Quote:
Originally Posted by shovelquest
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Americans think if you just give a country an American flag they will adopt western culture.
We tried that with Russia, what did it get us? Well it ended the cold war.. but started ww3 25 years later.
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Russia doesn't really want anything more then their own influence in what they feel is their part of the world. They also have an entire leadership class that never took their cold war glasses off. Their messaging to the west can be summed up with little more then, "stay out of our playground"
This is unacceptable to western hegemony. While there is no NATO general who lies awake at night concerned over russian nukes, there are many western bankers who lie awake at night concerned about russian influence in emerging nations. After the baltic states became "westernized" the russian leaders realized that their influence was holding onto nothing, where they can offer gazprom and telegram, the west can offer exxon shell and Meta. Where they can peddle influence in an election, the NSA alone has a greater hacking capability then the rest of the world combined.
Where they have to mobilize their entire country to hold a line in battle, we can send our dusty old gulf war era shit to sunflower farmers.
For as long as russia is beaten down economically, politically and militarily, they will not be able to partner up with anyone in a meaningful way.
As the northern ocean thaws, shipping lanes open, and new areas of resources become available, an entire new world opens up on planet earth. A new world that NATO generals think about at night, a world where little red flags dot their maps.