— Musings —05.19.2017 08:33 AM
Picture, thousand words, etc.
Bert Archer told me Mad magazine did it first, but this one is pretty powerful.
— Musings —05.19.2017 08:33 AM
Bert Archer told me Mad magazine did it first, but this one is pretty powerful.
St Basil’s Cathedral?????
In a way it’s sweet justice. The USA attempted to humiliate Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and lied to Gorbachev, promising not to expand NATO. The final reaction was the takeover of the Russian government by the former KGB and the rise of Putin.
If the Americans had engaged respectfully, truly partnered with the Russians rather than facilitating it’s temporary plunder and attempting to break it up we could have a different world today and Russia might be a cooperative partner in world affairs.
At the end of the day though the hysterics over Russians actions are silly. Russia has no interest in taking over the world (unlike America). They just want respect.
Kelly,
Au contraire, Russia’s main aim is to regain superpower status and to reestablish an ironclad area where their sphere of influence is dominant.
They know perfectly well that they can’t recreate the Soviet empire, so they will settle for a buffer zone between themselves and the West that is populated by allies along with sympathetic friends.
They can’t detach the Baltic States, Ukraine and Georgia from the U. S. orbit but they can weaken those ties and reduce overt and passive hostility to Russia. It’s a long game, and Putin will be there for the duration.
But Russia has always mistrusted the West, and with good reason since Western countries are always trying to invade it or contain it…Napoleon, Britain, Germany, NATO. Russia wants respect and security. Lately it’s interested in developing Eastward as part of China’s plans for the northern route for the new silk road and is less concerned with Western markets than it once was.
Putin rose because of NATO. The crazy neoliberal policies helped but really the security apparatus isn’t concerned as much about economics; Russians are used to hardship. Really they could not abide NATO on its borders and having Americans and Western Europeans redesigning the machinery of the State in the West’s image. To see the American electoral system in tatters must be deeply satisfying for Putin and his ilk. It merely confirms the sham democracy it’s always been. (I’m sorry but a “two party” system is a phony democracy by the standards of most of the world).
It wasn’t the expansion on NATO that drove the rise of Putin. It was the economic damage caused by incompetent neo-liberal economists that the US sent to restructure their economy.