Russia And the West (1)
And indeed, any great nation and the West …!
Or perhaps: any great nation and any great nation …!
The author of those articles has never claimed to be an expert in history, politics and economics …
Indeed, he is a layman,
Being a layman gives him a great advantage …
Not because all news is fake, and not because all academic studies of history, politics and economics are false or at least biased …
The problem is: we live in a time when the machinery of information propagation has become one of the most valuable assets …
Of course every nation or individual possessing it will use it to their exclusive advantage …
The problem arises when the news from different sources clash …
Resulting in political tensions …
Leading perhaps to conflict, or in the best case to economic and cultural stagnation on all the sides involved …
To the outsider: the verity of each side’s view is not the issue …
Unless the outsider is in it to take sides …: and thus ceasing to be an outsider …
: to the outsider: the issues is: what drives nations to say what they say?
Competition, self-assertion, self-righteousness … are perhaps the major motives …
Well, let’s say that it is every nation’s right to be competitive, self-assertive and self-righteous …
I guess this is a natural right that every individual or nation have …
Can a law be set to manage the diverse competitiveness, self-assertiveness and self-righteousness of all nations … in a present and future times …?
Common sense and history says it is close to impossible …
And I’m only stating the most self-evident of all things …
The thing is: in the past, this problem was as prevalent …
But technology, I guess, has highlighted it and contributed to exacerbating it …
There needs to be a system other than the current unspoken set of rules: hidden under the layers of international laws and diplomacy, that is international hypocrisy
Russia And the West (2)
The layman will not buy into the clever, educated, well worded and crafted arguments of the big nations …
Arguments which have been carefully tailored to fit perfectly those nations’ leaders’ political and national agendas: while appearing to be advocating world peace, justice and prosperity …
And again, the layman will not take sides …
Who is ahead of who: when two sides embark on criticizing each other …
The West has certainly been many steps ahead at many fronts, and since a long time …
Its demonstrable economic expertise and political stability have been its greatest asset,
Why this has been the case: is not in the scope of this post,
Any answer to such a question in my opinion can only be guesswork, however elaborate and expansive the research which lead to it may be …
And any answer can indeed have a counter-answer, arguing other arguments or perhaps falsifying it …
The West has truly been ahead of the world: socially, economically and politically: this has been its domestic success …
As for the international fronts: where the only capital it has in the eyes of many non-Western nations is its internal success …: the West appears to those to be saying: we are good, it is to your advantage that we continue to be better, so we can lead you …
The problem with such a proposal is that non-Western nations will not take it comfortably,
Even the closest allies of the West will swallow it with a lot of pain and hide their discomfort … in most cases because they feel this is their only choice: provided the corruption and backwardness of other big nations …
As for other big nations, which, with their limited knowledge of Western political systems and intellectual achievement still believe that they are the greatest nations on earth, past and present: those will definitely rally their peoples to put up resistance
Russia And the West (3)
After the collapse of the Soviet Union: the West was in a victory mood for a while …
And as if this wasn’t sufficient self-assertion, and after victory in two world wars: many in the West were asking: who is going to be our next enemy? And some were blatantly naming Iran, North Korea, Islam, China: as potential choices of new enemies … when there was no indication that these nations could pose any significant threat to any Western nation …
And if those named potential enemies were a threat to the West’s allies: it was the wise West that was supposed to thwart the tensions which have created those threats …
But the West seems too quick to take on its allies’ local fears and grudges … even if the rulers of those allies are lunatic, archaic and despotic …
One has to have an enemy: if we don’t have one: let’s make our allies’ enemies our own …
Perhaps this is an unspoken rule again: if you don’t have an enemy make one. A state of constant peril unites your people, boosts the economy, gets everyone on their toes …
And of course, to the incumbent president or prime minister: this is an opportunity to enter the history books as a hero who stood for his country’s and his allies’ rights and defended them …
Meanwhile the party went on … celebrating the victory over communism,
And although Russia became supposedly a friend … the caution about Russia never stopped …
Suspicion over its intentions started to grow again: when Russia embarked on a program to rebuild and modernise its military forces …
And why wouldn’t Russia do that?
