>>14810>What Russia especially Putin seems to understand is strength.
This is neocon-tier discourse. Putin isn't some stupid 3rd grade bully who just breaks things until you punch him in the nose.
We've been strong on Russia. We funded Maidan, we've strongly backed the anti-Russia Ukrainian government, we've enacted crippling sanctions against Russia and show no signs of letting up on them.
Has this made Putin do what we want? No. Russia still owns Crimea, Donbass and Assad still get support. What does Putin want to do to us, that he supposedly can't because we got tough on him?
How is Russia waving its cock at us, when we're the ones with missiles and troops stationed in countries that border Russia, and we're the ones actively trying to overthrow any governments that are friendly to Russia? Russia only waves its cock within its limited sphere of influence, and we go apeshit because we can't tolerate the idea of another country having a sphere of influence.
>>14826>There's no such thing as hereditary major power status
Yes, which is why Russia remains a major power, while Western Europe has been reduced to a bunch of American client states. If we wanted to bring Russia into NATO, we would have had to have started by recognizing what it regards as its vital national interests. We gave lip service to anticolonialism before and during WW2, but in the end we overwhelmingly supported the Brits and the French and the Dutch in maintaining their dying empires as we integrated them into our new system.
What have we given Russia? We helped rape their country in the 90s, we completely disregarded promises about respecting the balance of power in the former Soviet Bloc, we've stationed soldiers and missiles in countries around their borders. We've looked at Russia trying to maintain its historical sphere of influence, even in greatly reduced form, as a fundamental affront.
We haven't treated Russia with respect, and every country that views itself as a great power requires this if you're going to have a productive relationship with them. If, after WW2, we sanctioned and demonized Britain and France until they completely dismantled their colonial empires and promised to never getting involved in anything taking place outside their borders, they would have told us to go fuck ourselves, and NATO would probably never have been founded.
>You secured the peace in the world and got the whole fucking Earth under you because of American interventionism
Actually, this was because we had by far the most powerful economy and military in the world, with an extensive group of client states made up of legacy democracies, and right-wing authoritarian shitholes that we propped up with money and throat-slitting squads. Active intervention saved South Korea, but got millions of SE Asians needlessly killed. And even if intervention had worked in the past, it gets us nothing today except massive debt and ill-will.
Poland is not democratic and capitalist because of foreign intervention - if it had never joined NATO, it still wouldn't be communist. I don't give a shit how pro-American they are. Central Europe is not the axis of the world. Poland is completely irrelevant to us, and NATO would be no worse off if the entire corridor between Germany and Russia took the Finland route.
>Secondly, I could argue that in the long run Maidans led to a lower level of corruption and the formation of anti-corruption civil institutions that were taken under pressure from the people.
I'll believe you when you elect someone who isn't an oligarch. I genuinely wish your country well, but the result of Maidan and the resurgence of Ukrainian nationalism has been the dismembering of Ukraine. You are never getting Crimea back. You're probably never getting Donbass back. You lost 15% of your GDP in 2014 and 2015. Your oligarch presidents can now use the permanent national crisis to do things like declare martial law before elections.
>Once again, you should read "From Cold War to Hot Peace" by McFaul
McFaul is a hack and I'm not reading his book, especially if his thesis is that banal.
>>14810>What Russia especially Putin seems to understand is strength.
This is neocon-tier discourse. Putin isn't some stupid 3rd grade bully who just breaks things until you punch him in the nose.
We've been strong on Russia. We funded Maidan, we've strongly backed the anti-Russia Ukrainian government, we've enacted crippling sanctions against Russia and show no signs of letting up on them.
Has this made Putin do what we want? No. Russia still owns Crimea, Donbass and Assad still get support. What does Putin want to do to us, that he supposedly can't because we got tough on him?
How is Russia waving its cock at us, when we're the ones with missiles and troops stationed in countries that border Russia, and we're the ones actively trying to overthrow any governments that are friendly to Russia? Russia only waves its cock within its limited sphere of influence, and we go apeshit because we can't tolerate the idea of another country having a sphere of influence.
>>14826>There's no such thing as hereditary major power status
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