Comment by whimsicalism
2 years ago
I agree that animosity is deep rooted between neighbors. But I suspect it is less deep between distant countries that have had working relationships in the past.
2 years ago
I agree that animosity is deep rooted between neighbors. But I suspect it is less deep between distant countries that have had working relationships in the past.
I think there's deep animosity between Russia and much of the West.
It's very easy for Americans to shrug their shoulders and say "we don't care it's a long way away", regardless of whether or not that would be a historic surrender for the global hegemon, but we Europeans cannot. It's on our doorstep. Russia has not just attacked Ukraine, but all of Europe. There will never be normalised relations with Russia whilst he is in power, just as there never could be normalised relations with Adolf Hitler once he had crossed the Rubicon and started WW2.
I wonder when you will arrive at the understanding that if Russia is not going to have more revolutions, then you are going to have to live alongside Russia on the tiniest of continents and it would be best for both sides to learn how.
Is's not like you're going in with a military action and capturing Volgograd, after all. Adolf Hitler could be neutralized by capturing Berlin. Good luck dealing with Russia that way.
Learning to live is arming the eastern NATO border to the teeth. Russia has never stopped trying to expand westward, is still very far from giving up on its imperialism and strength is the only language it understands.
28 replies →
The comparison between Putin and Hitler is ridiculous.
Europe’s economy is in shambles, they do not have the power to push back if Russia and the US were to push for détente never mind that the country with the most EU influence (Germany) is a major dove on this issue.
It's not ridiculous at all. Not all leaders can be negotiated with, that is simply my point. Maybe as an American you do not understand the depth of feeling, it does not affect you because you don't live here and subsequently you don't care. You can regress into the isolationism that the US likes to embrace every now and then. But we still have to live with an imperialist Russia on our door step.
> (Germany) is a major dove on this issue.
No, they're not dovish, they're just not leaders and not willing to take initiative and require others to move first. That stems from their history. They've sent huge amounts of aid already to Ukraine (~1% of GDP versus 0.2% of GDP for the USA).
> Europe’s economy is in shambles
I mean, it's not as good as the USA's, but it's not in shambles. It's relatively OK. I live here. I'd rather live here than in Russia. Russia is a glorified petrol station with nukes and a military. Europe's economy still absolutely dwarfs Russia's. When I speak to my (many) Russian colleagues, it's clear they'd rather be here in Germany than in Russia.
> US were to push for détente
It's not realistic. The only person who is going to do that is Trump. There's no scenario where we Europeans just give up our security and let imperial war conquests become acceptable on our continent (not yours, yank) for the sake of Trump's ego. Why? Because we think he's completely retarded. Only Americans like him. And how would we benefit exactly from trading away our security? How can the US force us? All it would do is seal the USA's historic break from its European allies (And I know it's not popular at the moment in the USA, but any one with a basic understanding of geopolitics knows that the USA's strongest asset its just how many rich and powerful allies it has). Good luck standing up to China alone, in that case. Then the West is truly fucked!
2 replies →
> The comparison between Putin and Hitler is ridiculous.
And yet, here we are with another ultranationalist dictator hell bent on getting back that vital space and dreaming of fallen empires. Hitler had Charlemagne, and Putin has Catherine and Peter the Great. Putin did not gas anybody that I know of, but the gulags remained the whole time. It’s true that he is closer to Stalin than Hitler in many respects, but I am not sure it’s much better.
> Europe’s economy is in shambles, they do not have the power to push back if Russia and the US were to push for détente never mind that the country with the most EU influence (Germany) is a major dove on this issue.
That is a terrible misreading of how the EU functions. By design it cannot be dominated by a single country and Germany is basically following others. It’s not a major dove in any way, it’s just in the middle of the pack and they started from a fundamentally pacifist political background. The fact that they are merely talking about rearming is a demonstration of the seismic shift in domestic politics there.
Détente won’t happen in the current situation, regardless of what the US push for. They simply have no power to force that outcome. What would happen is another Korea, Georgia or Moldova: a country split in two, with one half living under yet another brutal dictatorship.