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Originally Posted by jammies
Pointman is unlikely to come give us his opinion if people keep on about him being "indoctrinated". Someone having different priorities and experiences than you doesn't mean you are impartial and they are biased.
I definitely don't agree with Russia's actions in the Ukraine, but on the other hand, you can't expect to continually encroach on a major power's sphere of influence and not get pushback. Ukraine moving towards NATO and the West is contrary to Russia's interests no matter who rules the country. Putin acquiescing meekly to Ukraine trying to join the West would have him out of power pretty quickly, he is only partly driving events and they are also partly driving him.
It's easy to sit here on the winning side of the Cold War and tell the Russians they should just accept being bankrupt losers and that the West is going to absorb what they see as buffer zones against foreign domination. Maybe that's the rational course, but it certainly isn't the emotionally palatable one.
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The thing is, they wouldn't have to be bankrupt losers if (your words, not mine) they started behaving with the rest of the western world. And by that, I don't mean being a satellite, or a lap dog. I'm not saying 'they lost they need to know their place'. I'm just saying, be an ally, be part of the global solution. Bring prosperity to your own people and work with other nations.
In the days of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, there was talk like this. The US and Russia, actually allies. The idea was to work towards that. It could have been that way. But corrupt leaders, and plutocrats have taken control of the country and they just use old world national sentiment against their own people.
To me, 'emotionally palatable' is simply a very VERY misplaced sense of pride. And an unwillingness to look within to see the real problem. Neither their leaders nor the people should have felt worried about NATO expanding into an now imaginary buffer zone if they were getting their own house in order. But somehow, they went backwards and it got to that point.
This isn't a shot at you jammies, as I totally get what your saying, and your one of my favorite posters. I get the two sides of an argument idea, just that this one is such a chicken and egg argument or mentality. It could only be seen as encroachment if you still held the values of the old USSR. A free Russia with it's own house in order has nothing to fear from NATO or the West. It's only because they started drifting back to their old ways, and were ok with corrupt leadership, that one could even use the argument of encroachment to begin with.