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Interesting how two Americans who were present in Moscow provide similar analyses but come to completely different conclusions. "How the Neocons Chose Hegemony

Interesting how two Americans who were present in Moscow provide similar analyses but come to completely different conclusions. "How the Neocons Chose Hegemony Over Peace Beginning in the Early 1990s" https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/bfsmbpe4plx7cc6lgxhf37lx249r22 https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/bfsmbpe4plx7cc6...

vkou 2y ago
Extending an olive branch in the 90s could have cemented a better Russia today. Instead, the country went straight to shit, Make Russia Great Again reactionaries won the vote, and have spent the next two decades carrying out their agenda (Which has managed to pull the country out of the hole it's been in, but as with any fascist movement, require an external enemy). From the perspective of any sane Russian who lived through the cold war, and then the 90s, entering the 00s and expecting the West to act as a partner, as opposed to an adversary would be absolute lunacy. Fool me once, shame on me, and so forth... So the reformists got all the blame, and the hardliners took over. The seeds of war get sown in peacetime. But hey, every one of those seeds had some pretext or other for it...
- RandomLensman 2y ago
  What kind olive branch would you have wanted to see? There was a lot going on at the time.
  - vkou 2y ago
    The parent poster's link describes the complete disinterest in engaging with it on economic aid. Reformists actually succeeding in their transition from communism might have nipped the problem in the bud. With aid come strings, those strings could have been used to softly steer the internal political clusterfuck in a better direction.
    - RandomLensman 2y ago
      I don't think that is true for all the nations involved and I think there was a poor understand on how and why things would not work out.
- HellDunkel 2y ago
  In fact the west was acting as a partner and NS2 was a physical manifestation of that any sane russian could not have ignored.
  - vkou 2y ago
    NS2 work started in 2011, Russia needed help twenty years earlier. But yes, alt history is bullshit, and nobody knows what would have if-only, if-only, if-only, but we can observe and shoot the shit about what did happen. And what did happen did not win many friends in it. There's no shortage of blame to go around within Russia. Yeltsin was a walking autocratic disaster, and handed the country right over to Putin.
    - HellDunkel 2y ago
      You mean in the early 90ies? And what kind of? Does the Budapest Memorandum qualify as „help“ or is it only vasts amout of cash that count?
      - vkou 2y ago
        We were talking about economic aid, but if you want to talk about broken promises... I'm sure if you dig just a bit further you might find some other agreements that have been made, and then broken (by NATO nations), prior to the start of the war in Lugansk/Donetsk/Ukraine as a whole. Gorbachev - one of Russia's few non-shitty statesmen, after his resignation, took a lot of issue with those violations of them, and you're going to have a hard time describing him as either an expansionist warhawk, or an enemy of the West. (The guy spent spent the last three decades of his life trying to patch up east-west relations, and was appalled and devastated by the war in Ukraine. If he thinks that there's something rotten about how NATO behaved in the late-90s and 00s, listen to him.) Combined with large parts of NATO starting (for the first time in it's history) a string of offensive operations (some on good pretenses, and some on absolutely terrible, illegal ones), and even a dove will start getting security anxieties.
        aguaviva 2y ago
- hackandthink 2y ago
  Jello Biafras take: World War I & we won! But did we bother to win the peace? Make ’em suffer! Let ‘em starve! Led direct to the Nazis After World War II, we learned Rebuilt Germany and Japan But when the Soviet Union fell Where was our Marshall Plan? We created Putin We created Putin We created Putin, yeah! Real James Bond villain We lost! See him prancing, half naked On his horse Side saddle, the blushing bride Clings with those little hands Stared into his eyes We saw his soul He saw how dumb our leaders are We’ll hack and ruin everything we want 'til your democracy’s a joke Like ours We created Putin We created Putin We created Putin, yeah! Capitalism has failed Mob corruption everywhere Not true comrade, can’t you see It’s working perfectly https://songtextes.de/songtexte/jello-biafra-we-created-putin https://songtextes.de/songtexte/jello-biafra-we-created-puti...
  - YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
    We’re more like russia every day Oligarchs steal everything Crime families like Kushner and Trumps To Koch&Head, Zuckergoogle and Bezos chumps Loot the country, loot the banks Cook up another ’08 crash Barrack and Biden chickened No one went to jail Kleptocracy’s too big to fail We created Putin! (Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine)

