lasermink wrote:
Kern wrote:
Unfortunately, the general assessment of Putin's strategy is that he fears NATO, the EU, and the west are encircling and threatening Russia, and convincing bordering countries to look westwards rather than eastwards.
Is he wrong? I am not defending Putin's choice in resorting to military force, but isn't there some truth to us having attempted to undermine Russia's influence for decades, and now it has backfired spectacularly and everyone is busy washing their hands and blaming everything on him?
No, not so much. We're not in the cold war, we're not trying to site nukes near his border so we can blow him up, and he doesn't have any god given right to a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, and the fact that his reaction to Eastern European democracies waiting to cosy up to the EU (and (a) why the hell wouldn't they and (b) why the hell shouldn't they) is to fucking
invade them suggests that every single bit of the blame here lies on his side of the fence. 1960s responses to 2010s problems is not sane, let alone sensible.