Russia and the US

[Cortopassi]

I plead ignorance here and am looking for comments.

What has Russia overtly done that we would not want to try to have a good relationship with them? All that immediately comes to mind is the Ukrainian situation, but even with that I have little understanding of whether what they did/are doing is at all justified.

We seem to want to paint them as a terrible state with a dictator in charge, but are we really better off not allying with them on at least some things? Are they as bad as the media portrays them?

[dualstow]

What has Russia done? Well, that is a loooong list. In my opinion, they have a longer list of misdeeds than any other nation on earth.
How far back are we going, though?

[Cortopassi]

I guess recent past. Putin era. Certainly there were a lot of bad things while they were the USSR.

The US is no saint in the past 15 years trying to spread democracy in the Middle East, so in my mind I am trying to put it all together, and generally I see the pot calling the kettle black.

But again, that is my pretty uninformed opinion.

[dualstow]

Well, just the Putin era, outside of the Ukraine which you already listed, was probably more dominated by what Putin did to his own people. Like murdering the opposition and critics such as Boris Nemtsov.
Of course, if one were to counter that the US has no problem supporting leaders who crush dissent at home, then I have no argument.

[Cortopassi]

Seems Scott Adams shares my thoughts, from today coincidentally. I think he frames it better, why wouldn't we want to be allies?

------------------------------

One way to look at the recent election in the United States is that Russia (allegedly) subverted our democratic process to ensure that Trump would win. The facts seem to point in that general direction, although we can’t know how much influence Russia really had.

Another way to look at the election is that Russia did a big favor for the American public by preventing Clinton from becoming president. That interpretation depends entirely on your opinion of Clinton. But it too fits the facts. One assumes Russia’s motives were to help Russia, not the United States. But we might have benefitted anyway.

Clinton saw Russia as an adversary. I confess my ignorance on this topic – and maybe you can set me straight in the comments – because I can’t think of any reason Russia and the United States should be considered natural enemies. Both countries want to defeat ISIS. Both countries want peace and prosperity. Neither claims ownership of any of the other’s territory. I see the prospect of good relations with Russia as a way to make some money for both countries and defeat ISIS too. That doesn’t seem so bad.

If Russia did interfere with our elections in a meaningful way, obviously that is a hole we need to plug. But this is an unusual situation because their alleged actions look more like the work of a sneaky ally than an enemy. The likely outcome of their alleged hacking is that we’ll have better relations with a major superpower and a better chance of defeating ISIS.

One trick of persuasion that I have sometimes used involves treating an adversary like a friend until they turn into a friend. I’ve never seen it done on a country-to-country basis, but it works great in person. If you tell someone you are on their side, and you act that way, it is hard for them to keep you on the enemy list. I don’t know if this method of persuasion works for countries, but this is the perfect place to test it.

Obviously this style of persuasion would not work in situations where there is something tangible at stake, such as competing claims for the same territory. But Russia and the United States have more interests in common than in conflict. In this particular case, Trump can change the frame from adversary to ally if he chooses to do so. And that would probably have the effect of making all parties act that way.

[stuper1]

We're 15 years out from 9/11. The war machine needs to find some new bogeymen.

[Benko]

One way to look at the recent election in the United States is that Russia (allegedly) subverted our democratic process to ensure that Trump would win.

Color me skeptical. as Preibus put it, so Russia caused Hillary to not visit Wisconsin?

Russia caused Hillary's campaign to ignore Michael Moore and ignore Bill Clinton that they couldn't ignore white working class voters?

[Cortopassi]

The line I found most compelling in Adam's blog was:

Clinton saw Russia as an adversary. I confess my ignorance on this topic – and maybe you can set me straight in the comments – because I can’t think of any reason Russia and the United States should be considered natural enemies. Both countries want to defeat ISIS. Both countries want peace and prosperity. Neither claims ownership of any of the other’s territory. I see the prospect of good relations with Russia as a way to make some money for both countries and defeat ISIS too. That doesn’t seem so bad.

Yeah, so why not? Why are we supposed to hate Russia?

[Pointedstick]

I agree. Of all the bad stuff Russia does, we've done the same to them or others. I mean heck, we interfered with Ukraine's elections a couple of years ago to push pro-Western candidates. I find it awfully rich to condemn Russia for beating us at our own game.

