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Listen to internal speeches by Putin or Xi, they are often available on YouTube. We are not slowly sliding towards a world conflict, it has already begun and we

Listen to internal speeches by Putin or Xi, they are often available on YouTube. We are not slowly sliding towards a world conflict, it has already begun and we are hopeless to stop it. It is arrogant to ignore or dismiss the happenings. Things were set in motion years ago and they are slowly unraveling. When the West rejected Russia's deeper integration into its structures after the Cold War ended and expanded NATO towards the East this path was set in stone. The late 2000s were the absolute breaking point. Major Eastern players are asymmetrically breaking US hegemony through proxies and internal conflict. They cannot face the US conventionally but it doesn't mean they cannot face the US. They can, they do and they will continue to do so. Brexit, MAGA, Mideast conflicts, Ukraine, EU refugee crisis, inflation, energy crisis, recent development in North Korea, social media disinformation etc. etc. etc. The BRICS countries (and others) are pursuing a multipolar, non-democratic world with heavily reduced US influence over Asia and Europe, who are now discussing defense independence and their own nuclear umbrella after Trump strategically placed some Russian talking points (again).

actionfromafar 3y ago
What deeper integration would that have been? Geniunely curious, I don't see what could have worked once the oligarchs were minted. They only care about selling simple low-effort stuff, easily corrupted, like oil.
- neom 3y ago
  We talk a lot about economic integration but we rarely talk about cultural integration. imo part of what will keep us safe in the future is cultural integration. We have multiple generations of families established across many borders now. With enough of that, the appetite for world war in theory might be decreased. I don't know the answer here, but I do feel we don't think about cultural integration as a national security asset often, and it probably could be.
  - krisoft 3y ago
    > We have multiple generations of families established across many borders now. With enough of that, the appetite for world war in theory might be decreased. Like the multi-generational families some of their members living in Ukraine, some in Russia? Didn't seem to stop the war sadly.
    - neom 3y ago
      You're totally correct, to be clear I don't know if this is a good prognosis for regional conflict, I was more alluding to something like WW3.
- lr1970 3y ago
  > What deeper integration would that have been? Boris Yeltsyn was proposing to Bill Clinton to admit Russia into NATO. This way Russian ambitions would be tamed and channeled into something more constructive.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Of course, we can't know what a Russian NATO membership could have lead to. But a few red flags - Russia just barely held together at that time and had its own civil war. Also, there's the risk of Russia joining just to walk away with the keys to the kingdom at any later point. If the CFE inspections (1) were anything to go by, Russia didn't exactly play fair. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Conventional_Armed_Forces_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Conventional_Armed_F...
    - protomolecule 3y ago
      That's comical that you mention CFE. Your own link says: "The treaty proposed equal limits for the two "groups of states-parties", the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact" and later "most former non-USSR Warsaw Treaty members subsequently joined NATO, followed later by the Baltic states and the states of the former Yugoslavia". "CFE-II took into account the different geopolitical situation of the post-Cold War era by setting national instead of bloc-based limits on conventional armed forces. NATO members refused however to ratify the treaty..." [0] What a surprise. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Conventional_Armed_Forces_in_Europe#Follow-up_agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Conventional_Armed_F...
      - actionfromafar 3y ago
        I'm not saying there wasn't mistrust from all sides. I'm saying Russia may have had ulterior motives to join NATO.
        protomolecule 3y ago
        "Ulterior motives" like what?
- danmaz74 3y ago
  Putin has pushing this lie that he tried to get closer to NATO and was rebuffed for a long time, but it's simply not true. His ideology has always been completely against being junior partner in a US led alliance.
- riehwvfbk 3y ago
  It might be difficult to believe, but in the 1990s the people of Russia truly wanted to be in Europe (kind of like Ukrainians do now). That sentiment is now gone, and it's not (just) due to propaganda. The common people believe that Ukrainians will just be used to achieve some goal in the US vs. Russia power struggle and then abandoned. https://www.politico.eu/article/how-the-us-broke-kosovo-and-what-that-means-for-ukraine/ https://www.politico.eu/article/how-the-us-broke-kosovo-and-...
  - andrepd 3y ago
    Doesn't help, the whole history of the US (and USSR) using regional proxy conflicts to advance their purposes, and then discarding their "allies".
  - holoduke 3y ago
    Where do you got that info. Most Russians want to be part of Europe. Its not that Russian people dont have a way to think freely. They all watch youtube and other social media. And they all love to ski in Austria or to visit Italy for a holiday. I don't know one russian person who is not pro Europe. Even Putin himself is pro europe.
    - jnsaff2 3y ago
      Why does this "pro" manifest itself in trying to murder one part of europe and trying to freeze the rest?
- thriftwy 3y ago
