I remember when Romney was running for president, he kept saying that Russia was a big threat, and that we were underestimating them. At the time, I thought he was paranoid. Now, he almost seems prophetic.
Many Americans don't realize just how small Russia is in terms of the real numbers that matter. Their GDP is less than half of California's. (You can see why they've been funding Californian secessionist efforts - an independent California is a bigger threat to America than Russia is - but so far these have pitifully low traction amongst actual Californians.) Their population is less than half of the U.S, and is shrinking. Their military is a pale shadow of its Cold War size. Many people have this image of them as the second world superpower, which was always a bit of a mirage, but is doubly false after the breakup of the Soviet Union, which took away half their population and 25% of their land area.
There's a certain irony where most Americans think the biggest threat to American hegemony is either Russia, North Korea, or Islamic fundamentalism (the former two of which are bit players with outsize threats, and the latter of which has the organizational & technological sophistication of 200 years ago), while the real threats are either an ascendant China (4x the U.S. population, 60% the GDP and projected to overtake the U.S. by 2029, already the world's largest trading partner) or domestic disturbances that lead to the breakup of the U.S, much the same way the USSR broke up.
That's somewhat debatable, if you mean 'expansionist' like Russia would like to rebuild the USSR or a new Russian Empire.
What Russia is trying to do is ensure it has a strategic buffer zone between it and the West and friendly rulers and states on its borders, much like any state with Russia's military history would be interested in doing. Combined Russian/Soviet casualties in WW1 and WW2 were on the order of ~60mm people out ~160mm total.
Both NATO and the EU have progressively expanded towards the former Soviet bloc since the fall of the USSR. From the West's perspective, this is bringing liberal multiparty democracy and stability to an unstable Eastern Europe. But from Russia's perspective, why should it fully trust the West that was so recently its enemy, and when the attempted adoption of liberal democracy and capitalism in the 90s failed so spectacularly (Russia's GDP fell by a full 50% and life expectancy dropped by years [2]).
Not trying to shill or defend Russia's invasion of Crimea or Ukraine here, but if you just look at the map of a formerly hostile alliance moving steadily eastward and you were Russia, would you really just throw up your hands and say 'yes, that is how the world should be' and tacitly accept it? [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#Vilnius_Gr...
You say this is because of the failure of liberal democracy and capitalism but your citation says it was most likely caused by:
"rising poverty rates, unemployment, financial insecurity, and corruption"
Perhaps the Russian state should focus on addressing those issues instead of invading and trying to destabilise other countries.
> Not trying to shill or defend Russia's invasion of Crimea or Ukraine here, but if you just look at the map of a formerly hostile alliance moving steadily eastward and you were Russia, would you really just throw up your hands and say 'yes, that is how the world should be' and tacitly accept it?
Here you describe NATO as a hostile force but it's clear that the countries joining NATO were wise to do so as a defense against a hostile Russia.
The cause and the effect. 'hostile Russia' is a result of NATO expansion (among other things), not vice versa. From Russia's perspective it was not wise from NATO to accept those wise countries, expecially considering NATO had an aggrement with Russia on this part.
>Perhaps the Russian state should focus on addressing those issues instead of invading and trying to destabilise other countries.
Usually you have to deal with both internal and external issues at the same time.
Russia never stopped being hostile. They were hostile long before the existence of NATO.
Nothing about their behavior has fundamentally changed. Much like China with Tibet, Taiwan or Hong Kong, they believe that they have a right to the conquest and control of numerous free countries on their borders. Any excuse will do to justify the annexations, whether cultural great nation beliefs, or NATO, or inventing conflicts & slights, or pretending that they have to protect 'ethnic Russians.'
> The cause and the effect. 'hostile Russia' is a result of NATO expansion (among other things), not vice versa. From Russia's perspective it was not wise from NATO to accept those wise countries, expecially considering NATO had an aggrement with Russia on this part.
The argument that Russia is just defending itself against hostile expansion rather falls down when you count the number of countries that are members of NATO who have been the victim of Russian expansion (0) compared to the number that are not a member of NATO who have been the victim of aggression (more than 0). That rather implies that being a NATO member protects you from Russian invasion and explains the desire, for every country that can, to join NATO.
>> Perhaps the Russian state should focus on addressing those issues instead of invading and trying to destabilise other countries.
>Usually you have to deal with both internal and external issues at the same time.
Perhaps but Russia does not appear to be dealing with the internal issues which is my point.
