Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin

personal attacks aside ... don't take _my_ word for it, ask people with skin in the game: Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin: [this video] > On September 27, 2018, Yale's Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Poynter Fellowship for Journalism hosted Vladimir Pozner, the acclaimed Russian-American journalist and broadcaster. Pozner spoke on the impact of US foreign policy towards Russia after the Soviet Union has been disbanded, and shared his opinions on a range of issues raised by the audience, from the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections, to Skripal poisoning, to the state of independent media in Russia and the US. Vladimir Pozner Jr.: [link] .

"Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok" is a much older ideal, IIRC it has roots as far as in early 90s. And if you stretch it enough you can even trace it back to Charles de Gaulle. But for it to happen not only Russia has to significantly improve internally, but also EU itself has to be different. For starters it would have to be truly independent from the US influence and Brussel's grip on the union would have to be weaker. Russian political culture historically is very firm on being able to independently decide its own fate (and no, it's not a matter of "democratization"). Take the current EU issues with the Poles and multiply it a hundredfold to get a rough approximation of what the current EU would have with Russia. Before 2007 (see the Munich speech) Russia sincerely tried to join the EU and the collective West. But the condition "proposed" at the time and attitude towards Russia fundamentally collided with that deep culture, resulting in the situation which we see today. If you want to learn more about it from a non-Western perspective, I recommend watching [this video]

>Ukraine would never had joined NATO because it was an active war zone anyways. It does not prevent NATO from supplying weapons and training the Ukrainian army. The US reconnaissance planes have conducted regular patrols over Ukrainian territory. The British even tried to build naval bases in Berdyansk and Ochakovo. And with active and heated territorial disputes it's easy to see a hypothetical scenario of Ukraine trying to re-capture Donbas and Crimea by force after it felt it's sufficiently strong or Russia is weak enough, like Georgia tried with South Osetia. >And relations were relatively good I suggest watching the following videos if you want to learn about alternative points of view: [this video] [link]

> When it comes to USSR/Russia, I am not aware of the good acts. It’s not just that thy do bad things, it’s that I never hear of any of the good things they do in the world at large. There is an interview from Yale University with Vladimir Pozner that is very worth watching: [this video] It is absolutely insane that western media does not report anything positive on Russia and I hope it is obvious that it can't be a the case that a state can be that comically evil. And if not foreign policy at least cultural stuff should at least receive some positive attention with Russia having a rich tradition in theater, ballet, music and so on. The USSR did plenty to support its lesser developed republics. In fact that is is why many Russian nationalist saw it very critically, seeing as their land would give more that it received. Even today Russia has extremely good relations with the countries of central asia. As for foreign aid not only did it sent lots of aid to other socialist regimes but also many national liberation movements speeding up massively the de-colonization of Africa. The Russian Federation is also doing plenty of good. They help keeping the massive dominance of the US and it allies at least a little bit in check supporting many countries that are shunned by them. Syria would have been overrun by terrorists by now if Russia had not helped them. Of course you can twist every good news to make Russia look bad. Russian athletes are successful? Only the result of doping. Stabilit

Interestingly, Kaliningrad is also brought up every single time in order to dismiss the argument raised in the parent comment. I wouldn't call your comment US propaganda because it's such a throw-around these days that one could automatically use it to dismiss people that don't share your view. The crucial difference, in case is not clear, is that a missile placed in Ukraine would hit Moscow, the capital of Russia, in minutes. This is much more threatening to core Russia interests and Putin would not live with it. Before rushing to putting all the blame on Russia just because "Putin-bad": I would strongly encourage people who are interested to know more to watch the following talks, from ages ago, given at reputable US universities because let's be honest, none of us is geopolitical historian two weeks ago on this topic so why don't we all do a bit more research. [1] A good overview of the history, 7 years ago from a talk @ U Chicago. ( [link] ) [2] Another one from a talk @ Yale: [this video]

There was no signed agreement, I'm not disputing that. And I don't think it's valid to use the term "hearsay" for a transcript. Putin is putin, he's dictator with no regard for human life at this point. What I think though, is that the west was ruthless with Russia after SU collapse in the 90s and early 2000s which actually created the resentment we see now. [this video] This talk is a tad dramatic but very well captures the public sentiment I believe. Unlike eastern europian countries Russia couldn't just join eu/nato and started retaliating only when Georgia and Ukraine were on their path to nato. Not that unreasonable if you ask me. > Yeah, 'just a fact of life'. NATO expansion into smaller countries, due to this 'fact of life' is a 'fact of life' itself. As this war (unfortunately) which I believe wouldn't happen if ukrainian leaders were a bit smarter (and it wouldn't mean becoming Belarus - one could be smth like Kazakhstan in terms of foreign policy).

