In a rather ironic twist, as Europe slips into recession and Russia’s economy flourishes, we see articles attempting to assert that Russia will suffer from losing its ties with the West.
This demonstrates an astonishing lack of understanding on behalf of Western nations towards the Global Majority and their ability to thrive without reliance on the West.
Likewise, the analogies drawn with the Cold War are utterly baseless, as the situation today is diametrically opposed - during the Cold War, the West was the dominant economic powerhouse, while now it is the BRICS that hold sway.
This article is written in the premise that these “mistakes” are any action that causes the US to take a hostile action. Presumably the ideal strategy would be to tiptoe around the US and never act counter to it’s agenda.
It’s the tune of an imperialist. The empire has only one direction and if you get hurt standing in its way it’s your own fault. Let’s not mention the likelihood that you’ll get hurt anyway.
yeah but you get basically the same treatment if you bend the knee or not. at least, russia would. so yeah, seems super tempting to just go along with shit.
The most used answer in a political scientist’s toolbox is “it depends”. Stalin’s decision to not antagonize the US after WW2 was intelligent given that the USSR was fried after the Revolution, Civil War, invasions by the West, and obviously WW2. They were simply not capable of fighting and needed years of peace to build up, even if that meant being unable to help in the revolution in Greece and the Civil War in Korea (at least not sending troops). Khrushchev’s decision to put the barrel of the nuclear gun pointed at America’s dick in the September Crisis (aka Cuban Missile Crisis in the West) was boneheaded and an unnecessary escalation. Every nation, no matter how repugnant has the right to self-defense from foreign nations. But Russia pushing back on NATO is totally valid, even if invading Ukraine isn’t good, I don’t know what other realistic options they had.
Right now the US is caught flat-footed after the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, with two neo-military base puppet nations (Israel and Saudi Arabia) being rebellious and not following the US’s commands exactly, a string of very unpopular US leaders, their government showing cracks in its stability, an economy that is languishing from a recession they cannot recover from. So it is the most opportune time to press hard on them. Not to mention, the PRC continues to grow and is even mending bridges with Vietnam (a potential ally the US has been courting heavily for decades now), as BRICS+ expands in size and importance.
