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> Germany tries buying gas from Russia and the USA sanctions the fuck out of companies that are even just marginally involved in it. Good! Russia is an enemy.
by kanox 6y ago
> Germany tries buying gas from Russia and the USA sanctions the fuck out of companies that are even just marginally involved in it.
Good! Russia is an enemy.
- chishaku 6y agoWhy?
- remarkEon 6y agoWhy? The Cold War is over.
- kanox 6y agoRussia still wants to dominate Eastern Europe and must be opposed. The US is an excellent partner in that, much better than Western EU.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- notriskfree 6y agoExactly; when there was a clash of civilizations between a free west and a repressive soviet union; it made sense that Russia was the enemy. Now it is just a conflict between different European powers with varying levels of dysfunctional democracy and corrupt elites. So what is the basis for hating the Russians now; racism?
- remarkEon 6y agoYeah I’m fine with framing it like this. It’s just run of the mill geopolitical conflict. Calling Russians “the enemy” today is just shallow and lazy.
- kanox 6y agoRussians are not the enemy, Russia is the enemy. And this is based on Putin's foreign policy towards smaller neighbors that it historically controlled.
- IOT_Apprentice 6y agoPutin and his policy of destabilization of the West, from financing Brexit supporters, to poisoning his political opponents.
- burntoutfire 6y agoRussia's whole political culture is the one of conquest. Their ambition was pretty much always to conquer as much of Europe and Asia as possible, and the mindset haven't changed in XXI century - neither among elites nor among common folk. They're still pretty much a typical XIX century empire, they didn't yet go the shift to focusing on economic domination that UK, Germany, US, Japan went through since.
- Delk 6y ago> The Cold War is over. I would have agreed literally with that statement fifteen years ago. Since then, however, the trends in Russia towards state control over independent press, the politicisation of sports and culture, the blurring of lines not to be crossed (e.g. the annexation of Crimea) and overall clinching of Kremlin power at all costs have made lots of people in Europe worried. I also wouldn't say "Russia is the enemy", for a number of reasons: first of all, it's not true; secondly, it's not helpful; and thirdly, it obviously breeds distrust and antagonism not only between states but between individual people. But tensions have obviously been rising, and we are not in the pleasant situation we saw 20 years ago when Russia seemed to be heading towards democracy and increased international cooperation. The current regime in Russia, with its increasingly authoritarian and nationalistic pursuits and somewhat erratic foreign politics, has certainly been feeding those tensions. It would be disingenuous to claim it hasn't.