state like Russia was a thing of the past.
And how about that NATO or EU enlargement? The obvious fact is that ALL ex-Warsaw Pact countries felt threatened of Russia and truly wanted themselves to join NATO. It's not like the US forced them into NATO. Heck, at first once the Baltic States got independence, the US and UK were asking if Sweden and Finland would take care of them. The two then non-aligned countries didn't think it was a great idea, hence the small states did get into NATO. And in hindsight, it's a totally reasonable action.
After all, the neocons opened US bases into many Central Asian countries after 9/11. Now, there is no US bases in Central Asia (except Afghanistan). The Central Asian states have remained under Russian dominance, so for Russia just to sit it out and move passively against it when American empire-builders are at the helm in the White House is a successfull strategy.
And lastly, what would have become IF Russia wouldn't have opted to annex Crimea? Stayed out, let Ukrainian politics alone to be the disaster it allways has been. It would have been a totally logical policy option.
Ukraine wouldn't have fixed it problems and after the latest upheavel surely wouldn't be now a NATO member. The US involvement in Ukrainian politics would, as usual, likely would have come up to nothing. Just like the US helped the opposition in the ouster of Milosevic, yet Serbia is now an ally of Russia, the US was as inept as usual.
For Russia to simply sit out and wait would have been the best policy. Of course getting Crimea sounds great for an imperialist, but the actual benefits are truly dubious.
All the Pro-Russia people would be there in Ukraine and there wouldn't be the animosity against Russia as now. There would be no sanctions and likely the Russia would continue to enjoy good relations with European countries and they would on the other hand continue to downgrade their militaries to small forces capable of only limited peacekeeping operations.
The fact is, that one can be critical of US actions in many places in the World. Yet one shouldn't think it's all the time doing the wrong things. Starting from the fact that the existence of South Korea indeed makes the world far better than having all Koreans living under a nasty dictatorship and we not having Samsung phones.
Can you blame them? If the US had the same military interference in their neighbourhood by Russia, like the Russians have had from NATO, the reaction from the US would have been a lot more paranoid and catastrophic. The US should take a look at their own foreign policy before criticizing other countries and accusing them of overreacting.
Yes, because Russia creeping on adjacent countries only started when NATO was founded... :confused:
My view on this changed a few months ago when I looked up Russia's population. I had erroneously believed that Russia's population was 250-300million, which would make it the fourth most populous country on Earth.
To my surprise, I found that its population is less than 150 million. It ranks ninth by population, after China, India, US, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh. All but two of those eight countries get less attention than Russia in world media and diplomatic negotiations.
If we look by GDP then Russia is twelfth, so even less deserving of superpower status.
The only areas in which Russia currently excels, other than in corruption, computer crime and human rights violations, are land mass, arms manufacturing and size of its nuclear arsenal. I don't see any of those as items that are deserving of special respect.
Any Russians reading, please don't be offended by this. I adore Russian literature, music, dance and science. I live in Australia, which is smaller than Russia in GDP (marginally) and population (by a long way), so we are even less deserving of special attention.
We are, however, the best at cricket.
Quoting ssu
From a Russian perspective they see America as an adversary. (as they should) The Warsaw pact fell apart and NATO has reached all the way around Russia. They can no longer pass the Mediterranean easily with their boats (Turkey is NATO and so is every country that was historically always a part of the Eastern Bloc) and America has anti-nuclear defenses in Poland. They have seen their influence pushed back and they are responding with a leader that knows exactly what he is doing.
Quoting ssu
Crimea is 70% Russian and Ukrainians are barely the second most populace minority, (Crimean Tatars are at about 11% of the population). In fact they've never been the majority (dating back to the late 1800's. They passed a referendum to be annexed into Russia with overwhelming support. This referendum was attempted by the Crimean parliament several times before but was blocked by the Ukrainian government. Several polls earlier than 2014 were done, all with support of integration into Russia.
