Quote (Hamsterbaby @ 24 May 2023 10:26)
I don't know what is the flip side honestly but what I can say is this. ( In regards to Western back US Nato and allies)
They lie now, create a whole narrative and further down the road they say sorry when things eventually surface.
But the extreme damage have already been done. In our current day, technology have shrunk oceans, social media , mass media (MSN) etc etc are at least 200 times more effective than say 20 years back to spread the narrative that they want to with government backing.
This applies to all nations. And those nations that are advanced and being deem the " good guys " have the upper hand in every single category that we can fathom.
The sad thing is the United States led NATO ( US to be specific at times ) have a rather friendly way of helping people think for themselves. They are religiously fervent in spreading their version of " Democracy, rights so on and so forth " without first understanding the culture.
Or maybe they do understand their culture but deem it too Barbaric and unbecoming of a modern progressive liberal world in their eyes and it is their mission to change that and if it includes proxy wars, regime change , colour revolutions then so be it because it is the only right way to do it.
So to what end ? Nothing changes, people die, and I would say majority of those countries they were involved in end up worst than what it used to be.
Here is the scary part, if we remember clearly and well what happened to Afghanistan ( not the most recent one ) back in the late 70s and early 80s. The US and her allies came and left..... Yes they repelled the soviets, the Taliban Mujahedeen is trained by the CIA and ended up with a big middle finger to those in 9/11.
Would we see similar situations in future if for example due to unforeseen circumstances and Geo Economics and Geo Politics that the NATO and US pulled out and stop supporting Ukraine eventually?
And if that happen and the Ukrainians are thrown under the bus , will they give their former allies the 9/11 treatment ? This time round it will be rather dicey, they will be white and non muslim....
I think big part that plays out now is the Atlanticism doctrine that was created during the Cold War to combat the Soviets and promote economic and military integration between US and (Western) Europe. This has now been expanded to Central/Eastern Europe over the years - and in the absence of Soviet Regime, which has fallen in 1991, new enemies had to be created. Russia and China have been chosen and propaganda went to work, funded by various think tanks, private individuals as well as outright government agencies interference (see actions of US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs that is charged to maintain US Foreign Policy in Europe and Eurasia, whatever those might be).
Big part of why propaganda works is the proliferation of mass media and excellent work psychologists have been doing by boosting morale domestically ("we are the light in the darkness, bringing democratic values to the third world and helping them develop") as well as making all potential opponents depressed and hurting their economic output by draining them of economic and human capital ("your country is corrupt, your government is authoritarian and is out to get you, you will be better off emigrating and taking a job in the "free" west where we will take care of you, instead of staying home and trying to make a difference").
I was reading this article from Times, written in 1996
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,984833,00.html about elections in Russia, whereby a bunch of political consultants from the US descended to bail out Boris Yeltsin's campaign who was losing badly after devastating first term that brought economic collapse and a war in Chechnya. Reading this in 2023, this seems like a direct interference in foreign elections by assisting the "right candidate" to win a hopeless uphill battle to ensure "democratic and liberal development" or whatever the argument was back in the days. No wonder Russians now feel suspicious of the whole elections process seeing how their own elections were constantly meddled with by foreign consultants.
Overall I think Russia overestimated their diplomatic clout in this conflict as they expected a quick war by overtaking Kiev (a-la Panama/ Grenada invasions) however they did not do the math well as nobody truly cared about Panama / Grenada to stand up to the US back in the day. Instead they ended up in a protracted conflict what seems like a war of attrition where they are adapting to the new reality both domestically and on the war front, while at the same time trying to figure out how to get away with it both domestically and internationally. No matter how this conflict will be resolved, I feel like the genie is out of the bottle with all that was said and done over the past year. Neither Ukrainians will be keen on forgiving their neighbors, nor Russians will forgive the west easily for the russophobia they have endured with their culture being cancelled and pensions stolen. We see prime examples of it on this forum with people blaming Russians for everything bad that has happened to their country, irrespective of those Russians political stance, age, location or background. How can one lack so much self awareness is really beyond me and it makes me scared for the future of European integration.
I also would draw an interesting parallel with Balkan conflicts where borders were redrawn and population either eradicated or moved forcibly (e.g. there are almost no more Serbians in Kosovo, which is itself recognized by mostly by the invading countries only -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_Kosovo). This was a fairly recent, European event, but I struggle to see any lessons learned out of this whole mess in the Balkans when it comes to Ukrainian conflict. We know for a fact suppressing parts of your population (Croatians of Bosnia, Serbs of Kosovo, Muslims of Albania) and depriving them of e.g. language causes internal strife and conflict that ends in a civil war one way or another. Why did we do this again so soon? Perhaps a better solution was to create a puppet state of Crimea and Donbass, following the blueprint that NATO/EU used for Balkans instead of integrating them into Russia outright? Would that have been acceptable according to international law?
This post was edited by Malopox on May 24 2023 04:11am