I see no contradiction here. Yes, Russia won't attack a NATO member and yes Russia will attack non-NATO member if Russia thinks this is an appropriate action. What countries did Russia attacked before NATO decided to go back on their word and started their expasion?
Offence is the best defence.
>Perhaps but Russia does not appear to be dealing with the internal issues which is my point.
Corruption is high, yes, unemployment is pretty low. Some issues are being addressed better than the others surely. Things like corruption which is almost part of culture and inactivity of locals will take a long time to change.
Considering that St. Petersburg is now well within NATO's artillery range, I don't see how NATO is not hostile from Russia's perspective.
Finland has nothing to do it. My point was that it's not that difficult for Russians to consider NATO a hostile force even if the West calls it a defensive force. NATO already outguns Russia on many parameters. If there is a full-scale war and China supports NATO, then it's pretty much game for Russia.
Russians will be sensitive to what happens in their frontier regardless of who sits in the Kremlin, or which party dominates the Duma. They don't want to see an alien military alliance straddle their borderlands. That's the story. That's the WHOLE story. And it won't change even if Putin drops dead today, and Navalny is elected president tomorrow.
And all countries that bordered Russia don't want to see Russian military straddle their borderlands.
So... the obvious solution - counterbalance.
Oh, you mean when the oligarchs/mob bosses robbed the country blind and seized all power?
Yeah, that's totally the fault of the West, or some abstract notion of capitalism or democracy.
It's not debatable, Putin said in the recent press-conference that "they're lost Ukraine and other Soviet republics", effectively claiming other countries as "runaway" parts of Russia.
And as for NATO "expansion" - Russians can blame themselves for attacking Baltic states in 90s or messing things up in Moldova, trying to be a 'peacekeepers' there.
Actually, Soviet Union started WW2 together with Nazi Germany by signing Molotov–Ribbentrop pact [1] and annexing Estonia [2], Finland [3], Latvia [2], Lithuania [2], Poland [4] and Romania [5]. Quite a nice buffer zone there.
So now Russia (legal successor to the USSR) is considered a victim of WW2 and is afraid of invasion from the very same countries it has annexed by force before?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Baltic_state... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_occupation_of_Bessarabi...
It is just an excuse. If the country wants to invade another country, they will always find a good excuse. This is not only about Russia - take any recent war US took part in or any other war. Nobody wants to look evil.
Regarding NATO expansion, of course it serves the interests of USA but it can be also good for other countries. For example, the presence of NATO troops in Baltic countries helps them to stay independent and avoid repeating the situation that has happened in 1939 [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Baltic_state...
Any idea what will be the next excuse?
Ukraine didn't have NATO bases - and lost its territory. This is a reminder for other countries.
And after that Crimean people expressed that they don't like that by voting out of it.
Regarding referendum, it's results (95-96% vote for independence) are obviously falsified. There is nothing new: in 1938 Hitler also got 98-99% votes in occupied Austria [1]. Those 95% in Crimea as real as Hitler's.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Anschluss_referendum,...
Let's take a look at the ethnic groups in Crimea - 2014 census:
Russians - 65%
Ukrainians - 15%
Crimean Tatars - 11%
Please note that, of the 15% of Ukrainians living there, most (60%) speak Russian as their first language.
We may argue if the 97% referendum result was rigged or not - we may never know.
But based on the above numbers I think that the people in Crimea really prefer to be part of Russia - because they are Russian!
Europe in 1939 was a completely different place than it is today. To say that we need NATO because of something that is extremely unlikely to happen today is a weak excuse. Honestly if such a situation was to be repeated today I think there would be a lot more problems in Europe than just the Baltic countries.
Not that I am against NATO in any way, in fact I strongly believe that we do need a way to bridge different nations and my country has greatly benefited from the stability that NATO has brought to the area( with the annual tax paid to the American military-industrial complex for new weapon systems of course).
Imagine, for example, that California secedes (or more to the point, the northern California coast secedes). What would Seattle and Portland do? How about Vancouver? After all, Vancouver has far more in common culturally and historically with San Francisco than it does with, say, Nova Scotia.
And why would LA and San Diego join San Francisco's revolution? Their dominant culture has more in common with Tijuana. Part of the author's argument is how much sense it would make for what is currently northern Mexico and southwestern USA to break off and become an independent nation together.
The media does a great job perpetuating this illusion too. Even the more independent and supposedly "impartial" networks like NPR participate in propagating these minuscule issues. You hit the nail on head with your remarks on domestic disturbances though - the damage from that alone is severe.
