SafeAsMilk wrote:

Mike_L wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:But Russia pushing it's agenda and promoting instability is totally fine by Mike, as he's made clear repeatedly. If the USA does it, he screams bloody murder, but if Russia does it, then it's totally justified. That is, of course, if he can get past his extreme skepticism of anything about what Russia's done and his extreme willingness to accept whenever someone tells him the US has done something bad. He's got an endless list of articles full of breathless editorializing, short on facts and long on telling you what to think, to "support" his claims.

But don't take my word for it, open up any of his links on the last few pages and look at all emotional pandering, note how infrequently any sort of verifiable fact is presented, and note how they pretend to be well-sourced by linking to still more articles full of still more breathless editorializing.

Just don't click on any of the Wikipedia links I included... links to entries that starkly reveal the results of Washington's global meddling and gun barrel diplomacy.
Stick with the likes of CNN and MSNBC... establishment media that slavishly bashes the Trump-shaped piñata while venerating war criminals like John McCain. In short, stick with the 'news' media that's indistinguishable from the shows of John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, etc.

You do know how ridiculous this looks while you regularly slurp up whatever RT, aka Kremlin News Network, throws at you, right? All you can do is "Hurr durr, CNN MSNBC!!" whenever someone points out the hypocrisy of you decrying propaganda while wholesale swallowing it when it suits your preferences, even if they haven't mentioned CNN or MSNBC.

Also, It's interesting that you can't tell the difference between being critical of the actions of the US government and slurping Putin's toes, as you do so regularly. I take the sensible position of being able to be critical of both when they do terrible things that hurt people.

Mike_L wrote:
Russia is obviously far from perfect, but its current president supports a multipolar world order -- as opposed to a unipolar world order with star-spangled boots stomping across the globe.

There's no way you take the absurdly naive position that Putin somehow wouldn't have his own version of star-spangled boots stomping across the globe if given the opportunity. He can't even keep from robbing his own people blind!

Spinozasgalt wrote:For now, you may sit with us.

Mike_L wrote:Oh, marvelous! A new category into which critics of American exceptionalism and militarism can be pigeonholed!

Multipolarity

Multipolarity is a distribution of power in which more than two nation-states have nearly equal amounts of military, cultural, and economic influence.

Opinions on the stability of multipolarity differ. Classical realist theorists, such as Hans Morgenthau and E. H. Carr, hold that multipolar systems are more stable than bipolar systems, as great powers can gain power through alliances and petty wars that do not directly challenge other powers; in bipolar systems, classical realists argue, this is not possible. On the other hand, the neorealist focuses on security and inverts the formula: states in a multipolar system can focus their fears on any number of other powers and, misjudging the intentions of other states, unnecessarily compromise their security, while states in a bipolar system always focus their fears on one other power, meaning that at worst the powers will miscalculate the force required to counter threats and spend slightly too much on the operation. However, due to the complexity of mutually assured destruction scenarios, with nuclear weapons, multipolar systems may be more stable than bipolar systems even in the neorealist analysis. This system tends to have many shifting alliances until one of two things happens. Either a balance of power is struck, and neither side wants to attack the other, or one side will attack the other because it either fears the potential of the new alliance, or it feels that it can defeat the other side.

One of the major implications of an international system with any number of poles, including a multi polar system, is that international decisions will often be made for strategic reasons to maintain a balance of power rather than out of ideological or historical reasons.

The 'Concert of Europe,' a period from after the Napoleonic Wars to the Crimean War, was an example of peaceful multipolarity (the great powers of Europe assembled regularly to discuss international and domestic issues). World War I, World War II, the Thirty Years War, the Warring States period, the Three Kingdoms period and the tripartite division between Song dynasty/Liao dynasty/Jin dynasty/Yuan dynasty are all examples of a wartime multipolarity.

Mike_L wrote:But it's not a "Putin world order"!
Putin is in favor of a multipolar world.

Wikipedia:

Multipolarity

Mike_L wrote:Oh, marvelous! A new category into which critics of American exceptionalism and militarism can be pigeonholed!
I was wondering when Godwin would make an appearance. And here he is! In the guise of red-brownism, NatBolism, or whatever.
Quick! Put the nuclear football into the hands of a green-haired black lesbian transgender feminist so that we can all have a politically-correct nuclear winter!

