Quote (Malopox @ 25 May 2023 20:07)
Hey, welcome back, it’s always a pleasure to have a debate with you.
Where shall we start?
I can give you an example of eg Kazakhstan or Finland. Both have peculiar and long history with Russia with their own individual ways. Although Finland did recently join NATO, they were a prime example of “toeing the line” and they did incredibly well since their independence from Sweden (although as a protectorate of the Russian Empire) and then as independent Finland once Lenin granted them independence in 1917. USSR did attack Finland in 1940 which to be honest based on available evidence and with the morals and standards of today that seems largely unprovoked. That did not stop great relations between Finland and USSR after World War 2 where both Finland and USSR (and then Russia) benefited greatly from mutual trade. Great deal of stuff Russians bought from the west was imported through Finnish ports of Kotka and Hamina.
I also believe Kazakhstan is a prime model of understanding the geopolitics of being locked up between China and Russia with US always interested in “influencing” their internal policy. Nevertheless Kazakhs are trying to lead their own way, with distinct culture, language and traditions and transitioning into a full democracy (eg by “retiring” Nazarbayev and his clan recently). I’ve spent a lot of time working with Kazakhs in the oil industry and I really have grown to respect what they have done to their country since the dissolution of the USSR. Kazakhs are incredibly proud and nationalistic (which was exploited by eg Borat) however the managed not to degrade into nazi style ethnic cleansings like Chechens or Ukrainians did.
Baltic states did well and arguable they would have done well without NATO, just with EU-integration alone, coupled with trade with Russia and Belarus as ports of Latvia and Estonia for exports of its commodities and products.
Turkmenistan was not so lucky as it got a hilariously comical dictator. He is not particularly friendly with Russia as they do not share a border. However human rights in Turkmenistan seem to concern people less than they did in eg Libya/Iraq/Syria or wherever.
Other -stans like Uzbekistan/Tajikistan were not so lucky, but that perhaps would be another story.
/edit
See below interesting graph how several countries did in GDP PPP per capita since the dissolution of USSR. The best improvement seems to be for Belarus which was arguably one of the poorest countries in the Union absolutely devastated in world war 2 in terms of population and not exactly blessed with resources so they historically relied on agri production (hence the joke about potatoes).
https://data.worldbank.org/share/widget?indicators=NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD&locations=RU-KZ-UA-LV-BYhttps://i.imgur.com/COHYrpi.jpgWhen the Russians attacked Finland, they lost 5 soldiers for every single finnish soldier. 350k soviets vs 70k finnish people. Despite Finland having little tanks, planes.
Fines did an excellent job defending. I'm in awe, for sure they did much better than French or Polish people during ww2.
Also there are 188000 lakes in Finland.
And its difficult to attack across water. We have seen it many times even in current war, with all the modern technologu, where both sides couldnt really advance across water and suffered heavy casualties when they tried.
No other country has that many lakes.
Finnish leader told the Soviet dictator: "I am old now, but you must remember that if you enter Finland, they will shoot at you from behind every bush and stone." And Stalin probably took this into account. Will you have such a level of citizenship self defense in another countries? I dont think so. French people gave up to Hitler in like 3 weeks, and then resistance was very little.
Yet if the Russian motivation were higher, they would attack Finland anyway.
That's the reason that Finnish people joined NATO recently, because they have seen Putin motivation to conquest higher than it was in the past, even during the cold war.