vkou 2y ago

Extending an olive branch in the 90s could have cemented a better Russia today. Instead, the country went straight to shit, Make Russia Great Again reactionaries won the vote, and have spent the next two decades carrying out their agenda (Which has managed to pull the country out of the hole it's been in, but as with any fascist movement, require an external enemy). From the perspective of any sane Russian who lived through the cold war, and then the 90s, entering the 00s and expecting the West to act as a partner, as opposed to an adversary would be absolute lunacy. Fool me once, shame on me, and so forth... So the reformists got all the blame, and the hardliners took over. The seeds of war get sown in peacetime. But hey, every one of those seeds had some pretext or other for it...

RandomLensman 2y ago
What kind olive branch would you have wanted to see? There was a lot going on at the time.
- vkou 2y ago
  The parent poster's link describes the complete disinterest in engaging with it on economic aid. Reformists actually succeeding in their transition from communism might have nipped the problem in the bud. With aid come strings, those strings could have been used to softly steer the internal political clusterfuck in a better direction.
  - RandomLensman 2y ago
    I don't think that is true for all the nations involved and I think there was a poor understand on how and why things would not work out.
HellDunkel 2y ago
In fact the west was acting as a partner and NS2 was a physical manifestation of that any sane russian could not have ignored.
- vkou 2y ago
  NS2 work started in 2011, Russia needed help twenty years earlier. But yes, alt history is bullshit, and nobody knows what would have if-only, if-only, if-only, but we can observe and shoot the shit about what did happen. And what did happen did not win many friends in it. There's no shortage of blame to go around within Russia. Yeltsin was a walking autocratic disaster, and handed the country right over to Putin.
  - HellDunkel 2y ago
    You mean in the early 90ies? And what kind of? Does the Budapest Memorandum qualify as „help“ or is it only vasts amout of cash that count?
    - vkou 2y ago
      We were talking about economic aid, but if you want to talk about broken promises... I'm sure if you dig just a bit further you might find some other agreements that have been made, and then broken (by NATO nations), prior to the start of the war in Lugansk/Donetsk/Ukraine as a whole. Gorbachev - one of Russia's few non-shitty statesmen, after his resignation, took a lot of issue with those violations of them, and you're going to have a hard time describing him as either an expansionist warhawk, or an enemy of the West. (The guy spent spent the last three decades of his life trying to patch up east-west relations, and was appalled and devastated by the war in Ukraine. If he thinks that there's something rotten about how NATO behaved in the late-90s and 00s, listen to him.) Combined with large parts of NATO starting (for the first time in it's history) a string of offensive operations (some on good pretenses, and some on absolutely terrible, illegal ones), and even a dove will start getting security anxieties.
      - aguaviva 2y ago
hackandthink 2y ago
Jello Biafras take: World War I & we won! But did we bother to win the peace? Make ’em suffer! Let ‘em starve! Led direct to the Nazis After World War II, we learned Rebuilt Germany and Japan But when the Soviet Union fell Where was our Marshall Plan? We created Putin We created Putin We created Putin, yeah! Real James Bond villain We lost! See him prancing, half naked On his horse Side saddle, the blushing bride Clings with those little hands Stared into his eyes We saw his soul He saw how dumb our leaders are We’ll hack and ruin everything we want 'til your democracy’s a joke Like ours We created Putin We created Putin We created Putin, yeah! Capitalism has failed Mob corruption everywhere Not true comrade, can’t you see It’s working perfectly https://songtextes.de/songtexte/jello-biafra-we-created-putin https://songtextes.de/songtexte/jello-biafra-we-created-puti...
- YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
  We’re more like russia every day Oligarchs steal everything Crime families like Kushner and Trumps To Koch&Head, Zuckergoogle and Bezos chumps Loot the country, loot the banks Cook up another ’08 crash Barrack and Biden chickened No one went to jail Kleptocracy’s too big to fail We created Putin! (Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine)