Archived Putin: US not a white Christian country anymore - we Europeans need to preserve our culture (youtube.com)
submitted ago by reddit-is-retarded
Posted by: reddit-is-retarded
Posting time: 3.1 years ago on
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Archived on: 1/17/2018 10:00:00 AM
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130 upvotes, 2 downvotes (98% upvoted it)
Archived Putin: US not a white Christian country anymore - we Europeans need to preserve our culture (youtube.com)
submitted ago by reddit-is-retarded
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[–] 10825828? 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
There are positive things that can be said, but there is a reason why he looks weak domestically and in the region and has to resort to strongman tactics and propaganda. He has amassed a huge personal fortune doing his share to partially loot the country and spread the wealth to an elite, that to be fair he tries to exert political power over. In no uncertain terms our state dept. considers what he has done is convert Russia to a "virtual mafia state" (ala wikileaks). In many cases he has personally appointed these people to oversee projects (infrastructure, energy etc) and they turn out to be boondoggles that try to eek out more money from the government while underperforming. He has tried to borrow more contemporary Chinese tactics to crack down on this sort of thing and speed up efficiency but he lacks the political capital and organization to actually do it. All of this has led to a stagnating Russian economy.
In terms of geopolitics he is often very overrated, from causing friction with neighbors with no gain for Russian interests to his poor handling of an already strained Chinese relationship. A solid example is actually Crimea, it is a poverty stricken wasteland that in reality serves very little mid-term Russian interest. In fact economically it will cost Russia billions for years to come and the apparent petrostrategy/geopolitical purpose backfired as now Ukraine is more interested than ever in moving away from piping business with Russia. A LOT of this 'Trump is beholden to Russia propaganda' was originating in Russia and for domestic and regional effect, it originally had very little to do with gains in the West (though the left media has catalyzed the benefit significantly, which is an inadvertent win for Putin). Regionally it was to try to intimidate former bloc states saying "hey now, look how much international influence we have, we even have America in out pockets guys, so don't engage with the West or else".
To put it in terms of chess, the guy is a decent tactician but not a very good strategician at all. A lot of the short-terms things he does that appear beneficial end up backfiring or will have a negative impact in the mid term. Don't get me wrong, again there are positive things to be said, but generally he is either irrationally vilified or treated as some brilliant leader, when the truth is he is much more mediocre. The real thing he has going for him is that the West has a track record of putting into power even more mediocre leaders..
[–] englishwebster ago
Interesting - your first paragraph is consistent with what little I know - he is in fact loaded and it seems to me that esp in a country like russia if you arent loaded with "fuck you" money then you dont stand a chance - its hard to see anyone being both clean and rich in russia.
I am however well versed in what happened in Ukraine. you said:
In reality, crimea was a gift from the soviet union to ukraine in 1947 to celebrate some 300 years of unity between both nations/cultures. Crimea more importantly has russias ONLY warm water port to the atlantic. It has a very major strategic importance to russia and it makes sense from a realpolitik position to take back crimea if ukraine is about to be sacked by the west, which it was.
Had russia lost crimea, they would have had a very hard time not only projecting power, but helping syria in their current war against the UAE pipeline.
[–] 10829707? 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Yes leasing Sevastopol was coming to an end and Russia knew it, which is why it began securing permanent access to Tartus and had already long begun retrofitting Novorossiysk. Furthermore it has been in talks with at least five countries to permanently secure access to other ports. Like Novorossiysk, Sevastopol isn't all roses either, there is a huge cost both directly and indirectly in seizing Crimea and it has destabilized the region dropping the value of the port. Secondly there is a logistical problem with the Sevastopol now that undermines its strategic value as beforehand equipping and maintaining the port was done through Ukrainian territories. Lastly in terms in projecting power, that was the thinking a few years ago but we haven't really seen it, their fleet in the area is too small and expensive to really make use of it and regional players haven't really seen an uptick in naval power projection through Sevastopol.