re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict.

the jet powered drone illustrated looks a lot like the nazi buzz bombs used against England in ww2. nazi's do what nazi's gotta do

quote:

---

That the West didn't trust Russia is total bullcrap

---

Immediately after fighting with them to beat Hitler there were actual discussions about continuing on and whipping the USSR too

Paying to help them produce something that goes into a global marketplace (which ends up being good for everyone) isn't evidence that we trusted them, or even that we didn't not trust them. Far from it, actually.

Reading Russian newspapers today. Alaska, Trump, economics, and gasoline

quote:

---

So Ukraine copied Hitler

---

Thats kind of the whole problem





/s

quote:

---

He could have been the great trade center between the East and West, but he chose a bungled war instead.


I don't know about this. I think the historical distrust of Russia by basically the entire west is too much to overcome. But that distrust exists because historically you haven't been able to trust Russia

---

I think you make a good point here but Aub's overriding point is that there was a place for Russia in the modern world, and not just as a oil well. They could have found a place that allowed for modernization and geopolitical and economic power without reverting back to the 19th century to take land and get noticed.

Shame they didn't have the leadership to realize it.

quote:

---

But look at China. Trade flourished even though they can’t be trusted


I think they can be trusted to be smart and look out for China's interests.

Russia can be trusted to look out for Russia's interests, but they can't be trusted to be smart.

China is actually fairly predictable. We know what China will be trying to do long after Xi is gone. Do we know what post-Putin Russia looks like? Not really.

---

No - China and Russia can't be trusted. And many never did, that's why NATO was never disbanded.

We, as the West, tried. We looked at Russia and China and saw enormous undeveloped markets and thought, publicly and privately, if they 'just come along and play ball, just be a little decent and honest, and they will be like us and grow rich and prosperous, and we'll only have to deal with the politics of nations and major corporations, not gangsters and commies.

In the early 90's all the Harvard MBA types tried it in Russia but many left when they figured out that the Russians weren't interested in actually building a business, only looting it. It's MASSIVELY telling that McDonald's just up and sold their entire business in Russia for pennies on the dollar - the writing is now on the wall for them.

It's now happening in China and all the businesses there are trying to get out, or where before Trump took office - they've had to rethink that plan now that the US government isn't nearly as stable or reliable. But you've got Apple, who bet the house on China as a manufacturing hub, looking hard for other options, and then you've got Tesla, who tried to build cars there only to watch the Chinese steal all their info (Really Elon.....? You didn't see that coming?) and try to apply it but they're too incompetent to make it work, which is even more concerning in some ways.

And we have NO idea what China is going to look like after Xi dies, outside of a potential bloodbath amongst his underlings. If anyone wants to make a bet as to who their next leader is or what his policies will be I will take that bet RIGHT NOW.

But, no, neither China nor Russia can be trusted to even look out for their own interests when they can't agree on what those interests are. That's what happens when you gut a nation, a government, and a society of your independent honest thinkers - nobody knows what is going on.

quote:

---

I don’t know why anyone would think you could trust China.

---

quote:

---

It's now happening in China and all the businesses there are trying to get out

---

Last August, a MacDonald's across the street from our hotel was very good and stayed busy. We were in Guangzhou where you couldn't throw a rock across the street without hitting a bank. Big city of 14 million. I was impressed by the number of big very modern skyscrapers. Air was dirty even with a lot of electric scooters and cars. Electricity is mostly made with coal.

Funniest thing is that our house plants there were trees 30' tall.

Most dreadful thing was the thought of having to use an in-floor old Chinese toilet.

quote:

---

That would make a good discussion, what if Russia would have been accepted into the West and become a good citizen?

---

Have you heard of Boris Yeltsin? He made the West and US love him... and ignore his corruption and even some Putin-like military actions in former satellites that were turning away from Russia...

But even after Bill Clinton kind of warned our people that Putin couldn't be trusted (and George W. Bush looked into Putin' soul and saw a good person or something, which he later said he was wrong about)... Hillary, who was a bit Hawkish on Russia in talking about stuff, went and had a photo op of the great reset.

Still, if the West ignored Chechnya ("hey, they're Muslims and probably terrorists and wrong") and Georgia ("where?"), the seizure of Crimea and the stuff in the Donbas soured relationships... even though Europe mostly even ignored that until the full invasion of Ukraine.

So I'd say Russia was given as much of the benefit of the doubt as they could ever get.

The reality is Putin and others there cannot accept that they are no longer a superpower. A gas station/farmer's market with the majority of the world's nukes, as it's been said.

Here is what I posted.

quote:

---

That would make a good discussion, what if Russia would have been accepted into the West and become a good citizen?

---

Russia would have had to become a good citizen. We all know that never happened.