By treating Russia as a pariah, we painted ourselves into a corner

[Fleetinglife]

4 hours ago, Ryan_047 said:

You don't enter a military alliance just because you want to, there are values and geopolitical standards which you need to adhere to.

Greece was admitted in NATO under a monarchy (monarcho-fascists the Titoites and Khruschevites called them) and later a Western propped up military junta that persecuted communists openly and killed communist students, Turkey also later became a military junta and did the same thing to communist activists and union leaders, and continues to do the same thing to a lesser extent though today to communists or former communists under Erdogan, hence the phenomenas like Hasan Piker today. It almost as if NATO was envisioned at the time to be an anti-communist barrier spreading alliance also. 

I have not doubt they would admit Pinochet's Chile or the military dictatorship in Brazil in the 1970s or 1980s, if they thought the communist movement phantom Soviet influenced from across the ocean and globe threat within it was large enough to influence those countries labor and student movements in order justify it, that they felt they needed to reinvent NATO Alliance expand admissions onto Latin American countries to deteer the Soviet or Soviet influenced socialists/communist movements threat in them. 

It is highly doubtful to me that at the year 2000. of the new millennium, when Putin became and was chosen president, after being a prime minister under the most to date US influenced Yeltsin re-election, that the US State Department thought that a fascist oligarchy that they couldn't put and out of principle admit in NATO, because it wasn't a a full pluralistic Western type democracy as of yet, at that time immediately emerged in Russia after Yeltsins departure, that same one, that after listening to the US advisors ordered tanks to  fire at the Russian parliament controlled by communists in the 1993s and kept extreme Russian nationalist organisations, like the National Bolsheviks, systematically from grabbing onto any semblance of real power. 

But hey, I could be wrong, maybe the CIA had some info back then on Putin that he would inevitably turn Russia into an already economic oligarchy controlled country into fascist oligarchy if they dare consider admitting Russia into NATO, and lose it's boogeyman potential for justifying hurriedly admitting other former Soviet controlled EE and close proximity EE countries on after the other on masse on that basis. 

 

Edited March 1, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[Gesundheit2]

The real question is: Who exactly treated Russia (and China) as a pariah? The answer is not as simple as America or "the west".

Pointing fingers at "the problem" is not enough. Who's/What's behind the problem? As well, why is the problem, in the first place?

[tsuki]

@Gesundheit2 Care to spill your point?

[Sucuk Ekmek]

There is so much hate for Putin. He is imagination...  What is his power in current decisions? Let's say he resigned will it make current situation better? 

[PurpleTree]

Just now, Sucuk Ekmek said:

There is so much hate for Putin. He is imagination...  What is his power in current decisions? Let's say he resigned will it make current situation better? 

not if medvedev becomes president or anyone from his circle

if they have free elections then probably imo

[ItsNick]

Here's a leaked article that was supposed to be published in Russia after succesfully invading Ukraine:

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/brave-new-world-of-putin-an-article-by-the-propaganda-publication-ria-novosti-which-was-to-be-published-after-the-occupation-of-ukraine/

Reading this should clarify Putin's motivations even more.

 

Of course the Ukrainian perspective matters and they are the ones suffering right now. And by how they are fighting, rather than welcoming Russia, it's obvious Ukraine cannot be "returned" to Russia as Putin might want.

[Sucuk Ekmek]

2 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

not if medvedev becomes president or anyone from his circle

if they have free elections then probably imo

I don't think that Russia can exist as a nation under a society which there are free elections. (For wolrdwide devolepment reasons) I also think the same for USA not fully but to a some degree.

[tsuki]

@ItsNick Thank you for sharing. That was a valuable find.

 

 

[BlueOak]

There is a flood of foreign fighters beginning to go. The recruitment clip is starting to go viral. Its by far the most viewed clip on the Ukrainian PR channel. I mean by a huge magnitude and its just gone from 70k to 140k in 5 minutes. I didn't expect this and by tomorrow I have no idea how many views it will have. I expected some people would go but I think this will be a surprise for everyone.

*170k since I typed this.

Edited March 1, 2022 by BlueOak

[Danioover9000]

@Scholar

3 hours ago, Scholar said:

I disagree, I think another leader with different dispositions would have not acted in the way Putin did. You have a very one-sided view of the world. The unique personalities and mind-sets of individuals, especially world leaders, have a tremendous impact on the trajectory of the world. Of course Putin was only elected because his people were on a certain level of consciousness, and this incident will serve well to show them their own limitations. But that doesn't mean that Putin has no responsibility nor that he is a prime cause for this conflict. A pure geopolitical analysis is not sufficient to explain state-action.

And I agree, the people of russia will have to suffer for this significantly, as they have allowed for Putin to exist for such a long time. They need to see the limitation of their level of consciousness, and sadly the situation demands for it to have happened that way.

