India considers buying discounted Russian oil, commodities

Re:India considers buying discounted Russian oil, commodities by shantnutiwari on Monday March 14, 2022 @11:31AM (#30673589)

The "west" has never really aided with or aligned with India. In the 1971 war with Pakistan[0], when Pakistan was carrying out genocide in Bangladesh, America sent its warships to attack India. They only backed off when Russia sent its own warships. It's been almost 50 years, but India hasnt forgotten than incident, and it still, to this day, affects public opinion/policy.

In most diplomatic disputes, the Ussr (and later to some extent, Russia) sided with India, while USA sided with Pakistan.

Even though India has been a democracy, relationships with the USA (and most western nations) have been cool, at best.

>> wouldn't that come back to bite them potentially if China aggressed on India in a potentially parallel border dispute?

I doubt USA would do anything if China and India went to war; USA and India are sort of aligned in trying to contain China, but in itself this isnt a strong enough factor to counter all the other bad blood over the years.

It also doesnt help that the American political system is a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde-- one President can promise you anything, the next will completely overturn it. Trump tearing up Obama's Iran deal is an example (but this goes beyond just Trump). Most Asian/Arab countries know you can't trust America-- Obama betraying long term ally Mubarak (in Egypt) and throwing him to the wolves is another example.

Hate Russia all you want-- but the general feeling is: Your deals/relationships with Russia won't change every 4 years, and you can build long term plans.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971

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Re:India considers buying discounted Russian oil, commodities by mcv on Monday March 14, 2022 @11:46AM (#30673812)

> The "west" has never really aided with or aligned with India.

Maybe the "west" should.

We used to assume that every country will eventually become democratic, but recent years have shown there's quite a bit of pushback. But Russia and China would love to undermine the idea of democracy, and show it to be weak in ineffective. I think we've taken democracy for granted too much, and we should take it more seriously. Including supporting other democracies, when necessary.

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Re:India considers buying discounted Russian oil, commodities by WillPostForFood on Monday March 14, 2022 @12:04PM (#30674086)

The relationship has been slowly strengthening with India since the end of the cold war, and is now forming into real alliances. E.g.,

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/16/aukus-india-australia-u...

India is the largest democracy in the world by far, they should be a cornerstone of an alliance of democracies.

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Re:India considers buying discounted Russian oil, commodities by kavalg on Monday March 14, 2022 @12:58PM (#30674878)

Democracy is not ineffective by definition. It has been kept ineffective so that the ruling elite can do what they want. Should the voters have the right to immediately remove a politician from power (not by protest, but by direct voting) things will look very different. Now, politicians don't serve the electorate because they simply can can afford it. It doesn't have to be that way. It is just that because the feedback loop is slow/broken and people loose faith in democracy.

If that is fixed, next battle will be for your mind (I am looking at you mass media).

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Re:India considers buying discounted Russian oil, commodities by mcv on Monday March 14, 2022 @07:33PM (#30679940)

But the battle is already for your mind. Propaganda is turning out to be a pretty big threat to democracy. Look at the whole Trump and QAnon thing in the US, where media happily keep feeding people utter nonsense because it makes people want to hurt their political opponents. It's by far the most blatant example, but not remotely the only one.

Democracy is fantastic when you've got an informed electorate interested in the truth and in good governance, but it can get really messy when hit with tribalism, celebrity worship, conspiracy thinking, and an overdose of propaganda.

That said, it's still better than the alternatives, because it's ultimately self-correcting.

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Re:India considers buying discounted Russian oil, commodities by kavalg on Tuesday March 15, 2022 @08:59AM (#30684679)

Right, thanks for pointing this out. I forgot to mention the problems of scale. My answer to this would be that democracy shall be fixed on the smaller scale first (municipality, city etc) where people can feel the effects immediately (e.g. traffic jams, pollution, parking spaces, bueraucracy etc). Then hopefully people will get a taste of real democracy and will start choosing their leaders more carefully.

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