With that said, I still believe they are an issue. Putin is way too aggressive as a leader. He is trying to return Russia to prominence and will do anything to get to the ends. Especially after Russia just escaped deep financial struggles, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I definitely believe it is salvageable but that begins with both sides being honest about their power plays. Not by ignoring each others complaints.
That said, despite the outward form of his appeal ("You didn't listen before - listen up now!"), Putin's rhetoric was probably intended more for domestic consumption. (The reception of those fabulous super-weapons of his was rather incredulous outside Russia's tightly controlled mass media.) Which is, if anything, even more disturbing. The traditional narrative preferred by Western leaders is to portray a people suffering under the thumb of a hated dictator; they just need a little help and encouragement to topple him - and then a bright liberal-democratic future beckons. But Russians love Putin, even as they suffer and grumble. And they lap up all this militaristic rhetoric.
And it's not just Russia. Eastern Europe is rapidly sliding back towards authoritarianism, much of the rest of Europe and even the US are being engulfed by right-wing populism... It feels like 1930s all over again, only this time on an even more global scale.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
I think it was Emil Cioran who said that, the more i learn about the world the more i think he might be right. After the Holocaust and the atom bomb humanity was offered one chance to get it right, but it seems like we are repeating ourselves, only now the cost is too high.
Quoting yatagarasu
Right, because it is Russia's birthright to dominate and subjugate and occasionally dismember its smaller neighbors, which the West should respect (or else!) It needs that security blanket of dependent states to insulate it from the West. Never mind that no one forced the former Communist nations to join NATO; they were clamoring to join as soon as Russia loosened its grip - and boy are they now glad they did! Montenegro couldn't get in fast enough. But who cares about them? Only nuclear superpowers are entitled to carve up the world as they see fit, right?
Russia ranks 71 for per capita GDP, and half of it comes from selling its natural resources.
The West should mind its own business. Nothing good comes out of meddling with someone else's affairs.
Talking about carving up the world, USA is leading by example.
Quoting CuddlyHedgehog
Ah well, if America is doing something wrong, then Russia can do no wrong. (Or something like that. The "logic" of tu quoque is hard to grasp.)
Quoting René Descartes
LOL. I am not even an American, let alone "neo-Imperialist."
néant point for the misinterpretation.
Duh!
America is part of the West. No?
1. So what?
2. Again you have left out the quote to which what you quoted was responding, which was an attempt to drag America into the discussion.
The........ discussion ........ is ........ about ........ Russia.
Not ........ about ........ America.
2.Get off your intellectually lazy ass and connect the dots by yourself.
Is that clear enough for you, son?
'Pretending to take the higher ground' is a notion you've just invented. What response, if any, is taken by various countries - of whom those most concerned are those near Russia, not the United States, which Putin would not dare attack - will be dictated by geopolitical and diplomatic tactics, not by naĂŻve notions of moral superiority.
There is no arbiter in charge of weighing up and penalizing the actions of empires. Who gave permission to the British, French, Americans, Germans, Italians, Russians, Dutch, Japanese, et al to establish and/or expand their various empires in the 18th through 20th centuries? Nobody.
There is no arbiter in charge of weighing up and penalizing the actions of superpowers, either. The only controls on national or empire behavior are other nations, other empires, which may or may not be in a position to do anything about it.
Treaties can form blocks of policy and power, but the allied nations still have their own views, interests, histories, etc.
The US is still sort of Number 1 in the world, largely because of the way WWII worked out, and the fact that the USSR collapsed. How long we will remain Number 1 is unclear. We will not like being demoted to #2, or even 3, because being Numero Uno means you get to have a lot of things the way you want them. If China becomes top dog, then we won't have everything the way we want it, and neither will some other nations. Doesn't mean we will be destroyed, but our enforced competitive edge will be gone.
But not to worry. The world is on track to run into the brick wall of resource depletion, no matter who is on top, and next to nuclear war, that may well be the biggest existential threat that we will individually face in the future.
