It makes no sense that Russia would reject US aid - they were asking for help in 1991 and in 1999. I don't see anything in history about Russia being against that. Here's a good article that walks through a lot of the history and politics across the different presidents https://prospect.org/world/was-putin-inevitable/
My point was that the U.S. did not ignore anything, and Hillary was talking about Russian corruption for a while. How could the U.S. make anything better when the former officials were the ones taking everything, how could the U.S. make it better when most of the Russia still looked at us as enemies? This was happening all throughout the 90's into the 2000's you can't just look at the initial fall of the wall. What do you think the U.S. could have done? Russia was a sovereign power, most Russians deeply mistrusted the U.S. what do you think could have been done that was not?
When Switzerland takes a side you know you ****ed up. This is one outcome Putin sure as hell didn’t expect I bet. Heck Switzerland didn’t take a side against hilter in WW2
I'm not an expert, but I think China is probably shocked at the blowback Russia getting. I think they will actually completely rethink their Taiwan strategy. They are probably ultra pissed at Putin for undoing 2 decades of work slowly dividing Western powers to have it all thrown out the window in 5 days. But who knows? I just think China isn't going to risk their precarious economy they've worked so hard to build up for decades. Western sanctions of the magnitude that Russia is getting could but the economy of 1.7 billion people into a depression. When a billion people start starving, the guys in charge often get hung.
Good friend, very savvy retired CEO who used to work in Asia told me last night: the SWIFT sanction probably grabbed China's attention more than anything else and will push back the Taiwan planning at least a few years. EDIT: And as per supermac above, the friend said China really has to maintain 5-6% growth. A global response on Taiwan shenanigans could knock that way out of line. Interesting.
We also need to realize too with the Oligarchs that regardless of where they were prior to 2014, they are only in the position they are in now because Putin either allowed it, or for the newer Oligarchs basically are appointed or gifted their status directly from Putin. Going after and seizing the Oligarchy is still something I support, but I think it's likely to have limited value in terms of convincing them to turn against Putin which would seem to be the purpose. That's why much of these sanctions are actually starting to look pretty damn smart by essentially crashing the Russian economy, and controlling imports, and exports. Going after the Oligarchs is just going to be a game of wackamole. Cutting off their streams of GDP and imports, and crashing their banking system... is harsh to everyday Russian who don't deserve to have their livelihoods destroyed as most of them probably can't stand Putin, but can't say anything, but it's the best way to completely erode any support Putin can have, and it's not something that the propaganda and lies can hide to the people. So the US & the EU's strategy here if they can execute it seems to be: -Coordinate and support disruption of Russia's military theatre. Intelligence, cyber, etc... whatever they can do to help Ukraine stall out, and cause confusion on the ground with the Russian troops -Chaos in Russia that Putin can see and feel (IE their stock market crashing, the ruble being worth nothing, and his 600billion dollar war chest being inaccessible - Using intelligence channels and diplomatic strategy to offer Putin off ramps so they avoid backing him in a corner where he might use WMDs. -Flood Ukraine with military and humanitarian support so they can withstand. I'm hopeful sooner rather than later something can be worked out to give him an offramp. I know he's evil and Hitler lite at this point, but I'm very very concerned about where we are going backing him into a corner where he has to know a military coup is very likely if they don't completely turn around both the war on the ground in Kyiv, and also have the entire world shift focus & ease on sanctions. -
Times have changed. Also the world is smaller now because of the Information Age. Harder to turn a blind eye.
One point about those saying the US, Germany and EU should have done more to cripple Russia's economy earlier rather than allowing them to profit from their oil, gas, and energy reserves that is important to realize. As inflation and gas prices go up now people are upset. The rise in gas prices before Russia's invasion was a major issue in the U.S. How much of the population in Germany and the United States would have been supportive of raising their prices greatly in order to stick it to Russia years before they invaded Ukraine? It's questionable how much of the populace will be okay with it and to what extent they will be okay with it now. It's one thing to sit here with hindsight and talk about how horrible it was that these nations didn't more before it ever got to this point. But it's very different for leaders of Germany or the United States to tell their citizens they are going to have to pay more and their money won't buy as much before Russia ever took military action. I believe the leaders at the time thought they were making good economic deals for their citizens and probably more so for the wealthiest in those nations as is always the case. Obviously in hindsight it makes sense not to have made the deals, but at the time there would have been little support and a candidate that campaigned on lowering prices and carried it out by making the same deals with Putin would have easily won the elections.
Exactly: "Average working class American, are you willing to stomach $100 barrel oil and $4-5 a gallon gas because Putin threatened some country on the other side of the world?" Um...no "Average working class American, are you willing to stomach $100 barrel oil and $4-5 a gallon gas because Putin invaded Europe and a small country is fighting for its life against tyranny?" Hell yes. In fact, send them missiles.
Who was they? And are you saying we never gave them any aid? You are not being very coherent, the U.S. did give a lot of aid to Russia to prop them up, but why would they do a full Marshall plan? We did not do it for NY of the other countries we went to war with after the Cold War, so why Russia? The biggest issue that happened after the wall fell was the U.S. intervening in the Balkan war, and that's what ended the good will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia–United_States_relations Russia already had their own form of the Marshall plan, considering all the aid they got during WW II which helped them fight off Germany.
I'm talking about the alliance in general. I think the tri-country alliance wasn't even officially signed until 1940. About the only thing they had in common was a hatred for Western democracy, and Communism. As you said, Japan had a weird deity and cult-religious like manifesto with a brainwashed country. However Japan's reasoning for conquest going back centuries has always been because they need to conquer for natural resources because Japan's geography sucks. It sucked before Germany invaded Poland, and it sucked after. However the alliance was never a reality until then because they could try and overwhelm England, and the Soviets by pulling them in too many directions at once. That was my only point, and definitely relevant when considering China's planning and their unlikely courtship of Russia/Putin. They aren't aligned at all on their reasons for doing what they are doing. Look at how Putin just the other day railed against Communism, Lenin, etc. and China is proud to be a Communist dictatorship.
But that's not what actually happened. As I said Russia actually did try to create a capitalist system in the 90's but it didn't work. This was before oligarchs and mass corruption you saw in the 2000s. The very oligarchs you are talking about were actually nothing in the early 90's but just were the ones who took advantage of a broken system. Russia's economy failed because of what happened in the 90's. The weight of the debt from the Soviet Union and IMF loans was way too much, they had crazy inflation and people were suffering. It wasn't just "oh there was massive corruption and the oligarchs were taking everything" storyline you are presenting.
