View Single Post
Old 03-09-2018, 11:49 AM   #14
blankall
Ate 100 Treadmills
 
blankall's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Exp:
Default

I think people are really underestimating how difficult it is to reign Putin in at this point.

Firstly, any kind of military option is off the table. You can send your own espionage/assassination teams back, but Russia is playing with a different set of rules. Extrajudicial killings are very difficult to authorize in Western nations, while Russia has no issues. Russia also doesn't have any standard liberties. They monitor whomever they want. If they suspect you are a spy, they kidnap and torture you.

Economic sanctions? Those only work where a population is free enough to put pressure on their own government to lift them. Russia doesn't care if its people starve. In fact, that's regularly part of their game plan. Russia also always responds to sanctions with a plethora of shady and backdoor deals with various other dictatorships. The EU and the USA already have heavy sanctions in place, and they do nothing.

It's basically been the same song and dance since Russia came into being over 1000 years ago. The Russian trump card is that they are always ready and able to sacrifice more than anyone else.

A major issue with perception is that there's constantly these comparisons being made between Russia and Western governments, most notably the USA, to push some kind of moral relativism. The fact of the matter is that Russia is playing by a different set of rules and is another tier when it comes to abuse of liberties. Russia presents themselves as a functioning democracy and their propaganda machine is constantly spewing stories about the abuse and poverty in the West, but nothing could be further from the truth.
blankall is offline   Reply With Quote
The Following 12 Users Say Thank You to blankall For This Useful Post: