Understanding Russia & Putin

[Leo Gura]

@Bow24 Of course China is going strong, but fundamentally it has huge problems with its political system and it is still much lower in overall Spiral development than the West. They have a lot of corruption and other problems. The West will remain more powerful for a long time to come.

[PurpleTree]

14 minutes ago, Bow24 said:

 

@Leo Gura

I think this opinion may be grounded in your pro-western biases.

The American Empire has been declining for decades already, and at an alarming pace the last couple of years: Trumpism and the complete divide of the country, almost 1 million corona deaths, decline of life expectancy for 5 years in a row, 40% of all US$ ever created have been created in the last 2 years, the horrendous wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq etc.

In comparison, China has been growing it's economy, technological capabilities and international influence at an incredible speed over the last 2 decades. China currently creates more new engineers every year than the US has in total. The MIT ringed the alarm that China has already overtaken the US in advanced AI and Big Data research fields.

From my perspective, China has already overtaken the US in most relevant fields - it will just take 5-10 years until you will feel it inside of the Empire.

The new multi-polar world order has arrived already.

the west is not just the u.s. though

there's canada, australia, uk, germany, france, spain, netherlands, poland etc. smaller countries like sweden, swiss, denmark, austria, nz etc. and there are countries like japan and south korea which are also basically "west"

Edited March 6, 2022 by PurpleTree

[Fleetinglife]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Don't be so sure about that. Russia and China are building an alliance to rival the West. Of course it won't be as powerful as the West, but it can still survive for a long time.

5 hours ago, Scholar said:

I agree Russia wants a significant role in the world order, but that's a pipedream, it will not happen. Russia basically wants to go back to the 20th century, however, the world has moved on.

Right now what we are seeing is an Empire struggling to let go of power, and the world is reacting accordingly. I don't think this conflict could have been avoided, or even that attempting to avoid it would have resulted in better outcomes. Russia will be meaningless in the future, and Putin cannot accept that.

Russia will fall like every other empire until they understand that they are so insignificant, nobody will even care about them as a threat anymore. It will be just another France or Germany, or UK. A similar thing might happen to the US, atlhough I think the US is better positioned in terms of geopolitics to atleast somewhat cling to power. Either way, what we are seeing is not some response to bad actions of NATO, imo it's simply an empire not wanting to let go of control, because it will cost it.

And by doing so, as history loves to repeat itself, the empire is giving itself the finishing blow, instead of walking off the world stage with dignity. How this could have realistically have been avoided is if Putin had died of COVID. Though, the lessons we will learn will probably serve to stabilize the future and allow for harmony to prosper even more, as we have a good reminder of what happens when a Nation decides to delude itself that it can simply brute force it's interests into reality.

Exactly, some people are not willing to look a little bit deeper to see, understand, look for and grasp the subtlties, nuances and grasp what's all happening and being planned in the background of these seemingly "irrational" (for them of course, but not from the standpoint of those doing it) decisions being made in the background of all of this ongoing situation. 

If someone can't go back to the 20th century, what's the alternative for them then in the 21st century? The 21st century American-lead unipolarity and it's financial hegemony, pacification, dominance and subordination?

Some people fail to grasp the logical conclusions and implications when making such statements.

They say you can't do this, but they fail to offer any other alternatives and also saying something that the endmost drawn conclusions of someone apparent moves and choosen strategic trajectory is the desire to go back to the 20th century is a lazy, unimaginative, historical context lacking way of viewing this from a narrow history repeating itself and historicist ascribing perspective to these two alternative powers to the US, Russia and China, that's being pushed as a dominant view in the Western media to discredit and delegitimize their current goals and wants of favoring positioning themselves better as individual states, from their national state interest and other similar unfavorable, undeveloped state interests whose interests are somewhat tied to them being more economically influential and powrmerful in the world POV in the global system. 

China, and perhaps Russia now, if it manages with it's political and economic system to survive through all this, well be only of the few states and countries in the whole world currently today, to start slowly decoupling from the global dominance and US lead favorable hegemony of the Western financial sector in the world by weening away slowly in their share and quantities of the central banks reserve currencies from their currencies fixed exchange rates based mostly on dollar supremacy worldwide and as a exclusive most referral currency in the majority of the world's financial transactions and of start to be more relaint on their own currencies strength and other value reserve factors uping it's strength and world value on the global markets in order for them to have protection and more resistance to wholesale and overwhelming Western sanctions from US dollar based and lead world financial sector as means of their pacification and subordination of their political systems and economic policies that they conduct and promote in the world, that domestically for them aim and strive to promote more independence, autarchy, self-sufficiency and self-reliance from the West economically and financially and by proxy it's influence over it's systems, that Western leaders don't like because of its possibility upending, tipping the scales slightly into the favor of the other direction and threatening to call into question their current global hegemony, influence, vision, leadership for the world into by more of an equilibrium position favoring more some other powerful countries rising in some places in the world, that didn't benefit much from this overall in the past 30 years. 