The truth is that all nations--especially the large powerful ones--do cloak-and-dagger stuff like this to one another. The CIA would undermine Putin in Russia if they could, and they probably already are. Putting all that aside, I agree that the USA and Russia are in many ways natural geopolitical allies as long as we can avoid stepping on each other's backyard flowers.

[Tyler]

Regardless of whether Russia intended to influence the election by releasing DNC emails, threatening another nation because your own party corruption was truthfully exposed is an especially unhinged response completely detached from the root cause of the problem. Democrats are doing themselves no favors right now.

[Cortopassi]

Honestly, I wish McCain would just retire. Tired of hearing him.

he has never heard of a war he doesn't want to be involved in .. the senile AZ retiree vote must be a majority.. they look at him and see one of their own... the old and nuts vote is a lock...

[WiseOne]

One way to look at the recent election in the United States is that Russia (allegedly) subverted our democratic process to ensure that Trump would win. The facts seem to point in that general direction, although we can’t know how much influence Russia really had.

The mainstream media are parroting this line endlessly, but for the life of me I can't figure out what Russia actually DID wrt the election. What are the facts of which you speak? I would really like to know.

I know about the hacking of DNC emails, but even there it's not clear that it was a Russian government-backed effort. It could just as easily have been a bunch of independent Russian citizens. Also the DNC should shoulder part of the blame for not securing their system appropriately. In corporate America, it's considered our responsibility to not fall for phishing emails, use secure passwords, encrypt drives, etc.

The whole thing sounds more like a smoke screen than anything else. Trump would do best to ignore it and go ahead with his plans for improving relations with Russia. Starting a war with them does not sound to me like it's in our best interests. I hope this is really not about finding an excuse to prolong the endless war.

[Cortopassi]

Please understand, those are pasted comments from Scott Adam's blog, not mine!

[WiseOne]

Please understand, those are pasted comments from Scott Adam's blog, not mine!

Apologies, Cortopassi. I missed that.

I think we're being asked to to take the CIA's word for it that it was the Russian government that hacked the DNC, and that they wanted Trump to win so they gave the RNC a pass. I've not however seen any interview with a CIA official confirming this - it remains an impression passed on by news stories. Somehow I am suspicious of ulterior motives here. Shades of the run-up to the Iraq war, and of course the fact that the DNC would very much like you to focus on Russia and not on what the emails actually revealed.

[curlew]

I was in the eighth grade when the Cold War standoff between Russia and the USA almost reached critical mass during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We were storing food and water in the basement. Everyone was glued to the nightly news and the fear of nuclear war was palpable. Based on what I've subsequently learned about it, that fear was well justified and we were closer to Armageddon than we even realized at the time.

As far as we knew from watching the news, the Russians ultimately backed down and returned the ships carrying nuclear weapons to Russia. It wasn't until I watched the movie "13 Days" that I learned about the secret deal behind it in which Kennedy agreed to remove our missiles from Turkey in exchange for an agreement not to deploy theirs in Cuba. At no time do I remember hearing anything on the news about us having nuclear missiles aimed at Russia in Turkey. That would have made it a completely different story - the game of chess between two superpowers that was actually being played. All I remember hearing is how evil the Russians were for wanting to deploy missiles 90 miles off of our coast. No mention of how far away from Moscow our own missiles were already deployed.

Fast forward to 1980 and Jimmy Carter is boycotting the Olympics because the Russians have troops in Afghanistan. How dare they?

It is also interesting to read how politicians vastly over-hyped both the economic and military power of the Soviet Union during the cold war. I remember hearing about the "Missile Gap" with Russia that needed to be closed during several elections and it has now been revealed that no such thing ever existed. We always far outnumbered Russia in ICBMs and the funny thing is the politicians even knew it but campaigned on it any way.

[dualstow]

I agree. Of all the bad stuff Russia does, we've done the same to them or others.

We've done a lot of bad things, but I don't think we're quite on Russia's level in the past few decades. At least, not on Putin's level. We don't poison our opponents with polonium, much less in foreign countries that belong neither to us nor to the victim. And we don't shoot them in the street.

we don't get caught shooting them in the streets... Hilary cough cough

[WiseOne]

And we don't shoot them in the street.

Sure we do. It's called drone attacks.

