What have Russia's objectives been since the fall of the Soviet Union?
Are they still idealist? Is the fact the current leader is an ex-kgb head a cause for worry?
I know that point is more relevant for but I'm looking to find out what exactly have been their plans since 1991.
The same as before the fall of the Soviet Union. Bring America and the west to their knees and become the sole world superpower.
Reconstructing Russia
Why exactly?
Is it just for the virtue of being Russian?
Do Russian leaders actually think this way? I thought they were all cronies.
Annihilate the Western governments and rebuild the Soviet Union.
>they still don't know the USSR didn't collapse but went underground and lenin will be reanimated at the most opportune moment to lead the world to global communism and the final victory
But why?
The old anthem sounds better
Because they think that was fault of the West that the Soviet Union COLLAPSE.
Surviving as what they are mainly. So.show the world always tries to destroy them.
Its simple really, maintain what influence they have in the former USSR and keep them on their side in the face of stupid and shortsighted NATO Expansion into Russia's backyard (Baltics, the " spontaneous revolution" in Ukraine, etc. NATO and the US have basically disregarded Russian concerns and interests, and then are somehow surprised when the Russians push back.
It's hard to know what their specific objectives are due to the language/cultural gap, lack of accurate reporting/analysis, and the Russian government working to keep its true intentions hidden. In general terms though they probably want what every other large country wants: To improve their economy, security and international influence, both in absolute terms and relative to competitive nations. Therefore that means they want to expand their own sphere of influence while reducing that of their rivals.
In terms of the goals of the individuals and groups currently in power they want the standard things: to maximise their time in power and the benefit they receive from it, while also fending off any threats to that power. As a less democratic, more corrupt government, they need a degree of fear to justify the situation so that is probably another factor behind the current international agitation.
The significant differences are that Russia has adopted a more openly confrontational and isolationist approach, partially because that seems to be the traditional method, and partially as a means to maintain current power structures by drawing attention away from domestic issues. Again, every country does this to some degree however in the west we see Russia as more guilty due to recent events, historical rivalry, lack of cultural understanding and media bias.
He's taking the piss. Russia's real motives are complex (insofar as it even has motives, since like all countries it and its gov't are abstract entities composed of many people).
Given that, Russia's not a villain. It doesn't want to "bring the west to its knees." Its main desire, as sorta noted, is for its own security. Russia's been invaded more times than you can count, a number of those invasions have been absolutely devastating to the country, and it's used to being surrounded by enemies. That's left an imprint on the country's character. That's why it's so touchy about NATO expansion into its backyard -- hell, that's why it was so keen to set up satellite states in Central Europe during the Cold War, as a buffer against possible future attack. It appears to be villainous (and hell, it is villainous) because the desire for security can often lead to expansionist, imperialistic foreign policy -- but it's the same motive that's led us to prop up American-friendly dictatorships in Latin America and the Middle East.
Beyond that, the motives of the people in charge of Russia tend to be:
1. Maintain their own power; most of the wealthiest, highest-placed people in Russia today were well-connected but neither terribly rich nor powerful when the USSR fell. They spent years turning those connections into actual money and power and they don't intend to give them up now that they've got them. It's also possible that, given their ties to organized crime, some might actually fear for their safety if they lost their positions.
2. Improve Russia, the economy, its infrastructure, the military, forge trade relations, fix the demographic crisis, do all the sensible things you need to do to run a country. Much of Russia's leadership is self-interested but they still don't want their country to turn into an Africa-tier hellhole.
3. Maintain a distinct Russian national character and not become Western Liberal Democracy 2.0. Putin's openly stated as much.
'Russia's' objective right now is to sell as much of itself as possible without the administered populace catching on.
Russian people have already transmuted themselves into a new politically correct slave class who work in the name of a mythical Russian soul, a bastardized rehashing of what used to regarded as the Christian identity.
The new Russian politically correct ideal is a form of mental retardation used to confuse Russians into believing that non Russians constitute the Russian ethnos, all the while retaining different ethnic/cultural rights that Russians are denied.
Currently Russia is merely a natural resources reserve, whatever industries that weren't profitable to foreign investors were sold or destroyed, and whatever cultural wealth remained has been left to the isolated and desolate communities of christians and old soviet special purpose towns.
>Is it just for the virtue of being Russian?
Yes, but Russian as in Russian 'spiritual' values as opposed to the 'Democratic' values of the west, Russians are opposed to the so called freedoms presented to them by the secular humanists, more comfortable being restrained to gods given natural laws.
Russia is using Ukraine as leverage so its interests are not harmed.
If you haven't noticed, it is only the donbass people who are at a loss in regards to the minsk agreements.
>3. Maintain a distinct Russian national character and not become Western Liberal Democracy 2.0. Putin's openly stated as much.
Jews, Gypsies, Muslims and Mongoloids are being presented as representatives of the Russian ethnos, all the while they receive cultural/ethnic autonomy on their own lands. I'm not sure what this is called, but it definitely distinctly not the Russian character.
