What makes you think so?
> That said, you also can’t deny the involvement of the US Department of state in those events.
Can you deny existence of life beyond our planet? Neither side can prove or disprove both statements.
> That is why there are “tensions” when your neighbor begins discussions of entering NATO with a bit of USDS help. NATO means (eventually) foreign military bases and tactical nukes within 100km of Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog. This is fundamentally unacceptable to Russia, which they have been saying again and again to everyone who would listen years before things turned ugly. It’s not personal, it’s a question of national security for them. The US would have done the same or worse if Russia got Mexico to enter a military alliance with it.
Yes. Sounds if any neighbor make any decision, which russia won't like it grantees that glorious russians soldiers will happily jump to fight US forces there.
> NATO means (eventually) foreign military bases and tactical nukes within 100km of Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog.
So now we have damn nukes in Crimea. Russia moved them closer to NATO countries. I guess they need entire Moldova to secure those missiles in Crimea.
> The US would have done the same or worse if Russia got Mexico to enter a military alliance with it
Cuba? It wasn't good for it, but not as bad as here.
Of course that's a ridiculous comparison given current tensions, but you're assuming that Russia and the USA / NATO somehow have to be enemies by definition and the rest of your argument follows from that. Why would a Russia-Mexico alliance need to be scary? Why would a USA-Ukraine alliance need to be scary? Hey, can't we have Entire-Northern-Hemisphere alliance?
Of course this is not currently realistic, and I'm not actually suggesting all our leaders just hug and be friends. But the only reason that I can see that things are like this is because just about everybody, all the policymakers as well as friendly internet commenters like yourselves, just assume it has to be like this. That makes it sort of a self-fulfilling cycle. Russia and America have a cold war because they have a cold war.
There are plenty of countries in NATO that are about as undemocratic as Russia, or less culturally similar to the founding NATO countries than Russia. If Turkey can be in NATO, why can't Russia? Renaming "NATO" should be the blocker, right. Momentum is the only reason that I can see why these two sides need to be sides.
Really, I don't see why we need to be enemies other than ego tripping politicians doing a penis size contest.
But I'm probably missing something.
And you should be worried if there are US nukes in you country. That means you’re now in other ICBM-capable countries’ targeting computers, likely for no other reason. When shit hits the fan you’re gonna get nuked. Congratulations.
Kissinger, seriously? I find it typical for neorealists to assume that if you're not also a neorealist, you "don't understand geopolitics". Cutthroat policy making for its own sake.
20M+ _Soviets_, not Russians.
And USSR started that war ON THE SAME SIDE as Hitler, so they can blame themselves for 'trust issues'.
USSR was never “on the same side” as Hitler. It was never a part of The Axis. Stalin was just hoping that capitalist swine would take each other out and then he would roll in and take over. Same as the US was hoping Hitler would fuck up Russia and much of Europe so they could roll in and take over. As far as the spoils of war, the real winner was the US. Britain gave up its last ambitions of being a naval superpower and handed over its navy bases to the US. The US was propelled to the superpower status with relatively little loss of life, and became the dominant industrial power as well. Weakened USSR was denied power in Western Europe. What’s not to like?
You can’t reason about geostrategic considerations in terms of moral high ground. Those dudes were dealing with a very dangerous and volatile situation, and the decisions they made were literally matters of life and death for their respective peoples.
That’s not to absolve anyone of guilt, but if you’re going to be an armchair quarterback, do yourself a favor and study history a bit more thoroughly. At that negotiating table any of us today would have made the exact same choice.
Your passive aggressive comments and your snide smug "look at me everyone, I'm so clever" childish put-downs; grow up. You actually managed to express a coherent and sensible opinion, and then blew it at the end; you just couldn't quite be an adult about it, and you transformed your whole comment from "rational discourse" to "petulant child".
Really? When they were parading captured Poland or conspiring to divide Europe - they were on different sides?
>Weakened USSR was denied power in Western Europe.
Not weakened, far from it. And it was denied _capturing_ Western Europe. Basically they were saved from horrors of soviet 'communism'.
Invading your neighbours is ok, if you'll just call it 'good relations'?
