Posted on 02/26/2022 12:45:00 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
MUNICH – The world is not enduring a “Ukraine crisis,” but rather a Russia crisis. So said Germany’s new foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, at the most recent Munich Security Conference, which was dominated by the situation in eastern Europe.
In fact, Russia’s crisis goes even deeper than Baerbock probably meant. We are witnessing the latest installment in a longer process. Russia is trying to decide whether it is a nation-state or an aspiring empire, and until this fundamental question is resolved, conflicts like the one over Ukraine will continue in various forms.
On paper, the Soviet Union was a multinational federation of republics. In reality, Russians were solidly in command of a tightly controlled regime headed by the Communist Party. One reason for the Soviet collapse was that many of its constituent republics had become aspiring nation-states...The single most important factor was Ukraine’s December 1991 referendum, in which an overwhelming majority voted for independence...
In an infamous essay published last July, Russian President Vladimir Putin articulated his vision of a Great Slavic Empire, harking back to nineteenth-century czarist rule, rather than to the Soviet Union. Sensing an opportunity to promote that vision, he engineered the current crisis.
Putin took his fantasy to a new extreme in his recent speech announcing that Russia would recognize the independence of the two breakaway Donbas regions that it has backed since 2014. Putin openly questioned the existence of a Ukrainian nation and insisted that Ukraine is a “historically Russian land.” Although there was a Kyivan Rus’ state long before any Russia had appeared, Putin attributes the emergence of a Ukrainian state to Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
The irony of this history-driven strategy is that if one were to survey the Europe of a thousand years ago, there would be no Russia to speak of...
(Excerpt) Read more at project-syndicate.org ...
Woke-ism drivel.
“Russia would rather invade Ukraine than go to a therapist.”
Actually...That's precisely been the problem. The population hasn't properly processed nor made sense of its past.
Americans have had the Constitution chipped away bit by bit over the last century. We’ve been “processed” into a people willing to accept it.
They are cultured and have lead the world in many endeavors including physics, mathematics, music, and literature. They believe they can aspire to being a great nation, but they are always living on the edge. The purpose of their empire was largely to give them a defensive buffer.
And, they lack warm water ports with open passage to the open ocean. From any US East or West Coast port you immediately are in the Atlantic or Pacific oceans and don't have to have the consent of the Danes or the Turks or some such to trade with the world.
Drivel certainly describes most of your posts.
Bingo
Invasion paranoia
Warm water port
The keys to Russian geopolitics
Putin is getting kind of old to start a campaign.
Glory days they all pass us by...
is it paranoia if they really are out to get you?
This is all stupid.
Russia’s land surface area guarantees their oil will run out last. It is civilization’s lifeblood and they will be the last to run out.
They are destined to win. Dominance is inevitable. Get used to the idea because nothing will stop it beyond global thermonuclear war.
There are large Russophone populations in many of the former SSRs. The region allegedly in dispute between Russia and the Ukraine is a Russophone region that was stapled onto the Ukraine by Khrushchev back in the 50s. It is not as if the Ukraine is a democracy, as it does ban political parties and close opposition newspapers. Another area of interest is Transnistria, a Russophone region of the former SSR of Moldova. Putin may see this as a target given the ineptitude and criminality of the Moldovan government. He does not have similar opportunities in the Baltics. 35% of the population of Latvia and about 25% of the population of Estonia are Russophone. But those countries are economically successful, far freer politically with exponentially greater opportunities for ordinary people. Only an idiot would push for âÂÂreunification â with the crooked kleptocracy that is Russia.
Maybe they installed the same school system in 1917 that we have now.
My Grandpa went through the Bolshevik revolution. His parents owned a small family farm outside of Kiev. The Bolsheviks took all their food and livestock.
Somehow his parents got him and his brother out of Ukraine and into the American army???? Haven't figured that one out
The problem is as of now: 99.9% of Russia does NOT experience the WEALTH from the OIL! Only the oligarch elites.
Well guess what boys and girls, nobody is talking about mask mandates, covid 19, $3.79 gas, $25 steaks, the election fraud, the tanking economy, the illegal belligerent criminal force that has captured our govt, or much of anything else.
Putin has an objective in the Ukraine. When he achieves it he’ll likely strike an agreement with Zelensky and Putin will go home. The world will be better for it and the Biden regime will be much weaker soon to be removed. Fear not!
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