[hetspookjee]

It's all too interesting what is happening in the region. Some say he's going back Ottoman empire with his entire navy and claiming pieces of Cyprus to the disliking of Cyprus and Greece. While also performing enormous military exercises under the guise of Mavi Vatan, which also bears symbolic reference to their history.

Meanwhile Erdogan is set on keeping the steady flow of immigrants coming for as long as he's the gate holder, the EU will bow to many of Erdogans demands.

Concurrently Russia is said be rerunning the USSR book and is desperate in acquiring more territory. For as long as I've lived I can recall the USA being somewhat the voice of reason in these situations but USA is too occupied with their own stuff currently.

I think theirs trouble on the horizon as Erdogan and Puttins position become more and more unsustainable with the citizens of said countries being more and more unhappy with them.

[nickik]

I don't think Russia is 'desperate in acquiring more territory'. If anything its desperate to not lose more of them. The Cold War was ended in negotiations with the Soviet Union that stipulated that no NATO expansion towards Russia would happen. But then it did, and again, and again. Not to mention that the US basically broke all the missile treaties as well.

Belarus is staring to realize this and look West, so did Georgia and the Ukraine. Russia is desperate not to lose all influence over these.

They were desperate to keep the Crimea. But to be fair Crimea wasn't even part of Ukraine until 1960 when Khrushchev wanted to increase is own power base. Not really Ukrainians who live there and the region was never much for Ukrainian nationalism.

Russia is desperate not to get parceled up by China, Europe and the US. Russia is declining power, its population is collapsing, it has major brain drain, half of the Russian life outside of Russia. Putin is good at seeming strong but the long term battle is basically lost already.

> USA being somewhat the voice of reason

You mean the voice with the most financial and military power that told others what do? Are you rally so naive to think that 'reasonableness' is what made these things happen?

In the 90s the Russian were sticking mad as hell about this stuff, they just didn't have the power to do anything about it. In the last 15 years the have learn that they can, so they do.

[mantas]

> The Cold War was ended in negotiations with the Soviet Union that stipulated that no NATO expansion towards Russia would happen

There was no such negotiations with binding promises made public aside from interwebs rumors, frequently reposted on RT/Sputnik/etc. The end of Cold War was USSR unilaterally dissolving by agreement between Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

Furthermore, Yeltsin publicly said that eastern europe can join NATO if they wish. The only request was that there would be no nuclear weapon moved to new NATO members. And there were talks about limiting conventional weapons. That's why current NATO forces in Baltic states and Poland are "rotational" rather than permanent.

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/18/world/yeltsin-now-seems-r...

> In the 90s the Russian were sticking mad as hell about this stuff, they just didn't have the power to do anything about it. In the last 15 years the have learn that they can, so they do.

As an ex-USSR citizen, Russia was damn friendly in early 90s. Russian SSR (separate from USSR) supported Baltic states during January events of 1991. Russian army was rather swiftly removed. Separation was rather smooth thanks to mutual understanding. Things started to change in late 90s though. Not sure where the braking point was.

[nickik]

> There was no such negotiations with binding promises made public aside from interwebs rumors

I have heard from multiple cold war scholars some that were in government at that time that they promised this to Gorbachev. That said, it was never formally ratified.

This is just one example, another one is the non-adjustment of borders without agreemnt. But this was broken in the 90s when the US created Kosvo.

The missile treaties were broken by Bush.

> The end of Cold War was USSR unilaterally dissolving

Arguably the Cold War ended with the treaties between the Soviet Union and the US before it devolved. That is at least what US negotiators believed and you can listen interviews with them.

They are actually quite angry that people now say that the cold war ended because the Soviet Union collapsed.

> Furthermore, Yeltsin publicly said that eastern europe can join NATO if they wish.

Yeltsin was weak and had to agree to a lot of stuff that he didn't like. The Russian elites certainty never wanted the NATO to expand east.

> As an ex-USSR citizen, Russia was damn friendly in early 90s.

They are incredibly friendly right at the point in the history where they are weakest. Lenin was so friendly he signed over half of European Russia.

[mantas]

> I have heard from multiple cold war scholars some that were in government at that time that they promised this to Gorbachev. That said, it was never formally ratified.

And there was a lot of pressure to not separate from USSR up to coup of 1991. Especially from Western europe. Looking at our politicians from early 90s memoirs, Gorbachev broke those unwritten agreements with West by using military in January events of 1991.

> This is just one example, another one is the non-adjustment of borders without agreemnt. But this was broken in the 90s when the US created Kosvo.

Wasn't non-adjustment of borders some agreement in Helsinki in mid-70s?

> Arguably the Cold War ended with the treaties between the Soviet Union and the US before it devolved. That is at least what US negotiators believed and you can listen interviews with them.

Got any examples? Because

> Yeltsin was weak and had to agree to a lot of stuff that he didn't like. The Russian elites certainty never wanted the NATO to expand east.

While Yeltsin was rather weak (just like any politician in 90s in ex-USSR/Warsaw pact), the main difference was split between democractical vs imperial powers. Russian SSR government was were pro-democracy people congregated while pan-USSR structures were held by imperialists. When USSR dissolved, it took some time for imperialists to regroup and take over Russian Federation (ex Russian SSR) structures.

> They are incredibly friendly right at the point in the history where they are weakest. Lenin was so friendly he signed over half of European Russia.

Lenin only signed over non-ethnically-Russian territories of tsarist Russia. Tsarist Russia was called "jail of nations" for a reason.

