Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "Why Russia Miscalculated in Ukraine: A Self-Inflicted Disaster in Three Acts" video.

  1. I think the real miscalculation from Putin is that he really thought the west would do little because they did little when Russia took over Crimea. The truth is, the west have seen Putin playing games for a decade, Crimea was a warning shot that didn't wake up the west, Ukraine was the shot that woke the west up and it's easy to understand why, history has shown that if the west didn't react a lot stronger here and Putin was able to take over Ukraine, it's unlikely Putin was going to stop with Ukraine and there were rumbles about Albania being next, then there is the political situation and the message it sends to China on Taiwan. The west knew that if they did nothing on Ukraine, it would send a powerful message that the west talks a good show but is actually weak and many authoritarian governments would likely take advantage of that, especially China when it comes to Taiwan. The west had to respond and a lot tougher than they normally would to give pause to other authoritarian governments around the world, basically, the west is doing all this to stabilize the world system with the main aim of weakening Russia and isolating them long term, basically, the price of what Putin tried to do is going to be so costly to Russia over the coming years that it will make others like China think twice about trying to same thing with Taiwan. There is another factor that these authoritarian governments don't seem to understand, they look at western democracies as being chaotic and not organized whiles authoritarian systems being run like a well oiled machine, which couldn't be further from the truth if they tried, the truth is, western open democracies are so successful, because they allow the freedom of expression, speech at more or less all levels without the fear of the government striking them down for saying something the government doesn't like, that freedom is what keeps governments on their toes, keeps them on the edge, especially at election times, governments being accountable to the public and the media makes a massive difference in the effectiveness of a nation and not just the government, it's almost across the entire scale of the economy and that openness is a massive advantage democracies have over other systems, even if it does look chaotic at times. Contrast that with countries like Russia or China that the public are scared of what they say about the government, advisors to the government are scared of what they say to the leader so they tell them what they want to hear and not what is, that is a major disadvantage to these countries because the government deludes its self on its own hype and lies and to make things worse, they don't allow the creative freedoms of the public to get creative with new ideas, hence why the west dominants in almost all areas when it comes to new tech and ideas. The irony is, we are seeing something like that happening in China, it had a good run under the last government which was making progress in opening up and had massive economic growth for decades, now we have the current government that trying it's best to reverse a lot of that, the impact of that isn't sudden but we might be seeing early sign of it strangling the economy, it boggles my mind how these countries don't learn from the west in how to build a successful economy which is to allow the people the creative freedoms to do what they want and to not live in fear of the government, basically, what Russia, China and other governments like that want, power isn't compatible with how those countries are run, too centralized with fear and not taking advantage of the talent that is there with the people like the west does. Anyway, the moral of the story is, never surround yourself with yes men that tell you what you want to hear and not what is, Putin is finding that out the hard way and it's very likely the same is true is China, when people are fearful of telling you the truth, they will lie and systems like Russia and China that are built on that, well you can only imagine how bad it can be where even the government probably doesn't know much about it's own system because of the web of lies lol.
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