 

I would not bring moralism into whether or not people will condemn Putin. Putin will be condemned and that will serve an essential function for the evolution of human-kind. It serves little good to just protect Putin for the sake of being "unbiased", as that itself constitutes a bias aswell. A bias that if we just follow unconsciously will lead to delusion aswell. This is one of the limitations of higher levels of consciousness.

   There's no disagreements, you are agreeing with me when it comes to various factors in a person's psychological development, their cognitive and moral development, their states of being and life experiences. If this was any other person besides Putin leading Russia, from the Kremlin or some other group, then you could say that the situation would be slightly different, but even here you would agree with me that it also depends on various psychological factors. Also, one's worldview, indoctrinated narratives and cultural beliefs play a huge role in shaping one's bias, so both of us could say that what led to Putin being Putin is the group and surrounding culture.

   We can demonize and condemn, but do so in a more self aware and conscious way, that does so without making us look worse than whoever we are demonizing. See? I think you mainly disagree about Hitler though, because to Hitler at the time, who was lost, what alternatives were out there for him? He wasn't aware of how to construct a better vision, but was supplied the vision he had, from those surrounding him.

[Danioover9000]

@tsuki

1 hour ago, tsuki said:

I'm looking for people to ally with so that I can defend the sovereignity of this thread.

We can sometimes raid other threads when they are too much fun, but we will first demonize them to convince ourselves (or the public) that our cause is right.

This will be the funniest thread in this forum, even if we have to shit all over it.

Who's with me?

   I'm open to it, but it depends on the nature of this alliance: is it mutually exclusive and beneficial? Do we take turns in leadership?

[tsuki]

@Danioover9000 If you start your own thread, I will rally to your aid whenever it gets too serious ?

[Danioover9000]

@Gesundheit2

43 minutes ago, Gesundheit2 said:

The real question is: Who exactly treated Russia (and China) as a pariah? The answer is not as simple as America or "the west".

Pointing fingers at "the problem" is not enough. Who's/What's behind the problem? As well, why is the problem, in the first place?

   What are you referring to? That aliens/reptilians? If so, that's really far reaching even for you.

   To me, it will mostly be because of the differences in terms of development, morally, cognitively, cultural value systems, collective consciously, psychographic and demographically, as well as various other factors like militarily, economically, narratively and other factors that make up a society and culture. 

[Gesundheit2]

11 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

There is a flood of foreign fighters beginning to go. The recruitment clip is starting to go viral. Its by far the most viewed clip on the Ukrainian PR channel. I mean by a huge magnitude and its just gone from 70k to 140k in 5 minutes. I didn't expect this and by tomorrow I have no idea how many views it will have. I expected some people would go but I think this will be a surprise for everyone.

*170k since I typed this.

1. Mostly propaganda exaggeration playing on emotions trying to get more people to join.
2. What's the point? As long as Russia controls the air, any number of infantry is going to be moot. In fact, the more the merrier so to speak. It only gives more reason and justification for heavy bombing.

[BlueOak]

1 minute ago, Gesundheit2 said:

1. Mostly propaganda exaggeration playing on emotions trying to get more people to join.
2. What's the point? As long as Russia controls the air, any number of infantry is going to be moot. In fact, the more the merrier so to speak. It only gives more reason and justification for heavy bombing.

Numbers I suppose. With all the weapons coming in from the same direction, with ex military now to use them, that airpower won't reach the west side of the country. Plenty of anti air and artillery going with them. If I had to guess, the channel has been pushed now for this reason. Previously when I saw it come up it was averaging about 3k - 4k in views, now that recruiting video is at 300,000 up from 70k when I first saw it a few minutes ago. I imagine tomorrow it may be at a million or more views.

If I was guessing strategy it would be to hold the west side of the country but we can't know what the strategy is.

[Danioover9000]

@tsuki

4 minutes ago, tsuki said:

@Danioover9000 If you start your own thread, I will rally to your aid whenever it gets too serious ?

   Deal 

[Fleetinglife]

5 hours ago, PurpleTree said:

Do you know how many German civilians were killed in WW2?

It's horrible but they had to be stopped imo.

It probably could have been done with far less collateral damage, that would have been much better.

At least Germany received the bulk of the American led then Marshall Plan (though to be fair Yugoslavia also received a small part of it, after it rejected the Soviet demands and control for decision-making in structuring it's post-war economy along the same lines the Soviet Union industrialised itself and which led to the Informbureau crisis and it's distancing from the Eastern /Warsaw pact Bloc and it's non-aligned status, though still promoting socialism/communism in other such countries, during the majority of the Cold War) and it and Japan received a lot of US investments priority in their economies in their already then dozen million people economies under the post war US/IMF/WB led Bretton Woods system for development, that they already recovered in a couple of years, West Germany surpassed it's pre-war peak Nazi Germany economy already in the mid to late 1950s and 1960s and Japan did so in the 1970s before after they achieved enough solid growth and development that model was scrapped and they transitioned to the neoliberal model to further enlarge, grow and develop their economies. 

