[Pants-of-dog]

If people want to claim that I am supporting Russia, then they need to reread my posts, since that would be an error.

[wat0n]

@wat0n

If you want to argue that Russians allowing Cubans to use an old Soviet gun design is the same thing ir worse as actively funding and training death squads, feel free.

In reality, they are not.

So we go back to my original argument that the Russians and Soviets never really helped us and the US oppressed us and both can go back home.

So those Soviet military advisors sent to Cuba in the early 60s were there just for a vacation?

[Pants-of-dog]

So those Soviet military advisors sent to Cuba in the early 60s were there just for a vacation? :?:

I already addressed this.

[Fasces]

It's not. But the situation is also not the same, at least not from a strategic point of view. Russia has little chance to stop an American operation to stop a significant deployment of their troops on Cuban soil, given the distances involved and their lack of allies nearby. NATO on the other hand borders Ukraine and that alone changes everything.

Overstating the will to act, a bit.

[wat0n]

Overstating the will to act, a bit.

Whose will to act? NATO doesn't even need to act directly. Arguably, it just needs to provide support to anti-Russia insurgents in the event of an occupation.

[Fasces]

Arguably, it just needs to provide support to anti-Russia insurgents in the event of an occupation.

Again, a double standard - we don't particularly like it when Russia does the same.

[wat0n]

Again, a double standard - we don't particularly like it when Russia does the same.

Indeed and they won't like it when they have to deal with it in Ukraine, were they stupid enough to invade the western part of the country.

[Fasces]

were they stupid enough to invade the western part of the country.

We're pretending they didn't in 2014?

To me this is the problem with the Western 'rule for thee but not me' standard in international relations. Now that the West is declining, the failure to build a fair, strong, legalistic, and integrated international order will bite them in the ass as rising/rogue powers simply start using the American playbook against them. In letting their foreign policy be guided by fear of the 'other', the West, between 1950 and 2010, have created an environment where that fear is justified because there is little to zero institutional trust, either in international organizations or in the motives of Western governments, by these states.

[wat0n]

We're pretending they didn't in 2014?

I think you understand what I mean here

To me this is the problem with the Western 'rule for thee but not me' standard in international relations. Now that the West is declining, the failure to build a fair, strong, legalistic, and integrated international order will bite them in the ass as rising/rogue powers simply start using the American playbook against them.

If the West is truly in decline, why would Russia or China regard anything that barred them from getting what they want from the West as "fair" or "legal"?

[Fasces]

If the West is truly in decline, why would Russia or China regard anything that barred them from getting what they want from the West as "fair" or "legal"?

Indeed - why should they, when they've been on the short end of that stick for a few generations and have seen how arbitrary notions of justice actually are?

The West and the Soviets had a unique oppurtunity to build an equitable world order that the Third World would want to participate in (and be well-served by participating in), but Truman set the US on the path toward a Cold War and fear-governed foreign policy. Western oligarchs, through their arrogance and inability to trust what it perceived as an enemy, wasted the oppurtunity.

And yes, I do blame Truman - FDR's administration had gone to great lengths to repair the relationship with the Soviet Union during the World War, a legacy that Truman deliberately threw away due to personal anti-communist tendancies and his choice in cabinet. Given Western rhetoric, and Western interference in the Russian Civil War, it is reasonable that the first step to building trust should have (and for a time did) come from Western concessions. They failed to build a world where the strong can't take what they want and are reaping what they sow.

[wat0n]

Indeed - why should they, when they've been on the short end of that stick for a few generations and have seen how arbitrary notions of justice actually are?

The West and the Soviets had a unique oppurtunity to build an equitable world order that the Third World would want to participate in (and be well-served by participating in), but Truman set the US on the path toward a Cold War and fear-governed foreign policy. Western oligarchs, through their arrogance and inability to trust what it perceived as an enemy, wasted the oppurtunity.

And yes, I do blame Truman - FDR's administration had gone to great lengths to repair the relationship with the Soviet Union during the World War, a legacy that Truman deliberately threw away due to personal anti-communist tendancies and his choice in cabinet. Given Western rhetoric, and Western interference in the Russian Civil War, it is reasonable that the first step to building trust should have (and for a time did) come from Western concessions. They failed to build a world where the strong can't take what they want and are reaping what they sow.

Yeah, it's not like the Soviets did not make their own hostile moves like pushing for coups in places like Czechoslovakia and putting Berlin under siege

I also don't think the Soviets got the short end of the stick. Its European satellites did, though.

In reality, the West could have given them even more concessions and the complaints would've been the same. After all, why not push for more if you can?