So in the end your position boils down to "but, but Russian aggression!!111". You were unable to refute any of the evidence of Nord Stream 2 being a commercial project first and foremost presented in my comments. When I gave you hard numbers, you've continued to repeat the baseless assertions about Europe becoming more "dependent" on Russia. BTW try to calculate on how much this "dependency" will increase in the ultra-optimistic for Russia scenario of Nord Stream 2 being used at full capacity. When you started to talk about the climate change, I've countered with the well recognized deep connection between natural gas and renewables at the current moment in history and presented the dirtiest Poland energy sector as a counter-example, on which you've replied with another apologetic propaganda line "but, but independence from Russia!!!11". >It was Russia that annexed part of its territory and this is unacceptable More unacceptable than bombing of Yugoslavia and recognition of Kosovo by the West? Or US' military invasions into Iraq and later Syria unsanctioned by the UN? I know that you'll reply with another "but, but it's different!" rooted in the deep and naive belief that the West lead by the US is always right and always on the side of "good guys". Also don't forget that even the Western polls admit that Crimeans overwhelmingly support the unification with Russia and this support again has deep historic and cultural roots. Now compare this effectively bloodless "annexation"

I write all of this to help others understand the issue from multiple perspectives, not to justify or defend anyone. Here’s what I’ve learned in the last week or so. There is a good lecture on YouTube called Why Ukraine is the West’s Fault. [link] Mearsheimer, a foreign policy expert of 50+ years, belongs to the “realist” school. I find his viewpoint helpful as it’s very much Machiavellian and not focused on demonizing the Other. I’m not sure how accurate his analysis is, but it seems worth looking at. [link] The gist is essentially this: - NATO, a Soviet-era military alliance, has continued to expand closer to Russia’s borders. Russia feels threatened by this. - Russia tried to join NATO in the early 2000s but was rebuffed. - Russia adamantly opposed including Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, but America didn’t care and pushed for it in 2008. - The US has largely driven this effort and has dragged the EU and Britain along for the ride. - The revolution/coup in 2014 (depending on which side you believe, I guess) removed more a neutral / pro-Russian government and put in a Western-focused one. This was followed by the separatism in the Donbas and Russia’s taking of Crimea. However, note that this lecture was before the recent escalation and Mearsheimer didn’t seem to think that Russia would actually launch a full-scale invasion. I would also note that he doesn't cover other important issues that are relevant to the conflict, namely: - The history of Ukraine in the last ±500 year

Georgia and Ukraine are tightly connected in this through the same precursor events. The "West" is simply deaf. Multiple analysts had brought these concerns since before Crimea. (Disclaimer I am from the West -- trying to be objective here and focusing on the non-NATO side.) The diplomatic relationships since Russia Federation's birth have been problematic and idiosyncratic. Russian people wanted recognition of their value. West decided to not follow similar approach with other past enemies countries -- and this was due to the cold war. Somehow Russia's "Monroe" doctrine is surprising now to us, despite all the warnings by political science and diplomats since 2014. (at least/off the top of my head: [this video] and [link] ) And our own similar reactions and actions. It is known that Putin made multiple attempts to establish partnerships and ensure Russia was part of the West. [link] I would say all sides need to take a breather and attempt an honest discussion among equals -- if it's not too late.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments and for this discussion. That means a lot to me. > While I don't have any deep insight what actually drove Churchill what you described to the be an almost inquisitive research on Hitler's motives, I do think that he was able to see beyond the first level array of interests of his political class and understood the second order and long term implications for the British Empire and the European society as a whole when it came to let fascist take power on the continent. I agree. And it seems to me that precisely this "seeing beyond" the immediate future, and paying attention to second order effects is suspiciously missing from public discourse, at least on the Western side. You ask why viewpoints like this get downvoted. I don't know either. If I had to guess, I think it might have to do with the fact that most of us are overloaded with information and with decisions. We cope by employing a "swipe left" strategy, where we feel relieved if we can find a reason to dismiss a piece of input quickly without exerting too much energy on it. So we can get on to the next thing that needs to be dealt with. Also, it's not very satisfying to most people if new questions are being raised without a clear-cut answer being provided. In a sense, it's almost as if that's inflicting a form of psychological pain -- creating an open loop with no resolution. A few years back I had the opportunity to have a chat with the grandson of C.G. Jung, the psychologist.

That argument does not work since you have not come up with a new security argument after a pointed out there was not concrete security argument after you withdrew the nuclear threat: [link] For the argument to work, for the analogy to work, NATO's threat to Russia needs to substantially change if Ukraine joins NATO. Russia does not trust NATO and especially the USA, any neighboring country joining NATO allows them place more military assets close to the Russian border and having military assets close to a target is obviously more threatening. Russia had all those assets that are in Ukraine now all the time but moving them to the Ukrainian border made a heck of a difference. I have now also looked at more resources and they mostly support what I researched before. I am somewhat worried that I accidently got trapped in a bubble as the pieces fit together almost to well, so I will have to look more for opposing opinions. M. E. Sarotte: Not One Inch - America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (2022) [1] John Mearsheimer: Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? (2015) [2] Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin (2018) [3] Vladimir Putin: Speech at Munich Security Conference (2007) [4] As a probably opposing opinion I found »Documents Talk - NATO-RUSSIA Relations after the Cold War« [5] but it is 600 pages and I really only read a few paragraphs from a few documents so far. It is however co-sponsored by NATO, so there is certainly the possibility of

I think I have seen this before and skipped through it slowly enough the get the gist, all the details and which fake news were spread is not really too interesting to me. I have no reason to doubt that the USSR or Russia did use those active measures. The interesting thing is the gap in the timeline which aligns with other resources I found. There was a time when all the current mess was avoidable, a time at which Russia was eager to work with the West, a time at which Russia was heading towards a NATO membership through the Partnership for Peace program. But things went south and Russia turned against NATO and the USA again, Putin's 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference is probably the most well known expression of Russia's or Putin's frustration [4]. M. E. Sarotte: Not One Inch - America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (2022) [1] John Mearsheimer: Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? (2015) [2] Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin (2018) [3] Vladimir Putin: Speech at Munich Security Conference (2007) [4] [1] [link] [2] [link] [3] [this video] [4] [link]