As a Russian economic advisor to Putin economist Sergei Glaziev (also sharing the view on this with some esteemed US economic advisors and economists on this) said with this daring gambit and risk move that Russia has set itself into with the West, encountering all this relentless Russophobia coming politically, culturally and economically from the West - it is the, how he put, "the tax Russia needed to pay at some point for it's independence" stemming even from even the 2014 sanctions, that as he said put Russia in a monetary subordinate position to the West monetarilly and financially for it to most profit from and exploit based on that in it's trade relationship with Russia, to quote him:

"describes the sanctions as “some kind of a tax on independence”, with countries barring their companies from working in Russia under “huge pressure.”

"Meanwhile, Russia will be showing the way and have outlined possibilities for Russia to weather the sanction storm. That didn’t even consider the full extent of Russia’s “black box defense”: only self-sufficiency affords total independence. And the Big Picture has also been keenly understood by the Global South: one day someone had to stand up and say, “That’s Enough”.

His latest essay, Sanctions and Sovereignty, originally published by expert.ru and translated by Helmer, deserves serious scrutiny.

 

This is one of the key takeaways:

 

“Russian losses of potential GDP, since 2014, amount to about 50 trillion rubles. But only 10% of them can be explained by sanctions, while 80% of them were the result of monetary policy. The United States benefits from anti-Russian sanctions, replacing the export of Russian hydrocarbons to the EU as well as China; replacing the import of European goods by Russia. We could completely offset the negative consequences of financial sanctions if the Bank of Russia fulfilled its constitutional duty to ensure a stable ruble exchange rate, and not the recommendations of Washington financial organizations.”

 

De-offshore or bust

 

Glaziev essentially recommends:

 

– A “real de-offshorization of the economy”.

 

– “Measures to tighten currency regulation in order to stop the export of capital and expand targeted lending to enterprises in need of financing investments”.

 

– “Taxation of currency speculation and transactions in dollars and euros on the domestic market”.

 

– “Serious investment in R&D in order to accelerate the development of our own technological base in the areas affected by sanctions – first of all the defense industry, energy, transport and communications.”

And last but not least, “the de-dollarization of our foreign exchange reserves, replacing the dollar, euro and pound with gold.”

A consensus seems to be emerging in Moscow that the Russian economy will stabilize quickly, as there will be a shortage of personnel for industry and a lot of extra hands will be required. Hence no unemployment. There may be shortages, but no inflation. Sales of – Western – luxury goods have already been curtailed. Imported products will be placed under price controls. All the necessary rubles will be available though price controls – as happened in the U.S. in WWII.

Lethal counterpunches though are not excluded. Apart from completely de-dollarizing – as Glaziev recommends – Russia may ban the export of titanium, rare earth, nuclear fuel and, already in effect, rocket engines.

What’s certain is that a new architecture of payment systems – as discussed by Michael Hudson and others – uniting the Russian SPFS and the Chinese CHIPS, may soon be offered to scores of nations across Eurasia and the Global South – several among them already under sanctions, such as Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, the DPRK.

Slowly but surely, we are already on the way to the emergence of a sizeable Global South bloc immune to American financial warfare.

The RIC in BRICS – Russia, India and China – are already increasing trade in their own currencies. If we look at the list of nations at the UN that voted against Russia or abstained from condemning Operation Z in Ukraine, plus those that did not sanction Russia, we have at least 70% of the whole Global South."

source:http://thesaker.is/how-russia-will-counterpunch-the-u-s-eu-declaration-of-war/

 

Edited March 7, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[Lyubov]

If we were to take a really broad sort of overarching geographic meta perspective on this I think people will notice that a lot of this comes down to the fact that Russia is both a)geographically very vulnerable to western forces, where they can easily roll into the steppe. And b) Russia’s level of development is in contradiction / vindication of what lies west to them. Countries around them democratizing directly threatens the overall societal structure of Russia. So of course Russia wants some control over these neighboring states. This conflict very much boils down to a clash of stages. Orange center to the west, blue center to the east. 

[ItsNick]

I'm honestly mostly interested in how this conflict can end as quickly and peacefully as possible. For both the West, Ukraine, and Russia.
Ultimately peace is in the best interest of everyone, especially the people of Ukraine right now.

The problem I see is that Putin cannot just surrender because then Russia and its military will look extremely weak. And they would have gained nothing from this war and only lost.

A better idea might be a deal where Ukraine doesn't join NATO but with safety guarantees for Ukraine and Ukrainians. And allowing for Putin to save some face on the world stage by not making it look like a surrender. Just some thoughts...

