The world is definitely not bipolar, US's hegemony after the collapse of the USSR is quickly disappearing. China is the latest player to enter the game, but it's true that Europe is between the hammer and anvil and battered on all sides by the US, Russia and China.
More so than Britain, France, Austro-Hungary, Germany and so on meddled on European (and Russian) affairs?
Russia, for one, was twice invaded by European armies, with huge human toll.
Beyond that, Russia is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It was USSR that had a lot of power internationally (and that only because of WWII and its aftermath, it was quite unstable before that, and again after the 70s).
After that one mad dictator was faster than the other.
29 September 1938 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
23 August 1939 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
Then the Reich and Soviet Russia sat together cut Europe in halt. Stalin was by far the better strategist though, he talked to the French and English, waited until the Reich invaded Poland and then invaded Poland and the Baltic states second.
You must be very naive. I do not say that in an adversarial way, but because Russia always has been (and will likely continue to be) a major world power. It is the world's largest country, with a population of roughly one-hundred-fifty million. More importantly, Russia is, along with America, one of two potentially autarchic nations. They are the only two who can not only grow food but mine their own metal, drill their own oil, etc. without importing (at least, conceivably). Isolation would of course slow either significantly, but not halt.
Consider the pressure that was on the Soviet Union, consider the inherent instability of communism, and then reconsider how long it bore up under that pressure. Russia is and has always been remarkably stable under strong, authoritarian rule (i.e. Stalin, Ivan, etc.), and any nation in a similar situation would have collapsed much sooner.
Yeah, either that or well studied.
Russia is not a global player, it's a regional player. USSR only had global reach (e.g. to Latin America or Africa) through the communism ideology, and even that was little.
Economy wise, Russia's economy is smaller than Italy's or Canada's...
It just makes for a nice scapegoat (e.g. when losing elections), a nice Hollywood bad-guy store, and a hefty regional adversary (that sanctions etc try to constrain so that its regional influence dies and its assets are plundered by the highest bidders).
Well, any power with nukes doesn't want to use them and be obliterated in return. Their advantage is you can't be arbitrarily invaded and pushed over whenever some power feels like it when you have them...
It seems reasonable to classify a country as a regional power while still having nuclear weapons.
Just because you could wreck the world doesn't really mean that you can get anyone else to do what you want.
Most countries are powerful players, but the economic giants are in a class of their own.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
And that's even before talking about their influence in elections and paid diplomats that push for pro-Russian agenda.
In my home country Russian influence is very strong. Is not just cheap Twitter and Facebook tantrums. It's full scale invasion in every part of the government. They've been quite successful actually.
umm. how about those 'moderate rebels'?
pretty sure the US and its regional allies were the ones stirring the pot in the middle east since hussein/gaddafi/mubarak..
The reason Snowden had to quickly leave Hong Kong, in my opinion was that he learned that as soon as the US demanded that China hand him over, the Chinese government would have to comply or essentially run the risk their country falling apart.
In particular, the Chinese-speaking lands have been united under a single government for only 500 of the last 2500 years (and 300 of those years were under the Mongol yoke). When the Chinese-speaking lands have been fragmented, non-Chinese governments have been able to cause a lot of trouble by playing one Chinese-speaking polity against the other, so it is understandable that most rational Chinese people strongly prefer to prevent that from happening. The main thing preventing popular unrest in China at levels that risk bringing down the Chinese government has been the rapid rise in living standards and rise in the economic prospects of poor Chinese. That rise would've been impossible without the massive Chinese trade with large countries that are wealthy per capita. The Chinese would not have risked Chinese trade with the US over Snowden. (It turns out that they are now having to contend with a probable reduction in their ability to provide jobs internally through trade with the US anyways, for different reasons: even if the volume of trade returns to previous levels, the terms of that trade will be more favorable for providing blue-collar jobs in the US and less favorable for maximizing employment in China.)
No government on earth has as much ability to defy the US government or to inflict pain on the US as Russia does. (China might overtake it in that capacity in the future, but it is not close now IMO and in the opinion of professional strategists George Friedman and Peter Zeihan.)
North Vietnam was tiny in economic terms (even accounting for assistance by the Soviet Union and Communist China), but that didn't prevent them from conquering South Vietnam despite massive US efforts to stop them.
All the culture, the history in Russia is European. It is for sure more European than the USA is.
Russia became isolated because of communism. Now the USA wants to isolate it because it is not in the economic interest of the US, but certainly it is for Europe.
Europe is a small old continent with lots of people but lacking natural resources like oil. Russia is the biggest country in the world, with very few people and lots of resources.
If Europe continue dancing to the US tune, Russia will go closer to China.
do you seriously think this was a deliberate action?
if so, what would be the rationale and goal of doing it?
ps: why is noone blaming the airline for flying over a warzone? this to me is the real 'culprit' in that one..