It is my understanding that our nuclear missile fleet is fairly old. But presumably they are still in working order, and presumably the nuclear weapons on board are still working too. If either the US or Russia were to launch nuclear weapons and destroy... let's say, 400 cities, the resulting fire storms would loft enough dust and soot into the upper atmosphere to bring about an abrupt cool-down in earth's average temperature, enough to disrupt crop production for several years. In addition to the people killed in the bombing and radiation, a few billion would starve.
A substantial amount of CO2, among other gases, would be released. Once global cooling was finished, I would expect that global warming would rebound, and our goose would be cooked in yet another way.
It would appear that mutually assured destruction is still more or less operating.
Quoting SophistiCat
You do understand that was Russian land right before Ukraine absorbed it, right? You are attributing me a propaganda group of the Russian side, when I made it clear that I was not for either side. They are both playing the game. I am not sympathizing with Russia I am explaining how NATO approaching them is bad for their goals. If I was a sympathizer I wouldn't have called him an issue either. The majority population has been RUSSIAN people and more than 80% of the people identify SPEAK RUSSIAN, not Ukrainian. They voted, after repeated attempts, and are part of Russia now. I tried to explain their aggression to the same end that I feel America's alliances with former Warsaw Pact members is a threat to them. America would reply and has replied in kind when it has seen it's soft power threatened. (See Cuba, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, et cetera)
This is simultaneously true and untrue. While Putin's speech is likely aimed at bolstering his position for the election this very month, if "The West" responds negatively to his rhetoric, it will act as a confirmation of the need for such weapons(if they exist). Putin is just playing on the hopes and fears of the Russian people so he can retain power.
I'm always confused by the people who speak of western countries being aggressive and therefore are the instigators of such behavior. What exactly is Russia afraid of? Democracy? In fact, yes. If democracy truly took hold in Russia, Putin and his ilk would be removed from power. They will continue to play this "us versus them" narrative as long as they can.
The Cold War was supposed to have ended in 1991. The problem is Putin still thinks it's alive and well.
True enough. I have been watching a lot of television over there recently and the one thing I noticed is the oversaturation of American culture (American movies and TV shows translated and shown) in not only Eastern Europe, but also Europe in general. : / Stacked on top of that is the fact that most of Europe's top music lists are stocked full with American songs. South Korea has more cultural relevance than the majority of the countries in the Europe(worldwide)! The only countries that I can point to having any type of distinct culture on the world stage (and internally) is Sweden, Norway, Germany and France. The rest is being inundated with English culture and this is partially because America has a strong military everywhere. Basically America is dominating the culture war.
Yes. Unfortunately he does. He just really wants Russia back to prominence and sees NATO as the biggest threat to that.
Depends what you mean by cold war. The cold war was an idealogical war between communism and capitalism. The cold war was a war over influence, where each country tried to spread their respective ideologies. It was as much a cultral and ecconomic war as a war it was a series of physical battles. The main rivalry was between USA and the USSR, Russia as it stands today cannot be equated with the USSR, and modern Russia is a Capatalism society. the main idealogical conflict between Capatalism and Communism has ended. That is not to say that the Usa and Russia do not still maintain aminosity towards each other, this should not be equated with the cold war.
North Korea is a remnant of the Cold War, that does not mean that the cold war is still raging.
Well, that was a random response to what I wrote, considering that I was talking about former Warsaw pact countries joining NATO.
Quoting yatagarasu
And yet you are hitting all the usual propaganda bullet-points. Historical claims and grievances are always brought up to justify wars and invasions. Crimea was not Russian land before it was absorbed by the Russian Empire (with help from Ukrainian Cossacks), and it was not majority Russian until Stalin's ethnic cleansings. We could go back and forth like this endlessly - but what's the point? None of this justifies Russian aggression in this particular instance. Taking advantage of the turmoil in a neighboring country to stealthily invade part of its territory with troops, special forces and civilian thugs, overthrow the local government, close down or take over non-compliant media, intimidate or kidnap dissidents, hastily stage a "referendum" with fabricated results - I say that is wrong, whatever else may have been the case historically or contemporaneously.
Let's remember that the Ukraine coup was the result of EU and USA help.
I think you are confusing Putin with Trump.
