Redbrickbear said:
whiterock said:
Realitybites said:
whiterock said:
You have not heard of the CIS? YOUR policy is to let Russia have Ukraine, all of it....the largest former SSR not to join the CIS, compelled by force of arms to enter back into defacto alliance with Russia. And you would seriously attempt to argue that Russia is not going to try to re-form the USSR? (sans the ideological BS)
The Commonwealth of Independent States - as the name indicates - is not an attempt to recreate the USSR. It's been around since 1991 and was born out of the need to cordinate regional economic, law enforcement, and other interests.
If you're pointing to the CIS as an attempt to recreate the USSR, you really have no business commenting on geopolitics.
LOL. Dear God the idiots have arrived.
You would be correct to say that CIS does not equal USSR, but to suggest that CIS is not an attempt by Moscow to regain hegemony over former SSR republics is....well, it's laughable.
Just to be clear is any sort of economic or military alliance by Russians an attempt to re-create the USSR?
I mean NATO is a military alliance and basically a economic alliance including most of North America and almost all of Europe....is that some kind of Neo-USSR as well? Of course not
Lets be honest any Nation that wants to be secure will attempt to build some kind of alliance network with other nations.
The fact that Russia & China can only rally a losers club of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, N. Korea, Iran, etc. is proof of how bad they are at doing that....but not proof that they are trying to create some kind of new multi-national spanning empire.
There is also some argument about if the CIS is even a real economic and military alliance:
"people incorrectly assumed that the USSR would be replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States.
On Dec. 21, 1991, representatives of 11 former Soviet Republics met and proclaimed that the USSR was dissolved and that their republics were sovereign and independent. When Mikhail Gorbachev resigned on Dec. 26, 1991, he had already been a man without a country for five days.
At their Dec. 21 meeting, the independent republics also founded the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Most western observers seemed more impressed by the founding of the CIS, whatever it was, than they were in the member nations' declarations that they were fully sovereign and independent.
The CIS is not a state and has no supranational powers. It is not a union like the United States or the USSR. It is not a military alliance like NATO. It is not an economic union like the European Union. It is not a production and marketing cartel like the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. It is not a free-trade zone like the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The CIS is similar in some ways to the Organization of American States or the Organization of African Unity.
Most significantly for stamp collectors, the CIS has never issued a single postage stamp or delivered a single piece of mail."
The CIS is a very weak organization. Most of the independent States within it would resist the organization being turned into a more centrally controlled Union.
And of course we are leaving out that the USSR had an ideological reason to exist....Communism.
That Marxist Empire is long gone.
Geez, you are working hard to make the case that Russia has no ambitions at all, despite the fact that it has created a new multilateral entity to reclaim lost influence and engaged in exactly the kind of interventionism and outright empire (invading a neighbor to seize all/part of it) that you allege from the US.
I mean, seriously. Stand back and look at what you are saying here. A series of faulty premises: 1) a new alliance construction is of no consequence since it is not identical to that which it replaces. 2) that new construction tells us nothing at all about intentions of the power which created it. 3) a weaker power seeking to destabilize a stronger order is no threat at all until/unless it can impose its will militarily on that stronger order. 4) Russia invades the shatter zone but it's ok (because its next door) and when Nato responds with aid packages it's interventionism (even though it's next door and did NOT invade). 5) and on and on and on.
WWI was started by the losing (weaker) side. WWII was started by the losing (weaker) side. A weaker opponent which has no business playing the terrible hand it has may still choose to play that hand and force you to respond, forcing you to spend grievous amounts of treasure to win. The appropriate way to avoid having to do that is to use proxy armies to deter and further degrade that weaker power. It might persuade them to recalculate. It will at minimum weaken them in the near term.
Read this analysis. It is spot. on.
https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/weakness-lethal-why-putin-invaded-ukraine-and-how-war-must-endWhen your adversary makes a move, you must evaluate options and respond. The entire NATO alliance has assessed that Russia is a threat which must be confronted now rather than later. Events have proven that judgment wise. Even if the Ukraine is lost to Russia, the policy has been successful, as it has inflicted grievous damage to Russia. And we can still do better than that.
