[woodandsteel]

Exactly. And if the rest of the world goes to hell in the process, so be it. In fact, Russia has a basically win-lose, zero-sum of international relations, so I am guessing this sort of outcome would make Putin very happy.

[lostlogin]

Any chance of a comment from the down voters? I'd be interested in reading the rebuttal to this comment.

[guard-of-terra]

It's a judging opinion, there's not much to rebute there.

[woodandsteel]

I have a question for you, but first let me say why I think Putin has a win-lose, zero sum of international relations.

To start, Putin grew up and had his career in the old communist Soviet Union, and has made clear he thought it was absolutely wonderful. Now the USSR was a superpower, with 350 million people, the world's second largest economy, a military equal to that of the US, and it controlled Eastern Europe through communist puppet governments.

Then in 1989-91, the Eastern European nations threw out the communist governments and broke away, communism was abandoned, all the non-Russian republics broke away from the USSR, and the military declined drastically. Now Russia has only 145 million people, much less territory, no solid allies except Bylarus, a military about one-fifth the strength of the US, and it's economy is ranked 10th in size.

Putin has made clear that he wants to get back to superpower status, and to do that he has to take back a lot of territory, either through incorporation into Russia or as allies. He can't do that with the Central Asian former Soviet republics, partly because they are semi-allies of China. So he is trying to expand westward, and doesn't care at all that most of the population of the Eastern European nations want to stay aligned with the West.

And to do this he uses various means such as military threats, sending in military forces, trying to undermine democratic governments through supporting extreme left and right wing parties, and a massive internet trolling campaign.

Well, that is my view. What is your view? Where do you think Putin is trying to go in the long term, and what sort of means do you think he uses?

[guard-of-terra]

Disclosure: I'm a Russian nationalist and I'm biased but honest.

Putin had a chance to take most of Ukraine back or at least try to do it. This is late '14, Ukrainians taking hold on separatist "people's republics" of Donetsk and Lugansk. They use artillery against populated areas, lots of civian casualties. The memory of Odessa massacre is still vivid. He has broad support back home to end it all. He has grassroot support in Kharkov and Odessa regions (connect them on the map and see how much of Ukraine is left). He's still holding arguably legitimate Ukrainian president for god's sake!

Ukraine army was still weak and disoriented, he had a chance of dealing a massive blow and overrunning most of the country, and he blew it!

Now, fast forward two years. Can we seriously talk about Putin expanding into Eastern Europe proper if he's unable to take Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine? How he would ever do that? Belarus wipes its feet with Putin, EU sanctions against it are all lifted. Kazakhstan improves ties with China and gets wary of Putin too. In the end he sublimates the inability to tackle Ukraine in his petty TV war in Syria.

Yes, he does use military threats, sending in military forces, trying to undermine democratic governments through supporting extreme left and right wing parties, and a massive internet trolling campaign. No, that won't get him very far, considering he's old and didn't have balls to take a bite at Ukraine. Perhaps he never wanted to. Of course he's bitter about Russia's decline, but he likes his little throne and oligarch friends and doesn't want to risk all that.

Summary: We can only talk about Putin expanding into Eastern Europe when he figures out Ukraine. Not earlier.

[woodandsteel]

I basically agree with your comment. Let me just add that I get the impression that Putin didn't go ahead and try to grab the rest of Ukraine was he was afraid NATO and the US would intervene. In addition a lot of the Russian public was unhappy with the military deaths, and much of his limited military got diverted to Syria.

The broader picture, as you indicate, is yes, he is imperialistic and nasty, but he hasn't gotten very far and probably won't in the future if the West stays united against him. Oh, and that is one reason he has this massive online troll campaign, it is to confuse and weaken the West.

Lets remember this whole discussion started because I said that Putin has a zero-sum, win-lose view of international relations, and people said my view was just speculation, so I elaborated it, and you are giving further confirmation.

Let me add that Putin's win-lose approach to the rest of the world is in part because he is a Russian, and as a consequence of Russian history he sees the world as a constant struggle of nations where you either defeat your enemies or are defeated yourself. This means it is best to strike first and grab as much land and power as possible.

Just as in economics, Russia has never figured out that in the modern, especially post-WWII and nuclear world, things have moved to a considerably more secure and win-win sort of situation. So Putin and the Russians have this wacky belief that the US is out to conquer Russia and turn it into a colony, whereas actually the US would just like to have reasonably peaceful relations.

[guard-of-terra]

WRT win-lose approach:

It's what recent history teaches to Russia. People kind of expected that peaceful end of the cold war is a good thing, but it turned out that USA & Western Europe won and Russia lost. And now US politics has audacity to poke in russians' faces with this "fact". It was win-lose.

After that, on 2000-s, Russia sought to enter WTO, even join NATO, and streighten ties with EU. But it mostly got humiliation and shown the door. It wasn't win-win.

Now, it's quire easy to learn that win-win scenarios don't work and win-lose do, and you want to be on a right side of win-lose.

And I wold argue that win-win fails to perform in modern world. It's now more like lose-lose. Iraq? Syria (for all parties including Russia)? Lose-lose. Even international trade starts to show this character.

But after all that said, speculating on peoples' beliefs instead of facts is always opinionated.

[tsukikage]

The Reddit is strong in this thread...