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This is completely ridiculous. Consider for one the soft power that the US has.[1] You can just limit this to the seemingly frivilous “everyone wants to wear j

This is completely ridiculous. Consider for one the soft power that the US has.[1] You can just limit this to the seemingly frivilous “everyone wants to wear jeans” point. It is nowhere near anything that the Soviet Union and now Russia could dream of. And the point is even stronger if we just consider the West. To propose that the Soviet Union and now Russia could psychologically undermine America itself is completely outlandish. Now consider that Russia wasn’t even able to psychologically subvert their “brother people” the Ukranians. A smaller country (although still large) right next to them with a fair amount of Russian speakers. Let’s just for a moment pretend for the sake of the argument that the separatist movements were just indoctrinated by Russia. That was still a failure since the majority of Ukranians ended up being pro-Western. [1] And I do mean soft and not the “we’ll persuade you to open yourself up to penetration by our corporations” kind of influence.

pdonis 5y ago
> To propose that the Soviet Union and now Russia could psychologically undermine America itself is completely outlandish. It's not outlandish at all. Many of the things he describes have actually happened.
commandlinefan 5y ago
> wasn’t even able to psychologically subvert the Ukranians Well, not all of them, but the there were enough separatists in Crimea and Donetsk, etc. to destabilize those regions. Were those separatists psychologically subverted, or did they just happen to want to re-join Russia? They don't have to subvert all of America, just enough of a subvertable multitude to destabilize things.
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  > Well, not all of them, but the there were enough separatists in Crimea First of all, us Westerners have already questioned how democratic the supposed cessation from Ukraine was. So let’s not get selective now. Russia already had their military stationed their. That could have a chilling effect. Second of all, plenty of people in Crimea speak Russian. And a lot of the Crimean Tatars were forcefully deported under the Soviet Union. I just bring that up since forceful deportation is not exactly, uh, the tool of a governing party that feels that they can just manipulate their subjects into becoming… whatever the Soviet Union wanted them to become. > ... and Donetsk, etc. to destabilize those regions. In your quote you left out the rest of the paragraph where I addressed the separatists. Even if we assume—and this is an insane hypothetical for the sake of this specific argument—that all those separatists were hypnotized by Russia, that’s still a very lackluster result considering that the majority of Ukraine is pro-Western right now. I mean they did commit to an all out war with them. So much for subversion. But let’s entertain this point for one more paragraph. The separatist conflict started after the 2014 coup which America supported.[1] So the separatist sentiment was in part caused by America trying to subvert the political process of Ukraine (and kind of openly, too). That’s in a way more impressive than Russian subversion considering how far away the US is. [1] Page 4, https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-t... > Were those separatists psychologically subverted, or did they just happen to want to re-join Russia? This feels like a rhetorical question where one of the alternatives is the obvious answer. In case it is the former which is “correct”: it is quite common for peoples and ethnicities to not live neatly in each of their own little nation state. 25% of Latvia, for example, consists of ethnic Russians. Finland has a Swedish-speaking minority. You have Transnistria in Moldova. So what makes an ethnic/cultural separatist region at all weird or unusual? Especially when a major power is willing to unofficially help them out for eight years...
  - commandlinefan 5y ago
    > questioned how democratic the supposed cessation from Ukraine was That’s… the point I was making…
    - avgcorrection 5y ago
      Due to the military presence. Not due to some mind-hack nonense. Does Russia have a military presence in the US? It does not and it never will.
e40 5y ago
Well, seems like it was successful in 2016 subverting our election. And, convincing a sitting US President to be a lacky of Putin.
- e40 5y ago
  Do you think I was talking about Biden? Crikey, folks, Trump is still saying nice things about his BFF. It's "borderline treasonous" as Romney said this weekend.

pdonis 5y ago

> To propose that the Soviet Union and now Russia could psychologically undermine America itself is completely outlandish. It's not outlandish at all. Many of the things he describes have actually happened.

commandlinefan 5y ago

> wasn’t even able to psychologically subvert the Ukranians Well, not all of them, but the there were enough separatists in Crimea and Donetsk, etc. to destabilize those regions. Were those separatists psychologically subverted, or did they just happen to want to re-join Russia? They don't have to subvert all of America, just enough of a subvertable multitude to destabilize things.

avgcorrection 5y ago
> Well, not all of them, but the there were enough separatists in Crimea First of all, us Westerners have already questioned how democratic the supposed cessation from Ukraine was. So let’s not get selective now. Russia already had their military stationed their. That could have a chilling effect. Second of all, plenty of people in Crimea speak Russian. And a lot of the Crimean Tatars were forcefully deported under the Soviet Union. I just bring that up since forceful deportation is not exactly, uh, the tool of a governing party that feels that they can just manipulate their subjects into becoming… whatever the Soviet Union wanted them to become. > ... and Donetsk, etc. to destabilize those regions. In your quote you left out the rest of the paragraph where I addressed the separatists. Even if we assume—and this is an insane hypothetical for the sake of this specific argument—that all those separatists were hypnotized by Russia, that’s still a very lackluster result considering that the majority of Ukraine is pro-Western right now. I mean they did commit to an all out war with them. So much for subversion. But let’s entertain this point for one more paragraph. The separatist conflict started after the 2014 coup which America supported.[1] So the separatist sentiment was in part caused by America trying to subvert the political process of Ukraine (and kind of openly, too). That’s in a way more impressive than Russian subversion considering how far away the US is. [1] Page 4, https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-t... > Were those separatists psychologically subverted, or did they just happen to want to re-join Russia? This feels like a rhetorical question where one of the alternatives is the obvious answer. In case it is the former which is “correct”: it is quite common for peoples and ethnicities to not live neatly in each of their own little nation state. 25% of Latvia, for example, consists of ethnic Russians. Finland has a Swedish-speaking minority. You have Transnistria in Moldova. So what makes an ethnic/cultural separatist region at all weird or unusual? Especially when a major power is willing to unofficially help them out for eight years...
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  > questioned how democratic the supposed cessation from Ukraine was That’s… the point I was making…
  - avgcorrection 5y ago
    Due to the military presence. Not due to some mind-hack nonense. Does Russia have a military presence in the US? It does not and it never will.

e40 5y ago

Well, seems like it was successful in 2016 subverting our election. And, convincing a sitting US President to be a lacky of Putin.

e40 5y ago
Do you think I was talking about Biden? Crikey, folks, Trump is still saying nice things about his BFF. It's "borderline treasonous" as Romney said this weekend.