Russia has every right to be concerned by the moron in the Whitehouse. The difference between Trump and Putin is vast. Putin is making a statement with measured words, using his generous intelligence.
By comparison Trump is a chimpanzee.
The meaning of this video is that the USA is going crackpot.
No, that is not what you stated. What you said is the following:
Quoting René Descartes
Is English not your first language? If it is not, you can use this as an opportunity to improve your English by learning how the word 'typical' is used.
And that was correct usage of the word “typical”.
You are clutching at straws trying to disprove a point you know darn well is correct. NATO is a cluster of countries who have common policies on foreign matters. When I mentioned the west having a foreign policy, it goes without saying that each individual country would have its own foreign policy unless they act as part of a military alliance. Anyone with a shred of common sense would see that, but I do understand that this might be asking too much of you.
Quoting andrewk
Since you are preaching about the correct usage of English, I urge you to take a look at the definition of notion on the dictionary so you can see that a notion cannot be “invented”.
...
Knowing the level of your intellectual motivation, I decided to spare you the inconvenience by pasting the definition here:
notion
?n???(?)n/Submit
noun
1.
a conception of or belief about something.
"children have different notions about the roles of their parents"
synonyms: idea, belief, concept, conception, conviction, opinion, view, thought, impression, image, perception, mental picture;
2.
an impulse or desire, especially one of a whimsical kind.
"she had a notion to ring her friend at work"
synonyms: impulse, inclination, whim, desire, wish, fancy, caprice, whimsy
"you can't expect us to fire any of our staff just because you get a notion to come back"
Well done, Sherlock!
Quoting CuddlyHedgehog
Quoting CuddlyHedgehog
P.S. English is not my first language. What's your excuse?
The problem is that the criticism, which itself is naturally good at a certain level, isn't here anymore objective: everything the US government does is bad, both for the countries involved and in the end to the US itself. It is similar to the self-flagellation that Germans do, which sometimes is healthy, but done allways at everything is silly and in the long run detrimental.
This one sided criticism leads to a bizarre view of the World. As if EVERYTHING countries like Russia do is just because of the evil rotten things the US has forced upon them. This is one of the most widespread ways Americans show their hubris unintentionally: as if everything orbits around them and everything happens because of the actions of the US. And hence everything is the fault of the US as all bad things happen because of US meddling. That Russia hasn't made any independent decisions itself, but has been pushed against a wall. Hence Russia is seen as a victim. It surely isn't one, but try telling that.
This America-centered view of the World blurs the reality that a) the US is only one actor among others and b) other countries are quite capable of making bad decisions themselves create tragedies even without the US. What also this one-sided criticism lacks is the ability to put things into perspective. As if countries like North Korea aren't so bad, they are just portrayed to be by the evil US media.
The total inability and lack of objectivity when it comes to other countries, be it Russia or China, transforms into hypocrisy. Also this criticism simply rules out the possibility of other people actually having a positive view of the US, even it's foreign policy and that it's defence pacts are made of countries where the people actually want to be allied with the US. The myth that other people hate Americans and/or the US government is widespread.
* * *
If this discussion would be held around totally ignorant people, it might be good to point out the obvious things criticisms against the US: that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and didn't have the WMD's or that since Operation Ajax there has been antipathy towards the US in Iran etc. Yet I think that on this forum people aren't uninformed at all.
Quoting SophistiCat
Referendum 1991, 1994, 2014. Those hastily staged ones? You mean the other referendums that were tried for but were denied outright by the Ukrainian government? Do you have evidence for this fabrication? Or does that not fit your narrative? Russia has been the majority population for nearly 100 years. They were there since the late 18th century. But more importantly they now constitute a massive majority in that region.