>Jews, Gypsies, Muslims and Mongoloids are being presented as representatives of the Russian ethnos, all the while they receive cultural/ethnic autonomy on their own lands.
>autonomy on their own lands
>autonomy
You've never actually been to Russia, have you?
The autonomy granted to the Russian republics has always been very limited and in most respects the leash is getting shorter all the time.
Many of local languages are under heavy pressure from Russian. The Jewish Autonomous Oblast is neither autonomous nor Jewish and I don't even know who you're referring to as "gypsies." I'll grant you Muslims and "Mongoloids," though, there are plenty of those in Russian. They're still not autonomous though, and they're certainly not held up as representatives of the Russian national character. Who do you think is even doing that? Specifically? The media?
All that aside, I'm not just talking about language and religion and so on when I say "a distinct Russian national character," I'm talking about the structure of the government itself -- Russia (both the gov't and the people) largely aren't in any particular hurry to adopt liberal values. I mean classical liberalism, so don't start with the identity politics shit again.
To make Russia great again.
They are not idealist in the communist sense, the only way they are similar is in the totalitarianism of their government. However that is basically a Russian tradition and they are mostly ok with that.
Their main game seems to be nationalism right now because thats how you make people feel like they have something when they have nothing.
People thought everything would change when the soviet union fell. Instead a bunch of opportunists just hijacked the gov and most of the former state owned businesses. Its no coincidence that Russia has been the source of the most billionaires in the last decade. The average Russian is living maybe slightly better than they were in 1992.
As far as the conflict w/ the united states, there is no deep seated hatred. There are conflicting world views and being major players in world politics they compete for power and resources. So I doubt they will ever not be at odds. The only thing I notice that seems to upset Russians is the US media is always quick to shed negative light on Russia before things are even investigated. But they obviously have their fair share of propoganda as well.
I'm not even sure there are really conflicting world views. This is just the dicking around major powers do when they vie for power. The average American citizen has been brainwashed into thinking they're the good guy because of the cold war, and now they can't understand why world powers do world power shit and want Trump to hand Russia the world on a silver platter.
Youre a fucking moron and a media drone
t. russian hacker
The one who let Trump to win, the one who is our guy.
Same as during the Tsarist days.
Keep the proles in line, make money, and steal land whenever you can.
Russia's historical goal is security, not much else to be said.
as said earlier in the thread, Russia has been invaded numerous times, with 4 of the largest invasion forces in world history aimed at Russia between the Mongols, Napoleon, and both Wilhelm's and Hitler's Germany.
Russia sees NATO as a direct threat and a coalition for an eventual invasion of Russia, and they aim to stave it off by putting as much territory between them and NATO as possible, which was the goal of the Warsaw Pact, which amounted Eastern Europe to the role of a 1000 kilometer land shield against the next invasion.
With NATO on the move making advances in the Baltics, and overtures to both Georgia and Ukraine to join the bloc, Russia acts to counterbalance this by destabilizing the regions NATO is most interested in expanding to next and starts stirring internal conflict, making them a bad investment for NATO to put their hat in.
but if you want Russia's 2 most important goals it would be:
1. secure land for their own sphere of influence to put space between them and NATO and deny them a border with Russia to march armies across (Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia)
2. Maintain recognition as a major player on the world stage, and with the second strongest military and 10th strongest economy, they're still a power to be taken very seriously.
It should be noted that the phrase "Russia is paranoid" is actually entirely accurate, with ALL of the connotations it comes with.
The fear of NATO is actually an excellent example of this. Russia isn't the evil boogeyman people like to thinkit is.
It's a bunch of scared motherfuckers who live in a corrupt and underhanded as shit society who assume everything else is as corrupt and underhanded as them, and thus assume EVERYTHING is out to get them.
This leads to their idiotic decisions abroad.
Sure, getting involved in Ukraine was retarded, but what if that was actually the place that the Estonians were going to sneak into Russia from to let the rest of NATO in to steal all the bread and turn everyone gay?
Checkmate, westerners!
> the second strongest military
Not really, no.
When you factor in nukes, Russia has the world's second strongest military without question.
The only country they've destroyed with nukes is their own.
So when you factor in the weapon they can't ever use without facing total annihilation?
That's nice.
Russia isn't number 2 and hasn't been for a long time.
hello shirvan, hows caspian going?
That's the power rankings?
USA+satellites
PRC
Russia
Russia is number 2 for the fact that they can deploy their forces globally if need, something China cannot do with their current hardware.
The Syrian intervention was approved mainly to help maintain the Pro-Russian government, but its secondary function was to showcase that Russia can deploy large forces to foreign conflicts if need be, just like the US.
will it be be as wide-ranging and as large scale as the US? no. but they're one of the only two nations that can do it, making them the #2 fighting force until China actually achieves a full blue-water navy and an air force that can reliably transport hundreds of thousands of troops to a foreign conflict zone.
Retain economic, military and political influence over Soviet satellites. Everything else is secondary.