[BlueOak]

Listened to the 26 minutes of his speech. I might have more thoughts if I catch the rest later and I am sorry if during questions he expands more later in the video. Its good that people are seeing the Russians concerns and by now they should be obvious. It brings us all closer together. The concerns they'd have that NATO would have in their positions. When people realise Russia is also in decline next to other eastern powers China/India, and its in part fueled by that change in its status, the geo political picture will be more complete.

What stands out most is its all them/us. He assigns no value to the smaller countries and populations own will. It falls into the trap of us/them rather than the three direct perspectives involved in each case. He says himself his bias is on great power politics, that's what he's studied all his life. Second you can't kill people and then say the primary responsibility is with someone else. Response - Ability, means your ability to respond. It sets the perspective on a faulty premise. War in fact reduces your ability to respond, which Russia has done, limiting its options.

I watched the initial Ukrainian demonstrations in a detailed documentary, it started with a small body of students being arrested, injured and killed. So he's wrong there. The local population reacted to it, the church did for example. Was the following action supported by the USA? Possibly, he'd need to show me the evidence. Just like people would for the coups and uprising for Russia in the east of Ukraine. There was certainly huge popular support, more than any foreign agent could foster, if you watched the popularity of it all and the defiance in the square. The pro russian government to break the standoff started killing people. They were massively out of touch when they did talk to the population. Its all on film. So they brought about their own demise by not being able to adapt or respond in a measured way.

The EU designed Ukraine to be a pro western country? The EU was nowhere near that unified. This is a misunderstanding of what the EU was and still is. A pro EU country maybe, but even that was a disjointed identity and until last week I wouldn't have been able to define it. Look at the many videos on the subject of the EU's future from last few years alone.

Russia will be in the arms of the chinese. China will be the larger partner and Russia the smaller one. That's just what's likely going to happen now in terms of economy, population, geography. Putin is interested in creating a greater Russia, because he's said as much, he's said Ukraine doesn't exist for example. His background in the KGB also lends itself to this worldview and identity. Part of is this is taking over the gas supply completely from Ukraine, and it wouldn't be honest to ignore that. As for Russia and Putin shooting themselves in the foot with Crimea of course he did, he pushed Ukraine into NATO's arms there. It will be the same after this war, Ukraine will be fiercely westernised. It doesn't work one way and not the other. NATO pushes Russia into China's arms in the same way. 

His bias also shows that he understands Russia may level cities and that Russia losing is bad for world stability. Well the exact same thing applies, in both cases if NATO or Ukraine loses. I know nobody wants to hear that much globally, but its true. Suffering happens in either case. Lets reverse this and say NATO said to Russia you cannot ally with Belarus, then invaded, the reaction would be exactly the same from Russia, only worse. This helps I hope to show both perspectives.

Finally he completely misses the guarantees given to Ukraine by both the USA, UK and Russia after Ukraine removed its nukes. So some form of assistance was always going to happen, even for that alone.

*I also understand NATO doctrine does not shell cities but it still creates plenty of civilian loss of life in the resulting conflicts that follow this. That's the meaning there.

Edited March 7, 2022 by BlueOak

[PurpleTree]

2 minutes ago, ItsNick said:

A better idea might be a deal where Ukraine doesn't join NATO but with safety guarantees for Ukraine and Ukrainians. ..

what kind of safety guarantees?

[Fleetinglife]

5 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

what kind of safety guarantees?

 

8 minutes ago, ItsNick said:

A better idea might be a deal where Ukraine doesn't join NATO but with safety guarantees for Ukraine and Ukrainians.

A some sort of revamped version of a more secure Finlandization policy, with perhaps more military power and guarantees behind it now to enforce it, as was with special neutral status of Finland, that the West said it would defend at some point if invasion comes to pass, in the last Cold War, is essentially what I think approximately is the about the line some people are advocating now looking for a compromise and intermediary solution to this crisis. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[Hardkill]

36 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Bow24 Of course China is going strong, but fundamentally it has huge problems with its political system and it is still much lower in overall Spiral development than the West. They have a lot of corruption and other problems. The West will remain more powerful for a long time to come.

They say that Russia's alliance with China is now on shaky ground because Xi Jinping and the other government officials in China don't seem to like that Putin invaded Russia. Xi Jinping says that he respects the sovereignty of other nations.

Btw, given that you very much agree with everything that was said in that vid in your OP on this thread, do you think that the Biden administration has not been a good enough job with maintaining foreign relations?

 

[PurpleTree]

7 minutes ago, Fleetinglife said:

 

A some sort of revamped version of a more secure Finlandization policy, with perhaps more military power and guarantees behind it now to enforce it, as was with special neutral status of Finland, that the West said it would defend at some point if invasion comes to pass, in the last Cold War, is essentially what I think approximately is the about the line some people are advocating now looking for a compromise and intermediary solution to this crisis. 

i think the Ukraine also got defence "guarantees" for getting rid of their nuclear arsenal.