I would say it is the other way around. The later led to thousands dead and millions displaced. On a net scale they are worse than Estonia, which threw 30+% of population into being stateless at the fall of Soviet Union.
Russia is also quite good at making 're-education' camps, and can be quite prickly when prodded.
Wish I could remember the name of it.
If anything, Russia is the one trapped between China, Europe, and the United States, as it tries to maintain its EE sphere of influence despite declining resources to do so successfully.
Russia’s economy is smaller than Italy’s.
If you look at how strongly the Russian influence has been on Kazakhstan very deeply into the personal life of citizens of a traditionally vastly different culture you'll be surprised how able the Russian state still is, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The same is still happening in Turkey, Syria and Iraq and Iran where Russia has pretty effectively replaced the US.
The very naive economic centric view is the same sort of logic people employed shortly before the collapse of the British empire. It's a very unreliable and short-termist metric.
The US empire collapsing is a different kettle of fish to this strange notion that Russia is a world power. Sure, Trump saying the US economy is strong isn't going to stave anything off that might happen geopolitically. But whatever happens it is unlikely that the world will be bowing and scraping to Russia in the way that China or America can demand. A huge economy is necessary to exert global power and be called a geopolitical pole.
This applies even if they do control Kazakhstan.
This again?
That's akin to complaining that New York has been meddling in North American affairs for hundreds of years. Please please remember that Russia is a transcontinental country, a significant part of Russia is distinctly European.
“European Russia is the western part of the Russian Federation, which is part of Eastern Europe. With a population of 110 million people, European Russia has about 77% of Russia's population, but covers less than 25% of Russia's territory. European Russia includes Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the two largest cities in Russia.”†
The distance from Helsinki in Finland to St. Petersburg is a mere 400km! The thing is, Russia is so large it is part of Europe but also borders China.
Think about Russian culture for a second: ballet, classical music, Russian literature, a Latin-like alphabet (more recognisable than the Greek alphabet when you think about it), architecture – all recognisably European. Does it need to be pointed out that "Europe" has attacked Russia many times (the Napoleonic wars, the Wehrmacht) and that Russia was on the Allied side of WWII, the last hot war fought between great powers.
Russia has been demonised for too long for choosing the wrong ideology (communism) and becoming the sole 20th century political/economic/nuclear rival to the USA under the guise of the Soviet Union. I recommend the biopic Meeting Gorbachev by Werner Herzog for a perspective on the collapse of the Soviet Union by the person at its helm at the time‡. If you still think "evil empire" after watching it then I don't know what to say.
If by European you mean Western European please use that qualification.
All of Europe including Russia (but also India and others) are watching with trepidation as this geopolitical struggle between the US and China plays out.
† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Russia
‡ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_Gorbachev
edit: add religion to the common heritage as well
Russia culturally and historically IS part of Europe, but that's where the similarities end. They're not part of European society and are most definitely an enemy to it.
If one defines 'European Society' as Bretton Woods + EU/EEC, then yes, you can make a case, although 'enemy' is likely debatable in strength.
If however one takes the view that EU is essentially the current incarnation of the 'western roman empire' then the discussion gets more interesting..
Russia is not an enemy of Europe, looks like Russia is returning to the Council of Europe: https://www.ft.com/content/dee5c792-9731-11e9-8cfb-30c211dcd... – It'd be a strange thing for a non-European country to be part of the Council of Europe.
I am not saying that there isn't a deep mistrust there and undeniably there is much friction and animosity. But Germany would hardly decide to construct an essential energy pipeline with an enemy, would it? In your mind you see Russia as an enemy of Europe but many people in Europe do not see Russia that way. Which group is correct? Maybe life isn't black and white and the truth is somewhere in the middle? There's a difference between being a geopolitical rival and an outright enemy.
It troubles me deeply that there is so much hostile speech on HackerNews for our brothers and sisters in Russia and China.
Is the British public meddling in the affairs of Europe by Brexiting the European Union?
I get that people use language like this but it only serves to drive a wedge between people that have more in common with each other than they do with people from outside Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Enlightenment
I wouldnt argue it in isolation, but among other things, having experienced a transformative enlightenment, is largely what we use to label a country as Western. Russia Westernized under Catherine the Great.
A relation to Russia doesn't mean a divorce from the US. But any way for a more secure Europe has to get Russia to the table.
And frankly, Americans should get some therapy for their issues with Russia. You cannot blame everything on age here...
> its showdown with China didn't spark from an ideological or military rivalry, but an economic one
An ideological conflict would at least be understandable. But the best way for everyone seems to be to push China through its current development phase. A strong and independent China could help everyone.