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Where's Russia in this mix? Russia has been meddling with European affairs for hundreds of years. The world is definitely not bipolar, US's hegemony after the

by _hao 7y ago

Where's Russia in this mix? Russia has been meddling with European affairs for hundreds of years. The world is definitely not bipolar, US's hegemony after the collapse of the USSR is quickly disappearing. China is the latest player to enter the game, but it's true that Europe is between the hammer and anvil and battered on all sides by the US, Russia and China.

roenxi 7y ago
Russia isn't all that big in economic terms [0]. Really only China, America, Europe and maybe India are serious players in terms of how much real might they can marshal for sustained pressure. Most countries are powerful players, but the economic giants are in a class of their own. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
- _hao 7y ago
  See that's the thing. It doesn't matter that Russia is an economical midget. They hold the keys for the energy sector in Europe - Russian fossil fuels supply Europe with energy. And as far as military power goes, many people underestimate Russia, but they took Crimea, they keep sowing disarray in Ukraine, Syria and now Georgia again. And that's even before talking about their influence in elections and paid diplomats that push for pro-Russian agenda.
  - 0815test 7y ago
    Energy sector? Renewable energy is actually becoming cheaper than fossil fuels. It doesn't matter. And foreign-policy-wise they're not even trying to seriously wield "influence" that could actually be positive for them in the longer run. They can "sow disarray" all they want, even on Twitter and Facebook for that matter but that's theater. It's a bit of cheap lulz at the West's expense.
    - _hao 7y ago
      I'm not saying this will continue in the future. I'm just saying that right now there are a lot of European countries that are at the mercy of Russia when it comes to energy. In my home country Russian influence is very strong. Is not just cheap Twitter and Facebook tantrums. It's full scale invasion in every part of the government. They've been quite successful actually.
      - lostmsu 7y ago
        Mercy? Do they not have alternative suppliers?
  - cat199 7y ago
    > Syria umm. how about those 'moderate rebels'? pretty sure the US and its regional allies were the ones stirring the pot in the middle east since hussein/gaddafi/mubarak..
    - _hao 7y ago
      US doing US foreign policy things in the ME is entirely different subject. That's part of their foreign policy set in the 80's. US had unquestioned global authority for almost 20 years until very recently.
- hollerith 7y ago
  Russia isn't that big in economic terms, but Russia had enough autonomy to defy the US intelligence establishment by granting asylum to Snowden. The reason Snowden had to quickly leave Hong Kong, in my opinion was that he learned that as soon as the US demanded that China hand him over, the Chinese government would have to comply or essentially run the risk their country falling apart. In particular, the Chinese-speaking lands have been united under a single government for only 500 of the last 2500 years (and 300 of those years were under the Mongol yoke). When the Chinese-speaking lands have been fragmented, non-Chinese governments have been able to cause a lot of trouble by playing one Chinese-speaking polity against the other, so it is understandable that most rational Chinese people strongly prefer to prevent that from happening. The main thing preventing popular unrest in China at levels that risk bringing down the Chinese government has been the rapid rise in living standards and rise in the economic prospects of poor Chinese. That rise would've been impossible without the massive Chinese trade with large countries that are wealthy per capita. The Chinese would not have risked Chinese trade with the US over Snowden. (It turns out that they are now having to contend with a probable reduction in their ability to provide jobs internally through trade with the US anyways, for different reasons: even if the volume of trade returns to previous levels, the terms of that trade will be more favorable for providing blue-collar jobs in the US and less favorable for maximizing employment in China.) No government on earth has as much ability to defy the US government or to inflict pain on the US as Russia does. (China might overtake it in that capacity in the future, but it is not close now IMO and in the opinion of professional strategists George Friedman and Peter Zeihan.) North Vietnam was tiny in economic terms (even accounting for assistance by the Soviet Union and Communist China), but that didn't prevent them from conquering South Vietnam despite massive US efforts to stop them.
yogthos 7y ago
Russia and China are largely on the same page as far as global affairs are concerned.
- akmarinov 7y ago
  Not economy-wise. Russia’s economy is smaller than Italy’s.
  - fmajid 7y ago
    It's bigger in PPP terms, but yes, Russia is a mostly irrelevant in economics terms, apart from commodity markets like oil.
  - Barrin92 7y ago
    That is irrelevant. What matters as far as international affairs is concerned is state capacity. And the ability of the Russian state to project power, both towards Eastern Europe but also predominantly in the Middle East is still immense. If you look at how strongly the Russian influence has been on Kazakhstan very deeply into the personal life of citizens of a traditionally vastly different culture you'll be surprised how able the Russian state still is, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The same is still happening in Turkey, Syria and Iraq and Iran where Russia has pretty effectively replaced the US. The very naive economic centric view is the same sort of logic people employed shortly before the collapse of the British empire. It's a very unreliable and short-termist metric.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      > The very naive economic centric view is the same sort of logic people employed shortly before the collapse of the British empire. It's a very unreliable and short-termist metric. The US empire collapsing is a different kettle of fish to this strange notion that Russia is a world power. Sure, Trump saying the US economy is strong isn't going to stave anything off that might happen geopolitically. But whatever happens it is unlikely that the world will be bowing and scraping to Russia in the way that China or America can demand. A huge economy is necessary to exert global power and be called a geopolitical pole. This applies even if they do control Kazakhstan.
coldtea 7y ago
>Where's Russia in this mix? Russia has been meddling with European affairs for hundreds of years. More so than Britain, France, Austro-Hungary, Germany and so on meddled on European (and Russian) affairs? Russia, for one, was twice invaded by European armies, with huge human toll. Beyond that, Russia is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It was USSR that had a lot of power internationally (and that only because of WWII and its aftermath, it was quite unstable before that, and again after the 70s).
- _Codemonkeyism 7y ago
