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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31609 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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The biggest handicap to Ukrainian victory at this moment is the strange reticence of some western politicians to cheaply win a decisive victory over a long term adversary.

The strange thing to me is this Bizarro-world some some people are living in, where Russia is the West'l long-term adversary.

Other than CNN telling you that it's so, is there actually any post-1991 evidence that Russia is, in fact, our "long-term adversary", or is it just something that certain people keep repeating to try and meme it into truth?

is there actually any post-1991 evidence that Russia is, in fact, our "long-term adversary", or is it just something that certain people keep repeating to try and meme it into truth?

  1. Not rejected its imperial aspirations and have not even pretended that it will give up "sphere of influence" that includes my country (unlike Germany)

  2. Bombing country next to mine and murdering civilians there and trying to destroy its economy

  3. Doing its best to disrupt global food supply by invading Ukraine and blocking grain shipments (they were strongarmed into suspending this)

  4. Have not clearly rejected USSR as awful and evil failure (unlike Germany with Third Reich)

  5. Repeated use of its position of cheap energy supplier for blackmail

  6. Invading other countries in Europe (they have not got memo that European countries decided that this is not acceptable after WW II mess)

  7. Being so corrupt that they are not usable as ally for example ally against China

  8. Being utterly useless as an ally (as Armenia discovered)

  9. Assassinating people in Europe without even enough decorum to keep it hidden

  10. Repeated extreme war crimes (for example: using hospital list in Syria as target list, Bucha)

Overall Russia is overambitious corrupt, useless as an ally, extremely aggressive lead by idiot that dragged it into a tragic war. That demonstrates it clearly enough even for Germans, but it was obvious already earlier.

And no, Russia is not entitled to empire in the central Europe - nor powerful enough to build one again, at least for now.

Well stated! I'm quite deeply shocked that someone wouldn't consider Putin's Russia quite antithetical to the West. The fundamental one is "invading another country in Europe". All the rest was kind of generic and shitty dictatorship stuff, but that one crosses a rather literal line.

today - Georgia, tomorrow - Ukraine, the day after tomorrow – the Baltic States, then, perhaps, it will be my own country, Poland'

President of Poland in 2008, in Georgia, Tbilisi

(if anyone is confused why support to Ukraine is over 1% of GDP of Estonia and Poland gave Ukraine 230+ tanks and other equipment)

Other than CNN telling you that it's so, is there actually any post-1991 evidence that Russia is, in fact, our "long-term adversary"

They don't have gay pride parades.

This is a low-effort sneer, not an actual observation or even a speculation. You've received a warning and a tempban already for this kind of thing. Since that seems to be all you're here to do, banned for another three days (not escalating this time because this was such a trifling comment that normally would have only gotten a warning, but expect the next one to be significantly lengthier if you keep it up).

It's an overly succint reply that unjustifiedly presumed familiary with the SSC blogpost corpus.

E.g.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/08/gay-rites-are-civil-rites/

Russia, in a sense, is not just a strategic enemy of the US because it threatened US economic and military dominance of Europe, but also represents nationalism / christianity, the enemy that managerial regime has completely defeated in the West.

Russia has been an opponent of Western interests in several areas since 1991: Yugoslavia, the Caucauses, and now Ukraine. Even in the 1990s, when Western aid was keeping the lights on and the bread in children's mouths in Russia, Yeltsin was often willing to challenge Western interests in Yugoslavia, as much as Russia could (not much). Under Putin, Russia has become an ally of pretty much every anti-Western government in the world.

It's not a symmetric adversary, in the sense that Russia has long ceased to be an existential military threat to NATO countries, Japan etc. That doesn't mean that it's not an adversary, and while Russia is not very important in comparison to China, it's been a lot more willing to stage external military operations.

I think it facts checks true that Russia is a long term enemy. It doesn’t need to be that way but their behavior has created the situation. They’ve got about a 100 years consistently chose to fight on the anti-west team except for the 5 years in ww2.

If someone keeps going to war with you then I think I can fact check it true that they are the enemy.

chose to fight on the anti-west team except for the 5 years in ww2.

I would rather phrase it as "Hitler kicked them out of his own team and had no choice than cooperate with West"

I feel like Poles need to recuse themselves from talking about Russia entirely.

It's fairly clear now that Stalin's plan was for Germany to repeat WW1, exhaust the West and then use war fatigue and the Red Army to secure more land for USSR.

I feel like Poles need to recuse themselves from talking about Russia entirely.

I can do it in exchange of Russians recusing themselves from invading countries in Europe (I am single person but just recusing from specific way of murdering other people in specific part of the world is much smaller sacrifice, or at least it should be).

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