What’s your point? Mearshimer is also quoted a lot, but literally all they have are the same old tired Putin talking points. You can be a distinguished academic or expert in a particular field and still get things vastly wrong.
Cynically, reading his biography, the fact that he voted for Sanders then Gabbard, while being on the board of an AfD “think tank” says it all. The only thing in common with those is the Russia-favouring alignment. There’s a special strain of Russophiles in the US who can’t imagine Russia doing anything wrong.
That statement made me smile, because it’s obvious which world it is that we live in, no? I’m afraid that in this regard, we aren’t less primitive at all than previous centuries.
Nothing wrong in isolation. Heck, I thought he had the best platform of all the 2016 candidates, even though I disagreed with quite a fair bit of it.
It’s when you take it in the perspective of the totality, that you see that all his stances have one thing in common: Putin’s kleptocracy.
EDIT: To elaborate, it’s established that the Russian government tried to promote the perception that Clinton was “establishment”, and simultaneously, support Sanders’ campaign (as well as the American Green Party), to divide and split the vote so that Trump could win.
Gabbard was recently name-checked on Russian state TV as “one of ours”.
AfD is well-known to be sponsored in part by the Russian government.
All these big nations invading other countries and bombing the shit out of them are just hiding their brutal primitivity behind a thin veil of so-called noble historical and cultural reasons, when in truth, it’s always the ressources and influence they are looking for.
GW Bush and the horrible team of criminals around him showed the way in the post-cold war era, Putin logically followed suit. The next one invoking historical or cultural bullshit reasons to apply brutality on others will obviously be China. Oh hold on, they’ve already done that within their own frontiers, the cunts.
I do agree on this, and I’m still outraged that the United States has such a strong culture around the worshipping of their military, that the idea that those who commit war crimes should not be handed over to international courts is even a thing. All the more if you respect your military and believe they generally do the right thing, should they be held up to high standards.
Post- cold war engagements: US and allies in Iraq, mainly the EU in Lybia, the Russian wars in Chechenia and Georgia, the ongoing proxy-war in Syria. And now that clusterfuck in Ukraine.
All of these were / are officially ‘military actions for the greater good’ according to those who launched them. Fucking imperialists, the lot of them.
Yes, that’s the point I was agreeing with. I don’t concur with his attribution of the current situation to the failure to implement the Minsk accords for instance and his citing the 1962 Cuban crisis as a fair precedent is way off the mark and frankly a bit crass.
Right, I didn’t understand the “historical and cultural reasons” part.
I think for the most part there were legitimate “for the greater good” reasons in some of these invasions, e.g. Libya and Syria, but the Russian wars were really just about territory and resources. Not even going to touch the illegal and ill-thought out Iraq invasion. I would say the latter is a lot closer to the Russian shit than the Libyan and Syrian examples. I think prior to the wars two were already US client-states in a way?
I think ‘we’ in the west lent an almighty hand to Putin (eventually at least). I really don’t think he particularly has much to complain about there. Then again what do I know?
There really is no difference at all. Kadhafi never was the villain he generally was depicted as by the western media. The EU went to war against Lybia invoking the necessity to ‘liberate’ Lybia from a dictator, which was as fallacious as it gets. As a result, they transformed the country in total chaos, but still take the oil out of the Lybian ground. That for me is immoral, full stop. Nothing can justify such a tragedy.
Saddam Hussein was a criminal by all accounts, but the US took him out while talking a lot about democracy, religion and what not, when it was all about oil and ressources. Iraq will take decades to recover a part of its former economic status, if ever.
Putin is a horrible criminal and I’d be glad to see him sit in front of judges for his crimes, but GW Bush, Sarkozy and Cameron should sit right next to him, for the exact same reasons.
The US did a ton to engage with Medvedev. The issue was that Putin, as Prime Minister, revealed he was not going to let those new relationships take hold and moved to take overt control of the country back ASAP.
There is a strange thing with Putin where he acts way out of bounds repeatedly and just continues to have his clearly nonsense fabricated justifications laundered by people in the west treating his awful actions as everyone else’s fault but his. @anon27364116 earlier post sums up perfectly the riddle you get yourself into trying to work through the logic.
Timothy Snyder summarized Putin’s perspective pretty well in the Chris Hayes interview I cited in the podcast thread. He said that Putin’s view is to admit that everything they say is a lie. But at least they admit it. The west lies just as much but don’t admit it, therefore they are hypocrites and that makes Russia the good guys. And once you’re the good guy in your own story, everything you do is justified.
Where do you think the far right elements in Ukraine come from? Russia portrays them as long standing personality of the Ukrainian people pointing to actions in WWII, but that’s awful misrepresentation. The far right elements people point to in modern Ukraine are relatively new and largely a direct response to Russia’s actions since 2014. It is a natural response to having a colonizing power on your border openly stating that your country isnt real.
