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Comment by medo-bear | Hacker News Reader

I think it is worth asking questions from the Realpolitik [0] school. For example, what makes Russia objectively powerful in the international arena? Its military? Well, besides nukes and subs, not really. Its hold on natural resources like fresh water, energy, forests, etc? I think this is a far more interesting aspect. Even if Russia is run by the most human-rights-respecting government, what would it mean for the US to have a powerful independent Russia as a competitor in a world where necessary natural resources are becoming more and more scarce?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik

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Russia still operates like an empire; Moscow pulls wealth and troops in from its periphery to its centre. The people getting rich off Russian resources aren’t—to my knowledge—Siberian. They’re tIt is uniquely difficult to imagine “Russia is run by the most human-rights-respecting government” in its current configuration.

How does that answer the question posed?

> How does that answer the question posed?

It is difficult to see a stable, liberal Russian democracy that America can and should respect without either changing its borders or massively empowering its non-ethnic Russians and peripheral regions. That’s the sort of power and wealth transfer that usually takes civil war or unconditional surrender to achieve.

> massively empowering its non-ethnic [Anglo-American edit] and peripheral regions

Like in the US and UK and Australia and New Zealand and Canada?

EDIT: RESPONSE TO BELLOW

Over 14% of Texans live in poverty, and moreover, "twenty-three percent of all persons in the Texas-Mexico border counties are living under the Federal Poverty Line, and 25 percent of persons in the border counties lack health insurance." [0]

[0] https://www.dshs.texas.gov/hiv-std-program/hiv-dashboard/tex...

> Like in the US and UK and Australia and New Zealand and Canada?

On the peripheral front, absolutely. Texans and Alaskans are rich and powerful off their oil, and have the power to tell Washington to go screw itself in major respects. (Similar for Albertans.)

Ethnic tensions are more complex, and on this unexpectedly Putin represents the liberal front, but both American tribes and Canadian First Nations have more legal autonomy than e.g. Siberia. (Chechnya being an unfortunate model exception.)

In the end, China may succeed where America failed. Where America saw a potential democracy, Beijing sees a spigot of resources with a contained military with which Moscow cannot create trouble outside its own borders. That may be the least-worst solution for the time being.

EDIT: Yes, Texas isn’t a utopia. No, this isn’t evidence of Washington having an imperial relationship with Austin. There are disagreements, of course, but both sides can and do force the other to back down.

You might learn something if you read a bit about slavery, racism, civil rights, dispossesion and genocide of native people, stolen generations, zoos containing native African people, colonialism, even equal rights for women. It might surprise you that Russia and especially the USSR did none of those things. If you want to equate Russia to USSR then it is also worth pointing out that no country did more to promote national liberation movements of people oppressed by Western imperialism than the former USSR. Funny that without USSR and Leninist ideology about rights of nations to self determination there wouldn't even be countries like Ukraine

> It might surprise you that Russia and especially the USSR did none of those things.

I can remember no less than five different genocides in Russia just off the top of my head. As for civil rights, these are being rolled back at an amazing speed.

You might learn something

You might too, if you'd stop lashing out strangers like this.

It might surprise you that Russia and especially the USSR did none of those things.

Please -- don't bother. We all know exactly what went down in both the Tsarist and Soviet empires, and when.

I don't think you are remotely aware of the influence Soviet Union had on the anti-colonial struggle and the eventual existance of many countries [0] [1].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_national_liberation

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination

The emergence of some of the planet's most awful and long-lived dictatorships, you mean. Which completely betrayed the national liberation struggles from which they emerged.

I suggest you try visiting some of these countries sometime. Or at least talk a few people who actually grew up there. You might learn something.

So, for example, I grew up in a place that would never have gotten rid of Nazism had it not been for the Soviet Union. Sure we had a dictatorship afterwards and life was hard in a lot of ways, but it was nothing like what you were probably told and definitely an improvement on what was there before that system came

Nothing like what you were probably told

Hmm -- this really is quite a presumptuous (and basically highly obnoxious) attitude to take. But if you want to go on believing that people who don't echo the same set of coded beliefs as yourself -- do so because they are unread, have no direct knowledge of these countries, are brainwashed by the media or the education system or whatever -- that's up to you.

A place that would never have gotten rid of Nazism had it not been for the Soviet Union.

"Never" is rather doubtful, and bordering on science fiction (given what we know about unstable the Reich was in reality). The "hero" view of the Soviets' allegedly overwhelming contribution to overall war effort is also not something that follows from any balanced view of the historical record.