Not saying those are necessarily a bad idea, but it's increasingly difficult to accept the oversimplified view of us as the golden, civilized, benevolent superpower with Russia as the black-coated opposite. What exactly have they done that is any different from the stuff we've pulled since 9/11?

As far as what Russia actually did during the election, this NYT piece is a nice summary. Here's the Cliff Notes version:

- Two hacking incidents have been traced to Russia though it is never stated that the Russian government was behind it: the DNC and John Podesta emails.
- It is presumed that Russia wanted Trump to win because Trump said nice things about Putin (which the NYT calls his "Russian connection"), and because Putin has complained about some of the stuff Hillary Clinton did as secretary of state.
- The FBI does not believe that the Russian government intentionally tried to interfere on Trump's behalf.

This last point may surprise you, but it's all there in the article and it's kind of hilarious to read:

And yet, there is skepticism within the American government, particularly at the F.B.I., that this evidence adds up to proof that the Russians had the specific objective of getting Mr. Trump elected...

The official played down any disagreement between the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and suggested that the C.I.A.’s conclusions were probably more nuanced than they were being framed in the news media....

The F.B.I. was concerned enough about Russia’s influence and possible connections to the Trump campaign that it briefed congressional leaders — including Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and Senate minority leader — on some of the evidence this summer and fall. Mr. Reid, in particular, pressed for the F.B.I. to find out more and charged that the agency was sitting on important information that could implicate Russia.

But the agency’s suspicions about a direct effort by Russia to help Mr. Trump, or about possible connections between the two camps, appear to have waned as the investigation continued into September and October. The reasons are not entirely clear, and F.B.I. officials declined to comment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/us/po ... dence.html

[dualstow]

And we don't shoot them in the street.

Sure we do. It's called drone attacks.
.

I should have said political opposition. I was specifically referring to Putin's own Russian-raised opponents in Russia. Like Nemtsov (shot in the street near the Kremlin), Kasparov (frequently arrested for demonstrating), and so on.

I understand that we ally ourselves with terrible people around the world all the time.
And, I understand that we commit our own terrible acts.
However, I feel comfortable that I can go out in the street (or on Twitter) and criticize Bush, Obama, even Trump to my heart's content without being arrested, beaten, shot or poisoned. As long as I obey the law, I've got freedom of speech, even more than the citizens of France or the Netherlands have.

I find it ironic that Snowden has found refuge in Russia, and I've got to give it to him- he's got king-sized balls for continuing to speak out, even against the Russian government, while in Russia. I hope he'll be alright. I lived over there in 1994. Think I'll stay here.

[dualstow]

But, don't forget, it was just 4 years ago that Republicans were in agreement that Russia was the U.S.'s #1 geopolitical foe. They ridiculed Obama's efforts at trying to improve relations. I'm sure charges of appeasement were tossed around.

ha! absolutely true

[WiseOne]

I feel comfortable that I can go out in the street (or on Twitter) and criticize Bush, Obama, even Trump to my heart's content without being arrested, beaten, shot or poisoned. As long as I obey the law, I've got freedom of speech, even more than the citizens of France or the Netherlands have.

I find it ironic that Snowden has found refuge in Russia, and I've got to give it to him- he's got king-sized balls for continuing to speak out, even against the Russian government, while in Russia. I hope he'll be alright. I lived over there in 1994. Think I'll stay here.

Ideally, you're right about all this, and you definitely would have been 20 years ago. I think some of that freedom has been eroded over the past 10-15 years. For example, you might not be beaten, shot or poisoned, but you could lose your job or be charged with a hate crime, depending on exactly what you said and who heard it. I don't know exactly when it happened, but it seems that the long-held standard for criminalizing speech of shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater has been mostly abandoned.

We've become more like Russia than I think we care to admit.

[Pointedstick]

WiseOne has a point. It might not be the government, but you can definitely be targeted and even attacked by your fellow citizens for your views depending on where you live and what those views are. I understand how this is materially different from the government doing it, either clandestinely or under color of law, but in the end, it's still a chilling effect and the danger of harm.

[dualstow]

No argument there.

[I Shrugged]

After the Trump honeymoon, at some point many conservatives' heads will be exploding.

But who really knows what he believes? I am bothered by the Russian hacking. If they were helping Hillary, the conservatives would be screaming for missile launches.