Wait, didn’t Saddam Hussein sit on an oilfield?
Ah, but see, there is Russia being contrary. Chechnya wants to break away, but itsn’t allowed to. South Ossetia wants to break away, and Georgia wants to say no, and attempts to follow the Russian model, and Russia comes in and kicks them pretty hard in the shins. While I’m not fan of how the breakup of Geogia is going, the Russians make it hard to figure out what they will and won’t allow. And again, one could say that the internal affaris of Georgia are just that, Georgian, but Russia doesn’t seem to care about that for some odd reason.
And it’s possible that Russia will need to understand that having a military base is a privledge, not a right, and that if the Ukraine wants to close shop in Sevastopol, there isn’t much they can do about it. Sucks, but there it is. For the record, I would be of the same opinion if it was Cuba wanting us to close down shop on Gitmo, which oddly doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue…
I believe that Putin offered to station bombers in Cuba over the missle shield… very Cold War, no? I have always found it weird that a purely defensive measure is often countered with aggressive offensive weapons brandishing on the part of Russia. Were I in there shoes, I would say “Hey, no problem. Not our country, if Poland wants a missle shield, more power to them” and then just work on developing a counter-counter-missle system.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Wait, didn’t Saddam Hussein sit on an oilfield?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, and as long as he just sat on it he was relatively fine; at first even received a lot of US support. Desert Storm happened because he broke the status quo by invading a neighbour also sitting on valuable oil that went straight to the West. The next invasion was, in my opinion, irrational in an international relations perspective; there was and has been no clear benefit, and no real casus belli to justify it.
Oh, no question that Russia is showing a double standard. In my experience, Russia (on both a political and popular level) still firmly believes that some states are world powers or regional powers, and that this strength gives extra rights and responsibilities. Russia is very much a regional power, if not a global power, and so in politics with their neighbours they feel that Russia should have the final say in what happens with disputed territories.
Here in the West, of course, almost everybody publicly disagrees with this concept; modern liberalist theories of international relations insist that all state actors are equal (in the sense that Country A can’t tell Country B to do something and expect B to follow orders without something in return), and that international alliances are reciprocal, mutually beneficial agreements; and furthermore, Western states put enormous weight on political rights.
Put concretely - we seem to expect the US to act the same way as Germany, Norway, or Tonga in international relations, showing mutual respect for sovereignty and international law etc., even though the US is a superpower and Germany, Norway, and Tonga aren’t. Additionally, people don’t generally complain that the US controls places like Puerto Rico without giving them statehood, because referenda show that the populations of those places don’t actually mind. (Even the Guantanamo base doesn’t draw much local complaint, I think)
Russia and Russians, on the other hand, see this as unrealistic. Missile shield bases in Poland would be aimed at defending the USA; the fact that they might defend Poland too is a side-effect. US military bases in places like Japan, Korea, Germany, Turkey, Uzbekistan etc. might be justified by claims of treaty obligations or bilateral agreements, but ultimately, they serve only to project US power and protect US interests, sometimes against the wishes of the host countries (especially the populations, but sometimes on a political level). In the West we accept these actions simply because the treaties and agreements exist, were freely entered into, and should be honoured. Russia sees these justifications as simply justifications – but sees the actions themselves as completely fair play by a superpower! In turn, however, they want the right to play by what they see as the same rules, as a regional power. “Mess with us through Georgia, we’ll mess with you through Georgia. Mess with our navy by trying to steal Ukraine from us, we’ll mess with your European allies by turning off the pipelines and bankrupting Ukraine.” It’s an especially strong sentiment as everyone over 20 in Russia has lived in a system where Russia or the USSR directly controlled Georgia, Ukraine, and much more, and appeared to be a superpower like the USA today.
As to why Russia threatened to expand their offensive rather than defensive capabilities because of a Western defensive build-up – Russians are just really, really sick of being invaded all the time. Hell, Russia gets its name from the Swedes that settled there, and the Kremlin itself is a defensive fortification! If these military increases on both sides are really supposed to be preparing for war, a Russian defensive build-up would be preparation to be attacked yet again, while increasing their offensive capability might give them the chance to let someone else deal with an offensive for once. We in the West generally see military build-up as a defensive measure to hopefully never be needed, but Russia is generally more cynical and half expects military forces to be used eventually, even just “because they’re there”. After the pointless invasion of Iraq, and the fruitless invasion of Afghanistan, I’m not sure they’re wrong.
“If you want peace, prepare for war” –Thucydides
“If you want war, prepare for war” –Terry Pratchett
Purely anecdotal, but I am/have been (I’m not actually sure of the current status) a lass from Belarus for the past six months. She seems to interchange the words Belarus/Belarusian and Russia/Russian at random. It really does seem a lot like she considers them the same thing. Weirds me the fuck out.
And what were you before the surgery?
:smack:
Isn’t there a poster here with a familial connection to Belarus, who is rather vocal about what a great country it is? Has he weighed in on the current situation in another thread that I simply haven’t noticed yet?
Borat is a poster?!
Damn close. 
Since the poster in question has already expressly stated that he does not believe freedom or democracy to have any inherent value, I doubt he’d be all that perturbed by the news from the motherland.
Actually, he’s stated that freedom and democracy are very, very bad things.
Anyone have a link to that statement?
I’ll PM you.
“Democracy is the road to socialism.”
– Karl Marx