Comment by coldtea

Comment by coldtea a day ago

Or they could integrate it within a wider framework of allyship, or at least let it be, as both of which it has been asking for several decades, instead of advancing towards, ramping up the rhetoric, fueling millitarism, and crossing red lines.

Especially since the EUs bigger competitor is US and China, and they could very well use it as an ally, never mind getting the far cheaper gas and other resources than they get now. The whole treatment of the whole thing the last decade or so has been beyond stupid.

mopsi 19 hours ago

  > Or they could integrate it within a wider framework of allyship, or at least let it be, as both of which it has been asking for several decades, instead of advancing towards, ramping up the rhetoric, fueling millitarism, and crossing red lines.

This is exactly what happened and how we got here: turning a blind eye to the destruction of democracy and the growing authoritarianism in Russia, buying oil and gas in the hope that economic cooperation would keep Russians in check out of self-interest at least, ridiculing and belittling the security concerns of Eastern Europe, and ignoring Russia's aggression and wars and constant advances, such as subverting countries like Belarus into dictatorships loyal to Moscow and deploying nuclear missiles and offensive weapons ever closer to Europe.

This approach worked so well that missiles are now raining down on European cities every night, killing innocent people in their homes, with no end in sight, as the Russian dictator relentlessly demands a return to the Cold War era, when half of Europe was a Russian prison camp.

Reply View 2 replies

coldtea 15 hours ago

>This is exactly what happened and how we got here: turning a blind eye to the destruction of democracy and the growing authoritarianism in Russia
That was never their problem. The latter not selling out to their conglomerates was (even if that was because local scumbags kept that loot). The elites could not give a rats arse for "authoritarianism", when 'allies' embrace it, like Bibi and his ethnocide, or the new Syrian ISIS guy, they are fine with it. Just a pretext to increase arms spending and gather special powers.
The elites couldn't care less about the direct toll to "innocent people in their homes" either. When that toll specifically and shamelessly targetted an enclosed population of millions, including children, the sick, and the elderly, they kept full diplomatic ties and supported the thing with arms, trade, and other methods of collaboration. (Russia too of course, only a few shining examples like Ireland didn't).
As for the "Cold War era, when half of Europe was a Russian prison camp", funny times those. Are we to believe that, the, no stranger to enslaving people France, still fighting wars to keep its colonies in the 1950s and 1960s, and ever since keeping its grubby hands in Africa, was so heartbroken at the plight of eastern Europe having to suffer "really existing socialism"?
Or, maybe it was Germany who was moved to tears about it, after first having no problem supporting the mustache man for over a decade, ethnically cleaning those same eastern provinces, gassing several million, and voting and maintaining ex-Nazis in positions of power well into the 70s.
With so much democratic sensitivity, it's strange then that most of Europe didn't appear much concerned with several European countries having western-approved dictaroships - anything as long as it wasn't that pesky communism!

Reply View | 1 reply
- mopsi 12 hours ago
  
  That's what I said: the present-day totalitarian dictatorship in Russia was born out of foreign disregard for the deteriorating human rights situation in Russia, willful ignorance of the usurpation of all formal and informal power structures by KGB old-timers, and indifference to the legitimate security concerns of Eastern Europe. Global big businesses in major countries such as the US and Germany were so eager to cooperate on oil and gas extraction that they ignored how a new Hitler was rising as a result of this short-sightedness.
  Russia grew into the cancer that it is today not because it had been under imagined attacks from all sides for decades as you claimed (a favorite trope of many dictators), but because of the opposite: Russia was treated like a savage and uncivilized land from which respect for even the most basic human rights was not demanded as a prerequisite for cooperation. Global big businesses were given access to Russian natural resources at below-market rates, and in return Russian kleptocrats were allowed to skim off the top with impunity and park their loot in NYC penthouses.
  We can see the same pattern in the current "peace negotiations": Putin is offering Trump and his business partners a chunk of frozen Russian assets and access to natural resources in occupied parts of Ukraine in exchange for the US pressuring Europe to unfreeze the funds and coercing Ukraine to surrender. Big business gets cheap resources and Putin takes another step toward his dream of an empire. What a lovely alliance of big business and Russian imperialism.
  
  Reply View | 0 replies