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[Sergarr]

"Uh-oh" here is because Saakashvili has relatively recently started a war against Russia by attacking an unrecognized state protected by Russia. If he decides to repeat this feat on Transnistria, with help from Moldova (and they've also recently voiced that they want to get rid of Transnistria, by any means possible)...

[smjjames]

"Uh-oh" here is because Saakashvili has relatively recently started a war against Russia by attacking an unrecognized state protected by Russia. If he decides to repeat this feat on Transnistria, with help from Moldova (and they've also recently voiced that they want to get rid of Transnistria, by any means possible)...

He's a governor though, not the president of Ukraine. Having a governor declare war on another country and being able to do it just isn't going to happen.

[Sergarr]

Governers having semi-private armies is also a thing that isn't supposed to happen, but it happened in Ukraine nonetheless. Kolomoyski is a major offender in this regard.

Besides, nobody will declare war. You don't need to declare war against somebody to attack that "somebody". There's always the excuse of "volunteers" that have decided to "help the legitimate government of Moldova" to "return the constitutional order on a part of Moldova occupied by Russian invaders".

[lorb]

Also war can only be declared on nations. Transnistria is not recognized as a nation by any UN member at all. (Not even Russia although they are friends.)

[Helgoland]

What would happen if the surrounding countries tried to starve out the Russian troops there? It's not like Russia has a land connection...

[Sheb]

Airlift?

Anyway, I really like this whole promise discussion, because it perfectly illustrate my favourite cultural difference between the West and Russia. Under the Communist regime, paper simply wasn't that important. The constitution guaranteed freedom of speech, but good luck using that freedom. Instead, what was important was what the guy in charge was telling you.*

We see the case here: Westerners find really odd that Russian could be mad at the Clinton administration for not respecting the word of a previous guy when the treaties clearly said that countries were free to choose their alliances.

Of course, since this so-called "promise" is also a myth, the whole point is kind of moot.

* Just to be clear, this isn't only a Russian problem, my dad was working for the Hungarian government in the 90's and he says he had exactly the same issue. One of the good effects of European integration has been to change this mindset.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

"Uh-oh" here is because Saakashvili has relatively recently started a war against Russia by attacking an unrecognized state protected by Russia. If he decides to repeat this feat on Transnistria, with help from Moldova (and they've also recently voiced that they want to get rid of Transnistria, by any means possible)...

Actually he attacked invading Russian forces and won few days that allowed to save Georgia on diplomatic fronts.

What would happen if the surrounding countries tried to starve out the Russian troops there? It's not like Russia has a land connection...

Actually few weeks ago Ukraine denounced treaty that allowed transit of Russian troops to Transnistria.
I'd love to see Ukrainian and Romanian forces (disguised as army of Moldova) smashing this tumor in one decisive strike... but It is unlikely to happen

[Sergarr]

Like I've said, USSR has made people really naive, due to them not really having any control over their lives, which have resulted in a catastrophic failure to predict the future on every level and believes in all sorts of weird out-there myths without checking their reality.

What I think we Russians needs the most is to purge that naivety by bringing the knowledge of causes and consequences unavoidably closer to people, instead of hiding it away in a corner and telling people that "the higher-up knows better", because the higher-up usually doesn't actually know any better. I'm not sure how many people here are on the same wave as I am, but we cannot continue to bum around blindly, or else we'll accidentally the whole country, again.

[Helgoland]

Sergarr, methinks what you want is Central Europe-style republicanism, the kind Germany adapted/tried to adapt after we got rid of/tried to get rid of the Prussian Untertanen-mentality (which is pretty much what you describe, but with a bit more 'for Kaiser and country!' mixed in). What you want is to make Russia a proper European country, eye-to-eye with France and Germany.

There's no way to achieve that while trying to level with a dying giant, though.

Spoiler: Reply to LSP (click to show/hide)

the average person doesn't see the infrastructure investment, nor the part where the west helped to get rid of its chemical weapons, disarm its nukes, etc. etc. (which is why we have big damn signs on everything the eu throws funds at, and subsequently why poland's got like 70% approval for the eu, probably) so when the closest thing you get to western goodwill in your everyday life is food aid when your country was in common percieval being fucked over by people calling themselves democrats and liberals literally carting away whatever was worth more than 10 rubles over the western border in wheelbarrows - and i'm sure this point is one being regurgiated a thousand times by now, if you pardon a little lampshading - if there's something they can point at and say, yeah man, we're totally getting back at the west for this shit! then they'll probably roll with it. but then i'm the sorta guy trying to speak for over 50 nations on an internet forum when i don't even live in the country, bloody amazing innit

That's a very good point, actually. The question is not: Has the West fucked over Russia or not? The question is: What can we do about the Russian perception that the West has fucked over Russia? It's just so damn irritating that the truth is of little importance in these matters...

[Sheb]

Yeah, even without Helgoland quasi-Freudian need to project his thick German democracy all over the world, it does seems that what you want Sergarr, is for Russia to apply for EU membership. Leaving aside the question of whether actual membership would be good, Russia would benefit from the reforms necessary for joining.

[Helgoland]

*cue 70s porn music intermixed with Beethoven's 9th*

[Sergarr]

No, that's not what I want. Blindly adopting a radical course of actions is what caused the 90s mess in the first place.

What I want is not a simple change of political system or foreign relationships, I want the knowledge of causes and consequences to be ingrained in the second nature's prediction and decision making processes at every level, from single people up to the society as a whole.

Only with the knowledge of "what will happen if we do things" tied in to the "do things" part can we (both separate people, groups, and society as a whole) start to meaningfully change things around without getting unavoidably fucked again by forgetting to account for something.

[Helgoland]

Exactly - a nation of citoyens, not of bourgeois! The spirit of 1789 flowing through the Russian Empire, sweeping away all the rot and decay... What you want is nothing less than a revolution of the Russian collective psyche.

[misko27]

Only with the knowledge of "what will happen if we do things" tied in to the "do things" part can we (both separate people, groups, and society as a whole) start to meaningfully change things around without getting unavoidably fucked again by forgetting to account for something.

But people are stupid, and prone to mistakes, and in this sense politicians are people. I mean, most people seriously don't appreciate how things work in international politics, and when I say most I mean most humans, not most Americans or most Russians or whatever. All over the world, I see people suggest things that would get their countries screwed over by the international community all the time. Like for example: some people argue the best thing to do is to divide Iraq into homogeneous countries. This ignores the fact that there is an entire Iraqi conspiracy theory based around the West's supposed desire to do just that (Egypt has one too, for whatever fucking reason). An actual serious attempt to do that (or even serious discussion) would outrage people.

Rationality is a good thing to want. But to ask for it more permanently is to ask to be disappointed. People (and countries) can be doing the right thing and on the right path, but they are only right for as long as their path is right. All you can do is keep them on whatever happens to be the right path at the moment, and try to move them when it isn't anymore.

[Owlbread]

What Sergarr wants is for Russia to become even more right wing and conservative than it currently is.