I have a question for you, but first let me say why I think Putin has a win-lose, zero sum of international relations.
To start, Putin grew up and had his career in the old communist Soviet Union, and has made clear he thought it was absolutely wonderful. Now the USSR was a superpower, with 350 million people, the world's second largest economy, a military equal to that of the US, and it controlled Eastern Europe through communist puppet governments.
Then in 1989-91, the Eastern European nations threw out the communist governments and broke away, communism was abandoned, all the non-Russian republics broke away from the USSR, and the military declined drastically. Now Russia has only 145 million people, much less territory, no solid allies except Bylarus, a military about one-fifth the strength of the US, and it's economy is ranked 10th in size.
Putin has made clear that he wants to get back to superpower status, and to do that he has to take back a lot of territory, either through incorporation into Russia or as allies. He can't do that with the Central Asian former Soviet republics, partly because they are semi-allies of China. So he is trying to expand westward, and doesn't care at all that most of the population of the Eastern European nations want to stay aligned with the West.
And to do this he uses various means such as military threats, sending in military forces, trying to undermine democratic governments through supporting extreme left and right wing parties, and a massive internet trolling campaign.
Well, that is my view. What is your view? Where do you think Putin is trying to go in the long term, and what sort of means do you think he uses?
Disclosure: I'm a Russian nationalist and I'm biased but honest.
Putin had a chance to take most of Ukraine back or at least try to do it. This is late '14, Ukrainians taking hold on separatist "people's republics" of Donetsk and Lugansk.
They use artillery against populated areas, lots of civian casualties. The memory of Odessa massacre is still vivid. He has broad support back home to end it all. He has grassroot support in Kharkov and Odessa regions (connect them on the map and see how much of Ukraine is left). He's still holding arguably legitimate Ukrainian president for god's sake!
Ukraine army was still weak and disoriented, he had a chance of dealing a massive blow and overrunning most of the country, and he blew it!
Now, fast forward two years. Can we seriously talk about Putin expanding into Eastern Europe proper if he's unable to take Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine? How he would ever do that? Belarus wipes its feet with Putin, EU sanctions against it are all lifted. Kazakhstan improves ties with China and gets wary of Putin too. In the end he sublimates the inability to tackle Ukraine in his petty TV war in Syria.
Yes, he does use military threats, sending in military forces, trying to undermine democratic governments through supporting extreme left and right wing parties, and a massive internet trolling campaign. No, that won't get him very far, considering he's old and didn't have balls to take a bite at Ukraine. Perhaps he never wanted to. Of course he's bitter about Russia's decline, but he likes his little throne and oligarch friends and doesn't want to risk all that.
Summary: We can only talk about Putin expanding into Eastern Europe when he figures out Ukraine. Not earlier.
I basically agree with your comment. Let me just add that I get the impression that Putin didn't go ahead and try to grab the rest of Ukraine was he was afraid NATO and the US would intervene. In addition a lot of the Russian public was unhappy with the military deaths, and much of his limited military got diverted to Syria.
The broader picture, as you indicate, is yes, he is imperialistic and nasty, but he hasn't gotten very far and probably won't in the future if the West stays united against him. Oh, and that is one reason he has this massive online troll campaign, it is to confuse and weaken the West.
Lets remember this whole discussion started because I said that Putin has a zero-sum, win-lose view of international relations, and people said my view was just speculation, so I elaborated it, and you are giving further confirmation.
Let me add that Putin's win-lose approach to the rest of the world is in part because he is a Russian, and as a consequence of Russian history he sees the world as a constant struggle of nations where you either defeat your enemies or are defeated yourself. This means it is best to strike first and grab as much land and power as possible.
Just as in economics, Russia has never figured out that in the modern, especially post-WWII and nuclear world, things have moved to a considerably more secure and win-win sort of situation. So Putin and the Russians have this wacky belief that the US is out to conquer Russia and turn it into a colony, whereas actually the US would just like to have reasonably peaceful relations.
It's what recent history teaches to Russia.
