I can’t speak for @Kropotkin, but the dynamic was exactly the same in the Cuban missile crisis - major power got close to the US with clear military threat, and the US reacted. What made it different there was the USSR actually installing nukes, which made an invasion too risky, because it might have set off the nuclear war. Kennedy’s combination of embargo and diplomacy was highly effective, and completely justified, in my opinion. If the situation hadn’t involved nukes right in Cuba, but some other sort of military threat based in Cuba, I could see invasion as an option. A nation has to protect itself from military threats right on its borders.
I disagree. The threat the United States saw in 1962 was that the Soviets were building military bases in Cuba.
There is no parallel in Ukraine. The only foreign country that had military bases in Ukraine prior to the Russian invasion was Russia itself.
To be fair, you really can’t trust those guys!
I agree, nothing excuses Russia’s behaviour. I’m not trying to excuse it, or even claim a moral equivalency between the two empires. I am saying this is rooted in historical choices, many made by the US and NATO, that they could have avoided if they had wanted a different outcome. The US and NATO have broken agreements, expanded their borders, and claimed the moral high ground whenever they did so. And this pattern has been going on since 1919, when the US and others (including Canada) landed troops in Russia to try to stifle the Bolsheviks. The US crusade is not a moral one, and the US bears some responsibility for this mess. It was predictable, it was predicted, and in pursuing its own game without thinking, or perhaps not caring, about outcomes, the US kept pushing anyway. Even if you want to claim it was playing “I’m not touching you!” it was pushing. That the US thinks it has an unimpeachable right to intervene anywhere it chooses and to act in a provocative manner does not excuse everything, but if we want real solutions, it has to be acknowledged as a problem. And with this, I really am done!
For now
What Kompromat does Putin have on Trump? That’s what I wanna know? Pee Pee tapes doesn’t explain a President and now ex President traitorous acts.
I previously thought for sure it was money laundering through Trump Inc for Russian Oligarchs. But, since Trump has left office, forensic accountants have to be combing through all the tax records, returns, money transfers, shell companies, etc. Maybe it takes longer than a year to really get to the bottom of it.
Can’t think of any worse compromising evidence that Putin has to lead trump around on a leash. And Putin must have Kompromat on Fucker Carlson as well. Not even Moscow Mitch has rolled over like these other two bitches.
Sounds very similar to very similar to the miscalculations Neville Chamberlain made.
Much like Hitler with Europe, Putin invaded Ukraine for one simple reason. He wanted it. In Putin’s mind, the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century. He’s looking to restore Russia to its former glory. As with Hitler, it is a strategic error to assume that Putin would negotiate in good faith to agree to a reasonable solution.
You say that “the US and NATO have expanded their borders”. That is patently false and mischaracterizes the nature of NATO. The borders of the United States and NATO’s member countries are where they have always been. NATO is simply an agreement between independent countries to come to each other’s aid in the event one of them is attacked.
So one might wonder why Russia should find the idea of NATO expansion so egregious. The reason I suspect is that it is a threat to Russia expanding its own influence.
I heard the same thing from a reporter in Moscow but then he commented that he was in a relatively liberal part of Russia and that the hinterlands may well be different.
Who says he was President for more than the occasional two-minute stretch? He was an empty suit sitting in the President’s chair.
Just because a mouse lives in a cookie jar, doesn’t make him a cookie
– Casper ten Boom
In can take time, but they should be able to find something in a year if that were true.
A more likely explanation than Russian blackmail is that this is what Trump, Carlson, and the rest of the far right actually believe. Trump has never demonstrated any principles beyond greed, power, and self promotion. So he probably actually does idolize Putin. Zelenskyy is just some “loser” whose about to lose his country. The rest are just pandering to an anti-liberal base that probably thinks this is just some Russian problem.
Yeah, these are people who honest to goodness believe that (a) people like them are righteously endowed by the creator (or by evolutionary nature) with being on top, and everybody else needs to know their place and everyone will be happy, and (b) that liberality and social democracy are things that threaten them with winding up subordinate to their inferiors.
And let’s not forget that he committed the One Unforgivable Sin: He didn’t immediately give Trump everything Trump wanted.
Given that Putin has operated much like leaders of the Russian empire and the USSR and Russia, looking to him as the sole architect, operating as a loose cannon or psychopath is a little simplistic and thus unhelpful. Russia, like the US, (more accurately, those with political and economic power in those countries) has national interests and intervenes as it can where it can to maintain those interests. Military interventions are egregious and evil. But let’s not pretend the US acts out of noble motives when it intervenes with the CIA, military, economic pressure, etc. to launch coups and invasions as it has done constantly and regularly. To outsiders and those who can be a little objective, such efforts look like imperialism or at best the defence of zones of influence. At the same time, the US insists only it has the right to define who gets what influence where, and it looks insatiable. This is widely interpreted as a refusal to grant other states sovereignty, and that is more than an insult: it is a constant threat.
Starting from these premises, no one should be surprised that Russian political and economic leaders regard the expansion of NATO as interference in Russia’s backyard. The breaking of agreements, ditto.
Nothing excuses this Russian invasion. But real solutions and peace require the US to recognize its role in creating what has become an untenable situation for Russia. As others have suggested, imagine a parallel scenario where the Warsaw Pact signed up Mexico and, oh, just for the heck of it, Canada. It is laughable, of course, but largely because the US dominates the economies of those countries and the political and economic leaders long ago made their piece, and profits, with that arrangement. But imagine it if you can. Then imagine US reactions. If you can’t imagine it, ask Haiti, Cuba, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Grenada, and on and on. Heck, there’s a new book about Smedley Butler; check it out.
If you go back a few generations, every family and every country has valid grievances. They should not be forgotten, but giving these too much weight is usually bad for everybody, unless there are significant current reasons to consider them and enact remedies or reconciliation. Better to jaw-jaw.
Currently, much of the world has prospered from recent relative peace. Russia may feel it has historical ties with satellite states. However, when it annexed Crimea the remaining portion of Ukraine feels closer to the EU than Russia. Before this, Ukraine wavered much more between the EU and Russia and in this sense Putin made a mistake by trying to win through force what could have been won through patience. If it was wrong for the West to involve themselves in Russia during its Revolution, so was it wrong for Stalin not to keep his promise to allow free and fair elections in Poland after 1945. The US should not abandon soft power but is not always in a position to point fingers.
But at some point the history should be weighed against prospects and prosperity and more reasonable solutions are required for inevitable disagreements. Russia is not China and both still require foreign markets. Russia’s reserves are relevant but temporary. China is watching closely, but is much stronger and independent. It will go its own way.
Mostly agree with much of this
And a few Axis Sallys.
You seem to think it’s laughable because we dominate the region economically. Perhaps it’s laughable because we are not a threat to invade and subjugate their people.
There is a reason why former Warsaw Pact regions asked to join NATO, and it isn’t because of the fond memories they had of being aligned with Russia.
It’s laughable indeed. Because your “parallel” suggests Ukraine joined NATO. Which of course never happened.
Fine. Go with Nicaragua, Cuba, Guatemala, instead if you want a little space in between. Look what happened there, among many other places, just because the companies that dominated the economies were ticked when the government changed. I’m not trying to justify Putin and the invasion. I am trying to suggest that the US and NATO are not entirely blameless for worsening relations with Russia and that needs attention to fix things.
You should go back and reread your posts.
The United States did not provoke Russia into invading Ukraine. NATO did not provoke Russia into invading Ukraine. Ukraine did not provoke Russia into invading Ukraine. Nobody provoked Russia into invading Ukraine.
Putin was not provoked. He was not responding to any threat. He decided to invade Ukraine because he thought he could get away with an invasion. This was an unjustified and unprovoked attack by Russia.
And, Kropotkin, your posts have heavily focused on Russia’s perception of quasi-ownership of the surrounding countries, and you’ve said that you’re not excusing Russia, and that it’s not exclusive to Putin.
As Dr_Paprika said further back “If you go back a few generations, every family and every country has valid grievances.” And as Little_Nemo said, “Putin was not provoked.”
The grievances and provocations things are subject to something unique and special about our species - we can and should be capable of elevating ourselves above our base instincts when those instincts are harmful.
And this is a Putin-specific issue, contrary to what you (Kropotkin) keep saying. I mean for god’s sake, Gorbachev allowed and enable the dissolution of Soviet Union/Russian Empire and if he had not been unseated by that fucking coup attempt in 1991 we might not even be having this discussion.
Also, if Yeltsin had picked someone other than Putin we also might not be having this discussion. I don’t know why you are so fixated on this “Russia’s historic needs and beliefs” thing but IMO it just doesn’t hold water.