> convinced the USSR they couldn't win

i dont think they were convinced they couldn't win - they just realized their economic laggardness.

The remnants of the USSR is still trying to win!

For a real example of "they couldn't win", you'd have to look towards Japan. And is it such a bad thing to "not win"?

> The remnants of the USSR is still trying to win!

More like, the US broke a promise to the USSR of not expanding NATO, and Russia defended its interests and security.

Disclaimer, I have Putin as much as the other guy, but I also hate US imperialism and propaganda.

The United States never made any such promise, and doesn't have the unilateral ability to expand NATO in any case.

Russia is the best NATO recruiter in the world. Countries are actively applying to become NATO members, because they don't want to be puppets ruled entirely by the Moscow elite. Sure, American imperialism is awful, but for most countries that's a far better proposition, because it comes with way more democratic freedom and less strings. A country can leave NATO if they want to. A country can't cut ties with Russia without a war.

It doesn't seem to be working for RU though. Finland joined NATO and Sweden is going to because of their Ukraine shenanigans.

> the US broke a promise to the USSR of not expanding NATO

There is literally zero evidence of that, except claims by the Russian propaganda itself.

People who live in totalitarian countries (like Russia), seems to not understand that democracies don't do promises, because leaders changes frequently, and any promise without written agreement is just plain impossible except very short term.

So you are using an instance of internal russian lie and propaganda to "hate US imperialism and propaganda", and don't see it yourself.

There possibly was an "understanding" with the USSR not to expand eastward when the Soviet union was around but when the USSR dissolved that "promise" made no sense anymore.

National Security Archive at George Washington University:

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner

You're welcome.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...

All of your comments are suspiciously related to US foreign policy issues btw ;)

I want to see more countries join NATO. NATO is just a cool idea. Having the militaries from 31 countries all under one command structure. I genuinely would like to see them try.

I don't understand why people think this. NATO does not mandate a unified command structure. France pulled out in 1966. It didn't rejoin until the 21st century.

I just assumed that's one of the things NATO did. I haven't actually read the treaty. I probably should.

I don't get why this line is repeated so much. Verbal agreements and reassurances in the realm of foreign policy are essentially worthless, especially when you're dealing with democratically elected leaders. Unless you have a formal agreement the next president or prime minister has to abide by, there is no continuity.

This expansion argument also ignores that Eastern European countries are joining NATO of their own accord.

Btw Russia and the US also signed the Budapest memorandum to respect Ukraine's sovereignty.

But the president of the US doesn't have the power to make treaties with another nation. See the league of nations for an important example of that. So that treaty is also worthless when it comes to the US.

So if a verbal agreement is worthless & a treaty is worthless, how does one negotiate with the US?

I'm unsure how France's presidential system works and what authority he may have.

Calling invading a neighbor country "defending Russia's interests" sounds weird

When viewed from afar, war is just an extension of diplomacy. I am against any invasion whatsoever, but using any means necessary to ensure Ukraine does not join NATO (something that the US fought for), is indeed a defence of Russian interests.

> When viewed from afar, war is just an extension of diplomacy. I am against any invasion whatsoever, but using any means necessary to ensure Ukraine does not join NATO (something that the US fought for), is indeed a defence of Russian interests.

Russia already got multiple assurances that Ukraines NATO membership would be vetoed.

They clearly don't care about NATO or about defending Russian interests, this is plain and simple imperialism.

Living much closer than you do ... you are speaking of Russian interests, while you probably mean Russian imperial interests.

This is not a subtle difference. Japanese imperial interests led to a massively destructive war that wasn't really in the interest of the Japanese population. Same with Russia. Plenty of Buryats, Tuvans, Dagestanis and other peripheral nations of the Russian Federation died as cannon fodder for an imperial idea that doesn't even consider them equal to white Slavic Russians.

I would argue that it is in the best interests of Russia as such that their imperial dreams collapse and never arise again. Other nations managed to shake off that backward worldview. Russians can perhaps, too, one day.

You'd think they got something that important to them signed on paper in public. Instead of hidden backroom talk. START was public, Minsk was and so was Budapest. Why is just this one agreement not a real contract.

"promise of not expanding NATO" is an invention of Russian propaganda with no basis in any treaties, and even Gorbachev personally has admitted that no such promises were made.

SDI is not really comparable. The numbers for the orbital parameters did not add up at the time, but they had Edward Teller behind them.

We suffer real consequences in the form of inflation.

Inflation is not tied to military or NASA spending

It is indirectly when there’s a federal deficit.

I think this is very naive to the history of the soviet union at that time period, how gorbachev's new policies failed, how chernobyl effected everything, and how much of an internal failure this was. the usa likes to claim they ended the cold war and reagan did so by blah blah blah, however, the soviet union would have collapsed given gorbachev's policies failing no matter what the usa did.

God I wish we could go back and do 1991 again. Unfortunately time travel is impossible so I need to stop ruminating on it.

1999 my friend. That's when Boris Yeltsin gave up democracy to Putin. Think of the Russia that could have come from before that decision.

That was the Russia that invaded Chechnya and committed horrific atrocities, bordering on genocide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War

As terrible as that war was, I really don't think that compares to the changes that occurred post 1999, the freedoms that were lost, nor the casualties that are a direct responsibility of Putin.

> I think this is very naive to the history of the soviet union at that time period, how gorbachev's new policies failed, how chernobyl effected everything, and how much of an internal failure this was. the usa likes to claim they ended the cold war and reagan did so by blah blah blah, however, the soviet union would have collapsed given gorbachev's policies failing no matter what the usa did.

There's no contradiction. The argument is that Gorbachev felt the need to set those policies because he saw how much more successful the US was being economically.

I don't think the chinese are going to look at this and give up.

They're going to say "we can build our outpost on the moon for way less" and then they'll do it.