This is the country which drove Napoleon out of its land,
And this is the country which drove Hitler’s army back, and chased it all the way to the heart of Berlin, on its own …
In the present, Russians are not going to sit back and watch the EU and the US grow and up-grade their military forces … right at their doorsteps …
Especially while new military bases were being set up just at their borders with Western countries!!
I don’t know, what kind of intelligence Western leaders profess to have,
Perhaps it is their expertise in creating problems then boasting about solving them
Russian And the West (4)
And in the China Seas, the US’s aircraft and nuclear warhead carriers have been exercising their freedom of navigation rights, that’s not to mention the US’s bases on small islands and in countries neighbouring China allied to the US, all loaded with enough fire power to burn the hell out of China many times over …: long before China has built any vessels, other than fishing boats and commercial ones …
I guess it is obvious on which party the major share of paranoia can be dumped …
Or perhaps it is the greed and the desire to control, behind the ostensible concern about national safety …
The freedom of navigation in this situation, which can be exercised by one party only to the advantage of this party: is like a fox telling the chickens: the freedom to bite is everyone’s right …
The world seems constantly preparing for a next war …
Countries which have allied with the West do not seem too concerned about social justice, freedom, freedom from corruption, transparency …
Their main concern is to be protectorates of the West,
By being able to acquire the West’s military technology and support …
Often to threaten old neighbouring enemies …
Or to bully smaller nations and minority groups within their borders …
The West will show its disenchantment with their behaviour, while all the way selling them all the weapons they need and providing them with the necessary intelligence …
Such wars can therefore be called proxy wars …!
Western media and politicians are so good at using words at their convenience,
To appear knowledgeable, ethical, civilised …
Words which often fire back at them …
The political correctness thus conceived and given birth to: has turned against the West: when it became a weapon in the hands of Western politicians in their domestic political affairs …
To the point that the now US’s president has decided to take the gloves off and punch it as it is …
In the midst of this slide back to primitive traditions …: what substitute have non-Western big nations offered to the world: apart from a counter-buildup of military arsenals: and a load of nonsensical conspiracy theories …?:
Nothing …
Big non-Western nations, whether allies of the West or foes of it: aren’t getting it …
They are still behind the West, politically, intellectually and industrially …
If they don’t catch up with the West’s political and economic concepts, or come up with their own: to reverse the anarchy that the West’s regression has been furnishing: not only are they going to lose their military campaigns if they launched them: but also their cultural assets: because the West will still be able to dominate
Russia And the West (5)
If a country, big or small, Western, Eastern or extra-terrestrial …: wants to assert itself as an example:
There’s one sure way exemplariness cannot be demonstrated:
And that is military might …
If this sounds idealistic: those countries’ leaders have to rethink their practical approach to their survival: if they care about it beyond their present …
Ideal morality, as taught by monotheist religions, is the morality that can never be exercised,
It remains, therefore, as a slogan for political consumption ...
From a practical perspective: military might cannot prove right,
Because all it does: it triggers a counter-military might: which is supposed to be wrong …
This paradoxical situation is self-expressed by the race to militarisation of nations on their road to destruction: which can only mean self-destruction …
Illogical arguments will self-manifest in self-inflicted pain …
This is how the world seems to work …
In desperate situations, when individuals or nations feel helpless: they can’t inflict the pain on the other side which caused their pain: they reflect it back onto themselves …
A logical step by step is the only way out of the confusion, …
Painful as it may sound: the only way for individuals as well as nations to end the pain they believe to be inflicted on them by another party: is to refrain from wanting to or actually inflicting pain on that other party,
So that: in order to look after their own interests: they have to look equally, nay firstly, after the interest of the others …
You may have to take a few short peaks at this, before it becomes a new stage – this is not a typo – of mind
Russia And the West (6)
The values of freedom, equality, justice …are not Western values …
They are human values,
No country is an owner of them or their sole representative …
And if a country claims ownership and representation of them: they stop being universal human values,
They become this country’s political assets, and the abidance by them will imply allegiance to it,
Nations do not have to adopt a particular political and economic systems in order for them be free and just …
And they certainly can’t be forced to do that by fire power,
And if a country sets itself on the road of political reform: it doesn’t have to do that under the auspices of Western nations …
And if it makes progress: it doesn’t translate to victory of the West over it …
Russian And the West (7)
The illusion that the anti-West camp are trying to create is that once the evil empire has been beaten the world will be free and just …
I can’t see that any of the entities Russia, China, Arabs, Iran … are up to scratch with their political and economic expertise, not mention their undeclared moral subscriptions …
It’s easy to say that recent, and indeed past history of some of those doesn’t suggest world domination aspirations …
If, on the other hand, the world is left to run without the shadow of a world police how will lunatic leaders of small as well as big nations behave?
