No. It means that Russia has resumed its place as a Great Power (which as a large, technologically advanced, continent-spanning country, it always will be). Which means that it will act as such powers do; in what it perceives as its own interests. As other similarly situated countries have done (like the US since 1945 and other countries before it). It means accepting dispassionately what the Russians are doing and countering them. Crocodile tears over “Russian meddling” are fine for PR, not so much as policy. It just makes you look stupid.
If the Russians are hacking, then surely turnabout is fair play. Surely you could do something in retaliation, like cause all the heaters in Russia to fail at the same time in December or hack to ensure that Russia Today feed is replaced with hardcore gay porn, or basically actually retaliate in some way rather then moaning about it like the OP does “OMG they are so nasty, we are unfriending them” .
I wouldn’t call Russia a great power. They are basically Mexico with nukes. And an aging population that is shrinking. No, what Russia actually is is a country in decline with a 500 year chip on their shoulder, and they’ll only get more dangerous the further they decline. But that’s not the same as treating them as a great power. China and India are the future. Russia’s not even the present. The question about Russia is whether they’ll go into decline peacefully or violently. And in the neighborhood they live in, choosing violence could very well mean their destruction as a nation.
I have zero respect for the idea that my or my friends failings, in any way whatsoever, justify or make okay, the misbehaviors of anyone else.
We have a problem here and now. It is not a RELATIVE problem, it is not a LINKED TO OTHER THINGS problem. That problem is, that Russia under Putin is an adversary to the United States, and is actively working against us, in almost every aspect of modern life. They oppose us in Syria, in Europe, and within our own borders.
The fact that our country has done bad things in the past, or even in the present, has nothing at all to do with how we need to deal with Putin.
Even if the United States was, at this very moment, openly trying to subjugate a foreign nation of people, chain them all together and drag them here to be our slaves, while declaring rape and child molestation to be virtues, it would STILL be true that the way that we need to deal with Russia, is to recognize that under Putin, it is HOSTILE TO US. If we were genuine saints sent from a real god, doing nothing but good in the world, the answer would be the same.
It is very simple: Putin wants harm to come to the United States and it’s people (among others). We need to deal with him in a manner that addresses that.
I agree. I’m not sure exactly what Putin’s end game is, but whatever it is I’m pretty sure it isn’t the betterment of humanity. I’m relieved, for the first time in my life, that America is still strong.
Like all those liberals supporting their policies toward the Ukraine and Crimea. Yeahrite. Classic conservative fantasy talking point…the libruls are destroying the country!
Meanwhile, il Trumpo tweets about forming a bilateral group to make an ‘impenetrable’ cyber security force with them? Are you fucking serious?
The OP is correct that nobody can make a win/win deal with a government like Russia. Putin runs the country like a pirate ship, eyeing the countries around it as targets for plunder.
I wouldn’t go so far as to state that we want a “better Russia”. I don’t think we even know or care what that looks like right now. Right now we obstruct, undermine, and oppose as much as possible without causing an actual shooting war.
Yes, a ‘better Russia’ is nothing but idealism. We simply cannot make deals that benefit this Russia in any way.
Going back to Reagan, of whom I am no fan, at least he said “Trust, but verify”, which as I’ve pointed out before means “Don’t trust”. Bush the Lesser trusted Putin, but of course he had the excuse of being an imbecile. Obama didn’t trust Putin but did little to follow up on the sanctions, no strategic approach except to slap them, and then minimized the threat. Trump is not the simple idiot that Bush was, he has some sort of intentions and his self-proclaimed mastery of the deal has fallen flat in his meeting with Putin. Russia is celebrating a victory now while we fumble around in an increasingly dangerous situation on two fronts in the Middle East and Asia. The most dangerous thing about Putin is that he is not a madman, he has formulated a long term strategy that is working.
I didn’t say liberal support Russian actions, only that liberals usually want to talk to our enemies and make concessions. The OP expressed hope that nothing will come of Trump-Putin talks. That is actually a pretty new stance for your average Democrat to take, hoping for talks to fail because little good is likely to come from them.
First, for the record, I am not a Democrat. Second, what are these concessions that liberals are known for? This is not about the US playing poker with a minor power that we can raise off the table.
Russia hasn’t invaded Canada twice with the goal of conquest, nor openly bragged about how their intervention in a Canadian election helped to topple a Canadian government and install another party, more favourable to its interests.
The US has done all that.
How does that establish a good record of acting in the greater interests of your closest neighbour?
And here’s a handy-dandy list of US interventions in Latin America, seizing territory by conquest and toppling governments to further US business and political interests, and supporting dictators instead of popularly elected governments.
How is any of that in the greater interests of Latin American nations?
Still… At the end do Americans, particularly liberal Americans, like *any *foreign countries not in thrall to them ? On this board you can generally find abuse of China, Russia, Mexico, Venezuela, North Korea, Libya, France, Britain, the EU, High Germany, Greece, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan,Switzerland, the Nordic Model et al, without breaking a sweat, and with no balancing notable threads admiring a country and suggesting it to be somewhere America could usefully emulate.
First Polite Native. “Who’s 'im, Bill ?”
Second ditto. " A stranger !"
First ditto. “'Eave 'arf a brick at 'im.”
This is the fascinating argument that because of the mistakes we’ve made in the past, not to mention continue making, that we should cede Eurasia to Russian control. My knowledge of history before the 20th century is spotty but perhaps you could tell me when Russia in any political form has acted for the benefit of other nations? I suppose you can give them a little credit for their help in WWII but since they immediately followed that up with the subsumption of half of Europe and portions of Asia I’m not seeing that as a gold star on their record.
We certainly should return to our ideals of countering hostile nations for the benefit of the world, but I don’t see that as an argument in favor of getting into bed with Putin.
I’m not understanding what the counter-argument is here either, right now we have the situation that would otherwise seem absurd where Democrats and Republicans congress are in agreement that we have to maintain the pressure on Russia to pull out of Crimea and Ukraine, and there is skepticism concerning our cooperation with them in Syria, all without great public chest-beating and harangues, with the Republicans acting counter to the desires of the president of their party while they have control of both housed of congress, the executive branch, and virtually the judicial branch as well. So when and where did pursuit of an appeasement policy arise that is being voiced here? And what is argument in favor of it other than “Well, we’re not perfect either”?
No, that’s not the argument I was making. By all means, the US should act in its own national interests with respect to Russia.
But don’t try to make the argument that the US are automatically the good guys and have moral superiority over other nations.
As my response and AK84’s suggest, if you are trying to gain support of other nations for your policies, that kind of claim for American moral exceptionalism will be met with scepticism, to say the least.
Fair enough. If you say "The US national interest demands that we take action against Russia for the following reasons " and then give a list of reasons, people in other nations will likely pay attention.
But if you lead off with “The United States is a moral leader amongst nations and has never done the sort of thing Russia has done” you’ll get yawns and probably hostility from a large portion of the globe.
Which is the more effective argument, do you think?