It was a mistake to write off the Russians: Neil MacFarlane takes a long view
ox.ac.uk
ox.ac.uk
This is often repeated and might sound strange from a Western perspective. However, from a Russian perspective it makes perfect sense.
The Russian Empire suffered losses during WWI but survived as the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union suffered heavy human losses during WWII but emerged as a superpower with greatly increased status and influence.
When the Soviet Union collapsed Russia lost pretty much everything and this was clearly a low point over hundreds of years for them.
Using logic like this the collapse of the Tsarist Empire was clearly a much bigger disaster.
To take a current example, in 1922 Ukraine was a Soviet Republic. They lost it in 1991. Hence the situation today.
This is usually quoted in relation to one of Putin's speeches, and is generally interpreted out of context. What Putin was referring to in that speech was the humanitarian problem of millions of Russians finding themselves residing outside "their country" when the USSR dissolved. That said, I think most people would consider certain holocausts to be greater disasters.
Neil MacFarlane had an article on the Ukraine situation in 2014.[1] He seems to agree with John Mearsheimer about bungled diplomacy.
[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00396338.2014.92...
There is always potential for that landmass and its vast resources to be stewarded well
The Soviet Union was the closest attempt of that, being able to create similar but parallel advances as the non-communist regime, but ultimately was not able to continue for predictable reasons
I can see how that perspective is worth while to consider
Present-day Russia is still an empire, with ethnic Russians ruling over a host of minorities [1]. Those minorities feature prominently in Russia’s mineral-rich corridors. They are far more scarce at, say, the KGB or Kremlin.
I think you would find it interesting to read about the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk, where the Russians lost about as much as they've "lost" now. Hadn't it been for the other Entente powers after the war, it would have been a done deal already then.
No, it's just a meme. Which is now speedily propelling them to yet another collapse.
Russia lost pretty much everything.
It was never theirs to begin with.
I would only agree that the 1990s were an unprecedented low point from the viewpoint of national pride via the prism of nationalism, given the losses in territory and influence that Russia had. Which explains why Putin thinks it's the single biggest disaster - he's a fascist and ultranationalist. Such people care about national pride and empire above all else.
It's worth looking at the map, the Russian Federation as it is today is huge.
A lot of the territory and it's peoples are underdeveloped and economically depressed. So much could be done there.
I spent a few hours watching Girkin's (aka Strelkov) channel on VK. The man is the unofficial mouthpiece of the hawks faction in the government. It is pure nationalistic empire building.
This is not just about territorial loss. In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's fall, during the transition to a market economy, the oligarchs basically looted all of Russia's wealth by taking control of the old Soviet SOEs. It was a truly terrible time for a lot of ordinary people.
And Putin is the one who brought the oligarchs under control. So it's natural that he and much of the Russian people see him as the strong man who can pull Russia out of the 90s disaster and restore Russia to the glory it deserves. That's part of the mindset driving the present war, I think
Glory is off course in the eye of beholder and the desire to be glorious is definitely at the root of this war.
Those who forget it, die or go to prison.
Russia kept a lot of territory, including important sites where natural resources are mined. But they lost a lot of industrial capability. Not just in the former USSR, but in the former client states east of the Iron Curtain when they went their own way.
Places like the GDR and Czechoslovakia punched well above their weight when it came to economic functionality of the Soviet sphere. So did the Baltic states and Ukraine in USSR proper. For example, the only dock suitable for building really big warships like aircraft carriers is located in Mikolayiv, Ukraine. Needless to say that it won't be accepting Russian orders anytime soon.
Is there a word, theory, law or something that describe this phenomenon, where the contrarian view ( so to speak ) only gets published when the worst really did happen.
We told you Russian will Invade.
We told you Crypto wasn't sustainable.
Or may be some day, We told you China will invade.
Or in terms of tech, We told you TSMC will overtake Intel. ( That was in 2013/2014, most of HN didn't even know what TSMC was )
And only when shit hits the fan will you get "Here is a professor who have been stating this since x ".
I don't disagree with your observations or that we have a hear no evil problem, but I'm a contrarian by nature, so I guess I'm being contrarian about contrarianism.
You can find books, popular newspaper articles, etc that predicted the housing crash and some that even predicted the 07-08 timeline.
2022 video about changing world order: https://youtu.be/xguam0TKMw8
1997 article about leveraging worker insecurity to keep people in jobs: https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/27/business/job-insecurity-o...
Accurate predictions are all over because human society is intentional, and physical reality has constraints. I predict you will die of dehydration if you stop drinking fluids.
Many things are certain despite all the uncertainty we feel.
The main reason why nobody uses nukes or why are there no direct wars between world powers anymore is nuclear proliferation. I might be wrong and we might have had 80 years of relative peace without them but looking at human history up to and including WW2 that does not seem likely..
Mainly because Americans just aren’t they kind of people. Had the opportunity, actually, after Japan surrendered and the US could have went to war with the USSR and built and used more atomic weapons but it didn’t. It has had ample opportunity and actual generals in the military during war time who advocated for their use and they still weren’t used again.
I sympathize with the OP (though I don’t think the US being the only one with nuclear weapons would make a difference) because proliferation has largely fallen into the hands of bad actors and as they continue to proliferate it effectively locks their awful governments in power.
The Soviet program to make nuclear weapons didn't get really serious until we demonstrated they could work in Japan, and their equivalent of our Trinity test took another four years.
But even if you go that route, would you say the same of a US under Trump?
It’s less of an argument and more of an observation. The people of the US simply aren’t the kind of people to do what the OP suggests.
> But even if you go that route, would you say the same of a US under Trump?
Considering nothing really changed under Trump besides the 24/7 news cycle going into hyperdrive and him continually saying dumb and annoying things, yes. There was no real difference under Trump than Obama (my favorite president so far during my voting life, for example.
The other problem here is you’re just taking arbitrary snapshots in time. Are the British good people? How about the French? They created Napoleon after all. Norwegians? Hundreds of years of raising and enslaving people. Russians? They’re only just now removed from the worst of the worst human atrocities under Stalin. The Dutch? Hello it’s The Congo. Japan? China? Brasil?
So you can be honest and look from a historical perspective, or I’m just going to say everyone is pretty bad and we are no better or worse than anyone else.
While "nuke half the world" is a bit of obvious hyperbole, I think it is a mistake to write off the risks of the US as the sole nuclear power. It's not that Americans are particularly evil or good, but that unrestricted power is dangerous.
There is a reason our constitution is designed to avoid placing too much power in anyone's hands. Unmitigated power is a risk and un-mitigated American nuclear power definitely increases the risk that it will used.
The more interesting topic is if it was globally worth trading that risk for the risk of global annihilation.
That is probably the closest to the truth. People in power will do things because they can and they are trying to extract the resources as much as they can.
US has been in war pretty much all its history (except for 17 years)[0]
It is nice to think we are different, but both history and political studies disagree. I think you want to be blinded by this because the war is not happening on US soil (not after WW2). In the recent times, it is the US who has been the aggressor.
[0] - https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/usa-only-1...
I know. I was in the United States Army :). I’m very much anti-war and I don’t like the excursions we’ve made across the globe. On the other hand, maybe we should leave NATO and stop putting ourselves and our values in a position where they can come under attack? These two things go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other.
Anyway, my point wasn’t that the US doesn’t do bad or dumb things. It’s that I do not accept singling out America here when someone is claiming we would literally drop nuclear bombs on half of the world if only those pesky Russians and Chinese didn’t have nukes too. It’s especially irritating when the United States has had that opportunity and rejected it, meanwhile regimes in both China and Russia in the nuclear age have killed millions of their own citizens. And moreso, historically many countries that we would talk about here have been far worse actors on the global stage. Personally, the past is the past. But if you (not you specifically) are going to single out the US it just doesn’t sit well with me.