  For one, Soviet Russia together with the German Reich sliced Europe in two parts on the map and then invaded Poland together with Germany. After that one mad dictator was faster than the other.
  - vasac 7y ago
    As they say, get your facts straight ;) 29 September 1938 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement 23 August 1939 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
    - _Codemonkeyism 7y ago
      So? The parent was about the victimization of Russia. Your time line is about the allies caved in to the Reich and Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and as far as I can see has nothing to do with Russia, but I might miss something. Then the Reich and Soviet Russia sat together cut Europe in halt. Stalin was by far the better strategist though, he talked to the French and English, waited until the Reich invaded Poland and then invaded Poland and the Baltic states second.
- bin0 7y ago
  > Russia is insignificant You must be very naive. I do not say that in an adversarial way, but because Russia always has been (and will likely continue to be) a major world power. It is the world's largest country, with a population of roughly one-hundred-fifty million. More importantly, Russia is, along with America, one of two potentially autarchic nations. They are the only two who can not only grow food but mine their own metal, drill their own oil, etc. without importing (at least, conceivably). Isolation would of course slow either significantly, but not halt. Consider the pressure that was on the Soviet Union, consider the inherent instability of communism, and then reconsider how long it bore up under that pressure. Russia is and has always been remarkably stable under strong, authoritarian rule (i.e. Stalin, Ivan, etc.), and any nation in a similar situation would have collapsed much sooner.
hevi_jos 7y ago
Well, that is because Russia IS Europe. At least a significant part of it. All the culture, the history in Russia is European. It is for sure more European than the USA is. Russia became isolated because of communism. Now the USA wants to isolate it because it is not in the economic interest of the US, but certainly it is for Europe. Europe is a small old continent with lots of people but lacking natural resources like oil. Russia is the biggest country in the world, with very few people and lots of resources. If Europe continue dancing to the US tune, Russia will go closer to China.
- fmajid 7y ago
  Russia isolated itself by reckless moves like using polonium and novichok against opponents in the West. Some of it like the takeover of Crimea are understandable reactions against a sense of encirclement from the West and NATO, but others like shooting down the Malaysian Airlines jet over Ukraine were completely unnecessary.
  - cat199 7y ago
    > like shooting down the Malaysian Airlines jet over Ukraine were completely unnecessary do you seriously think this was a deliberate action? if so, what would be the rationale and goal of doing it? ps: why is noone blaming the airline for flying over a warzone? this to me is the real 'culprit' in that one..
  - lostmsu 7y ago
    LOL! Polonium and novichok are reckless, but Crimea, and, more importantly, Lugansk and Donetsk regions are not? I would say it is the other way around. The later led to thousands dead and millions displaced. On a net scale they are worse than Estonia, which threw 30+% of population into being stateless at the fall of Soviet Union.
- _hao 7y ago
  Russia and China are natural allies for the time being, but in the event that the US loses it's global position as a leader that is subject to change. China is aggressive in it's dealings with Russia and there's a huge Chinese population in Siberia which might be used as an excuse to incite unrest and possible annexation of some territories in the not so far future.
igravious 7y ago
> Russia has been meddling with European affairs for hundreds of years. This again? That's akin to complaining that New York has been meddling in North American affairs for hundreds of years. Please please remember that Russia is a transcontinental country, a significant part of Russia is distinctly European. “European Russia is the western part of the Russian Federation, which is part of Eastern Europe. With a population of 110 million people, European Russia has about 77% of Russia's population, but covers less than 25% of Russia's territory. European Russia includes Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the two largest cities in Russia.”† The distance from Helsinki in Finland to St. Petersburg is a mere 400km! The thing is, Russia is so large it is part of Europe but also borders China. Think about Russian culture for a second: ballet, classical music, Russian literature, a Latin-like alphabet (more recognisable than the Greek alphabet when you think about it), architecture – all recognisably European. Does it need to be pointed out that "Europe" has attacked Russia many times (the Napoleonic wars, the Wehrmacht) and that Russia was on the Allied side of WWII, the last hot war fought between great powers. Russia has been demonised for too long for choosing the wrong ideology (communism) and becoming the sole 20th century political/economic/nuclear rival to the USA under the guise of the Soviet Union. I recommend the biopic Meeting Gorbachev by Werner Herzog for a perspective on the collapse of the Soviet Union by the person at its helm at the time‡. If you still think "evil empire" after watching it then I don't know what to say. If by European you mean Western European please use that qualification. All of Europe including Russia (but also India and others) are watching with trepidation as this geopolitical struggle between the US and China plays out. † https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Russia ‡ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_Gorbachev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_Gorbachev edit: add religion to the common heritage as well
- _hao 7y ago
  I was born and raised in a country that was behind the Iron Curtain so please don't lecture me on the history. Russia has a lot to answer for even if we disregard communism entirely. Russia culturally and historically IS part of Europe, but that's where the similarities end. They're not part of European society and are most definitely an enemy to it.
raxxorrax 7y ago
Some countries in Europe had a good relationship with Russia. I would like to go back to it. Western operations in Eastern Europe were plain stupid and Ukraine had to pay for it. A relation to Russia doesn't mean a divorce from the US. But any way for a more secure Europe has to get Russia to the table. And frankly, Americans should get some therapy for their issues with Russia. You cannot blame everything on age here... > its showdown with China didn't spark from an ideological or military rivalry, but an economic one An ideological conflict would at least be understandable. But the best way for everyone seems to be to push China through its current development phase. A strong and independent China could help everyone.
notfromhere 7y ago
The United States is still going to be a global power even if it loses its current hegemony. If anything, Russia is the one trapped between China, Europe, and the United States, as it tries to maintain its EE sphere of influence despite declining resources to do so successfully.

