This is really the final battle for Vlad. If installing anti-western movements in the US and Europe don't worked, the spotlight will quickly turn back on his own inept. corruption back home. Just in time for next year's elections.
Russia's at it again
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This is really the final battle for Vlad. If installing anti-western movements in the US and Europe don't worked, the spotlight will quickly turn back on his own inept. corruption back home. Just in time for next year's elections.
Surely he doesn't need to worry about next year?
Not in terms of fixing his own election, but it could cause a lot of domestic unrest just as it did last time - only this time in the lead up to the WC.
That's like comparing your current abusive husband to your previously more abusive one.
Yep, its like saying he's Putin is somehow a good leader because the 90s were crap, when he isn't a good leader by any reasonable metric. In fact he's been horrible. Had a chance to take Russia into an era of Democracy, human rights, and a legitimate world power and instead squandered it on corruption, neo-imperialism, and police state autocracy.
A very good book, that focuses on the FP dynamics:
http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/adelphi/by year/2017-cd3c/everyone-loses-21b7
http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/adelphi/by year/2017-cd3c/everyone-loses-21b7
The 'era of democracy' western style is what happened to Russia in the 90s after the fall of Soviet Union, when the country was nearly destroyed economically, socially and politically.
There were plenty of Russians in the late 80s - early 90s were naive enough to actually believe that the West will embrace them with open arms and help build the new democratic country and will guide them into a new era of freedom and prosperity. The reality was an absolute nightmare.
That's the biggest reason why Putin is still so popular in the country, because he managed to bring Russia back from its knees and restored its pride. That's also the biggest reason he's been demonized in the West, because despite what they say publicly, american and european political elites don't want strong Russia, they view it as an obstacle to their plans for global domination. If one analyzes the situation from that point of view, western policies vis-a-vis Russia over the last 25 years appear very logical and everything starts making sense.
I really don't mind that, by the way, I realize big politics is a dirty business, I just resent the hypocricy whenever I hear about the 'concern over civil liberties and western democratic values' in countries the USA and its buddies don't care for.
What happened to Russia was because of the fall of communism and the Soviet Union. Blame the west for winning that one if you want but you can't go from an implacable enemy determined to destroy western democracy to trust us we didn't mean it over night. Nor is a democracy a quick fix for the problems of failed states it is the best we can come up with at the moment warts and all. If you prefer the old Soviet state solution that is your look out.
And yes the current Russian govt is a threat to bordering democracies who broke free from soviet tyranny who it still wants to control so why would we want a strong Russia given its aims?
It seems to me you want us to accept the delusions so it all makes sense. A Putin supporter and critic of western commitment to civil liberties. The latter I understand being both at the same time takes some doing.
I don't blame the West for winning the Cold War, I just believe that it should carry its portion of the blame for what happened after. There was no Marshall Plan for Russia, in fact the complete opposite happened, the country was robbed blind and most of what was stolen ended up in western financial institutions and nobody cared about its origin. The decade after the fall of Soviet Union taught Russians that they're not welcome in the New World Order and they'll never be treated as equals.
For the West Russia is just a propaganda tool to make the population believe they need to spend more of their taxes on military expences and scare them enough to stop thinking rationally about what's really going on.
The border democracies argument is not about democracy. It's about NATO getting closer and closer to Russian borders by installing "border democracies" all around my country. It's the same argument about 'bringing democracy' to the Middle East. It's an insult to people's intelligence.
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The West set the stage after the Cold War for Russia's animosity towards them currently, same as they did (even more drastically) in the Middle/Near East.
But, still, all sides are heavily at fault, and have a lot of corruption to answer to. Along with blood.
Apart from breaking an informal agreement with Gorbachev about NATO expansion, there is this rather oversize elephant in the room. Bigger even than Pogba.
It really doesn't pay to cross Comrade Putin - the amount of people he has had assassinated in recent years is scary
America, your new best friend.
There was no occupation of Russia nor do we see a change in its attitude similar to post-war West Germany's which triggered such a plan.
Russia continues to think it has a right to determine the actions of its more democratic neighbours and former victims of Soviet Russian Occupation. If they want to join NATO and NATO wants them to join then Russia does not have and should not be given a right of veto.
As long as Putin's state assassinates its political adversaries at home and abroad and annexes the sovereign territory of its neighbour's it puts itself beyond the pale.
Why does NATO exist? It was created to counter the Soviet threat. Soviet Union fell apart 26 years ago. Why does NATO get bigger and bigger and accepts more and more members? That was going on long before Putin came to power, in fact they never stopped expanding and every time Russians asked they were told not to worry and mind their own business.
Clearly it should continue to exist as long as either the Soviet Union or Russia remain an authoritarian threat to free societies. But even without that threat, there's nothing wrong with smaller countries joining a security alliance to protect themselves from the likes of Putin and others who may want to invade them, steal their land, or topple their governments through hybrid warfare.
The whole blame game (in both directions) is just diversion from a viable solution.
The short version: There are a couple of in-between countries between Russia and the EU/NATO. These countries (e.g. Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia) are in a complicated (internal and external) situation and neither side should force them to fully join their block. Instead there should be a new trade and cooperation agreement between the EU, Russia and these states, that acknowledges their status as neutral and independent countries and allows them to open-up in both directions.
At the moment we are at a zero-sum situation, because the gains of one side are seen as the losses of the other side (arguably it is even a negative-sum game for these countries). That has to change. Such an agreement could be also a first step towards a new cooperation architecture in between Russia and the EU. In the long run Russia and Europe should try to move closer together because both sides would benefit from this. Sadly both sides are failing terribly to do what’s reasonable.
