> One could say that the same is true in the US, but I believe the degree matters. Although the US government and intelligence agencies will and do try to overreach, there is a strong legal and cultural tradition of exposing, resisting, and fighting these overreaches in the US. I don't see that in Russia.
> So, I would not be surprised to see the US strong-arming US companies, but they would do this with sham/flimsy legal cover. The result of non-compliance would be at worst asset seizure and/or imprisonment. Both of these can be examined and contested. I imagine that the penalty for non-compliance in the Russian system would max out at having an unfortunate accident. Gangsters all, but the level of gangsterism and possibilities for investigation/redress matter.
If you do genuinely believe that the US government is worse (or at least just as bad) as the Russian government when it comes to citizens' personal liberties, I'd be very curious to understand why you believe that to be the case.
Certainly I (as a US citizen living in the US) am biased, but I do believe I have a healthy level of criticism and skepticism of my own government, and yet I cannot see how we even come close to how bad the Russian government is.
If there was, it's been shut down (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_(society)#Intimidatio...).
For Russians, they really don't like anybody else. All that slavic closeness is crap as we can see in Ukraine and elsewhere. Heck, they don't care about other Russians neither, just a cannon fodder and poor fuckers to exploit and then throw away like garbage. They may very well like to see the entire world burn in nuclear hell if they don't get what they want, that's why current situation is really one of those moments in history when future is decided.
It would sure as hell help US image in entire world to actually backtrack a bit all those spying initiatives towards friendly, democratic and in all-important-US-aligned countries. Showing some respect with deeds and not just empty words and so on. I don't know how much that was/is visible from inside, but Trump made huge amount of damage to that, although to be fair he was just a continuation of overall trend.
It would help for the US to stop Predator attacks. Most of the world is convinced that they are illegal and illegitimate.
And as a French person, I preferred Trump, because he didn’t trigger any new war and he calmed down Little Rocket Man. He even shook his hand! And donated 100% of his salary to charities! Biden is back and the war is back: Bad negociation tactics, Hunter Biden shenanigans with billions transferred as a chairman of an oil company in Ukraine, female ministers of defense in all of Europe, focus on having transgender soldiers, so Putin believed we were weak and the field was open. The result is a war.
We could have avoided this war.
PS: I’m not saying female ministers of war are incompetent, I’m saying they make no-one afraid. It was way more frightening when Krouchtchev’s general responsible for the nuclear button was a crazy alcoholic: When you’re faced with an madlad, you take him seriously.
Why - Trump was extremely close to removing US from Nato in 2018, a moment Putin waited for decade and a half (how he knew about this is another story, let's say my opinion is really not favorable for Trump and tend to lean on US secret services conclusions on their cooperation). Only conservative hawks in his own government managed to steer him away from this tragic moment.
For any European not in bed with russian spying conglomerate that's an existential threat. We can see it now. Ukraine wouldn't have any significant arms deliveries and would be left to die and be enslaved again by Russia, with Trump cheering this as brilliant move (what he still actually did).
Russians would take over Baltic states, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary (although there is already pro-kremel person installed so not much work needed), possibly also Romania, Moldova, Czech Republic. Also that pesky Georgia, who do they think they are having their own state and democracy. Simply good old pre-1989 setup with good old soviet terror. That's maybe why you guys don't care so much about Ukraine, it seems too far and not your fight, car manufacturing in Russia seems more important. Considering what Putin actually says about whole Europe, you may be wrong this time.
But, seriously, if you remove "neighboring" from your statement (which seems to be not particularly relevant to a discussion of morality and respecting the sovereignty of other nations), I'm sure we can find plenty of bad examples perpetrated by the US, many of them much more recent than the Mexican-American War.
I remember the late Colin Powell brandishing proof of WMD in Iraq at the UN Counsel. He will never land in the TPI, neither will the UN Counsel for basing a judgment upon unverified allegation causing dozens of thousands of illegal killings by the US army.