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[Guardian G.I.]

I am curious to hear from some of the pro-Putin Russians in this thread exactly why it is such a bad idea for Russia to join NATO and the EU.

Anti-Western Russian publications and websites justify Russian anti-Western foreign policies by claiming that that the Western world have always regarded and will always regard Russia and Russians like Western colonial empires viewed other non-European nations and civilizations - as backwater primitive savages. According to them, trying to appease the Western powers is fruitless, because they will always look down on Russia. Only a strong authoritarian Russia can successfully defend its independence and national interests and force the West to respect them, they say.

A very good example of the views of the anti-Western crowd in Russia on maintaining good relations with the West is the book "Marauder" by Berkem al-Atomi (a Tatar writer, by the way).
According to the plot, the liberal Russian government which maintained good relations with the West accepted NATO's request to accommodate a Western military task force, under the pretext of guarding Russian nuclear weapons against terrorists. After deploying in Russia, NATO forces swiftly took control of the Russian government, dismantled the Russian army, declared that Russian sovereignty should be "temporarily" suspended until "the rule of law" in Russia is restored, divided the country into occupation zones and started ruling it like Combines from Half-Life 2: they took control of Russian cities, began strip mining Russian natural resources and left the rest of the country to its own devices, responding with punitive expeditions to any resistance to Western forces. It is also implied midway through the book that NATO killed everyone in the European part of Russia with biological weapons (also like the Combines from Half-Life 2). The protagonists is a Tatar resident of a small Russian town of Tridtsatka located in Southern Siberia (Big Thirty in the video game adaptation) who struggles to survive after the town and its vicinity descends into anarchy after the fall of the Russian government.
The intro of the video game adaptation of the novel, Man of Prey sums the plot nicely.

[Owlbread]

I'm breaking my hiatus on Russian criticism temporarily; it always amuses me when I hear from anti-Western Russians about Western colonial Empires when Russia is a Western colonial Empire. I suppose though we can't blame some Russians for still thinking in that totally warped way though, considering they (or their parents) grew up under a more totalitarian system and experienced more vigorous indoctrination than those in the West.

It's very hard to keep balancing these posts out (tiring, in fact) but I feel compelled to make reference to the very heavy indoctrination in the West (more so in the USA than here but we've got it bad too) that I regularly rail against when making arguments in favour of Scottish independence.

[smjjames]

I am curious to hear from some of the pro-Putin Russians in this thread exactly why it is such a bad idea for Russia to join NATO and the EU.

Anti-Western Russian publications and websites justify Russian anti-Western foreign policies by claiming that that the Western world have always regarded and will always regard Russia and Russians like Western colonial empires viewed other non-European nations and civilizations - as backwater primitive savages. According to them, trying to appease the Western powers is fruitless, because they will always look down on Russia. Only a strong authoritarian Russia can successfully defend its independence and national interests and force the West to respect them, they say.

A very good example of the views of the anti-Western crowd in Russia on maintaining good relations with the West is the book "Marauder" by Berkem al-Atomi (a Tatar writer, by the way).
According to the plot, the liberal Russian government which maintained good relations with the West accepted NATO's request to accommodate a Western military task force, under the pretext of guarding Russian nuclear weapons against terrorists. After deploying in Russia, NATO forces swiftly took control of the Russian government, dismantled the Russian army, declared that Russian sovereignty should be "temporarily" suspended until "the rule of law" in Russia is restored, divided the country into occupation zones and started ruling it like Combines from Half-Life 2: they took control of Russian cities, began strip mining Russian natural resources and left the rest of the country to its own devices, responding with punitive expeditions to any resistance to Western forces. It is also implied midway through the book that NATO killed everyone in the European part of Russia with biological weapons (also like the Combines from Half-Life 2). The protagonists is a Tatar resident of a small Russian town of Tridtsatka located in Southern Siberia (Big Thirty in the video game adaptation) who struggles to survive after the town and its vicinity descends into anarchy after the fall of the Russian government.
The intro of the video game adaptation of the novel, Man of Prey sums the plot nicely.

Owlbread was asking about your opinion and that of other pro-putin russian posters here on why it's so bad to join NATO and EU, not what the mainstream anti-western crowd thinks.