It's one thing to see the future. It's totally different when you recognize a threat or a weakness, then actively exploit that very weakness for your own gain, or at least look the other way.
When Romney was so prophetic in his analysis, did he factor that his own party would be actively working with them to undermine American Influence over the world? Did he consider that, now that they are such a threat to America, that he himself would prioritize his political party over country?
I hate to be that guy, but from the perspective of large parts of the world, "American Influence" could well use some undermining.
The USA have played the game of meddling in other countries' internal affairs for over a century, from the very subtle (trade policies, tariffs, etc.) to the rather overt (invading a country and forcefully overthrowing their government). Now it turns out others can play that game, too. It's not as much fun being on the short end of that particular stick, now, is it?
Pardon me if I sound cynical, but that is like somebody who beats up their family on a regular basis decrying domestic violence when the wife begins learning Karate and strikes back for a change.
If the USA started treating other countries as sovereign nations instead of sorting them into the lackey/enemy buckets, the world might start to look a lot less threatening...
/rant
Can you at least recognize at least a little irony that group that typically advocates the loudest for swinging Uncle Sam's dick around whenever possible seem to be looking the other way when a foreign adversary is undermining our country and in the process diminishing our influence?
You know that guy that always yelling about America being number 1, wearing an American flag, living in the greatest and most powerful country in the world, complaining about the UN won't do everything the USA wants whenever it wants? Same person is at least ignoring, and more likely welcoming, Putin's help in getting Trump like GOP politicians elected. And in the process we have less sway with our allies in Europe. It's pretty extraordinary isn't it?
You do have a point there; it looks like something from a surreal political satire.
He did turn out to be right, but Im not sure how useful a Cold War mindset of guns and bombs rather than bits and propaganda really is in the 21st century.
That's why Russia didn't want Mitt Romney to become Trump's secretary of state:
"Weeks after Donald Trump was elected president, Russia-backed online “trolls” flooded social media to try to block Mitt Romney from securing a top job in the incoming administration, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows."[1]
"Putin’s former secretory, Igor Sechin counts Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s secretary of state, as a close personal friend, after the two men — during Tillerson’s time as Exxon Mobil CEO — struck a 2012 agreement that entailed investments by Exxon and Rosneft worth $500bn. When sanctions imposed on Sechin and Rosneft imperilled that deal and banned him from visiting the US, Russia’s response was to lament that he could no longer “ride the roads of the United States on motorcycles with Tillerson”."[2]
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-trolls-tried-to-torpedo...
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/dc7d48f8-1c13-11e8-aaca-4574d7dab...
"War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence"
I'm not saying it isn't, but WSJ and FT as sources? Really?
"How Russia won the World Cup" by the The Guardian[1] is a one of them.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/14/how-russia-won-...
put differently: all of the international relations theorism that has been dominant in the last 70 years says that for every inch they gain, we must lose an inch, and vice versa. you could substitute in several other parties like china and say the same thing. this is a good situation for everyone to be in.
the thing to remember is that there are many of these inches trading hands at all times. no major player is about to risk trying to grab a mile or inflicting any kind of serious blow that could be overtly attributed to them as an act warranting retribution. remember, for every effort the players make, it opens them up to opportunism by the others who aren't affected by that effort.
so, russia is, almost by definition, a threat. but that's business as usual, not cause for alarm. the threat is not an existential one, at present.
i'm also of the mind that romney's interpretation of russia being a threat was primarily military in nature rather than political. that interpretation -- implying russia could invade europe or something similar -- was ridiculous at the time, and has been proven false given the difficulty that russia has had in ukraine.
“One of” is a key phrase here, because...
> all of the international relations theorism that has been dominant in the last 70 years says that for every inch they gain, we must lose an inch, and vice versa.
...this is not true in a situation where Russia is one of our geopolitical rivals, only where they are sole meaningful rival. That arguably was the model of the early Cold War (prior to the significant split between China and Russia), but bilateral relations with Russia are not zero-sum when we have other geopolitical rivalries.
> no major player is about to risk trying to grab a mile or inflicting any kind of serious blow that could be overtly attributed to them as an act warranting retribution.
That's manifestly false; Russia has fairly brazenly conducted several such acts recently against members of the Western Alliance. (Particularly Brittain of a new objective and 8.)
> implying russia could invade europe or something similar
In what continent does one find Ukraine?
> was ridiculous at the time, and has been proven false given the difficulty that russia has had in ukraine.
