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That's the whole point, it wouldn't. Not in the Russia as it is today. It's not 140 millions of people under the magic spell of a single Volde-Putin. It's a country whose moral fiber is by now profoundly rotten and corrupt. That's what allows Putin and his henchmen to thrive. Changing the names wouldn't help anymore (maybe if it happened 20 years ago, it could, but not today).
I'm struggling to find a way to push this conversation in a productive direction, we're pitting my gut instinct about the relative corruption of each society against yours, with no to externally verify or disprove either.
But I just don't see where you're coming from. I conceded the "different names on the doors" thing, because, sure if you purge every psycho all the way from the President's office to your local high school, and replace them with half-decent people, sure things might end up just being mostly the same, but better. Same thing applies to Russia, although you seem to think they're all vile subhuman orcs. My issue is that you won't be able to get rid of the sociopaths from the western establishment by forcing them to tell the truth. Much like Putin wouldn't stop the invasion of Ukraine if he couldn't lie, instead of droning on about denazifiaction or special military operations, he'd probably just say "they're getting a bit too close to the west, if we're going to stop them, it's now or never". The same way, western elites wouldn't just quietly resign, they'd just tell you the truth, and if you didn't like it, they'd clamp down on dissent even harder.
No, I think they are vile humans, who behave like a bunch of orcs. And the web of lies they live in enables and helps them to behave that way. To be sure, not everybody in Russia is like that - but enough to form a stable majority on which dictators like Putin can thrive.
No, if he didn't lie, he'd say "we've got too many problems in Russia, mostly caused by me and my people being a bunch of thieving criminals who are quite bad at managing a country, and we need something to make you idiots stop asking questions and look at me like your savior. Or at least enough of you so I could brutally suppress the rest without a risk of being hanged on a lamppost. So that's what we'd do - I'll take some half million of you and send to murder people into the neighboring country. Most of you will be killed or wounded. You will get absolutely nothing for it but death, pain, suffering and hate of people all around the globe. But I and a bunch of my henchmen would be secure in our positions for another decade. Good deal, isn't it?"
All these tales about how Russia is oh so much threatened by the West is just another bunch of lies. Nobody in the West had seen Russia as an enemy mere 15 years ago (remember "the 80's called and they want their foreign policy back"? Sick burn, eh? Oh, how did they laugh on those stupid neanderthals still seeing Russia as an enemy! Next thing they'd fight George III!) All that narrative was manufactured exactly so that people would buy into it - and to Putin's delight, not only Russians but a lot of Americans swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
Ok. The same is true in the west, except we have pretend-democracy instead of obvious dictatorship.
The hypothetical we're examining is that leaders cannot lie, not that they have to tell the entire truth, and especially not the truth as you see it.
What?! I'm pretty sure "Ukraine wants to become more democratic, cut ties with Russia, and develop relations with the west, and Putin cannot abide a free prosperous society at his doorstep" is the pro-Ukrainian narrative.
That's a bit of a naive view of geopolitics. Hostilities rise and fall, but fundamentally they were always players on opposite sides of the game. They were always enemies to some extent, and always will be until one side loses, or becomes too distant to matter.
Ukraine never wanted to cut ties with Russia until 2014. It had very active political parties that pushed for more pro-Russian approach, and deep economic ties. What it wanted was a relationship of independent neighbors, not master-thrall one Putin was looking for (and is getting in Belarus, for example). Of course, the situation soured when Russia invaded, but let's at least not rewrite history at which we were actually present.
It also happens to be a pro-truth narrative. I think between truth and appearance of not choosing sides, one should choose the truth. Even if it - gasp! - means that somebody is actually bad and somebody else is not. You don't always have to split it in the middle.