[AnimalMuppet]

First: Russia lost the territory in 1989 (Warsaw Pact) and 1991 (breakup of USSR). It hasn't lost any Russian territory since, or was it in any danger of doing so. It was (and is) in danger of losing influence over territory that is not Russia's, but nobody was going to invade Russia to steal territory.

But the way you and Russia talk about it shows that they still consider that to be their territory, even though it is now a different country. That attitude leads Russia to think they have a right to meddle in their former territory.

Second: Why did those countries join NATO? Because NATO held a gun to their head and told them they have to join? No, because Russia kept talking and acting in ways that made them afraid that they were going to get pressured, meddled with, invaded, and/or annexed. They wanted something bigger than their own military to protect them, so they pushed to join NATO.

All of which leaves Russia feeling surrounded and encroached upon. But the cause of that has been the Russian habit of trying to treat former territory as still their own, rather than the evil machinations of the West.

[nickik]

You can call it what you like, Russian statesmen and elites thought of many of these territories as Russian. Ukraine above all. Lots of these regions had been part of Russian empire for 100s of years. Some still have Russian military bases and space ports in them and some speak Russian.

Russia has lots 'non-Russian' regions inside of its border that they also think are part of Russia.

> But the way you and Russia talk about it shows that they still consider that to be their territory, even though it is now a different country. That attitude leads Russia to think they have a right to meddle in their former territory.

I'm explaining wat the Russian perspective is, I'm not taking Russia side.

Yes they do. Like literally ever great or regional power does. US literally claims dominance over a gigantic region, basically half the world. See what happens when China tries to put Mexico under a nuclear umbrella.

These issues need to be considered in diplomacy.

> Second: Why did those countries join NATO? Because NATO held a gun to their head and told them they have to join? No, because Russia kept talking and acting in ways that made them afraid that they were going to get pressured, meddled with, invaded, and/or annexed. They wanted something bigger than their own military to protect them, so they pushed to join NATO.

I agree. Where did I deny that? Of course these countries want foreign protection. They are well aware of their own weakness.

But just because somebody ask me to fight for them, doesn't mean its a good idea for me to do so. Maybe they would be better helped with other kinds of support.

> All of which leaves Russia feeling surrounded and encroached upon. But the cause of that has been the Russian habit of trying to treat former territory as still their own, rather than the evil machinations of the West.

Any power would respond when you try to literally surround it with a nuclear umbrella.

The West pushed and pushed NATO further East, and that's a fine strategy for them and certainty made some amount of sense even if Russia didn't like it. But at some point you need to realize that Russia was gone respond if you take it to far.

The Russians quite strategically invaded Georgia to make it impossible for them to join NATO. The reason they did that was quite clearly to stop the Eastward expansion of NATO. They had over, and over and over again in negotiation said that extending NATO into Ukraine and Georgia was a vital interest for them. In a way that it wasn't with the Baltic's for example.

And again, I'm not 'on the side of Russia'. But when you are talking about practical diplomacy, I think the Western powers miscalculated. Georgia under NATO was a terrible idea. Giving Ukraine hope to be in the EU is an equally terrible idea. Not just because of Russian response, but for other reasons as well.

Blocking NATO expansion to Georgia and annexing Crima were simple sensible policies that should have surprised nobody. But they don't represent a massively expansionist policy on Russia part. I think Russia knows they can't really do that.

[GregarianChild]

I do not see how contemporary Russia is "desperate in acquiring more territory".

My interpretation is as following -- please correct me if I'm wrong. Note: I am not endorsing (nor criticising) Russian policies here, just trying to understand and learn. In order to learn, I try and give as clearcut an explanation as possible of my current understanding, so as to make it as easy as possible for others with more expertise to point to where I am wrong (if indeed I am wrong). My take is this: contemporary Russian policy is a variation on "spheres of influence" [1], and Russia treats its neighbours as being in its "sphere of influence", and does not accept them becoming part of NATO. I think the implicit deal with "sphere of influence" neighbours is: as long as you don't join NATO, you can do whatever you like but as soon as you try to join NATO we will stop this, including with force. Currently, Russia has borders with the following NATO countries: Norway, Estonia and Latvia. The latter two joined NATO in 2004, when Russia felt too weak to do anything about it, especially since they are not land-locked, so could be easily be defended by western Navies.

A clear example of this was the Russian-Georgian War in 2008. Russia withdrew after a couple of days (but left some "Frozen Conflicts" [2] in place that it can 'turn on' at will, as a power-lever: South Ossetia and Abkhazia). Who would have defended Georgia if Russia had decided to stay, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey? Probably not. Likewise, Russia could easily invade an keep the 'stans. Take land-locked Kazakhstan: huge, rich in resources, nearly empty, and, thanks to Stalin's policy of mixing ethnic groups, about 1/4 of the population is ethic Russian anyway (in 1989 it was nearly 40%). Who would defend Kazakhstan? Mongolia, Uzbekistan , Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan? Probably not. Ukraine is an interesting special case, and the annexation of Crimea can be interpreted in this way: Ukraine came too close to NATO, and Crimea is important for the ability of the Russian navy to project power in the Mediterranean Sea. Crimea is > 2/3 Russian from the POV of ethnic groups and Russia has a higher standard of living than Ukraine, so the majority of the Crimean population would probably have been ok with the policy anyway.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_of_influence

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_conflict