Comments by "LancesArmorStriking" (@LancesArmorStriking) on "NEW NATO COUNTRIES JUST DROPPED" video.
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That makes Russia no different from the US, then, and I only point this out to ask why, if "international law" is so colossally important to people, did the EU not sanction the US, or the Netherlands stop supplying ASML chips like it has for Russia, to force regime change and policy change.
Why the unequal treatment?
If the answer is "because they're too economically involved in everything", then the principles you're hating Russia for violating cannot be upheld anyway, so the question returns to, why risk it this time, but not in 2003 or 2011?
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@PWN3GE
No, it does, but in the absence of an alternative, it is the practical thing to do.
Russia has genuine security concerns about a US military presence right on its southern border. I could very easily see CIA agents training Chechen separatists to fracture Russia into more pieces.
Funny enough, that is how the 2nd Chechen War started, except it was Saudi Arabia doing the funding then.
So no, it's not "Russian paranoia".
However, just as Russia has genuine concerns, so does Georgia.
So what do we do?
Problem is, NATO is zero-sum. Either Georgia is in NATO, and Russia is unhappy, or it isn't and Georgia is unhappy.
I think I compromise could be reached, but the West seems to think that its way is the only way.
It refuses to compromise, and takes nothing less than full NATO membership as satisfactory.
In th face of that stubbornness, what is Russia (for its own self-interest) supposed to do? Roll over?
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@stormyprawn
I'm glad you agree, everyone seems to just deflect and call me a bot when I am clearly not. Would a bot have perfect English (or is that another sinister Russian plot?:)
I agree that violating sovereignty and warcrimes is a horrible thing to do, but I ultimately see the world in terms of likely outcomes.
We have already had decades of US hegemony, and they have abused that privilege greatly. They cannot be trusted to do the right thing of their own accord.
Essentially, we cannot condemn one and not the other--- partially because it's morally wrong, but also because it reinforces negative behavior.
If the US has genuine competitors- China, Russia, maybe someday India- it will need to treat countries better, or risk having them "fall" to other countries' influence.
Currently, Europe refusing to hold the US accountable for its crimes reinforces its bad behavior-- what incentive does it have to stop?
Additionally, Russia refusing to stop and pointing out the hypocrisy- however brual they themselves may be- is holding the US' reputation as a bargaining chip.
"If you claim to be against X, you need to apply it to everyone, your won government too".
If Europe and the US cannot do that, then Russia will simply keep reaping the benefits of the same actions the West does. And they cannot credibly tell Russia to stop without drawing attention to their own actions-- unless they stop, or retroactively pay for them.
So I don't personally see it as whataboutism, more like "ensuring impartiality".
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@stormyprawn
I certainly could say that, and I think there's plenty of evidence to support that.
I agree with your assessment here, and I have thought about this too: The only 2 "final" options for power politics are: hegemony, or not hegemony.
In other words, a single country controlling things, or a balance of power, as you said.
I would argue that we already did rather well, all things considered, with a balance of power in the nuclear age. Case in point: the Cold War. The mere fact that we're here is testament to the fact that it can be managed.
I also agree with you about the concept of interconnectedness, but your view of history here seems to be in a vacuum.
The "world order" was never truly reset, nor was it rebuilt from scratch. Europe still retained much of the international connection, industrial know-how, experience in statecraft, etc, that defined its own global domination in the 500 years prior.
America had also developed its own and left WWII unscathed.
So the idea that the economies of "the world" become so interconnected as to disincentivise war is missing the whole picture.
The rest of the world-- the newly freed European colonies, non-aligned countries-- had no such history of development and funneling resources and human capital into their own states for their benefit.
The "interconnection", in their case, just means Western global domination. Colonialism by another name.
Western companies and societies have so much more experience and time to make mistakes, come back from them, without a peer competitor completely absorbing them.
My point here? Russia got a similar treatment in the 1990s.
The aim of "shock therapy" may have been to transition Russia into capitalism, but it was so poorly done that-- while it did rope Russia into the West's financial institutions and companies (the reverse effect is being felt now)-- it also ruined Russia's prospects of developing on its own.
I can go into more detail if you like, but generally speaking:
mass privatization (eliminating a gov't budget),
opening up to Western companies, supporting Yeltsin and his "super-presidential" system (a weak democratic government to boot),
and rigging the 1996 elections to get him re-elected,
All made Russia unstable and weak, and very, very resentful of the West.
That decade essentially confirmed the Russian state's every fear about foreign occupation.
The centuries-old fight had been lost, and Russia was paying dearly- the economic impact was worse, comparatively speaking, than the Depression.
So while I think it's a nice sentiment to have, it will never be executed by the US. They would never intentionally help such a large country, a potential competitor.
China got lucky because Nixon worked with them to create an anti-Soviet alliance, and that let them slip through.
But otherwise? Unless the US can gain cheap labor or resources from a country, it will treat it as a threat.
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Time goes forwards, not backwards. You cannot expand NATO, provoke a reaction, and then say "see, this is exactly why we needed to expand NATO!"
Chomsky and many other have been clear on this:
you try to control any country, "put [leader] in his place!", you will get bad results.
Treating Russia like shit post-collapse was a recipe for resentment, continuing to surround it especially given its history of Western coalitions (Crimean War, Cold War) doing exactly that,
was always going to end badly.
Essentially, the West wanted unconditional surrender from Russia, bowing to their economic and political system in order to reconcile. Russia refused those terms, and here we are.
All could have been avoided with an independent, pan-European security architecture.
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