What's the point? You're throwing propaganda at Russia for things it may or may not be a part of without acknowledging the greater narrative. Of course Russia should be punished for their wrongdoings, of course they have plenty of things they are guilty of. But this is not one of them. "invade", "thugs", "overthrow", "fabricate". All very strong words. I read what happened, see a majority population pass a referendum, that they have consistently tried to over the last 30 years or so and see that it finally passed after Russia stopped the government from outright stopping it. I disagree with you about that one point and you call me a propagandist. Even though I could care less about either sides, as they are both doing immoral things to "win the game". But for some reason you don't see it as that? You can't even concede on that point when it is pretty obvious what happened there. Just because Russia is sneaky doesn't mean they don't occasionally do the right thing for their citizens. I would understand if Russians were not the majority in Crimea, I would. But they have been majority Russian for a century now (after Stalin pushed out the Crimean Tatar). America did that as a minority and no one did a thing. Russia does that in a region that has consistently changed hands and that they are a majority population and everyone throws their hands up just because it's Russia. That's just being hypocritical.
You aren't going to progress the conversation at all by assuming everyone that disagrees with one point is a sympathizer of Russia.
So you cannot talk about Russia without also addressing the US.
Can you talk about, let's say, Sweden without the US? Can Swedish foreign policy and the Swedish long term agenda be addressed without addressing the US and it's involvement with Sweden? Is it so that we cannot understand Swedish policies without taking into account the US? Oh I agree, Swedish-US relations are indeed important, but are they of such pivotal importance that you cannot understand Sweden without the US and the US has to included in the picture?
(Yes, Sweden!)
Just how do the West's action compare here with starting wars and annexing parts of other countries is indeed important. And is really every war the US has fought bad and unjustified? Sure, the "liberation" of Iraq is one thing. Yet would Koreans be better off with everyone of them being citizens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea? Would the world be better with Saddam Hussein having Kuwait? Oh yes, you'll find this and that error or wrongdoing that the US made, but does that really offset everything?
And I haven't said that the West doesn't have any faults here, but on has to put things into perspective.
First of all, there indeed was a narrow window of opportunity where indeed Russia could have joined NATO when Russians indeed were open to idea after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This of course would have needed truly larger than life politicians on both sides and not the average ones that we had as getting Russia into NATO and keeping it their would truly have been a political feat. Yet what prevailed wasn't a conspiracy against Russia, but the typical Western hubris that Russia was past thing and never would rise up again and hence totally unimportant on the global scene.
Yet does this then justify Putin's policies?
Quoting René Descartes
I assumed no such thing. As a native English speaker you should understand the difference between asking whether X is the case and assuming X is the case.
You made an erroneous and unfounded accusation to another poster by your use of the word 'typical'. Had English not been your first language, that may have been excusable on the grounds that you didn't realise the meaning of what you had said. But you have now rendered that excuse unavailable to you, leaving the erroneous conclusion you leaped to standing there unexplained.
Quoting René Descartes
... to somebody that is not American.
And that is not the way the word 'typical' is used in English. How many examples do you know of somebody saying to someone that is not in group X, in a derogatory way, 'What you've just said/done is typical of group X'?
Just because someone has an American-style imperialistic view, it doesn’t mean they are American.
My point is, just because someone may have a view that is typically attributed to a particular group, it doesn’t automatically mean that they are part of that group.
Anyway, really Descartes?
The world would be a better Place if Saddam Hussein could have gotten Kuwait?
Your response just proves my point of lack of objectivity and perspective.
Sorry, but you are referring to the wrong war.
I'm talking ABOUT the so-called Gulf War here (Desert Shield/Desert Storm). Not the American invasion of Iraq. That alliance didn't go into Iraq. The elder Bush listened to the voice of reason of the Saudis (that it would be a quagmire and no Arab nation would go along invading Baghdad...).
My own opinion is that the 9/11 attackers and Al-Qaeda itself ought to have been processed just like the Twin Tower bombing of 1993 as a terrorist attack that the police and the justice system takes care of. Just like in Germany or Italy or nearly anywhere else. Heck, the terrorist of that attack and the 9/11 attack were family! But no.
Perhaps not invading a country and not going to war would have been a far too lame response for an US President (as we know that even if it would have been Al Gore as President, the US very likely would have gone into Afghanistan).
