Is Russia a threat to Western Europa and the U.S.?

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In my article “What kind of a country is modern Ukraine?” I have provided some examples that situation in the sphere of rights of ethnic minorities and in the sphere of freedom of speech in Ukraine has become worse as compared with the situation before the so-called Euromaidan.

That article has been discussed on Internet forums and some American users have written that it does not matter much for them what kind of a country is modern Ukraine. In their opinion, the main thing is that Ukraine is now fighting against Russia and therefore Western Europa and the U.S. must help Ukraine because Russia – as a variant “Russia under V. Putin” is allegedly a threat to Western Europa and the U.S.

And in this article, I am going to consider the question: Is Russia really a threat to Western Europa or the U.S.?

Spoiler

I believe that many people in the West don’t know what Russia is, they don’t know when V. Putin became the President of Russia etc. Therefore, at first I am going to tell basic information about some subjects.

Till the end of 1991 Russia was a part of the Soviet Union and became an independent state only in December 1991. V. Putin was elected as the President of Russia on 26 March 2000.

If Russia or “Russia under V. Putin” had been an aggressive state, the Russian borders would have moved westwards in the period between the end of 1991 and the end of 2013; but on the map above you can see the opposite - the Russian borders did not move westwards, it were NATO borders which moved towards Russia.

Between the end of 1991 and the end of 2013 Russian army conducted two military operations abroad. In 1992 – i.e. long before V. Putin - in Transnistria which had the population of 695.7 thousand at that time and in 2008 in South Ossetia which had the population of 51.6 thousand at that time.

In the same period, between the end of 1991 and the end of 2013, the U.S. together with its allies conducted seven military operations abroad.

1994 – in Bosnia and Herzegovina which had population between 3.4 and 4.4 mil at that time.

1999 - in Yugoslavia (population of 10.7 mil at that time)

2001 – in Afghanistan (population of 19.7 mil at that time)

2003 – in Iraq (population of appr. 23.5 mil at that time)

2011 – in Libya (population of 6.4 mil at that time)

You can see that both the number of military operations of the U.S. and particularly number of people, which were affected by these operations, were much higher than the respective values of Russian military operations.

If Russia or “Russia under V. Putin” had been an aggressive state, Russia would have conducted much more military operations abroad during the first 22 years of its existence or during the first 14 years after V. Putin had become the President of Russia in 2000.

As for events, which took place after the end of 2013, I would like to tell basic information about some subjects related to these events.

At the end of 2013, a protest movement, the so-called Euromaidan began in Ukraine and at some point, the pro-Western protesters began to burn and kill during this Euromaidan; however, now nobody in Ukraine can explain why they had begun to burn and kill (please see here).

Therefore, the Russian Government decided to accept the Crimea into the Russian Federation in March 2014; please see the thread Was there a threat for ethnic Russians in February 2014 in Ukraine (Crimean question)?

And about further development of situation you can read in the thread Has the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine been provoked?

So, Russia was not a threat to Western Europe and the U.S. before 2014, and it is not a threat to them now. The present crisis is caused only by events in Ukraine and therefore it does matter very much what were the reasons of these events in Ukraine, what kind of a country is modern Ukraine, etc.

Source

P.S.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this thread is not about Ukraine – please see the thread title.
Therefore, if you wish to write about some aspects of situation in Ukraine, please do in the respective threads whose links you find below.

What have Ukrainians been fighting for since 2013?
Was there a threat for ethnic Russians in February 2014 in Ukraine (Crimean question)?
Has the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine been provoked?
What kind of a country is modern Ukraine?

 

Threatened is the proper word describing Russia. The NATO-Russia Founding Act (1996). NATO agreed to not jeopardize Russia's national security....and what did they do? Exactly the opposite. Treaties don't mean jackshit to NATO. NATO has become the MIC's profit arm, and profits are only made via aggression.

https://www.nato.int/cps/su/natohq/official_texts_25468.htm

 

Complete BS. NATO nations have never waged an aggressive war against Russia or the Soviet Union.

