Thank you for sharing that.
When I became aware in the early 90s of how the USSR had been bleeding the poorest of countries in shocking ways back in the 80s, I thought “surely we must have known about this, known the Soviet Union was like one of those trees that looks okay on the outside but is completely rotten in its core — with trees you often don’t find out until they fall over one day during a storm, but surely we knew this long before it fell.”
It’s shameful how we treated Russia after the fall. And, in IMHO, against our own interests. At that point, in our own self-interest, we should have quietly become less (and less and less) favorable toward China, more kindly toward Russia. Too bad no one listened to Keenan, but instead jumped on the Wolfowitz train to ruin. And pushed a reluctant Russia into alliance with China. Our previous policy was wisely to keep them at odds with each other.
Our treatment of the Russians saddened me, too. The people had believed Reagan when he said our beef was not with the people of Russia, but with their leadership. They wanted so badly to have democracy and rule of law like us, wanted so badly to join the West, but it was not to be. We treated Russia like a beaten dog. I was so ashamed and horrified. And the terrible poverty and hardship there during the 90s was truly heartbreaking.
Of course Russia was too big and too nuclear to join NATO (even though many ordinary Russian people had some hopes for that early on, and later hoped the “Partnership for Peace” was more than a cruel Booby prize that essentially mocked them). And of course Russia was too big and too nuclear to ever be let into the EU*. And of course our interests and Russian interests will naturally diverge on some points, but it would have behooved us to work with Russia when our interests aligned, which they actually do in some important respects, and counter them when we are odds.
Instead, we arrogantly rubbed the bear’s nose in the mud until finally pushed too far and Putin came to power. And still we pushed. Now look.
I’ve said since the beginning that whoever “wins” this war in Ukraine, China will be the real winner.
*The EU being the euphemism for the new German Empire, one that seems kinder and gentler in that it allows all those other countries to keep their flags and anthems and whatnot. Former Yugoslavia was also too big for German tastes, and had to broken onto bite-sized pieces, starting with Slovenia and Croatia, both of which they coveted as markets and second-tier labor pools. And so it had to break up. We went along, but played our own game to show Germany and the rest of Europe who their Daddy is.
When the Moscow theater hostage crisis hit our news I thought that would be the event that allied us in a global effort to fight terrorism, especially after what we just at that time had gone through. We have had so many opportunities for camaraderie and peace that we rejected and pushed away.
It's funny, as my own personal gesture to support them back then, I tried to learn Russian. I was surprised to learn that so many words in Russian are pronounced exactly as they are in English. Taxi is Такси (taxi). Also, Hispanics feel a connection between Spanish and Russian.