After all, the whole idea of the terrorist attack was to piss off America to hopefully bomb Mecca and Medinah (or something as stupid). These muslim loonies couldn't before instill an islamic revolution themselves their countries, so they thought to use the US. Hence the terrorists indeed got what they wanted. With the invasion of Iraq it was even better.
Then afterwards when in Iraq, the US armed forces actually did destroy largely Al Qaeda with the Sunni Awakening (basically simply allying with part of those insurgents), which wasn't at all done by Washington's lead, but by the commanders on the field. Yet then America withdrew and the first thing the Iraqi President did was to jail his Sunni Vice President and undo everything the US armed forces had achieved with the relations to the Sunni minority.
And hence you were left with IS.
Would be interested for your argument just where it lack's credibility.
- That Al Qaeda's strategy with the 9/11 attacks were to get the US to invade Afghanistan is a well known fact. And It's basically a textbook strategy how a tiny terrorist cell making a terrorist strike thinks to get popularity: that the response of what is targeted (the government, or in this case a nation) will make people see that the cell has a justifiable cause. For example the German RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion) thought that with it's attacks the government response would open eyes of the (West) German people to see that their government was controlled by Nazis and then a true Red Army would emerge. Hence they called themselves only the fraction of this upcoming army. Similar thinking is evident in Al Qaeda's strategy, if naturally the objectives are totalal
- That Al Qaeda was basically defeated after especially with the "Sunni Awakening" and with the emergence of "Sons of Iraq" started to fight Al Qaeda. Unlike Afghanistan, the insurgency in Iraq had been contained only for the fruits of the counterinsurgency operation to be lost with basically by Nouri al-Maliki's sectarian policies. Thanks to al-Maliki, these then came the recruiting ground for IS. Add there the inability for the Shiite regime in Baghdad to control Iraq, and the sudden emergence of IS wasn't in the end so suprising.
This lacks credibility. "well-known fact", "textbook strategy of a terrorist cell (did you just make that up?)" are statements that prove nothing.
Just to look up a few...
Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 Strategy Explained
Or this one:
The Many Faces of Al Qaeda
There was a great 2010 satire about radicalised Brits trying to use the same strategy. Four Lions.
Oh, you don't think terrorist groups think of themselves being the vanguard of a emerging resistance movement? Like the name Rote Armee Fraktion doesn't give it away? Lol.
Well, I could say that you partly have a point in that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed didn't anticipate the US invading Afghanistan, when interviewed later in custody. You might then argue then that Al Qaeda thought that the attacks would cow out the US away from the region. Because the US went away from Somalia after losing few casualties.
But anyway, in the bigger picture after the invasion of Iraq, the franchise got well underway. After all, the founder of ISIS had been earlier the commander of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
But then again, I assume that's just an opinion for you.
It is wrong but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. The combined meddling by foreign powers in Ukraine on both sides have led to a situation in which Russia came out the winner of that particular game by simply grabbing land and correctly guessing nobody would do anything about it. The lesson for NATO/US "don't fuck around trying to influence elections or having neighbouring countries join NATO in Russia's backyard unless you're prepared to back it up with military might because Russia is prepared".
Tough luck for Ukraine. And it will happen again and again until NATO stops courting countries surrounding Russia. If we do have the superior values, economic systems and culture, they'll come about by themselves.
Ukrainians do truly regret giving away there own nuclear arsenal. Even if they had kept just a few missiles and maintained them in order, a small nuclear arsenal would very likely prevented the annexation.
And sometimes some people get it right beforehand like John Mearsheimer writing in 1993:
See The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent
But on the other hand, we (especially us Finns) ought to be very thankfull that the Soviet politicians that handled the collapse of the Soviet Union were not similarly inept and of extremely dangerous type that Yugoslavia had. (As one Serb intellectual put it, worst thing to happen to Serbia was Milosevic.) The war between Ukraine and Russia clearly shows that the peacefull collapse of the Soviet Union wasn't at all such an obvious outcome. Perhaps only the utter disillusionment of the ruling class saved the people of the Soviet Union from true misery, but one should tip the hat for the last Soviets in power. If the Soviet Union would have collapsed into civil war like Yugoslavia did, the death toll likely would have been enormous. What we saw were just brief firefights and tanks rolling on the streets of Moscow, violence that was contained. The government here back then did make plans to make refugee camps for refugees fleeing a collapse of Russia, as typically collapses of the state in Russia have resulted in bloodshed and war. Luckily it never happened and Russia did bounce back. Ukraine never did recover economically.