[Fasces]

Yeah, it's not like the Soviets did not make their own hostile moves like pushing for coups in places like Czechoslovakia and putting Berlin under siege

Unless you're talking about the literal seige of Nazi Berlin, both events are post-Truman and the breakdown in Western-Soviet relations.

the West could have given them even more concessions and the complaints would've been the same.

The idea that building institutional trust is garaunteed to fail because of 'the other guy is baaad' is precisely the attitude that created the present international order, so right on.

It's an especially sad idea given the very real progress that was made during the war. What could have been?

[wat0n]

Unless you're talking about the literal seige of Nazi Berlin, both events are post-Truman and the breakdown in Western-Soviet relations.

Bad excuse.

The idea that building institutional trust is garaunteed to fail because of 'the other guy is baaad' is precisely the attitude that created the present international order, so right on.

Indeed, that is exactly what they say about the West, isn't it?

It's an especially sad idea given the very real progress that was made during the war. What could have been?

I'd say plenty of that progress has remained.

[Fasces]

Indeed, that is exactly what they say about the West, isn't it?

The West, as the dominant power, had the ability to create a just international order. Now they're declining, and suffering from their failure to do so. If China and friends also fail to use their oppurtunity in the sun to build a just international order, I'll criticize them too.

Bad excuse.

I'd say plenty of that progress has remained.

No. Truman really fucked it. Acheson and Dulles killed the work of FDR, Hiss and Welles. The purge of all 'pro-Soviet' officials in the US government in 1945 and 1946 broke trust that existed and set the two powers on a path to a Cold War that was entirely avoidable - one of the great disasters of the 20th century.

[wat0n]

The West, as the dominant power, had the ability to create a just international order. Now they're declining, and suffering from their failure to do so. If China and friends also fail to use their oppurtunity in the sun to build a just international order, I'll criticize them too.

No, the West did not have such a chance. The Soviets themselves would have never conceded anything that would not let them have their satellites. And why would they? If anything, they regarded those as essential to their national security and their ability to fend off any sort of foreign invasion.

No. Truman really fucked it. Acheson and Dulles killed the work of FDR, Hiss and Welles. The purge of all 'pro-Soviet' officials in the US government in 1945 and 1946 broke trust that existed and set the two powers on a path to a Cold War that was entirely avoidable - one of the great disasters of the 20th century.

Where were the pro-US officials in the USSR?

[Fasces]

As I said, given the past relationship, the first step in reestablishing trust and laying the groundwork for a just international system lay with the West, not the Soviets. Of course they made demands - trust had been broken, not repaired, and the architects that had been repairing that trust were removed from their posts and purged following FDR's death. Blaming the Soviets for being wary is to miss the point entirely. Giving someone a more powerful position is key to establishing that trust. The West failed to do so, and the Cold War was the result.

[Patrickov]

No. Truman really fucked it. Acheson and Dulles killed the work of FDR, Hiss and Welles. The purge of all 'pro-Soviet' officials in the US government in 1945 and 1946 broke trust that existed and set the two powers on a path to a Cold War that was entirely avoidable - one of the great disasters of the 20th century.

I find the reply of wat0n a bit too prone to counterattack so I want to rephrase like this:

You cannot blame what Truman and his people did after all the Stalinian purge not even 10 years prior to their action.

In some sense, the Nazis was thoroughly beaten up only because they went way too far.

Although it's certainly ironic because Harry Truman was the poorest person ever to be a POTUS, which means he should have been the person most sympathetic to Socialism and Communism.

[wat0n]

So the West should have just forgotten the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact just after WWII, @Fasces?

[MadMonk]

So the West should have just forgotten the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact just after WWII, @Fasces?

Allying yourself with Nazis sounds bad, of course, until one remembers that the US were more concerned about Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe that they started to recruit ex-Gestapo officers and SS soldiers after the war. And let's not forget Reinhard Gehlen, former Wehrmacht Major General, head of Nazi German military intelligence in the East, close ally of CIA director Allen Dulles and founder of the BND (West German foreign intelligence).

Who exactly had their hands clean? No one really.

Declassified Papers Show U.S. Recruited Ex-Nazis

[wat0n]

Allying yourself with Nazis sounds bad, of course, until one remembers that the US were more concerned about Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe that they started to recruit ex-Gestapo officers and SS soldiers after the war. And let's not forget Reinhard Gehlen, former Wehrmacht Major General, head of Nazi German military intelligence in the East, close ally of CIA director Allen Dulles and founder of the BND (West German foreign intelligence).

Who exactly had their hands clean? No one really.

Declassified Papers Show U.S. Recruited Ex-Nazis

So did the Soviets, but I don't think the US ever tried to join the Axis like the Soviets did.