And the so called "military industrial complex" does not actually exist.

 

By the logic of people like you, if you flip me off I have the right to rape and murder your family and take your house. I was threatened. You caused my aggression. You have only yourself to blame.

How utterly absurd

 

Who has flipped off whom in the context of this thread?

 

Learn to read what was quoted

 

Absurd is your dumbass comment

 

whoa so aggressive! Thanks for giving me the right to destroy you, that’s totally justifiable by your illogical argumentation. Oh right, you like to cherry pick who gets to illegally destroy whom based on whatever the F you feel like.

 

Look, I do think Russia is a threat to Western Europe. Putin is using Russia's history, nationalism, and current geopolitical situation to reassert Russia's influence in Europe, especially to the former Soviet Republics such as Ukraine, and around the world. He does have leeway with China to give him cover to do this. Second, I do know V Putin became President after Boris Yeltsin was the First Russian President. V Putin, at that time was limited to two terms of being president. Then came his buddy, Dmitry Medvedev, and then be became President again. But Putin is old school KGB-trained type of politician and needs the oligarchs to retain power. He can exercise his power with those suspicious deaths or disappearances, which is an old school Soviet, Stalinist-style tactic that resonates in the upper elite of Russian politics. It is by defacto an open secret so to speak, but people like you often dismisss it altogether.

But yes, he is a threat to Western Europe, and he did so by invading outright in 2022 with open warfare. Europe, especially Western Europe, does not see this as a positive sign of friendship given European history over the last 500 years or so.

Technically, when it comes to Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia situation, we only had military action and enforced a UNSC no fly zone from 1998 to 1999. At that time, Russia "helped" and allowed that no-fly zone to exist. After the death of Marshal Tito, SFR Yugoslavia began to slowly fall apart and we had sectarian violence after the Berlin Wall fell down on November 9, 1991. From 1992, Yugoslavia was broken into six separate countries and two autonomous regions. Serbia was the main culprit of the Yugoslav War Crimes against those who lived in Kosovo and Bosnia, supported by those in the Russian Government to keep influence in the region, although they were rogue at that time.

2001, Afghanistan was different. AQ attacked us on 9/11, killing some 2800 Americans and other nationalities. The Taliban was protecting AQ, UNSC authorized deadly use of force, and yes, we invaded.

2003 Invasion of Iraq is controversial still to this day, but the argument at that time was WMD by Saddam Hussein and that Saddam Hussein was hiding Terrorists. Iraq was violating numerous UNSC resolutions, not allowing weapons inspectors, and so forth, but it was legal under US law with AUMF resolution passed by a GOP Congress and signed by a GOP president. To some extent, we had permission from UNSC to invade depending on how you interpret the latest resolution to do so. But it divided NATO at that time and not all of NATO was on board.

In the end, the main difference, whether you agree with it or not, is that we had official approval from the UNSC to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, use military force to enforce a no-fly zone in the former Yugoslav region, and had generally the support of the international community for most of this except Iraq. With Libya, the same thing with the UK and France along our side and to get rid of a well-known dictator when the Arab Spring was just starting to go full steam. Contrary, Russia invaded Ukraine without any approval from the UNSC, used three different excuses that no one is buying, and tried to redraw the political landscape by use of force.

 

Thanks for the MIC talking point.

 

NATO has flipped off Russia and Russia has attacked NATO?

 

Is Russia a threat to Western Europe and America?

Does the Russian Bear take a dump in the woods?

Putin longs to recreate the old Soviet Union and resume its aggressive policies. Given the state of the Russian economy, Putin would be like a little demon in a bottle, except for one thing. He has lots of nuclear weapons, and might get desperate enough to use them.

So, yes, Putin is a major threat to Western Europe and especially nations like Poland which used to be in the Eastern Block. He is a source of concern for U.S. because of his nuclear arsenal.