Didn’t the civil war start before any form of intervention from the EU? The way I’m reading it, admittedly off Wikipedia, is that the intervention was made on the basis of a UN resolution establishing and enforcing a no-fly zone, in order to protect civilians. This was after security forces fired on civilian crowds. You’re also missing the context of the Arab Spring in 2011.
In any case, I’m fairly certain that Gaddafi was already selling oil to “the West”, so the war changed nothing in that regard, except perhaps disrupting the supply of oil, which is counterproductive for what you state their aims to be.
Ironically, Obama’s stated aim was a multi-polar world, which runs counter to the narrative that the United States just wants to dominate a unipolar world.
Strange, sounds like some former President of the United States and his cult/party, but I can’t put my finger on who…
There is undoubtedly missteps by the west. But at the same time for as long as I remember Russia has actively undermined peace, and fallen on the wrong side of basic ethics. There is no more telling example of this than none of us are sure if Putin will use nukes ? Thats fucking nuts and sadly exactly how Russia likes it.
We damn the west for its wars in the Middle East, but no leader has been more successful at using war than Putin and Russia. A dozen or so wars since Soviet Union broke up. Take recent wars. Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 or in Syria since 2015. In Georgia they got humiliating political concessions, in Ukraine they annexed Crimea, in Syria they extended their influence and weaponised a migrant crisis towards the EU.
Look how Russia acts on the international stage. Again and again Russia has vetoed humanitarian issues. No other country vetos UN resolutions than Russia. Nato or the west is not to blame for Russia supporting dictators, tyrants or despots.
Russia talks about western aggression but if I am honest to me it’s incredibly restrained. Attacking foreign election processes, state sponsored hacking, killing and poisoning citizens, sending bombers and subs into airspace and waters. These are acts that could start a war. Most of the time it results in nothing more than a slap wrist. Still we buy their oil and gas, still we send athletes to tournaments they are awarded.
To say the US/Europe/Ukraine could have done more, is the equivalent of saying an abused wife could have done more to save a bad marriage. Both sides have done bad things. But how can you build bridges when reality is never accepted. There is no truth (dismay, distort, distract and dismiss) machiavellian relationship the norm. How can you form good relations when the other party creates 5 versions of the truth ? How can you solve the problems ? When bare faced lies are coupled with indignation.
Take this current war off the top of my head the reasons are
Denazification
Nato
Genocide
Terrorists
Rejection of homosexuality and other corrupting values”
Ukraine developing nuclear weapons
Ukraine developing bioweapons
to prevent attack on Russia
to ensure the will of the people
Ukraine is a false state
it’s not a war
it’s all staged
The west thought it could bring about change in Russia through trade. Truth is Russia is a police state, that likes to control its population and it serves those in charge to have the west as a common enemy. Putin cares about power and control which does not necessarily align with prosperity, peace and freedom.
It’s not being able to visit a part of Ukraine but being unable to grant autonomy to the Donbass region due to right wing elements in Ukraine.
The people protesting against the implementation of the Minsk agreements by the Zelenskyy administration.
Quoting from there
Few pleasantries were exchanged. In one dramatic dialogue, recorded by local TV networks, the president said the soldiers were taking him for a fool.
“You can’t issue me ultimatums,” he said. “I’m the president of this country. I am 42 years old. I’m no sucker. I came here to tell you to move your weapons away from the front line.”
By Monday, it was reported that units of Ukraine’s national army had disarmed the Azov soldiers involved – a breakthrough that apparently opened the door to the start of the coordinated pullback.
Listing only the wars/conflicts that Russia was involved.
Tajikistani Civil War - Fought between Russia and their allies against Al Qaida , Taliban from 92-97
Chechnya Conflict - Initial war from 94-96 which continues as a local conflict till 2017. This is more like India’s stance on Kashmir
Russia - Georgia War
Russia - Moldova War (1990-1992 , During the early days of the break up of the Soviet Union)
Russia - Ukraine War
Dagestani Conflict
I’m also including the fact that Russia sent support to Assad and Syria as a condemnation and an assistance in War. But these are the events that Russia were directly involved in (Most of which have to do with former Soviet states and issues between them.
Now compare that to US and Nato > “NATO countries have committed the crime of aggression, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Syria”.
The regime changes in US aggressions and regime-change attempts against Cuba, Dominical Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, the “extraordinary rendition” program, systematic torture and indefinite detention in Guantanamo Naval Base
You’d find a pattern. Most of the disputes that Russia has been involved in have been within their regions (Syria excluded) and against their neighbours. Whereas you’ve seen US starting wars in places like Iraq / Libya / Afghan (To some extent, Afghan was understandable but still a monster that US created).
I decry the excesses by the Russians in all of these. But , to say that
isn’t true. Not when the wars that Russia have started have been mostly along it’s own borders (Not that it’s excusable). But the US and their actions created bigger monsters and have been across the world.
I’m afraid that in this regard, we aren’t less primitive at all than previous centuries.