The General Russia Thread

If that's true, why are so many countries that were former colonies still impoverished? These places were actually better off before they were conquered - I fail to see how there was any actual economic benefit to anyone besides the countries doing the conquering

We are talking economically. Most of them didn't have higher GDP before they were conqured. (Especially given that some of them were hunter-gatherers).

Well, the conqueror definitely has the greatest degree of benefit, for sure, but the conquered gets to be part of the large consolidated market of a much more powerful state, and no longer needs to worry about their own national defence. Said larger powerful state also has to make investments into the subject nation in order to get much benefit out of it at all. It's very much trickle-down economics on the scale of nations.

The thing about many former colonies is that the colonial powers mostly wanted the land itself to populate with their own (or "own") people. Most of the time, the people of the land themselves are as valuable as any rocks you could find in the land, because what use are pretty rocks if no one is digging them up?

Of course, if said subject were to become independent, they would suddenly have to worry about their own national defence, and their entire infrastructure that was built to serve their overlords becomes largely useless. It's very much a step back in most cases, and catching up to the rest of the world becomes very difficult.

Edited by Kayeka on Mar 28th 2024 at 9:55:53 AM

GDP wasn't a thing when many of these countries were conquered, I don't think that's a very good metric to use.

My point is this is a justification that was used back then to justify imperialism that's long since been discredited.

Either way, Russian imperialism goes back a bit further, I'm not sure if it can even be said to be the same flavor as French or British imperialism from the late 19th century

'Counting' the GDP wasn't a thing, not the GDP itself. It can be approximated today, economic historians do that.

If "conquering territory" is imperialism, it goes to the beginning of recorded history. If, on the other hand you mean "colonialism", as in granting the conquered peoples lower official status than that of the metropolitan state based on where they live, then Russia didn't realy practice that.

Edited by Smeagol17 on Mar 28th 2024 at 11:58:44 AM

With Imperialism, I'd say that the core problem is that the satellite regimes are almost always going to be built primarily to serve the Core of The Empire.

This itself is pretty hard to overcome.

I mean, yes? Imperialism is very very ancient.

With Russia I'm not sure I'd say it's the last remaining colonial Empire. To my understanding France engages in quite a bit of neocolonialist behavior, for example.

Colonialist rather than neocolonialist is the key part, I would say.

I was answering Xopher001, who said that Russian imperialism goes back “a bit” further.

Edited by Smeagol17 on Mar 28th 2024 at 12:24:20 PM

Step 1: Begin cleaning up the corruption

Step 2: Implement a relatively more federal system

Step 3: Diversify the economy so that no longer a petro-state

Step 4: Incorporate into NATO.

I'd probably swap "Incorperate into NATO" with "Incorperate into the EU," or at least put the EU above NATO

Point.

The Russian Investigative Committee says that they "stumbled" on evidence to suggest someone living in Ukraine provided money to the ISIS-K terrorists in Moscow.

By "stumbled" I assume they mean "we made shit up".

Just out of curiosity, who is this supposed entity, with both military and economic power, the moral high ground, and the well to "fix" Russia in today's world?

USA, sure they are imperialist in their own right, but still saints by comparison

Get Japan and Germany to act as life coaches, run a workshop on "how to confront your authoritarian past, exorcise your demons, and transition into a liberal socialist-democratic system that doesn't feel a need to invade its neighbors."

With the caveat that Japan hasn't really confronted its atrocities during World War II, and Germany is having its alt-right flare up again like a case of herpes.

I don't think so.

1) Japan isn't willing to do something of this magnitude.

2) More importantly, this "fixing" implies changing the ruling regime in Russia by force, which is not going to happen.

........................

The way I see it, Russia can only change from the inside, through the efforts of the Russians themselves, not foreign intervention.

And it is probably won't happen during Putin's life.

Edited by jawal on Mar 28th 2024 at 3:14:57 PM

The US has rather limited ability to effect Russia's politics at this point in time. I suppose it also depends on what you mean by "fix".

In fairness the US is within its right to use things like sanctions to push regimes in the direction it wants them to. For example, the US had an embargo on selling weapons to South Africa specifically siting Apartheid as the reason. Having said that, we're kind of already doing that.

As for what it takes to "fix" Russia, step one is for Putin to...not be in power, probably caused by his death. When that happens, we'll have to see...what happens?

For the purposes of the question I'd tend to assume some sort of internal reform, as it's both the most likely and best-case-scenario by far.

Though I doubt whoever Putin deigns to be his designated successor will be any better.

I would also think that with regards to the "incorporate into EU/ NATO" step, that even if Russia reforms, it is unlikely to be allowed to get into EU/ NATO given that the eastern European nations would quite justifiably resist such a move. The current invasion after all, has also made said nations even less likely to believe that Russia can truly change its ways for good.

Edited by xyzt on Mar 28th 2024 at 8:57:45 PM

NATO exists as a check on Russian expansionism. Letting Russia into NATO is letting a fox into a henhouse.

It feels like Putin is just gonna croak and his underlings are gonna go in a free for all, really.

It would certainly be a test of the organization's internal dispute resolution mechanisms. But, if you assume that Russia's actions are driven by a fear of being invaded by NATO, removing that fear by making Russia a part of that defensive alliance would logically mean Russia would no longer have a need to forcibly establish or shore up friendly buffer states between it and the West.

Not that logic has anything to do with talk about anyone invading Russia.

It's not like anyone has a great history of establishing functional, resilient democracies from the top-down, no. It works better when there are existing norms like "government should represent and serve its people," "there should be limits on the power a government can wield over its citizens," "you can disagree with government policy and not be a traitor to your country." That's how Germany was able to bounce back after the war, and I think even Japan had some democratic leanings with peasant collectives during the Sengoku Period before adopting a German-style diet after the end of the shogunate.

Russia's challenge is that it has to overcome some 800 years of norms like "the tsar is the father, and the people are his children," "if I'm the first to stop applauding, he might kill me after forcing me to confess to treason in a show trial," and "it is normal for opposition leaders to die in prison."

At least, the idea of an AK shooting NATO ammo would be hilarious.

I mean, Russia had democratic peasant communes as well as worker Soviets that the S Rs and Bolsheviks idealized, and called for its greater empowerment as part of their revolution (before the former got wiped out by the latter when it took power and saw those same democratic institutions as a hindrance to establishing an authoritarian centralised dictatorship).

Edited by xyzt on Mar 28th 2024 at 10:12:53 PM