You mean, was correct at the time and has been proven true by Russia's invasion of the Ukraine and conquest of significant portions thereof.
Earlier you accused Russia of meddling everywhere, just to pull Ukraine out of the hat.
Completely omitting that Ukraine didn't start with Crimea, it started on Euromaidan [0], with heavy involvement of "Yat's our man" [1] and even that was only the ultimate result of decades, and millions of US$, in "regime change" efforts [2].
That's the actual context of Ukraine and not "Russia having ambitions to invade all of Europe". The annexation of Crimea wasn't an offensive play, it was a desperate defensive play trying to hold to as much ground and, and military industrial infrastructure [3], as possible.
The way all of this is constantly omitted, in favor of the "Russia just went into aggressive expansionist mode" narrative, is pretty good evidence for how one-sided this whole topic has become in the public discourse.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
[1] http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners (Originally he was the face of the org, they later replaced him with his wife)
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
[3] https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-military-equipment/25...
As Ukraine was a part of USSR, there are people sympathising with the West and people sympathising with Russia. And when one part comes to power, other feels disappointed.
Russia uses this distrust in its propaganda to divide the society, spreading ideas like the Ukranian government is going to ban Russian language at public schools and sadly the government doesn't take steps to reassure Russian people in Ukraine. Russian is not an official language in Ukraine or in any of its regions (except the annexed ones).
Your point about annexation of Crimea is similar to what Russian propaganda says: if we didn't take a part of Ukraine then there would be new NATO bases (another excuse: "Crimea has always been our land and people living there are mostly Russian"). But it is nothing more than an excuse - you can justify anything this way. USSR earlier did similar things - in 1939 they annexed a part of Finland [1] using an excuse that the Leningrad city was too close too the border so they needed to push the border further.
It is like US foreign policy - they always have a good excuse to bomb some country and pretend to be the good guy saving people from a dictator.
It was a bit more complicated and chaotic than that, but you can't just brush aside US involvement as "inconsequential" like that because Euromaidan saw literal US Senators (McCain), and many other foreign nationals, interfere in the elections.
In times where every random Russian doing something remotely shady in the US is instantly connected to the Russian government as some kind of "professional agitator" this whole reasoning seems quite a bit hypocrite.
> It is like US foreign policy - they always have a good excuse to bomb some country and pretend to be the good guy saving people from a dictator.
It indeed is, that's why many people think the US is in no position to be hysterical about "election interference".
The cold war might have officially been over, but spheres of influence, and the mostly covert fight over them, still exist and persists to this day.
In that context, it's a bit like the US playing the game all the time and mostly winning, but as soon as Russia manages to win a round, the US starts complaining how evil Russia is for playing the game in the first place.
killing a dissident abroad isn't a major blow in any real terms. it grabs headlines, but nobody is willing to disrupt world order over a small number of people, so it isn't even a big risk. russia was not trying to kill whoever because they thought it would be a massive geopolitical gain in any event.
ukraine is an example of how they cannot invade. ukraine's military had extremely low levels of readiness, yet they still hold most of their country. remember, russia views ukraine as its backyard. ukraine was its puppet state for most of the post-soviet era. the idea that ukraine pulled away -- toward the US -- warranted a full court press, but they couldn't hack it. they lost ukraine to the US orbit despite their best efforts.
imagine what luck they'd have against a western european military, backed by the rest of NATO. it isn't anything they'd even consider attempting because they are not suicidal.
one of their last military readiness estimates found that their black sea fleet couldn't hold out for more than eight hours against the US in a war, and that's right in their back yard, far from core NATO territory.
i just really want to drive the point home here: the russian military did not even supply all of their army units with socks (!) until the end of 2013 (!). they used the same footwraps they had used for hundreds of years up through that point. their military is strong, but their ability to project force is nowhere near what it was during the soviet era for a plethora of reasons.
moldova may be up next for annexing, but that doesn't imply european security is threatened, nevermind US security.
I'm almost certain that the above is false, but perhaps you can cite something? Trade, as an easy example, is believed to benefit all participants. A rules-based international order and sufficient international institutions to support it, is believed to benefit all, just as the rule of law is necessary domestically. Specific rules such as human rights, including liberty, the outlawing of war (with exceptions), sovereignty, and others also are believed to benefit all. Those things are not only theory, but they have produced outstanding results: An era of peace and prosperity that is orders of magnitude beyond anything in human history.
