4 ms·

(0) GP didn't mention NATO, (1) NATO exists primarily to defend against Russian aggression, so obviously they're not allowed to join, and (2) besides the incide

(0) GP didn't mention NATO, (1) NATO exists primarily to defend against Russian aggression, so obviously they're not allowed to join, and (2) besides the incidental details added for flavor, the actual question is why Russia insists on being broadly hostile to the world rather than broadly cooperative.

somenameforme 10mo ago
The logic of 'No of course you can't join us - we're organizing to fight you!' is a good way to create a self fulfilling prophecy. Beyond that, one of the big practical reasons NATO exists is to stop its members from fighting against each other. Europe had centuries of never-ending and ever deadlier warfare eventually culminating in WW2. NATO largely stopped that by putting them under a common umbrella. Of course a practical reality is that history has shown alliances need an external enemy, or they start to turn on themselves. If the US had foreseen had powerful China would be today, I expect Russia would have been 'enlisted' into NATO. And I don't think Russia is broadly hostile to the world. They cofounded BRICS which comprises near to a majority of the world's population, and also a greater share of the world's economy than e.g. the G7. Rather the "problem", and one that applies to China too, is that they will never behave in a submissive fashion to the US. They want a multipolar world, whereas the political establishment in the US still dreams of a hegemonic world order, akin to what we had after the USSR collapsed. This inevitably sets the stage for geopolitical conflict, and as the saying goes - when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers.
- cosmicgadget 10mo ago
  > 'No of course you can't join us - we're organizing to fight you!' If only this had a more complicated explanation than something akin to schoolyard drama. > NATO largely stopped that by putting them under a common umbrella. You're thinking of democratization, the end of imperialism, and the elimination of aggressive regimes. Helped along by the financial devastation caused by the war. > I don't think Russia is broadly hostile to the world. Sure, unless you listen to all of their broadly hostile rhetoric or are on a Malaysian or Azerbaijani airliner or something. > This inevitably sets the stage for geopolitical conflict This your way of saying Russia needs to cut undersea cables and invade neighbors?
  - gspetr 10mo ago
    > or are on a Malaysian or Azerbaijani airliner You're right, a democratic country would never do anything like that. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/1359353/Ukraine-admits-it-shot-down-Russian-airliner.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/13... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_flight_655
    - cosmicgadget 10mo ago
      > You're right, a democratic country would never do anything like that. Can you point to the place I said this? Does the US shooting down an Iranian airliner somehow make Russia not hostile to the world? These seem like independent things.
      - gspetr 10mo ago
        "The world"? I don't think I've ever heard the definition of the world defined as narrowly as "80% of Europe and the US with its military allies" before.
        cosmicgadget 10mo ago
        Where's Malaysia?
        gspetr 10mo ago
        > Where's Malaysia? I can tell you where it's not. https://www.isis.org.my/2024/07/04/pew-study-finds-more-malaysians-singaporeans-view-russia-favourably-backing-of-palestine-putins-macho-image-seen-as-key-factors/ https://www.isis.org.my/2024/07/04/pew-study-finds-more-mala... https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/malaysia-russia-vladimir-putin-ukraine-nato-pew-research-center-4454671 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/malaysia-russia-vladimi... "Pew study finds more Malaysians, Singaporeans view Russia favourably; backing of Palestine, Putin’s macho image seen as key factors Of the respondents in the 35 countries surveyed, Malaysians had the most positive view on Russia." It's not anywhere close to any place that supports your beliefs. EDIT: https://fulcrum.sg/malaysias-royal-rendezvous-in-russia-reasons-and-rationale/ https://fulcrum.sg/malaysias-royal-rendezvous-in-russia-reas... "From 6 to 10 August [2025], Ibrahim, the Malaysian King (Yang di-Pertuan Agong), visited Russia at the invitation of President Vladimir Putin. This marked the first visit of a Malaysian head of state to Russia since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1967."