But what we do know from the historical record -- is that most of these places likely never would have been invaded in the first place, had Stalin not greenlighted Hitler's plans via a certain famous agreement in 1939.

> "Never" is rather doubtful, and bordering on science fiction (given what we know about unstable the Reich was in reality). The "hero" view of the Soviets' allegedly overwhelming contribution to overall war effort is also not something that follows from any balanced view of the historical record.

How about fighting 70% of the Wehrmacht. Read about the Eastern Front instead of just watching Saving Private Ryan :)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II)

> But what we do know from the historical record -- is that most of these places likely never would have been invaded in the first place, had Stalin not greenlighted Hitler's plans via a certain famous agreement in 1939.

What often doesn't get mentioned in history classes is that before the infamous Stalin-Hitler pact, USSR tried to obtain a military pact with the West and that the West prologned the signing of any such agreements. Some even say that the Western powers (UK especially) hoped that Hitler would only focus his effort to the East and in that way deal with the rise of worldwide communist movement.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/322...

Russia wanted West to approve it's greed to get additional territories. Only Hitler was ready to sign such agreements.

So Stalin went to Hitler. He was really mad guy, paranoid, former gangster.

> Russia wanted West to approve it's greed to get additional territories

USSR != Russia

> Only Hitler was ready to sign such agreements.

Im pretty sure Austrians, Czechs and Slovaks would disagree

> former gangster

Maybe he was just street smart :)

> Im pretty sure Austrians, Czechs and Slovaks would disagree

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement

USSR tried to obtain a military pact with the West and that the West prologned the signing of any such agreements.

Oh, boo-hoo. And (just as with its successor state today), its feelings were sooo hurt, it just had to steamroll over those decadent neighboring countries (that should have known better than to be situated on its doorstep anyway). And accidentally deport a good chunk of their population to a place with low survival rates. And accidentally dig those holes in the forest that 22,000 civilians and former military personnel just happened to fall into.

USSR was not the same as Russia

In terms of whose overall interests it was serving -- of course it was.

great comeback mate :)

US "poverty" doesn't look anything like global poverty. How many of that 14% in TX have access to a flushing toilet, clean water, food, shelter and a smartphone. Take all those people out of that 14% and willing to bet it's 1% and that's on the high side. They would be considered very well off in many regions on the planet.

lol ok

Most important, the US federal poverty level of $14.5k is 2.5x the Russian median income.

Also, the Russian poverty rate is 12%. The poverty level is $2200.

Good point. I have traveled all the way around this planet. I know what real poverty looks like and it doesn't look like anything going on in TX or the US period. I would gladly accept being in poverty in the US compared to those places. I would be jumping for joy to be honest. Just living here you hit the jackpot.

Im pretty sure it is much better to be poor in a country with a functioning social safety net

> I would be jumping for joy to be honest. Just living here you hit the jackpot.

Lol. Keep this comming please

The Commonwealth of Independent States, thats what it looks like.

https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/CIS-map.htm

Even scarier for Americans and their Chinese debt-holders, what would a world be like with Russia and Europe united sufficiently well, economically and otherwise, that Schengen could extend from Brussels to Anadyr ..

This would create an economic super-bloc that even China could not confront.

I think that is the real threat to American hegemony: Europe and Russia, getting along. It'd be awesome, but not so much in Washington DC ..

Well Putin has destroyed this possibility for the next ~30 years. (Also the majority of Russians, who supported an invasion against an independent country and millions of its people.)

If Putin is taken out by his own people, it could happen sooner ..

I don't think that Russia invading Ukraine was in the air, Russian people were requiring it, it made any geopolitical sense etc. I think it happened because of Putin. But this is just an uneducated guess, I am not really involved in the topic.

The subject of the genocide of Russian-speaking Ukrainians is not one that most Westerners are prepared to confront. Well, we hardly are willing to discuss our own participation in genocide (Yemen), so that's hardly surprising.

But rest assured, Russians have been concerned about it for years. It is a thing for them. They know what our armed forces have been doing, even if we don't ..

> what makes Russia objectively powerful in the international arena?

Could it just be inertia of thinking from the Cold War? The USSR was known to be powerful, and Russia is kinda the USSR, so it's assumed Russia has to be kinda powerful.

It's going to be interesting to observe how will Russian standing in the world change, now that the war is revealing that the Tsar has no clothes.

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