Quote (ofthevoid @ 15 Nov 2023 03:22)
Russia today holds less European adjacent territory than it did in 1800s or 1900s when it held pretty much most of Ukraine, Belarus, large swaths of Poland, Baltics nations, Finland and so on.
The tsarist Russian Empire and its successor state, the USSR, kept swallowing up its smaller neighbors for 250 years, until the Soviet Union was one of the largest empires in the history of mankind. From 1989 to 91, this overextended empire imploded and lost a ton of territory/member states in one fell swoop. Since then, Putin and his clique are super butthurt and engaged in an ongoing effort to restore Russia's lost empire. Which is the key difference to other imperialist powers of the past:
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In reality what eventually happened in Europe is most countries basically formed borders and became sovereigns based on language/custom commonalities with many of these eastern countries going through that as well. And it didn't really happen as a result of war with definitive and long lasting outcomes. Your description of Russia is basically the description of pretty much most if not all regional European powers that at one time or another dominated it's smaller neighbors, eventually those empires pulling back and forming nations states. Austro-Hungaria, Germany, France, Spain, England, Dutch, all went through similar phases.
Pretty much all the other European powers collapsed due to wars (Germany, Austro-Hungaria, France), or due to the immediate economic repercussions of disastrous wars (UK, Spain), just like the USSR. What sets Russia apart is that revanchism is guiding their politics after the collapse.
France didn't try to re-subjugate Algeria. They also accepted the Saarland chosing Germany over them in the 1955 referendum. The UK accepted that it could no longer maintain control over its colonies and set them free with its head held high. Germany didn't plot to re-capture Bohemia and Moravia. Austria didn't even think about fusing with Hungary again, or about annexing Yugoslavia.
By contrast, Russia has tried to subjugate the Baltics during the 90s, has crushed the opposition/independence movement in Chechnya, invaded Georgia in 2008, has successfully turned Belarus into a puppet state, tried to do the same in Ukraine (including an assassination attempt on the leader of Ukraine's pro-Western political movement in 2004), annexed and invaded parts of Ukraine in 2014 after these attempts had failed, and fully invaded all of Ukraine in 2022.
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They wont push the Russians out, and they and we don't want to sit down for peace talks based on current lines, instead you guys keep clinging to some perceived potential future victory for Ukraine that will allow them better terms. No one even wants to hear what the terms would be for peace today, no one even wants to say, okay if we had a potential peace what would Russia yield today, instead it's a foregone conclusion that the fighting should indefinitely continue with maximalist asks of recovering all of the Donbass and Crimea.
Compare it to haggling: the seller always enters price negotiations with a higher asking price than what he would be willing to sell for while the buyer always opens with a lower offer than what he would actually be willing to pay. Same concept when it comes to diplomatic negotiations. If Ukraine's goal is to get a peace treaty which enshrines the current status quo, they have to enter the negotiations asking for more than that. Moreover, irrespective from all this goliath vs david stuff, it should be obvious that Ukraine has a better chance of getting compromises out of the Russians if the negotiations take place at a moment of strength than at a moment of weakness. In other words: after they have beaten back a Russian offense, not after their own counteroffensive failed.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 14 2023 08:59pm