- fc417fc802 10mo ago
  > they will never behave in a submissive fashion to the US. What does this have to do with both of them repeatedly instigating territorial disputes with their neighbors? Granted the US certainly isn't a saint in that regard but its been quite a while since the Mexico stuff. Annexing pieces of neighbors and defying US economic interests seem like fairly disjoint activities to me.
  - wiseowise 10mo ago
    That’s because you misunderstand the terminology. They’re talking propaganda and “submissiveness” means something else in their language. There’s a weird fetishism across Russia: everything is centered around gay sex. There’s no cooperation in the world, either you take it and become “petukh” (cock) or you give it and become “pakhan” (shot caller).
    - usrusr 10mo ago
      Matches an observation of mine that skips the prison lingo: lack of the concept of friendship without any power gradient that would make it more like a liege/vassal relation than like an alliance between equals. I wonder if that might be an echo of communism, which likely claimed all elements in the Russian language that were related to equal relations and effectively burned them for regular use?
- andrewflnr 10mo ago
  > If the US had foreseen had powerful China would be today, I expect Russia would have been 'enlisted' into NATO. Lol no, they would not have sabotaged their defensive alliance against a very real, belligerent, immediate enemy for the sake of defending against a potential enemy decades in the future. In any fantasy where the West has that much foresight, they have lots of better options. Russia doesn't need to be submissive. All Russia has to do is stop starting violence with its neighbors and around the world. Don't mess with Ukraine. Don't mess with Syria. Try actually making their people's lives better instead. (I can already hear you complaining "but the US--" stop. Tu quoque is a fallacy.) The bar is embarrassingly low. Even after they annexed Crimea, the rest of the world was willing to pretend Russia was a reasonable actor. But it wasn't enough for Russia, mostly for Putin himself I suspect.
  - somenameforme 10mo ago
    Tu quoque can be a fallacy but in this case it demonstrates that the US not only expects, but demands, that other countries to behave in a way far and away from how it itself behaves. And that is important because it gets back to the point of the US trying to assert itself as having a position of dominance. And also, I think many people have a rather distorted view of the world. When you say 'the rest of the world' I assume you are speaking as most do when they use this term - the Anglosphere, Europe excluding Russia/Belarus, and then the handful of oddballs like Japan and sometimes South Korea. What percent of the world do you think this is? It's less than 15%, and trending downward.
    - andrewflnr 10mo ago
      Still dodging the point. Russia doesn't have to submit to US hegemony to stop starting shit.
      - somenameforme 10mo ago
        Truly sovereign nations can be expected to act in their own best interest. Russia responded to the US deciding to expand a military alliance all the way up to Ukraine, one of their most vulnerable points, exactly how the US would respond if Russia tried to form a military alliance with Mexico. I mean we brought the world to the verge of nuclear armageddon over the USSR establishing weaponry in Cuba, which doesn't even have a land route to the US! That's why you don't do things like this, unless you're actively working to both establish and demonstrate your dominance over another country, which we were. I just don't think the moralizing angle can be argued in good faith. If you want to see 'starting shit' - we just mostly randomly invaded Venezuela and kidnapped their president which is pretty lol. This moralizing angle is just disingenuous or naive.

somenameforme 10mo ago

The logic of 'No of course you can't join us - we're organizing to fight you!' is a good way to create a self fulfilling prophecy. Beyond that, one of the big practical reasons NATO exists is to stop its members from fighting against each other. Europe had centuries of never-ending and ever deadlier warfare eventually culminating in WW2. NATO largely stopped that by putting them under a common umbrella. Of course a practical reality is that history has shown alliances need an external enemy, or they start to turn on themselves. If the US had foreseen had powerful China would be today, I expect Russia would have been 'enlisted' into NATO. And I don't think Russia is broadly hostile to the world. They cofounded BRICS which comprises near to a majority of the world's population, and also a greater share of the world's economy than e.g. the G7. Rather the "problem", and one that applies to China too, is that they will never behave in a submissive fashion to the US. They want a multipolar world, whereas the political establishment in the US still dreams of a hegemonic world order, akin to what we had after the USSR collapsed. This inevitably sets the stage for geopolitical conflict, and as the saying goes - when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers.

cosmicgadget 10mo ago
> 'No of course you can't join us - we're organizing to fight you!' If only this had a more complicated explanation than something akin to schoolyard drama. > NATO largely stopped that by putting them under a common umbrella. You're thinking of democratization, the end of imperialism, and the elimination of aggressive regimes. Helped along by the financial devastation caused by the war. > I don't think Russia is broadly hostile to the world. Sure, unless you listen to all of their broadly hostile rhetoric or are on a Malaysian or Azerbaijani airliner or something. > This inevitably sets the stage for geopolitical conflict This your way of saying Russia needs to cut undersea cables and invade neighbors?
- gspetr 10mo ago
  > or are on a Malaysian or Azerbaijani airliner You're right, a democratic country would never do anything like that. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/1359353/Ukraine-admits-it-shot-down-Russian-airliner.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/13... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_flight_655
  - cosmicgadget 10mo ago
    > You're right, a democratic country would never do anything like that. Can you point to the place I said this? Does the US shooting down an Iranian airliner somehow make Russia not hostile to the world? These seem like independent things.
    - gspetr 10mo ago
      "The world"? I don't think I've ever heard the definition of the world defined as narrowly as "80% of Europe and the US with its military allies" before.
      - cosmicgadget 10mo ago
        Where's Malaysia?
        gspetr 10mo ago
        > Where's Malaysia? I can tell you where it's not. https://www.isis.org.my/2024/07/04/pew-study-finds-more-malaysians-singaporeans-view-russia-favourably-backing-of-palestine-putins-macho-image-seen-as-key-factors/ https://www.isis.org.my/2024/07/04/pew-study-finds-more-mala... https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/malaysia-russia-vladimir-putin-ukraine-nato-pew-research-center-4454671 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/malaysia-russia-vladimi... "Pew study finds more Malaysians, Singaporeans view Russia favourably; backing of Palestine, Putin’s macho image seen as key factors Of the respondents in the 35 countries surveyed, Malaysians had the most positive view on Russia." It's not anywhere close to any place that supports your beliefs. EDIT: https://fulcrum.sg/malaysias-royal-rendezvous-in-russia-reasons-and-rationale/ https://fulcrum.sg/malaysias-royal-rendezvous-in-russia-reas... "From 6 to 10 August [2025], Ibrahim, the Malaysian King (Yang di-Pertuan Agong), visited Russia at the invitation of President Vladimir Putin. This marked the first visit of a Malaysian head of state to Russia since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1967."
fc417fc802 10mo ago
> they will never behave in a submissive fashion to the US. What does this have to do with both of them repeatedly instigating territorial disputes with their neighbors? Granted the US certainly isn't a saint in that regard but its been quite a while since the Mexico stuff. Annexing pieces of neighbors and defying US economic interests seem like fairly disjoint activities to me.
- wiseowise 10mo ago
  That’s because you misunderstand the terminology. They’re talking propaganda and “submissiveness” means something else in their language. There’s a weird fetishism across Russia: everything is centered around gay sex. There’s no cooperation in the world, either you take it and become “petukh” (cock) or you give it and become “pakhan” (shot caller).
  - usrusr 10mo ago
    Matches an observation of mine that skips the prison lingo: lack of the concept of friendship without any power gradient that would make it more like a liege/vassal relation than like an alliance between equals. I wonder if that might be an echo of communism, which likely claimed all elements in the Russian language that were related to equal relations and effectively burned them for regular use?
andrewflnr 10mo ago
> If the US had foreseen had powerful China would be today, I expect Russia would have been 'enlisted' into NATO. Lol no, they would not have sabotaged their defensive alliance against a very real, belligerent, immediate enemy for the sake of defending against a potential enemy decades in the future. In any fantasy where the West has that much foresight, they have lots of better options. Russia doesn't need to be submissive. All Russia has to do is stop starting violence with its neighbors and around the world. Don't mess with Ukraine. Don't mess with Syria. Try actually making their people's lives better instead. (I can already hear you complaining "but the US--" stop. Tu quoque is a fallacy.) The bar is embarrassingly low. Even after they annexed Crimea, the rest of the world was willing to pretend Russia was a reasonable actor. But it wasn't enough for Russia, mostly for Putin himself I suspect.
- somenameforme 10mo ago
  Tu quoque can be a fallacy but in this case it demonstrates that the US not only expects, but demands, that other countries to behave in a way far and away from how it itself behaves. And that is important because it gets back to the point of the US trying to assert itself as having a position of dominance. And also, I think many people have a rather distorted view of the world. When you say 'the rest of the world' I assume you are speaking as most do when they use this term - the Anglosphere, Europe excluding Russia/Belarus, and then the handful of oddballs like Japan and sometimes South Korea. What percent of the world do you think this is? It's less than 15%, and trending downward.
  - andrewflnr 10mo ago
    Still dodging the point. Russia doesn't have to submit to US hegemony to stop starting shit.
    - somenameforme 10mo ago
      Truly sovereign nations can be expected to act in their own best interest. Russia responded to the US deciding to expand a military alliance all the way up to Ukraine, one of their most vulnerable points, exactly how the US would respond if Russia tried to form a military alliance with Mexico. I mean we brought the world to the verge of nuclear armageddon over the USSR establishing weaponry in Cuba, which doesn't even have a land route to the US! That's why you don't do things like this, unless you're actively working to both establish and demonstrate your dominance over another country, which we were. I just don't think the moralizing angle can be argued in good faith. If you want to see 'starting shit' - we just mostly randomly invaded Venezuela and kidnapped their president which is pretty lol. This moralizing angle is just disingenuous or naive.