by _hao 7y ago

roenxi 7y ago

Russia isn't all that big in economic terms [0]. Really only China, America, Europe and maybe India are serious players in terms of how much real might they can marshal for sustained pressure. Most countries are powerful players, but the economic giants are in a class of their own. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)

_hao 7y ago
See that's the thing. It doesn't matter that Russia is an economical midget. They hold the keys for the energy sector in Europe - Russian fossil fuels supply Europe with energy. And as far as military power goes, many people underestimate Russia, but they took Crimea, they keep sowing disarray in Ukraine, Syria and now Georgia again. And that's even before talking about their influence in elections and paid diplomats that push for pro-Russian agenda.
- 0815test 7y ago
  Energy sector? Renewable energy is actually becoming cheaper than fossil fuels. It doesn't matter. And foreign-policy-wise they're not even trying to seriously wield "influence" that could actually be positive for them in the longer run. They can "sow disarray" all they want, even on Twitter and Facebook for that matter but that's theater. It's a bit of cheap lulz at the West's expense.
  - _hao 7y ago
    I'm not saying this will continue in the future. I'm just saying that right now there are a lot of European countries that are at the mercy of Russia when it comes to energy. In my home country Russian influence is very strong. Is not just cheap Twitter and Facebook tantrums. It's full scale invasion in every part of the government. They've been quite successful actually.
    - lostmsu 7y ago
      Mercy? Do they not have alternative suppliers?
- cat199 7y ago
  > Syria umm. how about those 'moderate rebels'? pretty sure the US and its regional allies were the ones stirring the pot in the middle east since hussein/gaddafi/mubarak..
  - _hao 7y ago
    US doing US foreign policy things in the ME is entirely different subject. That's part of their foreign policy set in the 80's. US had unquestioned global authority for almost 20 years until very recently.
hollerith 7y ago
Russia isn't that big in economic terms, but Russia had enough autonomy to defy the US intelligence establishment by granting asylum to Snowden. The reason Snowden had to quickly leave Hong Kong, in my opinion was that he learned that as soon as the US demanded that China hand him over, the Chinese government would have to comply or essentially run the risk their country falling apart. In particular, the Chinese-speaking lands have been united under a single government for only 500 of the last 2500 years (and 300 of those years were under the Mongol yoke). When the Chinese-speaking lands have been fragmented, non-Chinese governments have been able to cause a lot of trouble by playing one Chinese-speaking polity against the other, so it is understandable that most rational Chinese people strongly prefer to prevent that from happening. The main thing preventing popular unrest in China at levels that risk bringing down the Chinese government has been the rapid rise in living standards and rise in the economic prospects of poor Chinese. That rise would've been impossible without the massive Chinese trade with large countries that are wealthy per capita. The Chinese would not have risked Chinese trade with the US over Snowden. (It turns out that they are now having to contend with a probable reduction in their ability to provide jobs internally through trade with the US anyways, for different reasons: even if the volume of trade returns to previous levels, the terms of that trade will be more favorable for providing blue-collar jobs in the US and less favorable for maximizing employment in China.) No government on earth has as much ability to defy the US government or to inflict pain on the US as Russia does. (China might overtake it in that capacity in the future, but it is not close now IMO and in the opinion of professional strategists George Friedman and Peter Zeihan.) North Vietnam was tiny in economic terms (even accounting for assistance by the Soviet Union and Communist China), but that didn't prevent them from conquering South Vietnam despite massive US efforts to stop them.

