Myth 16: ‘What comes after Putin must be better than Putin’

> Myth 03: ‘Russia was promised that NATO would not enlarge’

> This particular myth argues that the West deceived Russia by reneging on its promises at the end of the Cold War not to enlarge NATO

then further down

> Its chief lament was that several leaders of NATO countries in early 1990 had ruled out the possibility of NATO enlargement, and that the West had misled Russia. As Russia’s former foreign minister, Yevgeny Primakov, noted later with regret, there was no legal force to the statements by Western leaders even though, in his view, legally based commitments would have been possible at the time.

So it sounds like the myth is no myth and promises were made, but there were no legal guarantees given instead? Am I misunderstanding something?

This article is wonderful and it changed my mind about Russia.

Before reading it, I was convinced that Russia was indeed behaving similarly to the USA (in Yugoslavia, Cuba, Iraq etc). But it seems I was ignoring a lot of differences that I should not have.

I had also been blaming the West for not engaging (diplomatically) enough with Russia prior to the start of aggressions (not only with the recent attacks on the whole of Ukraine, but since the Krimea annexation) as it was basically ignoring any kind of argument from the Russians, pushing them to the edge and, in their minds, leaving nothing left to do but launch military attacks to be taken seriously.

But this article makes very strong points showing that this was not the case. Russia has been quite aggressive the whole time (with Putin and without him) since the end of the USSR and does not seem at all to have anything in common with the West, or want to arrive at any sort of agreement.

This sentence, specifically, hit me hard:

"Western policymakers, politicians and populations need to be constantly reminded not only that the people who run Russia are not like them, do not like them and do not wish to be like them, but also that there are good reasons why attempts to find common ground with Russia consistently fail."

It makes the prospects for a peaceful resolution of this conflict (as of writing, representatives of both sides are meeting in Belarus to try to arrive at a peaceful solution to this) very, very bleak indeed. Well, I do hope they are wrong, how wonderful would be if they could arrive at some compromise to immediately end this brutal war.

Nobody knows what is after Putin, though we have educated guesses they could be wrong.

Regardless I want to attempt to deal fairly with each one and hopefully bring Russia a better world. (My view of a better world, which is roughly western, but may not be yours).

To be honest I have more hope for Africa, there are a lot of countries and several are making useful steps in the right direction to encourage. It will be interesting to see how west meets Africa works out.

This point is quite telling:

“Anti-Western sentiment, though by no means universal, has been inflamed by Putin and has taken a firm hold in the hearts and minds of many Russian citizens – including, depending on the particular topic in question, among young people.

“This is not going to change after Putin’s departure, in part because Russian society also suffers from a post-imperial syndrome characterized by a state of deep resentment towards the West, which to Russian eyes neither allows the country to remain a superpower nor has provided it with a decent place within the international system.”

This might give some context to why many Russians seem to support this war. It seems more persuasive than the idea that they have all just been gulled by propaganda.

Title should be "Myths and misconceptions in the debate on Russia"

The Soviet Union before the wall fell was brought to its knees through economic mismanagement. Putin was a stable entity until a few years ago. Sure he made unfortunate choices and policy decisions that probably cost Russia a lot in terms of economic development. But as a whole the country had economic growth and some notion of stability and wealth. That's why he was so popular.

I think it's safe to say that most of that progress is now undone and Russia is close to being back on its knees begging for access to international markets with very little else to offer than violence, vodka, and gas/oil. The only problem with that is that the rest of the world just learned that depending on Russia for gas/oil is not such a great idea.

Rebuilding that trust is going to take a few things; it's not a given that Russia will sell a lot of gas to Europe in the next years. Putin simply isn't the right person to rebuilt that trust given that he just made this issue very personal. He's now the primary obstacle between some very pissed off oligarchs and access to their money.

A little Kremlin coup is nothing unusual. It's an old tradition there. Just ask Gorbachev. All it takes is a few generals deciding their orders suck and that they'd rather take them from somebody else. I hear Navalny is available. Perfect guy for it given he's best buddies with several European leaders and he'd probably be able to restore some normality pretty swiftly. All that takes is a few of his recently locked out their accounts billionaire buddies to pool together and make it happen. Whether it is Navalny or someone else doesn't matter. All they need is somebody that is less of a liability than Putin currently is. Putin has burned a lot of bridges lately and quite a few domestically in the last few years. Lots of powerful people with grudges.

Possibly that's why Putin is so paranoid right now: they really are after him. They have been for years. Recent events are not helping him.

For whoever takes him down, it will.

I found this op-ed in RT to be reasonable and insightful [1]. It argues that a unitary global power is less sustainable than a harmonious (my word) global system that integrates diverse centers of power. I tend to agree on principle and note that this is not a proposed myth. However, it is unclear what policies would enable this kind of ruling diversity without war. It probably means allowing for some degree of authoritarianism, communism, religious extremism and other unpalatable systems. It may even mean allowing for regional armed conflicts of some kind—but a line must certainly be drawn to avoid wars of aggression between powerful nation states.

https://www.rt.com/russia/550873-ukraine-action-end-era/

[1] not saying I agree with its entirety.

I'm not quite sure what the context/purpose of this text... but it reads like debating notes. Each "myth" is essentially a russian grievance, debating point used by Russian apologists or Western critique of "NATO policy."

Below each myth is what reads like a suggested retort. Some are reasonable. Some are very weak.

The retort to (myth 13) - "liberaliaation & privatisation were bad for Russia" is literally: "radical policies of the early 90s did not cause economic failures of the late 90s" followed by a neoliberal version of "real communism has never been tried."

Chatham House is generally reasonable, but their hand-waving away of the criminal Iraq war in Myth 1 is rather glib. Neither the US nor British government have any moral standing to criticize Russia. But "The West" is more than just those two nations.

Saying the UNSC did not criticize the Iraq War is technically true, but neither did it criticize the Russian invasion of Ukraine, since then as now one of the interested parties is the aggressor.

I mean. Maybe?

But that's kind of a problem for the future. Right now, given what's happening at the moment and what's been happening in the decades leading up to it, he has to go.

You can only cope with so much realpolitik and cynical thinking before you eventually catch your reflection in a mirror and have to fight your gag reflex.

Sure, some people are immune to that, but as a society on average not everyone will be, and it takes a surprisingly few people to start a reaction.

The minds of the people might not be aligned with this in Russia, according to the article, and it might be very much the case, but if the external pressure of the current financial and political shunning lasts for more than a few weeks something will have to give.

And EU won't feel a countercrunch due to energy restrictions until next winter (yeah sure there will be disruptions to industry but whatever). The people of EU are very much aligned with this mindset as of now, and they won't need to suffer for it until winter in their daily life.

> We are an independent policy institute

https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us

Sure you are. Who funds you?

google maps tells me that this organisation is on St James's Square, not Tufton Street, but how much distance is that, really?