Also, it sounds like the cold war mentality of West VS East is still going for the anti-western crowd.

[Dutchling]

Wouldn't calling it a Russian Colonial Empire be a bit more correct when discussing it in a context where anti-Western definitely does not mean anti-Russian?

[Helgoland]

If the purpose of our Alliance is to defend against Russia, keeping them as perpetual boogiemen, we are being deceived and used in much the same way as the Russian public have been for decades. Russia should not be our Goldstein, nor should NATO be Russia's.

Russia isn't our Goldberg. Russia's the country that has invaded two European countries within the last six years. NATO exists to defend against Russia because Russia is the only country that needs defending against. That's why Russia can't join NATO: It isn't at all established what happens when NATO members attack each other.

I prefer this one:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Love the death-glare that Merkel is giving Putin there.

Looks more like 'Bitch please' to me. No offence intended

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I am curious to hear from some of the pro-Putin Russians in this thread exactly why it is such a bad idea for Russia to join NATO and the EU.

Anti-Western Russian publications and websites justify Russian anti-Western foreign policies by claiming that that the Western world have always regarded and will always regard Russia and Russians like Western colonial empires viewed other non-European nations and civilizations - as backwater primitive savages. According to them, trying to appease the Western powers is fruitless, because they will always look down on Russia. Only a strong authoritarian Russia can successfully defend its independence and national interests and force the West to respect them, they say.

A very good example of the views of the anti-Western crowd in Russia on maintaining good relations with the West is the book "Marauder" by Berkem al-Atomi (a Tatar writer, by the way).
According to the plot, the liberal Russian government which maintained good relations with the West accepted NATO's request to accommodate a Western military task force, under the pretext of guarding Russian nuclear weapons against terrorists. After deploying in Russia, NATO forces swiftly took control of the Russian government, dismantled the Russian army, declared that Russian sovereignty should be "temporarily" suspended until "the rule of law" in Russia is restored, divided the country into occupation zones and started ruling it like Combines from Half-Life 2: they took control of Russian cities, began strip mining Russian natural resources and left the rest of the country to its own devices, responding with punitive expeditions to any resistance to Western forces. It is also implied midway through the book that NATO killed everyone in the European part of Russia with biological weapons (also like the Combines from Half-Life 2). The protagonists is a Tatar resident of a small Russian town of Tridtsatka located in Southern Siberia (Big Thirty in the video game adaptation) who struggles to survive after the town and its vicinity descends into anarchy after the fall of the Russian government.
The intro of the video game adaptation of the novel, Man of Prey sums the plot nicely.

For those wondering; "Man of Prey" is the name of this game. I want to play it, looks like Silent Storm/7.62 with an actually unique plot.

[smjjames]

As for the whole anti-west thing, the west-east split in the christian church probably plays into this.

Not trying to bring religion into this, I'm just saying that it's a factor as far as the culture goes.

[Guardian G.I.]

For those wondering; "Man of Prey" is the name of this game. I want to play it, looks like Silent Storm/7.62 with an actually unique plot.

Man of Prey was made by the same developer who made 7.62, Apeiron. A proper working English version is very hard to find on the Internet. Here's an English LP of the game.

[Helgoland]

As for the whole anti-west thing, the west-east split in the christian church probably plays into this.

That's... actually a rather plausible explanation that I hadn't heard before. The canonical explanation is that eastern and western feudal economies reacted differently to the plague, resulting in a great divide in political systems, though. Cause Poland is solidly Catholic, but still definitely part of Eastern Europe.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

For those wondering; "Man of Prey" is the name of this game. I want to play it, looks like Silent Storm/7.62 with an actually unique plot.

Man of Prey was developed by the same developer who made 7.62, Apeiron. A proper working English version is very hard to find on the Internet. Here's an English LP of the game.

Well of course, there's a bit of rampant nationalism in publishers, good luck getting something like that opened to 'western' [Well, US] markets. The typical Fight-the-terrorist[brown]-people/totally-not-Russians formula deserves to be shaken up a bit. I'm definitely looking into getting ahold of the book, though.