 

Nothing in the act you quoted suggest that other former soviet republics could not join NATO. this is all on Russia whether you want to believe it or not given their historical skepticism of what NATO is and not is. But at the same time, we have heard the same type of arguments that one named Adolf Hitler used when dealing with the UK and France, whom Germany considered a threat by a guy named Chamberland, PM of UK at that time. In every agreement of a nonagression pact, Hitler violated said treaty. Nothing in the agreement you stated has been violated in a technical sense, just misinterpreted that way for political reasons.

 

I’d say give yourself a hand but you’ve already given yourself two. Good for you.

 

Russia has not attacked NATO, not even the slightest. Putin does rattle that cage a bit like a scared ***** cat with a big hiss, but no moxie to use its claws because no one is that stupid.

 

Famous line in a movie, Russians don't take a dump in the woods unless they have a plan to do so.

 

No talking points, just incontrovertible facts provided that was left out intentionally by the OP.

 

Things are where they were under Stalin. If you guarded your interests, he’d leave you alone. But if you ignore him, or don’t guard your interests, he’s ready to pounce.

 

It's a lie.
Please read Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq

 

I don't use Wikipedia very often and yes, it does have criticism of our invasion of Iraq, but I prefer the ArmsControl.org website for most of that information when it comes to Iraq/Afghanistan and what happened there in terms of WMDs, terrorism, and so forth. We had the Blue Commission for 9/11, and no, it was not "an inside job" either.

however, it is not a lie, sorry to pee in your Cheerios here. However, numerous UNSC resolutions allowed the use of force when it comes to Afghanistan and Iraq. My critique is that we rushed into Iraq, started two fronts at the same time, and had no exit strategy once the military objectives were completed.

 

As regards the Russian Special Military Operation, which started in 2022 in Ukraine, there are links to several threads about Ukraine at the end of the first post.
There is the thread “Has the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine been provoked?” among them. However, I don’t remember your posts in that thread.

 

Tell that to the Latvians, Estonians, Finland, and the Lithuanians. Tell that to Tosky who was assassinated in Mexico by orders of Stalin. And yes, Stalin was planning eventually to invade Nazi Germany and used the invasion of Russia to his fullest political advantage with his purge of senior and junior military leadership of the Red Army.

 

I have commented on several threads regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine in this subforum or in the Current Events subforum. I even provided links to why Putin invaded Ukraine when he did. Putin has been punishing Ukraine ever since the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. It was just in that time the Ukrainian military was incapable of resisting any Russian incursion. Furthermore, Putin has used three different arguments for his justification of Ukraine beginning with the "Nazi" argument that the Ukranian Government had. This is utter BS since Zelensky is part Jew and even got called by Netanyahu at that time. Then came the "bioweapons" research near Kyiv, and that was utter nonsense. And then came a third argument about NATO is violating the Treaties it has signed, which is also utter nonsense. The simple fact is that Putin never went to the UNSC or to any other international organization to try to resolve the issues. Instead, he invaded a sovereign nation, Putin does not recognize Ukraine as separate and unique even though the two nations have shared a common history for some time, and Putin desires to reestablish Russian dominance in all of its former Soviet Republics with the key being Ukraine.

 

And I thought you were a fan of central planners!

Stalin’s ghost continues to haunt the world. Communist China and North Korea were both of his creations. Given the length of his legacy, one could say he turned out to worse than Hitler. They have a lot in common.

 

They can't even take Kiev, and that's just rolling tanks over common border. It what lying neocon warmonger's fevered fantasy are they going to take Berlin, Paris, or London?

We have a war industry in the US taking the US taxpayers for a ride, claiming we need to fund the defense of the Free World.



They have to be willing to fund their own defense, first, before we can be of assistance. This is a MUTUAL defense treating, they are supposed to be preparing to help their fellow treaty members. Luxembourg clearly feels that the rest of the alliance can fend for themselves.