>That is why there are “tensions” when your neighbor begins discussions of entering NATO with a bit of USDS help.
Invading Ukraine was not a 'tension' and had nothing to do with NATO. Russia used another pretense.
Anyone who thinks America wouldn't do the same given the circumstances is mistaken. We're not the "good guys" in the world.
Why you people are repeating the nonsense?
It is irrelevant. Sane people should recognize that if Russia decides that any of its smaller neighbors are dangerous to Russia from Russia's point of view, Russia will smash those neighbors and absolutely no one is going to risk a fight with Russia to defend such neighbors. You may not like it. I may not like it. Anti-Russian faction of the US may not like but that is the world that we live in. Until this world changes ( and with time it will ) Russia's neighbors are better not do bidding of others who seek to "advance democracy" or do whatever the hell else they want to do which would antagonize Russia. It just won't end up well for those neighbors.
This already happened once. The year was 2008 and a not very much in touch with a real world, educated in the West, Georgia's President bought hook, line and sinker into senile assurances of McCain and other members of the "Democracy for the World!" cabal. Saakashvilli decided to smash what Russia considers its enclave in Georgia (that had a de-facto autonomy inside Georgia, had a very large Russian majority but none the less had as much effect on Georgia's government as a village of 200 in West Virginia that claims to be special an independent from Washington, DC has on those going to Jean George in NYC) during the opening days of the 2008 Olympic Games in China. Putin was at those games. The calculation was rather simple it seems - there was no way Russia would respond militarily. That would be a total PR disaster, right? Well, there's this famous Russian proverb "Гладко было на бумаге, да забыли про овраги" which loosely equivalent to "No plan survives reality". Russia refused to play by the PR war rules. Instead of letting Georgia have those enclaves, Putin sent Russian paratroopers to deal with a Georgian army. So instead of the opposite side being a loose band of self-defense forces, it was Russian rapid deployment detachments. Georgian attack was repelled, their supply lines were cut, forces inside the enclaves were smashed and by the day number three the regular Russian army was deployed to use an overwhelming force against Georgia. Saakashvilli went to ask for help from the US, which he absolutely expected to get, especially since Russians started exterminating his troops. McCain and other clowns mumbled something on TV but at the end calculation was simple - US was not going to go to war with Russia over Georgia.
The same happened with Ukraine. Russia has strategic interests and billions of dollars invested in the Crimea and its ports. One needed to be really naive not to realize how Russia would respond to an attempt to squeeze it out of Crimea. That should have been especially obvious in after seeing Russia's response to Georgia in 2008. Unfortunately, the smartest people in the room did not learn from Saakashvilli's mistakes, so Russia took Crimea. The US did not go to war with Russia over it because it is not the war the US could possibly win. At most it could have delivered some significant damage to Russia. That damage, however, would have paled compared to the damage Russia would have delivered to the NATO counties in Europe. So no one was going to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. No one would go to war with Russia over any other former Soviet Republics.
Luckily, contrary to the scare mongering peddled by some rather insane people, Russia does not really have any interest in starting war with those who don't threaten it.
Give it another 30 peaceful years and Russia would change, just like entire Eastern Europe would. Over a long term, Starbucks and Spotify are must more effective weapons than Apache helicopters, especially since those helicopters need to be shipped from the United States.
That said, you also can’t deny the involvement of the US Department of state in those events. The fundamental geostrategical priority for Russia is to maintain control (or at least good relations with, see Belarus) of the buffer regions around its densely populated regions. This stems from geography and topology: there are no mountains to protect the West of Russia from a land invasion. This is inviolable geostrategic principle that Russia, having learned the lessons of WW2, will just not let anyone touch.
That is why there are “tensions” when your neighbor begins discussions of entering NATO with a bit of USDS help. NATO means (eventually) foreign military bases and tactical nukes within 100km of Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog. This is fundamentally unacceptable to Russia, which they have been saying again and again to everyone who would listen years before things turned ugly. It’s not personal, it’s a question of national security for them. The US would have done the same or worse if Russia got Mexico to enter a military alliance with it.
Again, I sympathize, but I really can’t see how, given the progression of events, things could have turned any differently.