There will never be a shortage of such alpha males,
They are an integral part of human evolution, if you accept such a theory,
Fair or thuggish, police force set limits,
Limits which can be unfair, and the police force itself can easily become the villain …
Balance cannot be attempted unless there’s an impartial entity overseeing the rules and the behaviour of a police force …
While the West has demonstrated total misuse of its self-proclaimed responsibility of world police: I can’t see that the total and sudden annulment of such a responsibility, or the handover of it to other wannabe nations: is a first step on the way to a better: more just, more civilised road map,
COB has been arguing that an impartial body be set: not under the auspices or by the financing of big nations …
If this can be kicked off: democracy can be taken to an international level,
Rather than being the political system of Western nations: and to hell with the rest of the world …
Russia And the West (8)
None of Russia or the West would want to discuss openly the cause of the conflicts of the Middle East, i.e. the ongoing instability in Iraq, the war in Yemen and the war in Syria ...
Those conflicts, and a potential direct confrontation between SA-Turkey and Iran: have their roots in the Sunni-Shia divide in Islam,
If Russia and the West see themselves unentitled to have a say in such a matter: they should equally be unentitled to have a share in the wars which are rooted in it …!
To put it to the world that they are defending their friends and allies … and that they are trying to help to stabilise that region: is an argument that doesn’t stack up,
A better role for both of them would’ve been that of a peace negotiator …
But everything seems to indicate that instability in that region is an opportunity that has been offered to both of them on a silver platter …:
It has allowed them to showcase their military might, sell arms in the region, and advertise their weaponry …
And of course, to assert their influence in the region …
In the period of time extending from the collapse of the USSR to, I’d say, around 10-15 years ago …: the West seemed to be the sole superpower: capable of enforcing its interests in the world without a rival …
The war waged on Iraq and the “unilateral” action in Afghanistan: had made it very clear that the US and its EU allies were unstoppable …
And anxiety started to grow in the world about a new paradigm in which one country or one political entity dictates the entire world …
But since that time: China has become a significant economic and military power, and Russia has become a major military power …
It is sad that the Middle East is being used as a stage for playing out the traditional rivalry between the US and Russia: on the back of the Sunni-Shia camel …
The current soap operas about chemical weapons in Duma, and an attempt of murder in Salisbury: do not sway my view of either of the West or Russia …:
The atrocities carried out in Iraq, Yemen and now Syria, whether by their direct or indirect assistance: are being overpainted by petty stories, by comparison,
Those atrocities are a testimony of their both, as well as their local agent's low moral standing
Russia And the West (9)
Although religion doesn’t feature as an issue of debate between the West and Russia, it is undoubtedly in the back of both sides’ minds, whenever tensions build up …
Both Russia and the West had gone a long way on the road to secularism: before their inauspicious rolling back:
Russia, soon after the collapse of the USSR, when the head of the Eastern Church has been invited to every inauguration ceremony of a new president …
And the West, when Western leaders openly said that they were defending Christian values, upon launching their “war on terror”,
The rivalry between the Eastern and Western churches is almost as old as Christianity … and it seems to be making a comeback after a period of peace …
How this rivalry translates in the Middle East to the support of one sect of Islam over another: is not an easily answerable question …
In the depths of beliefs: an emotional power takes over, as has been argued on COB a few times …:
In the total absence of reason.
While we don’t expect ordinary people to be able to delve into the depths of their beliefs, for the purpose of giving precedence to reason over emotions: we do their leaders