There still are zero-sum situations, but that is what the rule of law is for, both domestically and internationally.
your point regarding trade is interesting, but it still falls within the zero-sum selfishness paradigm. trade implies a need which one party helps another to address, so it implies a reduction of autonomy, however small.
i agree that the formation of international institutions and a semblance of world order has allowed states to ease up on pushing every interaction to the limit as a result of the interactions being zero-sum. i also agree that human rights etc benefit the people of the world. i think we should have more systems like these, and we should force states to buy into them even more.
but these things are theoretically inconveniences for governments because they restrict their range of actions. their ability to preserve the power of the state may be threatened in some cases. like i said, thankfully, governments are starting to recognize that these tiny concessions of power can smooth over a lot of relationships with other states without causing any larger problems. yet they are still making concessions of their power.
to be clear, i do not enjoy the idea that international relations are zero sum or that realism is the only way for interstate relationships to be regulated.
it's just the model that most states run on when push comes to shove and their power is deeply threatened. but when conditions are very favorable, they can cover up the unsightly edges of the zero sum game.
Realism is just one school of international relations; based on my limited understanding, it's not the most prominent; constructivism may be (and there are others too).
> your point regarding trade is interesting, but it still falls within the zero-sum selfishness paradigm. trade implies a need which one party helps another to address, so it implies a reduction of autonomy, however small.
Trade implies that the parties each have a comparative advantage in a different area, which is always true.
> these things are theoretically inconveniences for governments because they restrict their range of actions
The logical inference from the quoted comment is that anarchy provides the most freedom of action, but clearly it does not; it greatly restricts action.
International institutions restrict countries' ranges of actions in some cases, and greatly expand them in more. Even the most powerful country, the United States, cannot make and enforce an international rule/law by itself; the United Nations can (though it doesn't always do it).
The weakness of international institutions greatly restricts action on many issues, from health to climate change to resolving Russia's invasion of parts of Ukraine, Syria's civil war, and human rights violations in China (to pick just a few examples of very many).
The Russian invasion of Ukraine should be counted as a success for Russia, rather than a failure; they wanted a buffer zone and have got it. They're operating under the logic that every inch they destroy is an inch the "West" has lost, the same logic that led to Napoleon's defeat.
Same goes for Syria. The goal is to keep the fire burning and refugees fleeing, to prevent the Middle East from stablising in a West-friendly state. Keeping Assad in power is beneficial but not critical to the overall pro-chaos project.
Some articles about refugees returning to Syria and who is even interested in that or rebuilding Syria.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-russia-syr...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-seeks-u-s-help-in-return...
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/return-of-...
The article [1] estimates the number of members of anti-governments on order of tens or hundreds thousands people. You cannot just hire 100 000 people out of nowhere and send then to Syria. Most of them are local people.
the russian invasion of ukraine was an attempt to salvage a geopolitical rout in which the US politically captured ukraine, an area under russia's dominion for roughly a hundred years.
the attempted salvaging has mostly failed; an overtly anti-kremlin government sits in ukraine.
importantly, they have retained the strategically critical hinge point of crimea (militarily one of the doors to control of eurasia), which was the most valuable piece of ground at risk in the entire debacle, independent of the political aspect. note that their access to crimea is now much weaker than it was before because of how close it is to a US-orbit government.
you will notice the difference in importance of the objective by seeing how they did not leave the invasion of crimea up to their proxy/"rebel" forces, which are currently in eastern ukraine. indeed, as soon as it was at risk of being out of their hands, the russian marines were in crimea in force, with only a minimal denial of the effort. the justification for it was invented later.
they were scrambling, and the rough edges of their plan were heavily showing.
the russians are not wantonly destructive. the refugees are indeed helpful for their global position, and they do want to prevent the middle east from entering the western orbit -- you will recall that the US has been cozying up to russia's major client state in the area, iran.
but they don't want chaos. they would prefer it if there were no chaos, at this point. chaos costs them money, increases the chances of them not being able to react to another crisis, and damages the stability of their client states. furthermore, trouble in the middle east ends up coming home to russia fairly frequently thanks to their longstanding conflict with the sunni muslims.
Surely all those countries were just one step from becoming best uncle Sam's friends before Russia came. Right.
You're assuming that "human prosperity" is the game being played, as opposed to "national power", which very much is zero-sum.
Nationalism is a choice, one embraced by the current U.S. administration (and others), but it's not the norm: Since WWII the U.S. has been the leading supporter of internationalism.