[gnusty_gnurc]

Neoconservatives love this narrative, they have every intention of stoking a new Cold War after waning support for Middle East intervention (side-note: it's perplexing to see the New York Times bemoan Trump declaring an "end to endless wars").

[altec3]

This narrative? The Russians hacked the US election. They shot down a Dutch airline. They invaded and took Crimea. They poisoned a former spy in the UK. And that's just what I can list off the top of my head.

I'm not a neoconservative, and don't care for them, but it seems like for Russia, the Cold War never ended and the West has been sitting around saying 'We Won' for the last 30 years.

[topkai22]

Wonderful rebuttal, but as for the “Cold War never ended for Russia”, it’s more complicated than that. The Russian state (which is semi indistinguishable from Putin at this point) seems to prioritize external safety, internal stability, and national pride.

In 2008, things weren't so bad- the US had fairly good cooperation with Russia in Central Asia, Bush and Putin had a good working relationship.

Then, for various reasons good and bad, the Obama/Clinton administration did a lot of things to upset Russia, threatening thier external safety (on-going NATO expansion for example), internal stability (democracy promotion), and national pride (for some reason, Obama and Hillary just never got along with Putin. Also various economic woes necessitated action here to stabilize the regime.). As a result Russia began lashing out in various ways. And, as it lashed out, it found success largely without consequence. For crying loud, it invaded and seized land for which the US and the UK (and Russia) had given formal security assurances for in exchange for the Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons, and nothing happened. The Russian state likes its prominent role in world affairs, and thinks that it is key to internal stability.

It's not really possible to put the genie back in the bottle now, but the relationship of the west and Russia didn't have to be this way, and it wasn't 11 years ago.

[gnusty_gnurc]

> for some reason, Obama and Hillary just never got along with Putin. Also various economic woes necessitated action here to stabilize the regime.

It's cause their advisors are neocons who seize every opportunity to fight other nations (see Robert Kagan and his wife Victoria Nuland, Bill Kristol, etc.).

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/28/donald-tr...

[gnusty_gnurc]

But clearly the US has by pretty much any metric won. You're discounting the power of the US and over-estimating the threat of Russia, too - which is pretty much anyone scared about the "integrity of US elections". It's a viewpoint that's usually rooted in the idea that if someone like Trump could get elected it must be a consequence of sinister action.