Spearthrower wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:For now, you may sit with us.

*sits cautiously down expecting any moment to either be befuddled or sent to the naughty table*

Spearthrower wrote:

Mike_L wrote:But it's not a "Putin world order"!
Putin is in favor of a multipolar world.

Wikipedia:

Multipolarity

Bit naive mate.

Anyone with less power is automatically in favour of multipolarity, else they don't have any power. The real question is whether that would remain so if the situation was otherwise.

Russia's not so in favour of the multipolarity of the weaker states around them though, is it? That's a little insight as to what would happen if Putin's Russia were in a position of hegemony. Given the way they've treated those weaker states like Georgia and the Ukraine, and opposition within their own country, I don't want to test that hypothetical world out.

Spinozasgalt wrote:

Mike_L wrote:Oh, marvelous! A new category into which critics of American exceptionalism and militarism can be pigeonholed!
I was wondering when Godwin would make an appearance. And here he is! In the guise of red-brownism, NatBolism, or whatever.
Quick! Put the nuclear football into the hands of a green-haired black lesbian transgender feminist so that we can all have a politically-correct nuclear winter!

Dugin is a philosopher with ties to Putin, bud. Weirdly, he also has a theory of a multipolar world. And even weirder, if I recall correctly, part of his work recommends using America-centric anti-imperialism as a wedge on the left to promote Russian imperialism. So weird. But...that looks a bit like what RT does. WEIRD.

No, but I do recommend anyone here interested in this stuff to look for writings on Dugin.

Mike_L wrote:
The notion of "Russian imperialism" is something of a joke

Mike_L wrote:
There's no indication that Russia seeks global hegemony. It has acted assertively in its own 'neighborhood' and, agreed, some of its actions have been indefensible.

Mike_L wrote:But it's not going to invade Europe, let alone take over the world.

Mike_L wrote:Russia's economy is roughly the same size as Italy's.
And Russia's military power is a fraction of that of the US.

Mike_L wrote:Russia has about nine military bases outside of Russia. The US has nearly 800 military bases dotted around the world.

Mike_L wrote:You should perhaps be more concerned about the world's existing global hegemon, which routinely interferes in the affairs of sovereign nations, routinely engages in economic warfare (sanctions) to its own benefit, and routinely conducts destabilising regime-change wars across the Middle East and North Africa, thumping the hornet's nest of terrorism and creating assorted refugee crises.

Mike_L wrote:A philosopher with delusions of grandeur. Nothing new there.
The notion of "Russian imperialism" is something of a joke, given the nation's overall strength (or lack thereof).
(See my reply to Spearthrower above).

According to Dugin, the whole Internet should be banned: "I think that Internet as such, as a phenomenon is worth prohibiting because it gives nobody anything good." In June 2012, Dugin said in a lecture that chemistry and physics are demonic sciences, and that all Orthodox Russians need to unite around the President of the Russian Federation in the last battle between good and evil, following the example of Iran and North Korea. He added, "If we want to liberate ourselves from the West, it is needed to liberate ourselves from textbooks on physics and chemistry."

-- Wikipedia

Spearthrower wrote:

Mike_L wrote:
There's no indication that Russia seeks global hegemony. It has acted assertively in its own 'neighborhood' and, agreed, some of its actions have been indefensible.

Acted assertively?

Didn't you get that warm feeling of acid reflux as you wrote that?

They annexed land, Mike - the only nation to have done so in a bloody long time.

That's not 'acting assertively' - that's thuggery. That's using their superior power to bully their weaker neighbours into submission.

Post-referendum polls

The results of the survey by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, conducted 21–29 April 2014, showed that 83% of Crimeans felt that the results of the March 16 referendum on Crimea’s status likely reflected the views of most people there. Whereas, this view is shared only by 30% in the rest of Ukraine.

According to the Gallup's survey performed on 21–27 April, 82.8% of Crimean people consider the referendum results reflecting most Crimeans’ views, and 73.9% of Crimeans say Crimea’s becoming part of Russia will make life better for themselves and their families, just 5.5% disagree.

According to survey carried out by Pew Research Center in April 2014, majority of Crimean residents say the referendum was free and fair (91%) and that the government in Kyiv ought to recognize the results of the vote (88%).

