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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

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471–480 of 971 posts

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#471
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US military defeated Japan and was an occupying power. The US had the power to dictate whatever terms. Japan was on it's back. Russia in 1992 was it's own entity. Still a nuclear power. Making it's own decisions. Not only would Russia not have tolerated US intervention, I'm extremely doubtful there could have been such a thing on any terms. As it stands, much of the money used by Oligarchs to buy up Natural Resou…

This is true, the question is, what was the difference between the occupation of japan and germany and the occupation of afganistan, iraq or vietnam. The lesson of the latter is that all it takes is 20 years of low level combat until the occupying country gets tired and leaves. the lesson of the former is that defeated countries can become your greatest allies. As to what leads a nation to choose one path or the othe…

Japan and Germany were extremely well organized and coherent states before the war. They had both civic and long established cultural basis to rebuild to.

'Afghanistan' is barely a state, it never really was a nation. It's a 'border' around a chaotic gaggle of tribes living in the past. They'll ebb and flow given different kinds of leadership, most of which won't have anything to do with anything happening outside urban limits anyhow.

Iraq was a deeply corrupted and broken state, again, difficult to rebuild to, but possible. Absent ethnic tensions it probably would have gone a little bit better, and paradoxically, US forces were more of a stabilizing factor than not. Literally the day that US forces withdrew and US lost it's leverage in Iraqi politics, PM malaki basically launched a kind of political civil war. That scared the Sunnis who 'allowed' ISIL to come in, believing they were a better option than the Shia dominate government, unrestrained from American influence.

S. Vietnam was a bit incoherent, but it could have worked fine were the US to have been able to provide security. They did not, largely due to the historical insanity of refusing to attack the North. As Op. Linebacker I and II eventually demonstrated (but way too late), North Vietnam could be handily decimated at will with direct strategic bombing. Were those ops to have happened in 1965 instead of 1972, the war would have had a different outcome. It's unlikely that S. Vietnam would quite look like S. Korea, but it would be more like it. Instead, we have an ultra authoritarian entity that did some vastly horrible things in the past, but which has settled down a bit in subsequent decades.

'Marshall Plan' works where the Marshall Plan can be taken advantage of.

The IMF has tried similar things elsewhere after WW2, it didn't work out so well, because, well, Nigeria and Indonesia are not at all like Germany or Japan.

Russia has been 'backwards' forever, it's like part of their identity to be 50 years behind everyone but still antagonist about it i.e. aggressors and victims at the same time. I can't see how it will change.

Russians will happily exchange their own prosperity to save face to themselves, and live in a kind of delusion of their own making. They will literally lose the war in Ukraine, but believe they have 'won'. They will declare Ukraine 'denazified', have a parade about it, and 50% of the population will fully believe it, the other 50% will know the truth and go about their daily business, unable to really speak publicly about it.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#472
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…

You realize it was the Americans under Yeltsin who basically destroyed Russian economy right ? I'm fairly sure Russian children weren't prostituting themself because the US "missed their mark" and were led astray by "corrupt Asiatics" (not being facile here; this is standard argument put out by Western "intellectuals" today - which says a lot about the deep hate for Asia.).

I imagine Russians slyly and sarcastically saying, to the typically non-ironically self-righteous Westerner, "oh the Americans did plenty; plenty indeed; we really wish they didn't".

Much of the global south holds much the same opinion IMO. Frankly, I'm shocked at the state of disconnect in the West. The kind of petulant idiocy displayed by the usual eminences when the majority of the world did not play along - much like they didn't play along when the US-West attacked god-knows how many countries now - was less suitable even of a pouty teenager.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#473
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War l There was such a plan, at least in the twisted minds of the people behind the Washington Consensus. They were calling it privatization or price liberalization or some other non-sense like that, thing is the common people got the very, very short stick (like my parents, who lost their jobs, their city apartment and who had to resort to literally subsistence agricultu…

The transition to a market economy went very well for most of the former Soviet Republics except Russia. https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2022/03/16/the-transiti... A lot of Russia's issues stem from the way the government sold off their state owned corporations, which created artificial monopoly/oligopoly owners overnight — often insiders/cronies to begin with. This can be contrasted with traditional market econ…

