So it explains on why the Russians are paranoid and expansionist by nature.
Posted on 02/23/2023 6:37:05 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
Vladimir Putin says he is a religious man, a great supporter of the Russian Orthodox Church. If so, he may well go to bed each night, say his prayers, and ask God: “Why didn’t you put mountains in eastern Ukraine?”
If God had built mountains in eastern Ukraine, then the great expanse of flatland that is the European Plain would not have been such inviting territory for the invaders who have attacked Russia from there repeatedly through history. As things stand, Putin, like Russian leaders before him, likely feels he has no choice but to at least try to control the flatlands to Russia’s west. So it is with landscapes around the world—their physical features imprison political leaders, constraining their choices and room for maneuver. These rules of geography are especially clear in Russia, where power is hard to defend, and where for centuries leaders have compensated by pushing outward.
Western leaders seem to have difficulty deciphering Putin’s motives, especially when it comes to his actions in Ukraine and Syria; Russia’s current leader has been described in terms that evoke Winston Churchill’s famous 1939 observation that Russia “is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside of an enigma.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
So it explains on why the Russians are paranoid and expansionist by nature.
.
Well it’s not just Russians. Poles and Hungarians have the same problem. Whether the Magyars, the Caucasians, the Mongols, the Muslims, Napleonic France, or the Germans all of that part of the world is ripe for conquest.
You can’t blame them. It’s history.
The modern British Empire, headed by the United States, consists of land either surrounded by water or by inhospitable terrain—United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand. Just a different culture we are, primarily relying on sea power.
The Black Sea isn’t a viable warm water port because there is exactly one very narrow outlet.
It’s just real estate.
Location, Location, Location.
That's why the Russians are building their naval base in Syria.
Wouldn’t it have been nice for the Atlantic to bring all this up before the US State Department and CIA ran a color revolution in Ukraine...then the US and then Brazil...
We currently have a bunch of illegitimate psychopaths running the US and our foreign policy.
The fundamental cause of this war is that Russia is trying to control 10% of the world’s land with 2% of the world’s population.
That is not sustainable. Putin understands this. Annexing Ukraine and Belarus and adding 55 million people to Russia would correct that balance.
The only other alternative is Russia getting much smaller.
There is some advantage to Hungary on being west of the Carpathian mountains.
Ukraine ping
Minority Republican: [So it explains on why the Russians are paranoid and expansionist by nature. ]
Russia successfully overran any number of nations on its borders because of the advantages afforded by its massive expanse. When Russia ran into problems, it would retreat to get breathing room. When its adversaries ran into problems, they became Russian provinces - they simply had no room to retreat. There’s a reason Russian is 4x the size of the EU *combined*. Germany retreats from an area the size of Ukraine, and it’s deep in middle of France. Russia could retreat from an area 20x the size of Ukraine and still be in Russia.
Yes. But most of the population is in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Located near their historical enemies in Europe. 27 million dead in WWII.
Minority Republican: [Yes. But most of the population is in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Located near their historical enemies in Europe. 27 million dead in WWII.]
Russia claims to have originated from the Kievan Rus, whose capital was Kiev. Why wasn’t the Russian capital located at Kiev? Its vulnerability to attack might have been a factor.
Changing capitals is obviously not something Russians haven’t done before. St. Petersburg was Russia’s capital during the late Romanov era. Moscow took over after the Bolsheviks won.
During the Cold War, West Germany moved its capital from Berlin to a small town close to the Belgian border named Bonn. It had nothing to do with Bonn’s bucolic charms. In recognition of a potential threat from the east (a nation with a capital R in its name), Bonn still houses close to half of the German federal government’s officialdom.
Putin knows that the U.S. and allies do not want to invade Russia.
Like the communists in China, he and his fascist partners are afraid that more Russians will want western freedoms. He also wants to take more arable land, resources and people from other nations for Russian greatness, as he and his radical countrymen see it. They dream of a Russian world that spans the earth. They see freedom as chaos and disorder that would interfere with his authoritarian control.
Putin must also know, though, deep down inside, the one circumstance that would cause other nations to swiftly invade, occupy and change his country: an attempt by him to perpetrate nuclear weapons attacks against other countries.
Lots of countries have this, and aren’t expansion. Well, not anymore.
Also russia had borders like the Volga etc, but it expanded before that and then lost the natural borders
Moscow is hardly near their enemies
Paris a d London are far closer to each other
The English Channel is between them. There's nothing to stop an army from sacking Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.