"Guarantees" are probably just not enough for Ukraine at this point, that's why they wan't to e in NATO so much.

[Fleetinglife]

3 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Putin invaded Russia.

Of course as they said they would invade themselves, the Russia to the West of them. Great job and work comrade for the subtlity of the distribution and expansion of hybrid information warfare content online into even more seemingly neutral sites and spaces, now that Russian state media influence is banned from most spaces of US digital tech platform internet, the FSB commends you for your diligent undercover services to the Russian state, people and it's national security interests comrade. 

1+

 

"The Blue Yellow Square operation if you know what I mean ?" 

https://media.tenor.com/images/27a7c8a8c86fd46ef74aaa962daf9983/tenor.gif

Edited March 7, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[Hardkill]

Trump said that this war never would’ve happened because of his great relations with Putin and Russia.

[PurpleTree]

more totalitarianism in russia

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/3/liberal-russia-tv-radio-channels-suspend-operations-over-ukraine

 

 

Edited March 6, 2022 by PurpleTree

[Fleetinglife]

13 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

i think the Ukraine also got defence "guarantees" for getting rid of their nuclear arsenal.

"Guarantees" are probably just not enough for Ukraine at this point, that's why they wan't to e in NATO so much.

Yes but Russia didn't get any defence and security guarantees from NATO afterwards, which it requested and demand, regarding the extent of it's activity and future plans in and for Ukraine, undermining it's own security guarantees, if you actually look at both countries from a geo-strategic standpoint from Russia's perspective on the map, hence the problem of one principle contradicting another countries principle and as result the unfolding and reckless going forward with this quagmire. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[vizual]

6 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

Trump said that this war never would’ve happened because of his great relations with Putin and Russia.

If Putin decides to invade a country on the basis if Trump is the president of the US or not, then he’s the biggest moron in the world. Which I don’t think Putin is. 

[BlueOak]

@Fleetinglife

Do you honestly feel that separation will cause less or more suffering.

I ask because I have the teal swan video on separation in my mind, its only a small one:
 

I understand that separation goes both ways. So please don't take this as a need to defend your perspective. I understand it. I am merely asking if you think setting up a 2nd global powerblock, or a decoupling of all major economies, is the best answer we can come up with.

[PurpleTree]

1 minute ago, Fleetinglife said:

Yes but Russia didn't get any defence and security guarantees from NATO afterwards, which it requested and demand, regarding the extent of it's activity and future plans in and for Ukraine, undermining it's own security guarantees, if you actually look at both countries from a geo-strategic standpoint from Russia's perspective on the map, hence the problem of one principle contradicting another countries principle and as result the unfolding and reckless going forward with this quagmire. 

if most countries around russia are scared/distrustful of russia and want to be in a defence alliance against it

then russia is mostly to blame that it couldn't build a trustful relationship with those countries imo

obviously there are also other reasons like monetary that some countries want closer relations to the "west" 

[Hardkill]

3 minutes ago, vizual said:

If Putin decides to invade a country on the basis if Trump is the president of the US or not, then he’s the biggest moron in the world. Which I don’t think Putin is. 

Yeah, I am inclined to agree with that. Though, I wonder now if Trump pulling out of NATO and having good relations with Russia might’ve influenced Putin to not feel so threatened by NATO’s expansion that Putin might’ve not felt the need to invade Ukraine.

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Don't be so sure about that. Russia and China are building an alliance to rival the West. Of course it won't be as powerful as the West, but it can still survive for a long time.

From what I heard China has a far more important relationship with the West economically speading, and historically speaking China prioritizes it's economic interests over other things. I also think the shift to renewable energy will also cause significant issues for Russia.

Well imo, it could have survived for a long time, but now it won't, because it was not able to compromise and adapt. There is a reason why ex-soviet countries were desperate to escape Russia's influence and why they wanted to be integrated into the western economy. Russia is so bad at mutual, respectful relationships that the only way they can maintain influence is through coercion. If you look at the countries that voted with Russia in the UN resolutions, you wil find an interesting pattern. It's not an accident that it's the most corrupt countries that align with Russia.

 

In terms of evolution, Russia is lagging behind, and the rest of the world is responding accordingly.

[zurew]

1 minute ago, Scholar said:

I also think the shift to renewable energy will also cause significant issues for Russia.

Do you think that, because of the oil? Because if thats the argument, Russia don't need to worry about it any time soon. The shift for renewable energy totally will take a lot of time, also a lot of money too. Right know oil is one of the best energy sources in the world and we use oil for other stuff too. Oil will be even more valuable as time goes on because we have about 40 years amount of left.