Russia is required to behave under first world standards when it comes to their commitments, but it's relegated to third world when it comes to participating in global leadership/trade.
I assume you're referring to being kicked out of the G7, trade sanctions, etc? They should perhaps consider not invading places all the time, sending people to view the wonderful Salisbury Cathedral, etc.
Like, Russia's exclusion isn't something that just happened; there was massive provocation.
EDIT: Ah, a timely news article. As a general rule, G7 nations aren't doing THIS: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54002880
We're kicking the US out of G7 next, then? Oh wait ... it's okay when we do it, right?
Really?
‘Amusingly,‘ Cuba has a US base and a rather antagonistic relationship. However, long term many countries like US bases because money flows in one direction from that base into the local economy. It’s the same reason so many bases exist across the US.
As a sidenote from a German: This is somewhat delicate and often talked about in German population. Not really happening in media, but I think everybody has his stance on this and some pros or cons. Anyway it's not easy for Germans.
Now Belgium has the NATO HQ, SHAPE and the 12,000 extra US solders, in addition to many thousands already present on its soil.
Edit: And so what if bases are easy to rebuild? I'm talking about the politics of the matter. The US didn't want to spend money on rebuilding the base, so they didn't. The decision had nothing to do with the Philippines government. Which is my whole point. The Philippines government couldn't have kicked the US bases out if they wanted to.
Or the next time American claims a chunk of Mexico or Canada for themselves.
Iraq was a huge mistake, but it is not the same as trying to seize land from your neighboring country.
So yes, I would absolutely expect countries to respond differently to the invasion of Ukraine than Iraq. Same as how countries have reacted quite differently to Russia’s behavior in Ukraine than in Syria.
>behavior in Ukraine than in Syria.
See, the thing is - Iraq and Ukraine were `invaded`. So you can actually compare the response from the other countries.
Syria is a very different story as Russia was invited there. So it is obvious why the reaction to Russian presence there is different.
Yet when the US 'enters' the scene - everything is different. In both cases.
And this is something people over here in Russia can't really understand. Why the hell bombing the hell out of Iraq was okay, but cutting off a small region in a relatively calm manner in Ukraine is not.
For all the flaws of the US invasion of Iraq, the US didn’t claim Iraq as US territory. Yes, we’ve maintained a military presence there, but that isn’t the same as putting up a US flag over the country and saying “this is ours now”.
It's a joke, of course, but I don't think it's really that different from what e.g. Turkey (with the US' blessing) does in Syria, Israel does in Palestine etc. I don't think either of them are really about territorial expansion as much as they are about security concerns. Russia is -quite understandable- not too trusting with regards to promises of peace, so they won't let a very high-value strategic location like Crimea (which hosts their black sea fleet) fall under NATO control, and they want a buffer in a kind of DMZ between themselves and NATO, which they had in Ukraine before Ukraine's strong man fell out of favor and the pro-Western movement gained power.
If they were after territorial expansion at any prices, they'd probably just pocket the Asian Ex-Soviet republics. Much larger gains including resources, not in Europe, ergo NATO does care much less.
Similarly, China's posture in the South China Sea can be explained in the same way. Building artificial fortified islands isn't an aggressive stance, it's defensive. They remember very well that the British did to them and they understand that the US isn't a friendly power and has every reason to want to limit China's power, as they massively profit from being the world's only global super power.
Where they would stop?
1) To rebuild the old USSR territory, he seems to consider ex soviet bloc countries to be wayward states, not independent countries.
2) To expand Russia so that the border it shares with NATO countries is narrower and anchored to a defensible barrier. To my (amateur) eyes, that would possibly be the Dnieper river, although other good choices might exist.
1 is largely ideological, 2 is based on the fact that Russia is facing both demographic collapse (particularly when you focus on ethnic Russians) and it has immense borders that are already very hard to garrison. Due to the layout of Europe, Putin could potentially drastically strengthen his western border with more territory, which might be imperative to do before the Russian population gets too small to garrison it’s current borders.
It's okay to invade a country as long as:
1. You do not claim its territory or its part as your own (but you can maintain a military presence there if you feel so)
2. You do claim its territory or its part as your own but only if kind people of the first world are bit too close to the territory in question
This begs for a simple question: will the US and EU lift their sanctions if Russia gives Crimea (and to Donbas regions) back while 'maintaining a military presence' there?
The equivalent of what Russia is doing in Ukraine would be if America annexed part of Mexico (again). It’s hard to imagine anything short of “we are giving the land back and pulling out” would calm nerves over a suddenly expansionist US. I imagine Canada in such a situation would be extremely jumpy for a long time, given their relative proximity, and “we gave it back but it’s still garrisoned by us” probably wouldn’t be good enough for them.
For actual equivalence, I think it would be much more fair to say that Russia can maintain a military presence in Syria, as that seems much more morally and geopolitically equivalent to what the US is doing in Saudi Arabia, and that denouncing Russian bases in Syria would be pretty hypocritical given what the US is also doing in the region. Although both countries should probably just stop what they’re doing in the region all together.
Texas (invaded by Americans and annexed)
Guam
Hawaii (USMC supported coup by European and American businessmen)
However people using it to justify Russia annexing Crimea in 2014 strains credulity.
Other than that, the US has been annexing little recently, but in history quite a bit.
Surely Russia is second world if we are to use the three-world model.
Because when given more civilized tools, they nonetheless alienate the world. They could have annexed Crimea peacefully, at least the part that they actually needed, but chose instead to engage in a semi-hot war while sending mixed signals with the referendum.
Then President Obama completely shut the door on them, which did not have the effect of changing their behaviour; this in Russia after all. What the Obama Administration did in response to the annexation of Crimea was close off most avenues of reconciliation; and the subsequent propaganda about President Trump has kept those avenues closed.
Crimea was annexed peacefully.