Russia and Ukraine

[Leonardo17]

Why does Russia feel threatened??

I expect if you look at Libya or Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan, and what the US has done there recently, the possibility of America attempting regime change in your country would seem undesirable. Generally the US wants other countries to have rulers which take orders from the US, so that the IMF and other American-controlled institutions can control their economies. They privatize the nation's resources and make sure the profits never go to the people of the country. 

Losing control of your own country and having it become a puppet of people who don't really care about anything other than resource extraction wouldn't be most people's first choice. 

Think of Allende 1973, for example.

Russia has a large amount of valuable energy. If they are able to freely sell it when and where they wish they have more power than the US wants them to have. It reduces America's control of western Europe and encourages new alliances with BRICS countries in which the US has far less sway. 

It doesn't seem surprising to me that most Russians would like to preserve their national sovereignty in fact as well as in name. Putin is popular at home, but even people who aren't crazy about him are probably even less excited about becoming a de facto colony of the US. 

Or there was Whitlam in 1975 who found out that winning an election isn't protection against the CIA kicking you out of a job. Or Hatoyama in 2010, who discovered that attempting to enact the will of the people in Okinawa can get you out on your ear right away if Hillary Clinton tells you to stop.

Unless the Russia High Command believed that their military really could take over Ukraine... which is now clearly not so. 

I understand that the armchair generals have a very clear view of the future. I am skeptical. Much of what I read seems based on propaganda-fueled fantasy and wishful thinking. History teaches that underestimating Russia seldom works out well. 

There is of course the possibility that the US would nuke them in order to prevent a takeover of Ukraine. If this happened Russia would lose, but so would everyone else. 

That is why I think there must be another reason for this invasion.

What is this reason?

“ I expect if you look at Libya or Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan, and what the US has done there recently, the possibility of America attempting regime change in your country would seem undesirable. Generally the US wants other countries to have rulers which take orders from the US, so that the IMF and other American-controlled institutions can control their economies. They privatize the nation's resources and make sure the profits never go to the people of the country. “
 
 1)  I just read this article today. Some important spokesman from the Whitehouse was saying that the US did not have plans for a regime change in Iran and the article was underlining the fact that the US “did not have a magic wand in its hand”. So even in the case of a murderous regime like Iran, there is simply few things that can be done from the outside because any act of invasion would be interpreted as the denial of that people’s right of self-determination.
   Still I, as a citizen I believe that the regimes of Iran and Afghanistan should be treated much more severely not only by the US, but by everyone else too. Simply because they are tyrannical regimes who are harming their own population more than anything they are actually able to do to the outside world.
 
2) I am not going to answer to everything. But it was Russia who stopped the Syrian regime from collapsing (at a very high human cost), Russia and Pakistan backed the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Iraq and Afghan operation were the errors of George W. Bush. But still it is Iran who is messing Iraq today.
 
So yes international policies are a mess. That’s why the world needs a more stable and down to earth Russia (and Iran) if were are to achieve anything that is different from the second half of the 20th century during the first half of this century in the middle east.