[Owlbread]

Russia isn't our Goldberg. Russia's the country that has invaded two European countries within the last six years. NATO exists to defend against Russia because Russia is the only country that needs defending against. That's why Russia can't join NATO: It isn't at all established what happens when NATO members attack each other.

By my experience Russia has been used as a Goldberg-entity to scare Scots away from voting for independence (allegedly we could not defend against them militarily) and as a means of justifying the presence of nuclear weapons on our land. I predict that it will be used in similar arguments in the USA to justify the obscene levels of military spending in that country.

I think this is where our opinions are going to diverge and the Russians that I've spent the last two weeks criticising and accusing of genocide will begin to understand that there's more to us than some homogenous "Western" Goldberg bloc. I would have liked to have heard from some more Russians (Guardian is basically Russian) on this issue before the debate commences but ach well.

As belligerent as Russia is under Putin and the current elite who exploit the anti-Western, nationalist undercurrent that grew in Tsarist times and was expanded upon by the Soviets, I do not believe that we need to defend against them militarily. Russia is no threat to us, only to the poor bastards that they consider to be on their "turf" - that goes for the Baltic Republics and the Black Sea region.

They may expand their sphere of influence as much as they like within that area, but they will never invade Western Europe or drop a bomb on Paris or something like that. You understand that I object to the very existence of the Russian Federation (though I do not object to the existence of "Russia") and oppose the current Russian government in every way, but I do not see them as being the threat that our governments make them out to be.

Even if we are in a situation where military force could be a factor, like the invasion of Ukraine, the only things we are able to do are apply economic sanctions that don't seem to be working much. We can't go to war with Russia. I don't even need to qualify that statement with reasons, they're obvious to you all.

We're thus left with only two options - sit and watch, hoping for an economic crisis to sweep the country and force Russia into a state of chaos after Putin is ousted (you can imagine the problems this will create), or integrate them into our sphere, thereby taking away the best tool the Russian elite has for controlling the Russian people.

[Guardian G.I.]

For those wondering; "Man of Prey" is the name of this game. I want to play it, looks like Silent Storm/7.62 with an actually unique plot.

Man of Prey was developed by the same developer who made 7.62, Apeiron. A proper working English version is very hard to find on the Internet. Here's an English LP of the game.

Well of course, there's a bit of rampant nationalism in publishers, good luck getting something like that opened to 'western' [Well, US] markets. The typical Fight-the-terrorist[brown]-people/totally-not-Russians formula deserves to be shaken up a bit. I'm definitely looking into getting ahold of the book, though.

I don't think the book was translated into English. No one in the West would like to read a Russian book of questionable quality with them being the bad guys.
The genre of action books with plots like "Western aggressors invade Russia, brave Russian soldiers kick their asses", "Brave Russian soldiers travel back in time to fix what went wrong and kick some Western aggressors' asses" and "Western aggressors invade Russia, brave Russian soldiers travel back in time to fix what went wrong and kick some Western aggressors' asses", usually written by veterans of Soviet special ops units, has been quite popular in Russia since the 1990s. A lot of such books of various degrees of awfulness have been written. None of them have been translated into English.

[olemars]

The KGB cloned Tom Clancy?

[Mictlantecuhtli]

We're thus left with only two options - sit and watch, hoping for an economic crisis to sweep the country and force Russia into a state of chaos after Putin is ousted (you can imagine the problems this will create), or integrate them into our sphere, thereby taking away the best tool the Russian elite has for controlling the Russian people.

I'd argue integration and cooperation wouldn't stop manipulation of sentiment in just Russia -- Look at it this way, this situation will give authoritarians of any stripe in Europe [and elsewhere] a reason to claim an impending existential threat, and only serve to radicalize both sides. I just hope this doesn't lead to a domino effect of 'sacrifices' in the name of containing a threat. We've seen it before and we will see it again.

But, I do agree, cooperation and appealing to moderation is the best way to serve not only the 'west' but all people.

[smjjames]

The KGB cloned Tom Clancy?

Or more like the Cold War mentality hasn't died out. If and when (including being elected out of office) Putin loses power, lets just hope the next one wasn't in the KGB or had anything to do with Soviet Russia. Russia really needs to free itself from the mentality of the Cold War era.