yogthos 7y ago

Russia and China are largely on the same page as far as global affairs are concerned.

akmarinov 7y ago
Not economy-wise. Russia’s economy is smaller than Italy’s.
- fmajid 7y ago
  It's bigger in PPP terms, but yes, Russia is a mostly irrelevant in economics terms, apart from commodity markets like oil.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  That is irrelevant. What matters as far as international affairs is concerned is state capacity. And the ability of the Russian state to project power, both towards Eastern Europe but also predominantly in the Middle East is still immense. If you look at how strongly the Russian influence has been on Kazakhstan very deeply into the personal life of citizens of a traditionally vastly different culture you'll be surprised how able the Russian state still is, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The same is still happening in Turkey, Syria and Iraq and Iran where Russia has pretty effectively replaced the US. The very naive economic centric view is the same sort of logic people employed shortly before the collapse of the British empire. It's a very unreliable and short-termist metric.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    > The very naive economic centric view is the same sort of logic people employed shortly before the collapse of the British empire. It's a very unreliable and short-termist metric. The US empire collapsing is a different kettle of fish to this strange notion that Russia is a world power. Sure, Trump saying the US economy is strong isn't going to stave anything off that might happen geopolitically. But whatever happens it is unlikely that the world will be bowing and scraping to Russia in the way that China or America can demand. A huge economy is necessary to exert global power and be called a geopolitical pole. This applies even if they do control Kazakhstan.

coldtea 7y ago

>Where's Russia in this mix? Russia has been meddling with European affairs for hundreds of years. More so than Britain, France, Austro-Hungary, Germany and so on meddled on European (and Russian) affairs? Russia, for one, was twice invaded by European armies, with huge human toll. Beyond that, Russia is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It was USSR that had a lot of power internationally (and that only because of WWII and its aftermath, it was quite unstable before that, and again after the 70s).

_Codemonkeyism 7y ago
For one, Soviet Russia together with the German Reich sliced Europe in two parts on the map and then invaded Poland together with Germany. After that one mad dictator was faster than the other.
- vasac 7y ago
  As they say, get your facts straight ;) 29 September 1938 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement 23 August 1939 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
  - _Codemonkeyism 7y ago
    So? The parent was about the victimization of Russia. Your time line is about the allies caved in to the Reich and Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and as far as I can see has nothing to do with Russia, but I might miss something. Then the Reich and Soviet Russia sat together cut Europe in halt. Stalin was by far the better strategist though, he talked to the French and English, waited until the Reich invaded Poland and then invaded Poland and the Baltic states second.
bin0 7y ago
> Russia is insignificant You must be very naive. I do not say that in an adversarial way, but because Russia always has been (and will likely continue to be) a major world power. It is the world's largest country, with a population of roughly one-hundred-fifty million. More importantly, Russia is, along with America, one of two potentially autarchic nations. They are the only two who can not only grow food but mine their own metal, drill their own oil, etc. without importing (at least, conceivably). Isolation would of course slow either significantly, but not halt. Consider the pressure that was on the Soviet Union, consider the inherent instability of communism, and then reconsider how long it bore up under that pressure. Russia is and has always been remarkably stable under strong, authoritarian rule (i.e. Stalin, Ivan, etc.), and any nation in a similar situation would have collapsed much sooner.