People kind of expected that peaceful end of the cold war is a good thing, but it turned out that USA & Western Europe won and Russia lost. And now US politics has audacity to poke in russians' faces with this "fact". It was win-lose.
After that, on 2000-s, Russia sought to enter WTO, even join NATO, and streighten ties with EU. But it mostly got humiliation and shown the door. It wasn't win-win.
Now, it's quire easy to learn that win-win scenarios don't work and win-lose do, and you want to be on a right side of win-lose.
And I wold argue that win-win fails to perform in modern world. It's now more like lose-lose. Iraq? Syria (for all parties including Russia)? Lose-lose. Even international trade starts to show this character.
But after all that said, speculating on peoples' beliefs instead of facts is always opinionated.
As for criticizing Russia because it it is corrupt and authoritarian, free speech is just part of how the modern world works. I myself am very critical about the US in many ways.
You are right, a lot of the relations in the world today are win-lose. But Syria is hardly a modern democratic industrialized state. Or take the complicated case of China and Russia, which is cooperative in many ways, and hostile in others.
Putin, his whole life, has never been a win-win guy, from all I have read. Yeltsin was a mess. So I am dubious when I hear that Russia wanted to be friendly and cooperative, and the West repulsed him.
As far as the Russian people's beliefs go, I have read lots from experts on how they see the world.
Russia only became member of WTO very late, the process was hindered without end.
Russia briefly explored possibility of joining NATO but was met with cold stares and disengaged.
Russia opted for e.g. visa waiver with Schengen area (EU), but that got nowhere in ten years.
Regarding win-win guys, after a few years in early 90s it became impossible for a Russian to be one. It was vividly shown that "the night is dark and full of terrors".
From what I understand, it got in the WTO only recently because it took so long to enact the needed reforms to meet WTO standards. As far as NATO goes, I find my links on that topic more persuasive.
Guard-of-terra, let me ask you some questions. First, what do you think Putin's long term goals are, and how long do you think he has had them? Does he want to take Eastern Europe back, and has wanted this since it was lost back in 1989, or has he come to this goal only in the last few years, or would he be happy if it remained aligned with the West?
Also, what do you think the West's goals are? Do you think that ever since 1991 it has wanted to conquer Russia, or at least make it poor, weak, and subservient? Or do you think that starting in 1991 it wanted to Russia to be democratic, independent, and prosperous, and only later became hostile toward it as a response to Putin's rhetoric and actions? Or perhaps you have some third view.
WRT WTO: Everybody got there before Russia. Even the most peculiar and closed off economies. It shows that everybody were cut some slack but Russia was boned. That's what I'm talking about. Judging purely from results.
I think that Putin's long term goals is sitting on the throne and avoiding violence against himself and his buddies. Everything else is "nice to have".
Futhermore, there's two Eastern Europes that are no longer smart to compound (Russia is Eastern Europe too for that matter, makes it three):
- Non-USSR non-Russian-speaking ex-socialist countries, who're already consumed by EU.
- Ex-USSR mostly-Russian-speaking ex-communist republics, who are/were in CIS.
Baltic states are somewhat in-between.
I think that since 1991 the West did not care about Russia. They looted the corpse basically. And they didn't give a shit about Russia until the corpse in question began moving.
They definitely didn't lift too many fingers towards "Russia to be democratic, independent, and prosperous".
As for "poor, weak, and subservient", that's the default state of things on planet Earth (entropy?) so you don't need master plan to attain it.
So you are basically cynical about both Russia and the West. And the implication seems to be that there is no point in citizens in Russia or the West trying to make things better, because it is all hopeless. Have I got you right?
Nope, I definitely don't think so. Direct electronic democracy could be a step forward. Basic Income could be a step forward. Green energy could catch up finally.
(That's country level, right. My expectations on international politics are bearish)
Things becoming better are not impossible, but improbable. The outlook isn't bright. Too many things to be fixed and no popular will to do so. The situation with global Muslim migration (and disregard of social progress) is especially dangerous and can ruin everything quick.