  For starters, pre-2014 Russians would be glad to have a visa waiver with the EU. But they never got that. Then 2014 and Crimea affair came and EU didn't have that lever to pull. Things like student exchanges, etc, were also severily limited in scope. Russians only ever saw EU as tourists, not as neighbours. And tourists can sure swap one destination for the another. Russians knew that they live in Europe, but did not feel the neighbourly presense of the EU.
  - rcatcher 3y ago
    > Russians knew that they live in Europe This is not accurate. In the USSR and after its collapse, Russians generally don't consider themselves European. I also think this aligns more or less with how the rest of the world sees Russia if you consider the standards of living and the freedoms citizens have in Russia (e.g., no freedom of speech; not being able to freely travel to most of the world). On top of that, don't forget that geographically, most of Russia is in Asia.
    - omrigan 3y ago
      Russia is a 100% European country. > standards of living Comparable and exceeding some countries in EU (e.g. Bulgaria) > freedoms citizens have in Russia (e.g., no freedom of speech) Some freedoms are there, some are not. Before 2022 it was similar to some parts of Europe. Also, freedom is not synonymous to Europe. > able to freely travel to most of the world It is not that bad. 127 visa-free countries, more than e. g. Montenegro, Moldova, Albaina - all of which are 100% European. > geographically, most of Russia is in Asia This is a meaningless argument. Britan was 90% not in Europe in the year 1912. But no one would say it was not European.
      - wojciii 3y ago
        Russia is not an European country. It requires running water and indoor toilets for this. Also not being run by mafia. The current conflict is going to break it up into smaller chunks sooner or later. I'm going to enjoy watching it burn.
- protomolecule 3y ago
  Like this (2010): No more tariffs. No more visas. Vastly more economic cooperation between Russia and the European Union. That's the vision presented by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in an editorial contribution to the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung on Thursday. "We propose the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok," Putin writes. "In the future, we could even consider a free trade zone or even more advanced forms of economic integration. The result would be a unified continental market with a capacity worth trillions of euros." [0] [0] https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-vladivostok-putin-envisions-a-russia-eu-free-trade-zone-a-731109.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-v...
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
    Yeah, I believe visas issue is what actually broke the camel's back. Putin and the Russians felt humiliated when Ukrainians got visa free travel and they didn't. Humiliation is a very powerful emotion.
    - protomolecule 3y ago
      I don't know. I'm Russian and I didn't feel humiliated. I don't even remember when it happened.
emptysongglass 3y ago
> Things were set in motion years ago and they are slowly unraveling. When the West rejected Russia's deeper integration into its structures after the Cold War ended and expanded NATO towards the East this path was set in stone. The late 2000s were the absolute breaking point. Your point would have been better made without weaseling in a Mearsheimer apology for authoritarian states. Russia snatching Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with NATO's expansion. Indeed, had NATO expanded earlier, we wouldn't have found ourselves in this mess, with Ukraine left to fend for itself. NATO grew because of the desperation of former USSR satellites to shelter themselves from their abuser. As to the other bit here about rejecting Russian integration as a cause for war: I think that point has been proven quite wrong with Merkel's absurd fantasy that trade with Russia would bring peace.
- empath-nirvana 3y ago
  The West didn't reject Russia's deeper integration -- Russia, and more particularly, Putin did. There was always a plan to add Russia to the EU and even at some point get them to join NATO. Russia abandoned democracy and closed that door.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    A big example of this that comes to mind to me (as a space nerd) is the ISS and various American rockets developed around that time. The US footed much of the bill for the ISS and offered Russia a ridiculously good deal in offering to launch their modules and setting up the seat exchange with Soyuz. Boeing and Lockheed Martin adopted Russian rocket engines for their rockets despite the national security concerns of having major launchers dependent on a potential adversary. This second decision caused a good bit of harm to domestic rocket engine design in the US. Of course part of the goal was to give Russian rocket scientists a more peaceful task to work on than spreading out to Iran, North Korea etc, but it was also a great chance for Russia to integrate further with the West and expand their historical prominence in space technology. Instead, they've done everything to ensure that they never get such a deal again, and have allowed their space industry to atrophy significantly. There's talk about how if Russia had been allowed into NATO they'd have been able to channel their energy into more constructive pursuits, but they were given an opportunity to do that for space technology and did not do so.
nonethewiser 3y ago
Sadly I think you’re right about NATO expansion. I think a hot war with Russia was always on the table with NATO expansion. You either have to be willing to fight it to defend the expansion or you’re going to cede something to Russia when they push back.
- dralley 3y ago
  Hot war was absolutely on the table without expansion, just look at Moldova, or Georgia. Or even Ukraine. Ukraine was already ineligible for NATO prior to 2014 as a result of the multi-decade lease of Sevastopol to the Russian Navy.

