Senate Russia: its impact on the world, its invasion of Ukraine, and its future

Thank you.

 

I've basically got 3 email accounts registered to get around the paywall.

 

What's going on with Russia is very strange because on the one hand it's leader/government is showing the sort of nationalist aggression you would expect from a country that's really rising in it's ascendancy and through it's Might is about to become a major player on the world stage...

But on the other hand it's a country that seems to be going into decline at a very fast rate. Life expectancy rates terrible. Most of the male adult population drunks. Birth rates going down. Very poor standards of health care. Large areas of poverty, with a few mega rick oligarchs at the top...

Maybe it's because the country is in such a desperate state that Putin is acting so aggressively - So the Russian's can forget their country is a hell hole and their lives are a misery?

I think good old Winston said it best about Russia in 1939:

"A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma"

Russia remains as strange and mystifying as ever...

 

The ruling class trying to distract the populace from internal problems with external threats (as well as targeting minorities) isn't a new thing and it's not unique to Russia.

This is a general question not directed at you in particular, G-FETT, but why-- when Russia holds up a mirror in front of us with their antics-- do we in the West always treat them as somehow fundamentally different than us? It's been our way of dealing with the Slavic giant to the east for centuries and it's tiresome.

 

That's too "deep" for me to answer, LOL!

 

It's straightforward and not an attempt to be deep.

 

Sanctions to be further increased on Russia:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28551391

 

really? not even going to touch that one?

 

It's just Darth Guy being outraged about something but from the comfort of his armchair. Slacktivism's not that motivating a force that one should respond to it

 

Come on.

He was responding to the idiotic notion that one country trying to destabilize a hostile regime in order to maintain its traditional sphere of influence is "strange and mystifying." Do you want to explain to us how anyone's intellect could be challenged by that very straightforward sequence of events? Because otherwise Even's criticism is dead on, and you just look like an apologist for anti-Slavic sentiment by pretending its not.

 

Sanction them enough and they will go to war.

 

They already are at war.

Unless you mean at war with the United States. That's not going to happen over sanctions.

 

no, of course i don't mean with the united states.

I'm just saying, if you weaken their economy enough through sanctions, they will expand territorially. they're not going to capitulate.

 

And who are they going to invade? They've already annexed Crimea and become involved in eastern Ukraine.

 

Not too many places left for them to go. They could try and re-establish the old Soviet Union by force, but the West will no doubt send weapons to any sovereign nation they directly invade.

And they won't touch the Baltics, which are now part of NATO. Putin will go as far as he dares, but when it comes to risking a direct East-West confrontation, I don't think he'll come up against the nuclear line (which always rears its ugly head whenever the risk of a US/Russian conflict arises).

One scenario I do wonder about is whether or not Russia might get more aggressive in the waters between Cuba and Florida. Now THAT would be risky.

Peace,

V-03

 

I don't see Russia trying to re-establish the Soviet Union. The Russian Communist party is marginalized; Putin and his conservatives have no plans for creating a centralized command economy.

 

I'm not inclined to think that Putin's crazy. As for why he speaks fondly of the USSR, it's because it was a time when Russia was the #2 nation in the world in terms of power (or even #1 at times depending on who you ask). What Putin wants is Russia to be a great power again.

Putin's going to be disappointed.

 

I don't think it will happen, but what exactly would we do in a situation where Russia invades or bombs one of the Baltic states? I honestly think NATO has become a paper tiger and wouldn't do much to respond. Maybe send in some "peacekeepers" to observe, after arguing for months if it actually happened or if they need to plan a committee to plan a commission to investigate if it actually happened.

 

Indeed. Nor is this really unique to him. Zionist rhetoric praises King Ahab (husband of Jezebel), as a strong, effective, autonomous Jewish leader, even though the prophets of the Torah say explicitly that he was one of the most unrepentantly evil rulers in their entire history. In trying to build a national narrative for the moment, people often wholly repurpose things and rip them away from their original context. The same thing is happening when Putin talks about the USSR.

 

ive contracted nyashamania

 

Guys we have a problem. Russia is going to stop buying our vegetables.

 

Vladimir Putin's new Anti-Americanism, from the New Yorker.

 

That's a nice analysis. Thanks for sharing.

 

Alas, a war between NATO and Russia is inevitable.

EU has clearly expressed a desire to offer membership to Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine; Russia takes premise to further eastward growth of the European Union. Especially since most her former Soviet states wish to join NATO, too, to protect themselves from Russia.

Many commentators have made the comparison to the Second World War, but this is more or less similar to the build up of the First.