BTW, on NATO, the only country that has invoked article 5 (for mutual protection) is US for the war on Afghanistan. All of these might not be news to you.
I am very confused in the role US should play on the world stage. I think the optimism and the aspiration of "can do anything" is very positive. However, I look at the US as it has turned out now and I feel depressed. I feel we have lost our compassion and humanity while being focused on building moats and walls.
The people of the US are going to ban abortion despite knowing that this will kill women.
Pull the other one, it has bells on.
You probably mean Belgium? I’m not sure if you’re aware but the US occupations of Haiti and the Philippines were pretty bad. Based on what the US did during The Banana Wars and the Indian wars, yes you’re exactly that kind of people.
And what does that even mean? The Germans weren’t that kind of people either (and some might argue to an actually bigger degree, unlike the Americans they didn’t at all seemed to be interested in subjugating foreign people until WW1/2) until they were…
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America
- "And the other thing is with the terrorists, you have to take out their families" - Trump
> - "And the other thing is with the terrorists, you have to take out their families" - Trump
Who cares? Should I go dig up a quote by some French politician and then suggest they are the kind of people that would “nuke half the world” too? You can make better arguments, though unlikely on this topic.
Isn't this kind of a dangerous sentiment, which precludes rational thought? I remember people stating the same sentiment about, say, the American people electing Trump.
I'm not entirely convinced the 'kind' of people is relevant when a government makes a decision to go to war. And once it's in swing, you have no choice but to believe it's a just war, because your country isn't the kind of people to start an unjust one.
Here’s a proposal:
Convince me that the Norwegians, Vietnamese, or Chileans are the kind of people that would nuke half the world (as put forth in the OP regarding America and nuclear proliferation), and then I’d be open to seriously entertaining an argument that the same is true of the United States.
If the point here is to single out the US as a country and people that would nuke half the world if nobody else had nuclear weapons, I’m sorry but you might as well be trying to convince me that cows are made of lettuce. The premise is almost never starting from an honest place.
> I'm not entirely convinced the 'kind' of people is relevant when a government makes a decision to go to war.
Then why are we suggesting anything about the United States as though is unique here? Would New Zealand nuke half the world if they had nuclear weapons first and stopped proliferation? If your answer is no than your “kind of people” point is rather peculiar because what you’re really saying here is “we’re all the same” but under the same breath you are suggesting that the people of America aren’t because they’d, as the OP put it, nuke half the world. It’s especially peculiar because the United States has effectively held that option in the past, not used it even though it would have made strategic sense, and has fired multiple generals and military personnel during active conflicts who have suggested we should use nuclear weapons at all.
So by your own admission, the only thing that's prevented the use of nuclear weapons in the past is a certain military structure enforced by people who, unlike you, believe that there is a possibility.
Incidentally, I don't think the Norwegians are special, any country or group of people will deploy nukes if they have means, opportunity, and the right political climate. Vigilance, not wishful thinking in the form of "we would never", is the only barrier to that.
If given the choice between sending thousands of young Americans to die in a foreign country fighting communism and using nuclear weapons to force their opponents to submit do you really believe Americans would have always made the first choice?
For instance do you really think US wouldn’t have used nuclear weapons during the Korean if there was no real threat of escalation?
The US illegally invaded Iraq, overthrew democratic governments all over the world, etc. Why wouldn't anybody think that the US would have gone further if it had the means? Sure, they wouldn't have nuked half the world, they would just threaten it.
> I’d never be convinced otherwise.
Well, then this is a moot reply anyway.
Whatever happens there always be an excuse that the general public will eat up: propaganda would find a reason for further nukes like they found for the first one. Mutual assured destruction is the real reason that stops the lizards who control US military from deploying nukes.
You know, given the advances in AI/drones, etc the believe in MAD might weaken so you may possibly witness nukes yourself (and likely approve their deployment for "reasons").
This is sadly true, plus it also means that any nuclear capable country can invade a non nuclear capable one and mostly get away with it.