General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI'm sorry, but I think the "victory" in the Cold War looks increasingly meaningless by the day
You've got a country that:
* Oppresses its own people
* Deals in terror against its neighbors
* Has a nuclear arsenal with a madman at the button
* Kills dissidents in other countries
And then you've got Kissinger saying that Ukraine needs to cede land to Russia and that we shouldn't be trying to humiliate the Kremlin.
I mean, to me, they sound just like the USSR, except, you know, not communist.
I get it; the west wants to save face, many conservatives want to preserve Reagan's legacy that according to them he was the one who struck the killing blow to the USSR, and Kissinger and others may want to justify the breathtaking human and civil rights abuses our country perpetrated in Latin America, Africa, and Asia and that the ends justified the means...
But it's time to face a hard and brutal fact:
The "victory" in the Cold War gave us an even more dangerous Russia... except, you know, not communist.
Irish_Dem
(45,215 posts)Putin won.
Modern "conservatives" took the Super Bowl trophy and handed it to the loser.
Irish_Dem
(45,215 posts)And they got lessons on how to get what Putin has.
Total permanent power, control, access to all US financial assets.
And the MAGAs get white christian minority rule.
SharonAnn
(13,756 posts)TheRealNorth
(9,425 posts)It was all about protecting capitalism.
regnaD kciN
(26,033 posts)And, now that we have capitalism in Russia, our job is done. Mission accomplished!
Caliman73
(11,666 posts)We got into bed with some pretty horrific dictators and authoritarians before, during, and after the Cold War. All in the name of allowing corporations to have access to markets or to operate as they desired.
Capitalism has trumped democracy throughout a lot of American History.
hibbing
(10,070 posts)lapfog_1
(29,147 posts)with the exception of Stalin
roamer65
(36,738 posts)Ukrainian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Russian, etc, etc.
lapfog_1
(29,147 posts)need for self preservation, they never wanted to see another dictator like Stalin.
That is, until Putin came along.
BeyondGeography
(39,226 posts)When it comes to Russia. Real wars have real surrenders after much death. Putin never accepted the geopolitical verdict of the Cold War. Russia wont go down without a fight, per him, and being the Tsar, he is the only person who matters.
Thats why Putin needs to be defeated, to make the verdict of the Cold War real. Or so one would think.
Putin picked up on hatreds he shares with the right, he gets points for that, but he has so far been unable to fully exploit them. His problem is Russia craves our power position in the world without doing the boring but necessary work to attain it.
What do we have? The very things that the Republican Party is trying to destroy. Democracy, meritocracy, the rule of law, free and fair elections, strong institutions, freedom of information.
By invading Ukraine and showing just how amoral and hollowed out kleptocratic Russia has become, Putin woke up the West, or at least that portion of it that is committed to free and open societies. Theres only one thing that can save him now: the Republican Party and its quest to destroy American liberal democracy. They want what Putin has: a license to steal with impunity, crush opponents, and full legal and political unaccountability. The Cold War will indeed turn out to be meaningless if they win.
Tommy Carcetti
(43,053 posts)When Boris Yeltsin first considered stepping aside as President in the late 90s, he originally considered advocating for Boris Nemtsov as his successor.
Nemtsov was a true reformer, advocate against corruption and as good a hope as you could think of for a free and democratic Russia.
Instead, Yeltsin was persuaded to go with Vladimir Putin instead.
And then, a decade and a half later, Putin murdered Nemtsov on the streets of Moscow.
ProfessorGAC
(64,184 posts)One side imploded, as was expected by nearly every economist not at U of C, Heartland, or Cato.
The USSR was an economic pipsqueak with a pathetically low per capita GDP. Just like Russia, now.
There were economic winners, like the entire defense industry. But, they didn't go away after the Soviet bloc fell. So, they would have been winners anyway.