FRY at that time or only Serbia later, as a the only country left, was almost eight to ten times smaller than those both countries economies in comparison at that comparative time and now even more a hundred dozen, got nothing even miniscule of sort of the scale of that aid package even adjusted for the scale and nature of it's own economy, instead it was treated almost in the same way militarily defeated as Nazi Germany, even after the deposition of Milosevich, and presented regionally as such and advertised as such to it's neighbours, after the horrors of the war start to surface and dawn to people, in order for them to quickly find away to distance themselves from her under any means and pretext possible, even cast away or reinvent/revision it's past historical and cultural ties with it, in order to avoid the bad PR of association with it, in the way the NATO bombing campaign was presented and framed to the international media and press, and top of all that instead of offering to the country something to try and integrate it into the EU and Western security architecture, it got wide-scale privatization and austerity in return in attempt to restructure it's whole economy from the scratch and remove almost all traces of state and public ownership of its major industries and economic enterprises from the socialist times and pack it up with several times the increased debt from loans it had to take in order to repair it's utterly wrecked economy from all the sanctions, wars and bombardment, under the neoliberalization reform programs, from the IMF than the Yugoslav times and then again got another blow and it's political isolation and instability  reinforcement move to it's EU/perhaps maybe even NATO membership prospects in the near future with the whole Kosovo thing, and it's unilateral recognition of its territorial and sovereign independence declaration after the 90's war in the mid/late 2000s. 

Basically, to sum it up, a relatively small, not very developed, modernised, culturally significant, important and industrialised country for and in Europe of some several million peoples at the same time got internationally hyped and treated and also in the regional political sphere as militarily defeated Nazi Germany with it's political isolation, bias towards it and condemnation with no significant or highly interested post-war effort to invest into restructuring it's economy, integrate into wider European markets and economies and in it's pacification culture in order for it not be longer or have a risk of becoming a regional threat again with it's greater power nationalism and at the same time economically treated, since it was for some reason lumped in together late in 2000 the same as an ex-communist Eastern Bloc countries completely economically wise in prescriptions for it's recovery and restructuring downplaying it's already pre-existing market socialist element which existed already to a degree in it's economy, with wide-scale privatization, austerity and loans as the economically and ideologically defeated Soviet Union, so what can one reasonably expect to get with that level of effort, concern and level of interest for and in a country? Well a very dangerous future cocktail not able to successfully transition into reforming without a major backclashes, set backs and regression and grabbing the first opportunity possible it gets to reinstate it's power internally and regionally whereever and whenever it gets the opportunity, after that downfall, decline and trauma from the 90's, fueled and supported by the revanchist, anomistic, nihilistic and irredentist feelings of it's own  average, ordinary impoverished working and/or regular middle class citizens that feel a sense of naive, yet honest national solidarity and duty in a relatively large to reasonable majority regarding and towards the transition from and to this post-war order, easily manipulable and put into use by the usual suspects bad faith opportunistic actors with presence, cred and influence gained from the previous wars trying now to rebrand themselves to be more palpatable to the general public and internationally but essentially holding onto a more revised, modified version of ideology they already had and believed from the war time and now seeking to use it more opportunistically, calculated and rationally given their experience of why they think, only on rational, mental terms not emotional ones, it previously failed and didn't work, not wanting to blame and admit their ideology itself for it, it is the only correct, selectively, favoritistically "historically proven true for the country, people or nation" and possible way to structure, guide and construct regional, interstate and international relationships, with of course they think in first their countries and people's as they see it and them putting them first, with their supposedly highest gain, priority and interest for them in mind, not a natural without a hitch successful attempt into a transition of a western style liberal parliamentary democracy that's for sure with all the massive corruption incentivised, initiated, resurfaced, going on floating in it's own economy and coming in from the 90's from and still in part in the present from Russian oligarchs and Belarusian state holders. 

Edited March 1, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[BlueOak]

@Gesundheit2
More to the point this is one end to this conflict an eastern and western ukraine, that doesn't mean 10 years of horror. 

Edited March 1, 2022 by BlueOak

[Ryan_047]

3 hours ago, tsuki said:

I'm looking for people to ally with so that I can defend the sovereignity of this thread.

We can sometimes raid other threads when they are too much fun, but we will first demonize them to convince ourselves (or the public) that our cause is right.

This will be the funniest thread in this forum, even if we have to shit all over it.

Who's with me?

And that's how egos act when they lose an argument. 

[Ar_Senses]

I just wanted to ask some advices and POV from the people on this forum (incuding @Leo Gura. @Nahm).

What would be your recommendations? Does anybody where in the situation that was similar in some ways? Should I pack my bags asap and leave?

Notice! That does not mean that I don't have my POV, authority and sovereign opinion. Don't waste your and my time on coaching me on things like "Why do you think you need our advice?" etc.

Thanks!)