Mikhail Gorbachev has died

Post by leosarev » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 6:38 AM UTC

VictorPath wrote: post #204

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…

What do you mean, like when Clinton and the US Congress cheered Yeltsin bombing Russia's elected parliament (Duma). Then Yeltsin appointed Putin and here we are. The US has positioned Russia exactly where it wants it - it has positioned the Ukraine exactly where it wants it too.

Post by fit2rule » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 6:41 AM UTC

hetman wrote: post #568

jimmySixDOF wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are also dealing today with blowback from the perceived claim that "Not One Inch" [1] of NATO expansion to the East could be expected as Western policy. The Partnership for Peace program may have started off in the right direction, but, as the military hawks took policy control like good generals the only thing they actually cared about was "securing the nukes". And expanding NATO to the East. Ps I worked with a g…

Ah the old "there's only two sovereign nations, USA and Russia, and everyone in between are just puppets" line of thought that seems so entrenched in the Russian Federation, presumably because the Soviets could not conceive the common people of any country wanting anything without being agitated through propaganda (after all, when you have near total control over the media, independent thought does seem like an aberr…

Post by jjallen » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 6:49 AM UTC

Post by qwytw » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 6:50 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #359

karaterobot wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment makes it sounds like you believe the U.S. had the power to decide whether or not Russia would turn into a kleptocracy or not. Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but if I'm not, I'm skeptical. Marshall plan notwithstanding, I would give credit to the people and government of Japan for their post-war success: it could easily have gone another direction, and the U.S. couldn't have stopped that from happening. L…

> I don't think the U.S. should take on the burden of developing other countries; going down that road has been a bad idea more often than not. From what I can tell from history, our successes involved US taking sovereignty and ruling absolutely for a period of years while setting up a government of our choosing to replace us. Our failures involved quickly setting up a local democracy and allowing self rule while we…

Post by dottedmag » Wed, Aug 31, 2022, 6:51 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #34

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…

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.