Russia and Ukraine

[Belacqua]

Who thinks that the present regime is a good one? (that is, besides those in power in Russia)

The Russian people seem to like him. He has a far higher approval rating than Biden does, for example. 

Anyway, we all know that the US supports terrible regimes that ally with the US, and oppose any regimes -- good or bad -- that don't. 

Why the US has the right to determine Russia's leadership is not clear to me.

LOL! Just look at what an Oligarch is and how the term originated in Russia.
Russia's resources were state owned in the USSR times, then they were privatized - and what happens when you privatize a literal monopoly? Nothing good.
Sure, the very wealthy few that this generated would not be happy with a state-enforced breaking of all the monopolies they control.
Does this state need to be "controlled" by the US in order to provide better conditions to the Russian people? I don't think so, but ok, I can see how those powerful oligarchs would not want the present regime to change... however, attacking Ukraine (and the potential defeat) would have been a hugge gamble, if that was their fear.

Right, that's what I said. The oligarchs started when Gorbachev started to liberalize state control, and then boomed when the West imposed Shock Therapy on the economy. 

Is Jeff Bezos an oligarch? He has billions of dollars worth of government contracts. He owns a newspaper that recently ran an editorial saying that criticizing billionaires is like wearing blackface. He has enormous power. He treats his employees badly. Is he better or worse than your average Russian billionaire at home in London? 

Think of Belarus 2022, for example.
Think of what Russia seems to want to do in Ukraine, for example.

"We can't let you do to us what we want to do to others, so we do to others before you do to us"... is that a sensible foreign policy?

The words in quotes seem like an accurate description of US foreign policy for a long time now. I'm against it. 

The US has both Russia and China surrounded by military bases. As is often pointed out, the US would never allow such a thing. Frankly I don't see why people don't understand why this is threatening to Russia and China.

Germany (and the EU) were trying to get Russia to be their own owners and negotiate with the World... hence betting quite a lot on Nordstream (remember that 50% of German energy came from Russia via that pipeline)...

And yet, it seems to me that Russia decided to show themselves to be unable to stay in their lane and carry out their foreign businesses peacefully.
If the US comes to control anything in Russia, it will be entirely the present Russian regime's fault.

What you say is true if you accept the received wisdom that the war in Ukraine was a totally unprovoked attack. As I've said, I don't accept that. I agree with Kissinger and all of those other foreign policy professionals who said that expanding NATO to Ukraine was guaranteed to knock Russia out of its lane. We did it, and it came true. 

I suppose you can say that's entirely Russia's fault if you think that every country except the US should accept every provocation made against it without responding at all.

Russia today has
- Depleted military
- Fleeing youth - brain drain
- A populace (at least in the big cities) that is tired of the state propaganda

All signs of diminished capabilities to withstand anything the rest of the world throws at them. Be it the US or China... 
Russia should have consolidated its position as a world supplier of raw energy. Instead, it's having to sell it on the cheap.

Congratulations on playing the stupid part, Mr Putin!
And that is something that I find difficult to believe someone in power over 100 million people would do.

If you find it difficult to believe that someone with so much power would do something so stupid, then maybe you have misunderstood what he's done and why he's done it. Have you heard any of his speeches? He is not stupid. Compared to either the TV game show host the US had before, or the doddering antique we have now, he sounds like a genius. 

As for the depleted military, we don't know exactly how strong it is. The armchair generals love to talk about how all its power has been wiped out and all its recruits are idiots, but somehow billions and billions of dollars worth of weapons hasn't driven it out of Ukraine yet. 

The US has a different kind of brain drain, in that formerly the best students and researchers from all over the world wanted to come to study and work in the US, and that is less and less true. China is doing better than the US in many fields. Foreign researchers and scientists are being made to feel less welcome in the US. For example, Biden's recent attempt to prevent China from getting advanced microprocessors seems set to backfire spectacularly, as Chinese experts working in the US go home and take their expertise with them. It reduces America's market significantly and motivates China to develop its own technology.

If Russians in the big cities are tired of government propaganda, they are smarter than the Americans, who still eat up their propaganda like good little children. 

And it's no secret that US life expectancy is decreasing, infrastructure is crumbling, health care is a mess, shootings are constant (one in St. Louis just today) and in many other ways society is crumbling. But we sure have money to give away for weapons. 

Are you implying that the Europe is a de facto colony of the US?
Judging by the world health, happiness and satefy indexes, I'd say that the NATO countries are just fine as they are, when compared to the BRICs.

In some ways, yes. Europe is obedient to Washington. Not quite "colony." More like "expected to follow orders." 

As for why England has better happiness numbers than India, for example, I recommend William Dalrymple's series of books on how England systematically impoverished India for a century. The BRICS organization is an effort to get out from under US hegemony.

America allows close allies to prosper if they are useful. For example, since Obama's "Pivot to Asia" which makes the containment of China the main objective of a new Cold War, Japan has taken on the Orwellian role of "Airstrip One." But as Hatoyama discovered, any move to make Japan independent of America's defense demands will result in swift political downfall by the command of the US. As Kissinger said, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." As soon as a place isn't useful, it can be squashed. Remember that Saddam Hussein was an ally as long as America was helping him build chemical weapon plants to use against Iran. But then he stopped being useful. There is a long list of bad guys who followed the same course.