Actually, the Russia is like the only was excluding NATO [=USA] that have expierence in modern war, that isn't complete disaster, even if the limited one. Maybe PRC is better, but Russia should easily be #3 at least.
Getting involved in Ukraine was Russia's last ditch effort to stop it from joining NATO. The winds of Ukraine were already swaying irrevocably away from Russia, so Putin just went all-in and took their territory and created another frozen conflict. Do you see Georgia joining NATO? How about Azerbaijan? Frozen conflicts work.
The funniest part is that Ukraine could never have become as pro-Western as it is without Putin being an autist.
Pre-conflict Ukraine was split down the middle between pro-EU and pro-Russian factions.
Putin managed to remove a large amount of the pro-Russian population of Ukraine, while simultaneously pissing off everyone that remained to an absurd degree.
Manlets never learn.
>Russia is number 2 for the fact that they can deploy their forces globally if need
Not in significant numbers.
>but its secondary function was to showcase that Russia can deploy large forces to foreign conflicts if need be
Russian forces in syria aren't large by any standard.
>will it be be as wide-ranging and as large scale as the US? no. but they're one of the only two nations that can do it,
Deploy 4,000 personnel abroad with no mechanized land forces?
Russia is not the only country aside from the US that can do that. England and France can do that. Fucking UGANDA can and has deployed more men abroad-and yes, to non-bordering states- than that.
>so Putin just went all-in and took their territory and created another frozen conflict.
And in exchange froze his economy. In order to stop Ukraine from joining an organization that is UTTERLY IRRELEVANT unless you actually attack a member state.
Invading crimea was fucking retarded.
This. Russia is utterly convinced that pissing off their neighbors is the way to remain safe. It's fucking fascinating.
He also manged to lose Belarus in the bargain. Fucking Belarus. THE Russian puppet state.
There are days when I think Putin is actually some sort of clever trick the Poles are playing on the Russians.
interesting as fuck thread
They seem a lot less paranoid when you look at things historically. Context matters.
Leaving out the Mongol yoke (which we shouldn't, because it profoundly affected the Russian mindset, but let's leave it out since it was before Russia proper emerged as a state and the Mongols weren't western), Russia has had five major conflicts with the west. There was the Napoleonic invasion, a devastating war that saw the capture of Moscow and necessitated burning much of the Russian countryside. The Crimean War, in which Russia wasn't blameless, but which from a certain perspective looks a lot like the west meddling in their local affairs. Then there's WWI and WWII, of course, but for some reason people always leave out the Russian Civil War, despite the fact that it was a separate conflict and the west intervened on the side of the Whites. Their intervention didn't amount to much, but they were there, and moreover they were there because they wanted to force Russia to reopen the eastern front -- i.e. to dive back into the most devastating war the country had ever experienced, one it had only just extricated itself from.
For context, WWI alone caused more Russian deaths than America has seen in every war we've ever fought, put together. The Russian Civil War caused 2-to-3 times as many deaths as WWI. WWII resulted in 2-4 times as many deaths as the Russian Civil War. Then obviously there's the Cold War, which didn't see any direct fighting but in which the west certainly aggressively opposed Russia politically.
From our perspective, Russia has nothing to fear so long as it doesn't invade anyone without provocation -- NATO is a non-issue. From their perspective, the west -- which I realize isn't a monolithic entity, but it seems that way to them -- has consistently been hostile, aggressive, threatening, and treacherous towards them for centuries, and we've given them no compelling reason to believe things have changed.
cont'd
>If you completely ignore their extremely large number of nukes, Russia is actually really weak!
It doesn't work like that. You can't just ignore their most powerful weapons.
I am not saying their point of view is CORRECT, because things actually have changed, but I am saying their point of view is UNDERSTANDABLE, and when you take their history and geography into consideration, it's unfair to call it 'paranoia.' Especially in the UK and America, we're used to living in countries that haven't been occupied by foreign powers since they recognizably emerged as states, and almost certainly never will be, because they're so geographically isolated. Russia ... isn't like that. They simply haven't had the luxury of developing a measured view of geopolitics. Russia borders 14 countries, might as well border Japan too, and almost everybody's taken a crack at it at some point.
It's also worth noting that their ambivalence towards democracy is also rooted in their history. The Novgorod Republic was a very early experimentation with liberalism -- well, they got invaded. The Russian Empire was in the process of liberalizing when the Bolsheviks took it over. Whoops, foiled again. After the fall of the Soviet Union many Russians were willing to try liberal democracy -- and they got a massive depression, huge crime rings and an oligarchy. Those failures are internal, can't blame 'em on the west, but they explain a lot.
Sorry for writing so fucking much.
You are the golden 1% of /his user, dont ever apologize for writing so fucing much.
Thanks
They've regained their position of a world power, now they aim to recover all the ground and geopolitical leverage they've lost with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and before that, the Russian Empire.
> Is the fact the current leader is an ex-KGB head a cause for worry
That makes him a perfect candidate for the position of a leader of a sovereign state.