The fact is the "Western threat" has been entirely the product of Russia acting as a local bully (that has been the pattern long before 2014 - see Georgia, etc.) and the West ignoring it for the longest time, but finally it got too far, and when the West started objecting, Putin's propaganda of course cried "You see! We warned you they always hated us, and that's why we had to always behave as a bullies! Otherwise the West would have conquered and enslaved us!" Of course, nobody is interested in enslaving them, and nobody was interested in their affairs at all until they started invading neighboring countries, and for some time after that too. It's just you can only go so long with invading neighbors in Europe until people start noticing.
Nobody was interested in being Russia's enemy, neither Ukraine nor the West. Russia though was very interested in having enemies in the West, and subordinate thralls in Ukraine. And to achieve the latter, it created the former.
No it's not. Putin tolerates Finland just fine. Also it'd be miraculously unlikely that Ukraine would became richer than Russia in next 30 years, and somewhat unlikely Putin living more than 30 years. So "Putin observing rich Ukraine as a neighbour" had very little chance to materialize.
so what is your point here? Did Russia annex Abkhazia or South Ossetia?
Finland is further and USSR already got its nose bloodied trying to take over Finland. it could be at best third-stage, maybe fourth-stage goal - if they managed to get Ukraine, Baltic states and Asia republics would be next targets for takeovers, and only then, if that went well (which is a very far-reaching hypotheticals, given some of them are in NATO and others are pretty wary of Russia) they could put their sights on establishing some control over Finland. Given how things are going in reality, it's no more than a pipe dream - so of course they "tolerate" it, what else could they do?
No, it just occupies and fully controls them. Which gives them the benefits of ownership without the responsibilities of one (and international repercussions of such annexations). For these territories, it's enough for them to just control them, and let the local warlords deal with the rest - at least until Russia is ready to take the next steps. It is a common strategy that repeats over and over - establish a beachhead, use it to stir trouble, then advance to "maintain peace" and take the bigger piece, and repeat. Same happened in Ukraine, only due to gross incompetence and corruption all over, Putin thought they are read to take over the whole country of Ukraine, and they weren't even nearly so. That's why he didn't annex Donbass since 2014, while controlling it - he didn't need to and didn't want to, as his goal was taking over the whole country, so why bother with small pieces? Now it's clear to him this is not happening, so he tries to present it as that was the plan all along, all while the plan comes tumbling down in real time.
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Bro, calm down, I'm not pro-Putin.
Ok, cool. So Putin just says that instead his shtick about Nazis. If Russians are really so morally corrupt, won't they just shrug and continue carrying out orders rather than collapsing their society?
In contrast:
What if the now truth-telling western elites let it slip that what you're saying is nonsense?
What exactly is "that"? If Putin said "we must spend 200 thousand lives to invade Ukraine because having a democratic state next to us makes me look bad" - then I'm not sure the society would collapse, but pretty sure the war effort would. The society there has more than one lie, so removing just one is not really enough.
What if the Sun were made of Gauda cheese, the quarks are unicorn farts, and the Earth is a giant corn tortilla glued to the back of an enormous turtle? I have no idea. It's a counter-factual hypothetical for which I have no answer and in which I have no interest. In reality, this happened: https://youtube.com/watch?v=N0IWe11RWOM This is not some random talking head. This is the guy who was US President for 8 years, and called "Lightbringer", "Miracle Worker" and "kind of god" by the same elites.
Sure, you're the Truthbearer and anyone disagreeing is either lying or insane to the point they'd think the sun is made out of cheese.
Have fun being right, but I'm not enjoying this conversation anymore.
You made a baseless assumption "what if everything you know as reality is wrong", without producing any argument as to why, and when I refused to accept it, you try to mock me as if I represented myself as Truthbearer. I am not bearer of anything, I have eyes and ears to witness the reality, and that's enough. If you want to challenge that, you are welcome, but you need something more than bare assumption of "what if everything you know is wrong". That's not "disagreement", not in any useful sense, it's just baselessly refusing to agree for the sake of contradicting. To have disagreement, you need to have some contrary argument or evidence, not just bare declaration of "nonsense".
Unfortunately, looks like you don't have any more. I agree, this position can not be enjoyable for you. Good luck next time.
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