actionfromafar 3y ago

What deeper integration would that have been? Geniunely curious, I don't see what could have worked once the oligarchs were minted. They only care about selling simple low-effort stuff, easily corrupted, like oil.

neom 3y ago
We talk a lot about economic integration but we rarely talk about cultural integration. imo part of what will keep us safe in the future is cultural integration. We have multiple generations of families established across many borders now. With enough of that, the appetite for world war in theory might be decreased. I don't know the answer here, but I do feel we don't think about cultural integration as a national security asset often, and it probably could be.
- krisoft 3y ago
  > We have multiple generations of families established across many borders now. With enough of that, the appetite for world war in theory might be decreased. Like the multi-generational families some of their members living in Ukraine, some in Russia? Didn't seem to stop the war sadly.
  - neom 3y ago
    You're totally correct, to be clear I don't know if this is a good prognosis for regional conflict, I was more alluding to something like WW3.
lr1970 3y ago
> What deeper integration would that have been? Boris Yeltsyn was proposing to Bill Clinton to admit Russia into NATO. This way Russian ambitions would be tamed and channeled into something more constructive.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Of course, we can't know what a Russian NATO membership could have lead to. But a few red flags - Russia just barely held together at that time and had its own civil war. Also, there's the risk of Russia joining just to walk away with the keys to the kingdom at any later point. If the CFE inspections (1) were anything to go by, Russia didn't exactly play fair. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Conventional_Armed_Forces_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Conventional_Armed_F...
  - protomolecule 3y ago
    That's comical that you mention CFE. Your own link says: "The treaty proposed equal limits for the two "groups of states-parties", the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact" and later "most former non-USSR Warsaw Treaty members subsequently joined NATO, followed later by the Baltic states and the states of the former Yugoslavia". "CFE-II took into account the different geopolitical situation of the post-Cold War era by setting national instead of bloc-based limits on conventional armed forces. NATO members refused however to ratify the treaty..." [0] What a surprise. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Conventional_Armed_Forces_in_Europe#Follow-up_agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Conventional_Armed_F...
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      I'm not saying there wasn't mistrust from all sides. I'm saying Russia may have had ulterior motives to join NATO.
      - protomolecule 3y ago
        "Ulterior motives" like what?
danmaz74 3y ago
Putin has pushing this lie that he tried to get closer to NATO and was rebuffed for a long time, but it's simply not true. His ideology has always been completely against being junior partner in a US led alliance.
riehwvfbk 3y ago
It might be difficult to believe, but in the 1990s the people of Russia truly wanted to be in Europe (kind of like Ukrainians do now). That sentiment is now gone, and it's not (just) due to propaganda. The common people believe that Ukrainians will just be used to achieve some goal in the US vs. Russia power struggle and then abandoned. https://www.politico.eu/article/how-the-us-broke-kosovo-and-what-that-means-for-ukraine/ https://www.politico.eu/article/how-the-us-broke-kosovo-and-...
- andrepd 3y ago
  Doesn't help, the whole history of the US (and USSR) using regional proxy conflicts to advance their purposes, and then discarding their "allies".
- holoduke 3y ago
  Where do you got that info. Most Russians want to be part of Europe. Its not that Russian people dont have a way to think freely. They all watch youtube and other social media. And they all love to ski in Austria or to visit Italy for a holiday. I don't know one russian person who is not pro Europe. Even Putin himself is pro europe.
  - jnsaff2 3y ago
    Why does this "pro" manifest itself in trying to murder one part of europe and trying to freeze the rest?
thriftwy 3y ago
For starters, pre-2014 Russians would be glad to have a visa waiver with the EU. But they never got that. Then 2014 and Crimea affair came and EU didn't have that lever to pull. Things like student exchanges, etc, were also severily limited in scope. Russians only ever saw EU as tourists, not as neighbours. And tourists can sure swap one destination for the another. Russians knew that they live in Europe, but did not feel the neighbourly presense of the EU.
- rcatcher 3y ago
  > Russians knew that they live in Europe This is not accurate. In the USSR and after its collapse, Russians generally don't consider themselves European. I also think this aligns more or less with how the rest of the world sees Russia if you consider the standards of living and the freedoms citizens have in Russia (e.g., no freedom of speech; not being able to freely travel to most of the world). On top of that, don't forget that geographically, most of Russia is in Asia.
  - omrigan 3y ago
    Russia is a 100% European country. > standards of living Comparable and exceeding some countries in EU (e.g. Bulgaria) > freedoms citizens have in Russia (e.g., no freedom of speech) Some freedoms are there, some are not. Before 2022 it was similar to some parts of Europe. Also, freedom is not synonymous to Europe. > able to freely travel to most of the world It is not that bad. 127 visa-free countries, more than e. g. Montenegro, Moldova, Albaina - all of which are 100% European. > geographically, most of Russia is in Asia This is a meaningless argument. Britan was 90% not in Europe in the year 1912. But no one would say it was not European.
    - wojciii 3y ago
      Russia is not an European country. It requires running water and indoor toilets for this. Also not being run by mafia. The current conflict is going to break it up into smaller chunks sooner or later. I'm going to enjoy watching it burn.
protomolecule 3y ago
Like this (2010): No more tariffs. No more visas. Vastly more economic cooperation between Russia and the European Union. That's the vision presented by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in an editorial contribution to the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung on Thursday. "We propose the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok," Putin writes. "In the future, we could even consider a free trade zone or even more advanced forms of economic integration. The result would be a unified continental market with a capacity worth trillions of euros." [0] [0] https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-vladivostok-putin-envisions-a-russia-eu-free-trade-zone-a-731109.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-v...
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
  Yeah, I believe visas issue is what actually broke the camel's back. Putin and the Russians felt humiliated when Ukrainians got visa free travel and they didn't. Humiliation is a very powerful emotion.
  - protomolecule 3y ago
    I don't know. I'm Russian and I didn't feel humiliated. I don't even remember when it happened.

emptysongglass 3y ago

> Things were set in motion years ago and they are slowly unraveling. When the West rejected Russia's deeper integration into its structures after the Cold War ended and expanded NATO towards the East this path was set in stone. The late 2000s were the absolute breaking point. Your point would have been better made without weaseling in a Mearsheimer apology for authoritarian states. Russia snatching Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with NATO's expansion. Indeed, had NATO expanded earlier, we wouldn't have found ourselves in this mess, with Ukraine left to fend for itself. NATO grew because of the desperation of former USSR satellites to shelter themselves from their abuser. As to the other bit here about rejecting Russian integration as a cause for war: I think that point has been proven quite wrong with Merkel's absurd fantasy that trade with Russia would bring peace.

empath-nirvana 3y ago
The West didn't reject Russia's deeper integration -- Russia, and more particularly, Putin did. There was always a plan to add Russia to the EU and even at some point get them to join NATO. Russia abandoned democracy and closed that door.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  A big example of this that comes to mind to me (as a space nerd) is the ISS and various American rockets developed around that time. The US footed much of the bill for the ISS and offered Russia a ridiculously good deal in offering to launch their modules and setting up the seat exchange with Soyuz. Boeing and Lockheed Martin adopted Russian rocket engines for their rockets despite the national security concerns of having major launchers dependent on a potential adversary. This second decision caused a good bit of harm to domestic rocket engine design in the US. Of course part of the goal was to give Russian rocket scientists a more peaceful task to work on than spreading out to Iran, North Korea etc, but it was also a great chance for Russia to integrate further with the West and expand their historical prominence in space technology. Instead, they've done everything to ensure that they never get such a deal again, and have allowed their space industry to atrophy significantly. There's talk about how if Russia had been allowed into NATO they'd have been able to channel their energy into more constructive pursuits, but they were given an opportunity to do that for space technology and did not do so.

nonethewiser 3y ago

Sadly I think you’re right about NATO expansion. I think a hot war with Russia was always on the table with NATO expansion. You either have to be willing to fight it to defend the expansion or you’re going to cede something to Russia when they push back.

dralley 3y ago
Hot war was absolutely on the table without expansion, just look at Moldova, or Georgia. Or even Ukraine. Ukraine was already ineligible for NATO prior to 2014 as a result of the multi-decade lease of Sevastopol to the Russian Navy.