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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#271

Post by avmich »

xg15 wrote: post #201
avmich wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World wars involve many countries, and Cold War definitely qualify. Today's war is a pretty active, quite large "hot" war, which also involves many countries - even though most fight by proxy.

I also think "Cold War II" for the current situation is more fitting. I think if there is any useful distinction between "hot" and "cold" world wars then it's most likely whether super powers are in direct military conflict with each other or whether military confrontation is "only" through proxy wars. Note that the original cold war wasn't very "cold" for much of the world either - the only thing that didn't happen…

In the today's war in Ukraine one country - Russia - fights directly, not from proxies, and the other side - mostly USA, but also other Western countries - supply weapons, volunteers, intelligence services, training. It is comparable with Vietnam war, right, but not already with Afghan war of 1980-s, or small conflicts around the world. The scale of war is also quite large, the level of directly fighting forces is much more comparable.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#272

Post by LtWorf »

eternalban wrote: post #257
lapcat wrote: post #22

The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…

> There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake This notion is based on ignoring historic facts. Germany (and Japan) in WWII were fully vanquished foes whose entire socio-political system was redrawn by the victors. Marshall plan executed in an environment of near total control over Germany. US simply was not in a position to do a Marshall Plan for ex-Sovie…

Good point. Except you're forgetting Marshal plan wasn't only for Germany and Japan.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#273

Post by MichaelCollins »

discodave wrote: post #126
wnevets wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. Some how people manage to blame everything on the United States.

If you wanna act like a superpower, then you're going to get judged like a superpower.

Wry and karmic, but nevertheless an unrealistic expectation.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#274

Post by pedrosorio »

ghostwriter wrote: post #240
ZoomerCretin wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democratic republic, which is what everyone means when we say democracy.

Hardly everyone, but left zoomers who are unable to understand the key founding papers and who refuse descriptive comments of the founders on the matter most certainly do. [1]: "While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. What does this mean? “Constitutional” refers to the fact that government in the United States is based on a Constitutio…

> Hardly everyone, but left zoomers

I am not a zoomer and I agree with the commenter you are replying to. Most of the "west" has a form of government that is a representative democracy (most of them as republics, but quite a few as constitutional monarchies as well), including the US.

Most people would not waste their time nitpicking the usage of such a widely accepted term.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200215230538/https://ourworldi...

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#275

Post by epolanski »

ajross wrote: post #226
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, the "shock therapy" approach that Russia took in the Yeltsin years was, in many ways, prescribed by the West, and ended up being a complete disaster for both your average Russian person, and for capitalism and democracy as a whole, because most people just learned to associate these things with the kleptocracy that occurred in the 90s.

> [Western-driven reconstruction was] complete disaster for both your average Russian person I think that's overstating the case. In fact the "average Russian person" was living in destitute poverty through most of the cold war, and none of that meaningfully changed with the advent of a market economy. Except that Russians of the 2000's could get eat better food and watch (much) better TV. It's absolutely true that m…

People in the soviet union definitely did not live in poverty during the cold war.

Average Russian ranked in top 30 for standard of livings and in the first two decades after the war gdp grew more than in US. Richer countries like baltics ranked among the top 20 at times during soviet times. It was definitely not even in all soviet countries and regions, but that's not unlike other countries or regions.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#276

Post by saalweachter »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #107
Tarq0n wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very serious claim, could you please provide some citations?

A peer comment reminded me of the name 'shock therapy', the think tank was called 'Harvard institute for international development'. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/22/1087654279/how... https://www.thenation.com/article/world/harvard-boys-do-russ... My original comment has been flagged. I'd like to know why. If I'm wrong I'd like to be corrected.

If I had to guess, it's because George Soros is often used as synecdoche for "the vast Jewish conspiracy" by anti-Semites, so your comment sounds an awful lot like "the Jews are responsible for ruining Russia".

Which, uh, sounds a lot like anti-Semitic rhetoric not uncommon in, among other places, Russia.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#277

Post by MichaelCollins »

Maursault wrote: post #250
hotpotamus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republicans have long said that the federal government is structurally incompetent and unable to effectively administer a large country. They made a convincing argument with their performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I doubt Russia would have been much different.

Republicans have long said any government is bad. They want Big Business to be unrestrained, unregulated, pure democracy, at the expense of individual civil rights. I can't tell the difference between Republicans and anarchists, other than the sad fact that nearly all Republicans vote adversely to their personal economic interests to stifle economic opportunity, in order to keep the very richest the very richest, for…

> Republicans have long said any government is bad.

Most republicans are not anarcho-libertarians. Asserting that any government is bad is fringe even among libertarians, and most republicans aren't even libertarians.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#278

Post by sudosysgen »

wnevets wrote: post #198
markdown wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US manages to meddle and create problems all over the world. A small part of the US footprint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

> The US manages to meddle and create problems all over the world. Huh? The OP is accusing the US of NOT meddling. Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The US meddled, and it did a lot. The OP is saying the US meddled wrong and could have meddled beneficially. If the US had decided not to meddle in the USSRs affairs, the world would have gone quite differently.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#279

Post by legerdemain »

The Reuters article describes Gorbachev as "the last Soviet president." This is technically correct, but misleading. Gorbachev was also the first and the only person to hold that office. Heads of the Soviet Union held the office of the general secretary of the party.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#280

Post by andrepd »

lapcat wrote: post #22

The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…

> The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s.

This wording implies an accident, or negligence. In fact, it was an intentional and explicit policy of "shock doctrine" economic deregulation and ultra-liberalisation that led to the absolute misery of the 1990s, and the kleptocracy that continues to this day.

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