A poll of the Crimean public was taken by the Ukrainian branch of Germany's biggest market research organization, GfK, on 16–22 January 2015. According to its results: "Eighty-two percent of those polled said they fully supported Crimea's inclusion in Russia, and another 11 percent expressed partial support. Only 4 percent spoke out against it. ... Fifty-one percent reported their well-being had improved in the past year."

Bloomberg's Leonid Bershidsky noted that "The calls were made on Jan. 16-22 to people living in towns with a population of 20,000 or more, which probably led to the peninsula's native population, the Tatars, being underrepresented because many of them live in small villages. On the other hand, no calls were placed in Sevastopol, the most pro-Russian city in Crimea. Even with these limitations, it was the most representative independent poll taken on the peninsula since its annexation."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_status_referendum,_2014#Post-referendum_polls

Spearthrower wrote:

Mike_L wrote:But it's not going to invade Europe, let alone take over the world.

Well, of course not, because it can't.

Mike_L wrote:Russia's economy is roughly the same size as Italy's.
And Russia's military power is a fraction of that of the US.

You're making the same argument as me.

Mike_L wrote:Putin's reunification of Crimea with Russia was simply an undoing of Khrushchev's 1954 folly.

Mike_L wrote:Putin's reunification of Crimea with Russia was simply an undoing of Khrushchev's 1954 folly.

Mike_L wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:

Mike_L wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:But Russia pushing it's agenda and promoting instability is totally fine by Mike, as he's made clear repeatedly. If the USA does it, he screams bloody murder, but if Russia does it, then it's totally justified. That is, of course, if he can get past his extreme skepticism of anything about what Russia's done and his extreme willingness to accept whenever someone tells him the US has done something bad. He's got an endless list of articles full of breathless editorializing, short on facts and long on telling you what to think, to "support" his claims.

But don't take my word for it, open up any of his links on the last few pages and look at all emotional pandering, note how infrequently any sort of verifiable fact is presented, and note how they pretend to be well-sourced by linking to still more articles full of still more breathless editorializing.

Just don't click on any of the Wikipedia links I included... links to entries that starkly reveal the results of Washington's global meddling and gun barrel diplomacy.
Stick with the likes of CNN and MSNBC... establishment media that slavishly bashes the Trump-shaped piñata while venerating war criminals like John McCain. In short, stick with the 'news' media that's indistinguishable from the shows of John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, etc.

You do know how ridiculous this looks while you regularly slurp up whatever RT, aka Kremlin News Network, throws at you, right? All you can do is "Hurr durr, CNN MSNBC!!" whenever someone points out the hypocrisy of you decrying propaganda while wholesale swallowing it when it suits your preferences, even if they haven't mentioned CNN or MSNBC.

MSNBC (e.g. Rachel Maddow) and CNN are regularly referenced in this thread. They're prime examples of a corporate media that doesn't need to be government-owned, because it's voluntarily between the bedsheets with Washington anyway. It's like MSNBC's Phil Griffin told a demoted Cenk Uygur: "Outsiders are cool, but we’re the establishment".
They'll even rise above their antipathy toward Donald Trump to wax lyrical about the "beauty of our weapons" when he launches them in violation of international law.

Also, It's interesting that you can't tell the difference between being critical of the actions of the US government and slurping Putin's toes, as you do so regularly. I take the sensible position of being able to be critical of both when they do terrible things that hurt people.

Criticism is one thing. But what's wrong with applause? Notwithstanding Putin's "robbing", he has been profoundly good for the Russian people, largely lifting them out of the misery that Washington stooge Boris Yeltsin inflicted on the country.
Putin earns further plaudits for thwarting the USA's regime-change agenda in Syria. As John McCain lamented: the Russians are sticking "their thumb in our eye" by bombing "the people we are supporting and arming and training".

Mike_L wrote:
Russia is obviously far from perfect, but its current president supports a multipolar world order -- as opposed to a unipolar world order with star-spangled boots stomping across the globe.

There's no way you take the absurdly naive position that Putin somehow wouldn't have his own version of star-spangled boots stomping across the globe if given the opportunity. He can't even keep from robbing his own people blind!

So, not content with plain whataboutism, you're now going for hypothetical whataboutism!

But okay...
Yes, you're right! With his nearly 800 Russian military bases in more than 70 territories around the world, Vladimir Putin is poised to take over the world any day now!