hevi_jos 7y ago

Well, that is because Russia IS Europe. At least a significant part of it. All the culture, the history in Russia is European. It is for sure more European than the USA is. Russia became isolated because of communism. Now the USA wants to isolate it because it is not in the economic interest of the US, but certainly it is for Europe. Europe is a small old continent with lots of people but lacking natural resources like oil. Russia is the biggest country in the world, with very few people and lots of resources. If Europe continue dancing to the US tune, Russia will go closer to China.

fmajid 7y ago
Russia isolated itself by reckless moves like using polonium and novichok against opponents in the West. Some of it like the takeover of Crimea are understandable reactions against a sense of encirclement from the West and NATO, but others like shooting down the Malaysian Airlines jet over Ukraine were completely unnecessary.
- cat199 7y ago
  > like shooting down the Malaysian Airlines jet over Ukraine were completely unnecessary do you seriously think this was a deliberate action? if so, what would be the rationale and goal of doing it? ps: why is noone blaming the airline for flying over a warzone? this to me is the real 'culprit' in that one..
- lostmsu 7y ago
  LOL! Polonium and novichok are reckless, but Crimea, and, more importantly, Lugansk and Donetsk regions are not? I would say it is the other way around. The later led to thousands dead and millions displaced. On a net scale they are worse than Estonia, which threw 30+% of population into being stateless at the fall of Soviet Union.
_hao 7y ago
Russia and China are natural allies for the time being, but in the event that the US loses it's global position as a leader that is subject to change. China is aggressive in it's dealings with Russia and there's a huge Chinese population in Siberia which might be used as an excuse to incite unrest and possible annexation of some territories in the not so far future.

igravious 7y ago

> Russia has been meddling with European affairs for hundreds of years. This again? That's akin to complaining that New York has been meddling in North American affairs for hundreds of years. Please please remember that Russia is a transcontinental country, a significant part of Russia is distinctly European. “European Russia is the western part of the Russian Federation, which is part of Eastern Europe. With a population of 110 million people, European Russia has about 77% of Russia's population, but covers less than 25% of Russia's territory. European Russia includes Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the two largest cities in Russia.”† The distance from Helsinki in Finland to St. Petersburg is a mere 400km! The thing is, Russia is so large it is part of Europe but also borders China. Think about Russian culture for a second: ballet, classical music, Russian literature, a Latin-like alphabet (more recognisable than the Greek alphabet when you think about it), architecture – all recognisably European. Does it need to be pointed out that "Europe" has attacked Russia many times (the Napoleonic wars, the Wehrmacht) and that Russia was on the Allied side of WWII, the last hot war fought between great powers. Russia has been demonised for too long for choosing the wrong ideology (communism) and becoming the sole 20th century political/economic/nuclear rival to the USA under the guise of the Soviet Union. I recommend the biopic Meeting Gorbachev by Werner Herzog for a perspective on the collapse of the Soviet Union by the person at its helm at the time‡. If you still think "evil empire" after watching it then I don't know what to say. If by European you mean Western European please use that qualification. All of Europe including Russia (but also India and others) are watching with trepidation as this geopolitical struggle between the US and China plays out. † https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Russia ‡ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_Gorbachev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_Gorbachev edit: add religion to the common heritage as well

_hao 7y ago
I was born and raised in a country that was behind the Iron Curtain so please don't lecture me on the history. Russia has a lot to answer for even if we disregard communism entirely. Russia culturally and historically IS part of Europe, but that's where the similarities end. They're not part of European society and are most definitely an enemy to it.

raxxorrax 7y ago

Some countries in Europe had a good relationship with Russia. I would like to go back to it. Western operations in Eastern Europe were plain stupid and Ukraine had to pay for it. A relation to Russia doesn't mean a divorce from the US. But any way for a more secure Europe has to get Russia to the table. And frankly, Americans should get some therapy for their issues with Russia. You cannot blame everything on age here... > its showdown with China didn't spark from an ideological or military rivalry, but an economic one An ideological conflict would at least be understandable. But the best way for everyone seems to be to push China through its current development phase. A strong and independent China could help everyone.

notfromhere 7y ago

The United States is still going to be a global power even if it loses its current hegemony. If anything, Russia is the one trapped between China, Europe, and the United States, as it tries to maintain its EE sphere of influence despite declining resources to do so successfully.