Re: Pearls Before Swine: Uncle Is Not Good With Money

Dimensional Traveler  <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

 

He's also been beating "The Ukrainians should be part of Russia" drum
for some time now.

Putin has for some time been talking about restoring the Russian Empire of
the 19th century, and he will talk about various strategic possibilities
as if he is planning for a land invasion of the type that Napoleon tried.
In many ways he seems to work hard to emulate the czars.

So, sure, he wants Ukraine.  And when he's got Ukraine he'll want Belarus
and Armenia and then the Baltic states.

Now... the big question is will he want Poland?  When the Russian Revolution
happened, the Soviets let go of Poland which had previously been part of the
Russian Empire.  Putin has talked extensively about what a terrible job Lenin
did in giving away parts of the empire and allowing SSRs that were part of
the Soviet union a degree of autonomy that he believes they never should have
been granted.

In the Soviet era, Poland was just one of the Warsaw Pact states which were
allied and somewhat controlled by the Soviet Union but not actually part of
the Soviet union.  (This was because they wanted a barrier of allied
states in order to block a land invasion.)  Putin talks about how weak this
arrangement was, and wants something stronger.  The problem here is that
the Poles don't like Russia very much.

So.... yeah, this is why the war in Ukraine isn't just about Ukraine.  And
yeah, it's an expensive war for Europe and the US to conduct, but not as
expensive as the alternative.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."