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Russia: Doomed or Not Doomed? Discuss.

sailordeac said:
Don't sell them short 923. Russia is a huge country with enormous natural and human resources.
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And a long, long history of failing to capitalize on them due to incompetent and corrupt government.

I'm sure Russia is not going to disappear from the face of the earth. I think the question is whether Putin will manage the fallout well enough to stay in power, get Yeltsinized and resign amid huge public pressure, face down an attempted Yeltsinization with dictatorial military force, or some uniquely Russian screwed up combination of all of the above. If oil prices stay depressed through 2015 I feel like something will have to change somehow. it's interesting to watch.
 
There are issues but the basics for greatness are there.

In the 1890s, Sergei Witte, a promoter of economic modernization, told Tsar Nicholas II, "In its economic relations to the world Russia is like a colony. But Russia is not a colony, it is a Great Power." Today, little has changed. This is the Russian paradox. How long will Russia sleep?
 
sailordeac said:
There are issues but the basics for greatness are there.

In the 1890s, Sergei Witte, a promoter of economic modernization, told Tsar Nicholas II, "In its economic relations to the world Russia is like a colony. But Russia is not a colony, it is a Great Power." Today, little has changed. This is the Russian paradox. How long will Russia sleep?
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If I'm hearing this right, then Russia is just like UNC football.
 
sailordeac said:
Well Panthers, yes it is true that the Brits, other Europeans, the Commies, and even representatives of good old Uncle Sam drew all kinds of lines on all kinds of maps and often quite arbitrarily divided historic, national, cultural, religious and language communities from each other and lumped some together with alien communities to suit their own momentary, whims, perceived national or economic interests, or ignorance. This has left a lot of not very satisfactory political boundaries around the world. These have been a source of conflicts and will continue to be a source of conflicts in the future. I don't know why this reality should surprise anyone, or what, if anything, rabbit holes have to do with it. Maybe you would care to try to explain to all of the people around the world, caught on the wrong side of borders, often through no fault of their own, why they should just shut up and endure the "wisdom" of outsiders?
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I don't disagree with anything you wrote, I'm just a realist. Does Chechnya get a country too?
 
P4nthers11 said:
I don't disagree with anything you wrote, I'm just a realist. Does Chechnya get a country too?
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Possibly. It seems to me that those minorities whose "kin" already have a majority in a neighboring state, or can get considerable help from outside the borders, are in a much stronger position eventually to get independence, or some sort of autonomy, than those who do not. I'll pass over the fact that we did not pay much mind to these realities when we got militarily involved in Vietnam and Iraq, and we paid a heavy price in many ways for both interventions without having a whole lot to show for it.

Back to the current case, Ukraine. As I said, here we have a conflict between two principles: democracy and the sanctity of existing borders. Which principle do you think is more important, or will ultimately triumph in this conflict? Ukraine's case is not helped by the fact that historically it's borders have shifted considerably. Nor are they helped by the fact that the West first created an nonsensical state - nonsensical from the perspective of national identity - in Yugoslavia, then proceeded to help dismantle it based the same national, religious and cultural divisions that it largely ignored when it created Yugoslavia in the first place. Indeed, during the dismantlement of Yugoslavia, linguistic, cultural, religious and national identities were important for the West, and now all of a sudden in Ukraine they are not?

The West may be able to do enormous damage to Russia's economy and stave off the reunification, or demands for autonomy, of Russians living in eastern Ukraine with their fellow Russians in the short run. But at what cost? Many European countries are already feeling the pinch in the pocketbook. The countries being economically damaged are often friends and allies of the US. Do we really want to create and nurture bad blood with our own allies in a quixotic effort to delay the inevitable? Or is this really being done - as a number of Europeans suspect - to further the business interests of a few large American energy firms and to create markets for them in eastern Europe and the Balkans?

Mr. Putin, of course, has not helped matters much by acting unilaterally and militarily to seize the Crimea and by aiding the malcontent Russians in eastern Ukraine with weapons and troops. In all this, which was/is basically illegal (if you believe in international law) - he was obviously led by Russian national security concerns. Both sides better find a way out quickly before the cost becomes much too high.
 
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Were kind of skipping over the fact that Ukraine was cleansed via famine two generations ago, and Russians were imported to take their land. Kind of an important fact.

I'd be fucking pissed too.
 
Oh, I don't blame the Ukrainians for fearing Russia. They have reason to. But those Russians are now there, and they didn't arrive yesterday. To tell you the truth, I don't know when they came, or if Ukraine's borders were simply adjusted at one time to include them. "Imported, you say?" If we applied this reasoning to, say, North America or the eastern end of the Mediterranean, we might get some thought-provoking results.

IIRC, Alexander Sozhenitsyn's Rebuilding Russia (1990) had some interesting things to say about Russia's historical, religious and cultural relationship with Ukraine. It should be mandatory reading for people in this administration and the State Department.
 
sailordeac said:
Possibly. It seems to me that those minorities whose "kin" already have a majority in a neighboring state, or can get considerable help from outside the borders, are in a much stronger position eventually to get independence, or some sort of autonomy, than those who do not. I'll pass over the fact that we did not pay much mind to these realities when we got militarily involved in Vietnam and Iraq, and we paid a heavy price in many ways for both interventions without having a whole lot to show for it.

Back to the current case, Ukraine. As I said, here we have a conflict between two principles: democracy and the sanctity of existing borders. Which principle do you think is more important, or will ultimately triumph in this conflict? Ukraine's case is not helped by the fact that historically it's borders have shifted considerably. Nor are they helped by the fact that the West first created an nonsensical state - nonsensical from the perspective of national identity - in Yugoslavia, then proceeded to help dismantle it based the same national, religious and cultural divisions that it largely ignored when it created Yugoslavia in the first place. Indeed, during the dismantlement of Yugoslavia, linguistic, cultural, religious and national identities were important for the West, and now all of a sudden in Ukraine they are not?

The West may be able to do enormous damage to Russia's economy and stave off the reunification, or demands for autonomy, of Russians living in eastern Ukraine with their fellow Russians in the short run. But at what cost? Many European countries are already feeling the pinch in the pocketbook. The countries being economically damaged are often friends and allies of the US. Do we really want to create and nurture bad blood with our own allies in a quixotic effort to delay the inevitable? Or is this really being done - as a number of Europeans suspect - to further the business interests of a few large American energy firms and to create markets for them in eastern Europe and the Balkans?

Mr. Putin, of course, has not helped matters much by acting unilaterally and militarily to seize the Crimea and by aiding the malcontent Russians in eastern Ukraine with weapons and troops. In all this, which was/is basically illegal (if you believe in international law) - he was obviously led by Russian national security concerns. Both sides better find a way out quickly before the cost becomes much too high.
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So when does Russia change its stance on Kosovo?

Again, I don't disagree with your overarching point, but it seems awfully rich to hear it coming from Russia.
 
Politics is about whose ox is being gored. But that does not mean that we cannot try to understand the respective strengths and weaknesses of both points of view. After all, if we don't, then how can we make reasonable choices.
 
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