But history doesn't know any alternative outcomes and hence every time a war has been prevented, it cannot be shown to be so.
Quoting René Descartes
Quoting René Descartes
You perfectly prove my point! :rofl: :clap:
That a dictator, that ruined his country by first starting a disasterous war against it's neighbour, Iran, and then afterwards attacked it's ally and supporter, was is in your words a OK thing at it would be better if he would have gotten away with it.
Too bad that an UN backed operation with 32 countries with countries like Syria, Egypt, Saudi-Arabia, Morocco, Pakistan, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and oh, Sweden, fought against this annexation that is somehow seems justified by you. Because the fact is that in this World event you are utterly incapable of seeing anything else than your hated US with it's hegemonic aspirations. Everything goes around this, nothing else. And because the elder Bush administration as the US in general was so rotten, for you it would have been better if the World would have accepted Iraq can just annex it's wealthy neighbour.
Or in the case of the Ukrainian revolution and the annexation and war that followed it, which I was discussing, "the West's actions are worse".
Yep, this is exactly proves the point of how the totally ludicrous and utterly incoherent the average anti-West attitude is. Perhaps it's the moronic stupidity of the American right-wing discourse, which indeed is stupid and intended for ignorant morons, that creates this hatred, but why it then makes to loose all rational perspective that ends up with absolutely hilarious views like the above. Your a perfect case sample of this attitude were this attitude of being critical about the West then totally blurs all critical thinking of the opposite.
Oh yes, perhaps you will admit that Saddam Hussein or even Putin made some bad, but in the end they don't compare at all, actually, with the evil of the West which you so perfectly showed in your hilarious response.
And likely you won't at all understand my point about the total lack of objectivity and perspective. No, you will just assume that I'm a Fox News watching moron if I don't agree with you and that I'm totally non-critical about the US. That's the typical way people respond nowdays.
Which one? You mixed opinions with a sprinkle of facts to make it look more robust. Failed.
Well, as I said "one-sided criticism lacks is the ability to put things into perspective". That you think it would be better if Saddam Hussein could have kept Kuwait (than him being forced out of Kuwait by a large UN approved coalition) proves it well..
And with Ukraine, the West "was worse", evidently being the bigger culprit for the war....somehow.
Of course, I agree with this. It's just politics.
Small question: are countries bad?
If we are talking about Ukraine or some specific political event, is it relevant then to say "but the US dropped atomic bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki!". What's the connection? Or we should say that because... we don't know that or what? It's not even an answer.
In the end it seems to come down to refuse that one side or the other has a justified point, even if not everything they say is correct. Here the perspective issue comes to be important.
So has Russia facts on it's side when it comes to Ukraine? Some, naturally. The majority of Crimeans were likely indeed in favour of joining Russia. Just like the Sudeten Germans earlier were enthusiastic to join Germany. Yes, Nikita moved it to Ukraine during the Soviet Union. Does this then justify for a military attack and to start a war that is basically going on in Eastern Ukraine? In my view, no. Because military aggression and instilling a war that still is going on far overweighs the Russian justifications.
Add there that this has been a typical way how Russia has operated in it's "Near Abroad", financing and creating separatist movements and if these are on the verge of being routed, then it intervenes military. (Russia did this to Georgia years before there was the Russo-Georgian war)
And René:
Falklands? How so in the Falklands? That war was actual one of the few if not the only one in our lifetime where both sides of the conflict upheld the laws of war and didn't commit attrocities. Why Falklands is in your view an example where "The West was worse"? You have to tell me.