It wasn't great even for DDR.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War l There was such a plan, at least in the twisted minds of the people behind the Washington Consensus. They were calling it privatization or price liberalization or some other non-sense like that, thing is the common people got the very, very short stick (like my parents, who lost their jobs, their city apartment and who had to resort to literally subsistence agricultu…

Russian citizen here, and one with enough self-honesty to talk about 199X without selling self-pity, unlike my compatriot here. > 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. Total bullshit. The West did put in nearly as much money as part of GDP in aid to early 199X Russia as US did in Europe…

We all know you love Russia.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#475
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The transition to a market economy went very well for most of the former Soviet Republics except Russia. https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2022/03/16/the-transiti... A lot of Russia's issues stem from the way the government sold off their state owned corporations, which created artificial monopoly/oligopoly owners overnight — often insiders/cronies to begin with. This can be contrasted with traditional market econ…

Yeltsin is very much to blame. Russia would have transitioned much better if Gorbachev had been the head of the post-USSR Russia instead of Yeltsin. That said, the former Soviet Republics that transitioned well are those that were smaller, already edging their way towards a market economy before the USSR collapse, and received substantial help from (and eventually joined) the EU (Baltics, Hungary, Poland, Czech Rep.,…

Correction: Poland and Czechoslovakia weren't Soviet Republics, and Slovenia (Yugoslavia) wasn't even in the USSR sphere of influence.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War l There was such a plan, at least in the twisted minds of the people behind the Washington Consensus. They were calling it privatization or price liberalization or some other non-sense like that, thing is the common people got the very, very short stick (like my parents, who lost their jobs, their city apartment and who had to resort to literally subsistence agricultu…

Russian citizen here, and one with enough self-honesty to talk about 199X without selling self-pity, unlike my compatriot here. > 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. Total bullshit. The West did put in nearly as much money as part of GDP in aid to early 199X Russia as US did in Europe…

> to SCALE UP the pressure after the USSR collapse to force genuine reforms

Reforms such as? The countru had new borders, new constitution, new everything. There isn't a legal reform that would have magocally solvednthe problem.

> US totally failed to empower the right kind of people back then with its aid.

Wouls it be realistic and possibpe for a US obserber to know who the right people are?

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#477
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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#478
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…

I think the big difference is the oligarchs. The USSR had already been transitioned to a resource state, and there was no actual rebuilding that needed to happen. The Marshall plan was almost easy because you could tally up all the broken bridges and say “itll cost us $X to fix”. What’s the equivalent for post USSR? What ended up happening was oligarchs swooped in to take over from the central planners, and it’s not…

I think you have this upside down.

The oligarchs didn't swoop in and ruin everything. The Russian government did not want their resources and industry controlled by foreign share holders, so they were dead set on privatizing the economy by selling to Russians only.

With this constraint, the handful of Russians who were able to raise capital in such a short time, without foreign counter bids, got the privatized businesses far below market prices as a result. This is what made them billionaires, and turned them into the oligarchs.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#479
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The transition to a market economy went very well for most of the former Soviet Republics except Russia. https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2022/03/16/the-transiti... A lot of Russia's issues stem from the way the government sold off their state owned corporations, which created artificial monopoly/oligopoly owners overnight — often insiders/cronies to begin with. This can be contrasted with traditional market econ…

And yet populations are collapsing in every former communist state. I don't know what you call it when a country loses 10% of it's population, like Ukraine did, but decimation is the dictionary definition.

Uh you might want to re-read that definition.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#480
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US military defeated Japan and was an occupying power. The US had the power to dictate whatever terms. Japan was on it's back. Russia in 1992 was it's own entity. Still a nuclear power. Making it's own decisions. Not only would Russia not have tolerated US intervention, I'm extremely doubtful there could have been such a thing on any terms. As it stands, much of the money used by Oligarchs to buy up Natural Resou…

This is true, the question is, what was the difference between the occupation of japan and germany and the occupation of afganistan, iraq or vietnam. The lesson of the latter is that all it takes is 20 years of low level combat until the occupying country gets tired and leaves. the lesson of the former is that defeated countries can become your greatest allies. As to what leads a nation to choose one path or the othe…

maybe the difference is a culture you understand vs a culture you don't. Many observers have said for years that middle east statebuildibg efforts were doomed - we left iraq worse off than we found it
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