The short version: There are a couple of in-between countries between Russia and the EU/NATO. These countries (e.g. Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia) are in a complicated (internal and external) situation and neither side should force them to fully join their block. Instead there should be a new trade and cooperation agreement between the EU, Russia and these states, that acknowledges their status as neutral and independent countries and allows them to open-up in both directions.
At the moment we are at a zero-sum situation, because the gains of one side are seen as the losses of the other side (arguably it is even a negative-sum game for these countries). That has to change. Such an agreement could be also a first step towards a new cooperation architecture in between Russia and the EU. In the long run Russia and Europe should try to move closer together because both sides would benefit from this. Sadly both sides are failing terribly to do what’s reasonable.
So even if they elect a government and it wants to join NATO/EU we don't allow it because Russia doesn't like it?
Short term it would be much easier for the west to do that but I think long term it would be a massive mistake.
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Why should there have been? If Russia was in a shit state after Communism collapsed, that was their fault. A huge part of the Marshall Plan was rebuilding all around Europe including helping many of the victims of NAZI aggression. Since the Western Powers were occupying West Germany it made sense to help the people there recover. Russia was not an occupied country, if it was a victim of the Cold War, then that was it's own fault. the corruption that sweot through Russia following the fall of communism was Russian corruption. Russia could have made it's own plan, but didn't.
Typical wah wah wah the west should have given us billions and didn't, they are big meanies and because they did not just dump a bunch of money in our laps it is all their fault.....which is basically what you are saying.
Because the countries in it want it to and more and more countries want to join it partly because of the way Russia behaves towards them.
Non of these countries is anywhere close to be ready to join the EU and why would NATO want them? Whats the benefit for Nato? Why should an American, German or British soldier defend them?
Their military capabilities are negligible, they are fairly unstable, are plagued by corruption, have dodgy leaders, and significant pro-Russian minorities, who don't want just turn their back on Russia permanently. Whats the point in getting any of them into NATO except pissing off Russia?
I don't want them in NATO regardless of what they want. I'd create a situation where cooperation actually benefits all sides and take one step after another. Anything else is just a pipe-dream.
That is a matter between NATO and the countries in question.
Do you think Poland should be kicked out of NATO because Russia didn't want them to join either?
Where we are now is where we are now and I don't think we should prohibit them joining at some point in the future just because it is easier to appease Vlad.
I dont want them in Nato regardless of what Russia thinks about it. Why would you want them to join Nato? Whats the point?
Comparing these in-between countries with a country like Poland is a false equivalence. There are good reasons why Poland is and should be part of Nato and the EU. I wouldn't mind if Germany defends Poland just like it defends its own boarders. Doing the same for Ukraine would be utterly ridiculous. At least in my opinion. Maybe they can join Nato and the EU in 20 years. Sure. But I wouldn't definitively rule out the same for Russia. So i don't see the point talking about hypothetical scenarios in a distant future.
We did give them billions. Well, loaned them billions and then charged them punitive interest rates and terms in a glassy eyed attempt to keep the old enemy weak and powerless for a few decades. Only, the rebound in resource prices in the late 90s /early 2000s allowed them to repay the loans faster than anticipated. It was basically the fiscal version of the treaty of Versailles and it's no surprise that Russia holds a grudge about it.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/1996/02/23/world/russia-and-imf-agree-on-a-loan-for-10.2-billion.html
We should not have charged the interest, they should not have agreed, doesn't mean we should have dumped billions at super low rates or no rates on them either.
Technically, if it had been up to Russia/USSR nobody would have been allowed to join NATO.
Possibly. Although they weren't in any position to say no to the terms. I think we missed an opportunity to eliminate that east-west animosity, though. Typical IMF bullshit compounded by latent McCarthyism. The result is what we have now.
50 plus years of distrust on both sides were a bit difficult to totally dispel, you see it in the leadership of both sides. Putin is obviously a product of the Cold War Soviet leadership. Even showing up with billions of free money, saying "We are here to help you" might not have been welcome by many. Even in post WW2 Europe there were those who did not like the US "forming stronger ties" through economic aid. Hell even during WW2 some people in allied nations were not fond of each other (and not just talking any animosity between the Soviets and England/US). Would the Russians have really been all thankful for foreign charity or would they have viewed that as insult also or a degradation of their national pride?
I'm not saying it needed to be charitable but despite their economic position at the time, they were still a great power and expected to be treated as such. Once the IMF was involved, protocol essentially meant we treated them like a banana republic. This caused a great deal of insult, which was entirely avoidable. It's not hard to deal with Russia. Read a couple of books by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and anyone can manage.
I like nothing more than when Americans start lecturing others on respecting other countries sovereignity and civil freedoms while wiping their asses with the very same things when it suits their foreign policy doctrine.
So let's say tomorrow Cubans and Russians decide it's a good idea to deploy ballistic missiles on Cuban territory not far from the borders of you-know-what country. By your logic Americans should respect that decision and should just accept it because it's none of their business what other countries do even if those actions may, and probably should be viewed as a direct threat to the US national security. In fact, something of that nature did indeed happen 55 years ago and Americans were prepared to start the WW3 over it. But I bet they have mellowed down by now,right? So Russians should just relax and enjoy being besieged by NATO all across their western borders. Only it feels kind of like 'Do as I say, don't do as I do' scenario, doesn't seem fair, does it?