Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Russia hasn't gotten over being the Soviet Union

Russia hasn't gotten over being the Soviet Union much in the same way that the U.S. hasn't gotten over being the primary winner in World War II. Both countries have always been equally ethnocentric because of their size. The only country as ethnocentric as Russia and the U.S. is China. This is a problem with all really big countries. Though the people around the edges of big countries are aware of other nations, oceans etc. the people in the middle often live in their own little worlds that might have nothing at all to do with the rest of the world. The same is true in all three of these countries.

What is happening now through Putin is an echo of the past of the Soviet Union. In that world, the two primary powers in the world were the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

However, let us look at what actually caused the Soviet Union to collapse. What was it?

I can give you two easy answers to that question but they really are only the tip of the iceberg. The two easy answers for why the Soviet Union collapsed were the Soviet War in Afghanistan (sound famliar to what the U.S. is doing now?) and Chernobyl which is still uninhabitable all these years later:

Chernobyl disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
Wikipedia
The Chernobyl disaster (Ukrainian: Чорнобильська катастрофа, Chornobylska Katastrofa – Chornobyl Catastrophe; also referred as Chernobyl or Chornobyl ...

Soviet war in Afghanistan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan
Wikipedia
The Soviet war in Afghanistan lasted nine years from December 1979 to February 1989. Part of the Cold War, it was fought between Soviet-led Afghan forces ...

Soviet war in Afghanistan - Simple English Wikipedia, the free ...

simple.wikipedia.org/.../Soviet_war_in_Afgha...
Simple English Wikipedia
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a war initially fought between the forces of the Afghanistan government and foreign mercenaries. Without proper equipment ...
These two incidents were the main cause (in the end of the Soviet Union). The war in Afghanistan monetarily bankrupted the Soviet Union and the Chernobyl incident morally bankrupted the Soviet Union and so it collapsed in on itself and was replaced with a Democracy led by Yeltsin.

Boris Yeltsin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin
Wikipedia
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (Russian: Бори́с Никола́евич Е́льцин, IPA: [bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn] ( listen); 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a ...
However, the main problem as I see it with Russia at that point was that much like China is doing now, the people were not allowed to protest the complete and utter ecological devastation of their countries which eventually left Russia an ecological devastation to every form of life that still chose to live there. When the Soviet Union ended rivers often were set on fire from kerosene on their surfaces. In fact some people gathered the kerosene off of rivers to heat their homes when they could. If you trace back to National Geographic magazines and programs that documented the ecological devastation of the Soviet Union when Russia first formed you can see pictures and read about this. 
As a result of this the life expectancy in Russia is about 10 years on average less than in the U.S.
However, the highest life expectancy on earth is in Japan which is about 3 years more than in the U.S. on average.
Even China's life expectancy is still more than 3 years more than Russia at present partly because of this. However, because of China devastating it's ecology now like the Soviet Union did I expect China's overall life expectancy to drop from ecological devastation and other factors too. Even though in some areas life expectancy will in increase because of education regarding smoking and health habits and of choosing where it is healthiest (mentally and physically to live). Life expectancy for the wealthiest of the Chinese can only increase as they migrate to healthier places to live on Earth than China like Hawaii, the U.S., Switzerland and other places on earth. Also, wealthy Russians have left Russia for the most part to go to places like England, the U.S. Western Europe etc. rather than to shorten their lives where the ecology isn't safe to be generally speaking in many or most parts of Russia.
Putin finds himself in the middle of all this ecological devastation dreaming of the greatness of mother Russia during the days of Stalin, Kruschev and Breznev. IN fact when he was a young man still he was a KGB agent


Vladimir Putin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin
Wikipedia
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has been the President of Russia since 7 May 2012. He previously served as President from 2000 to 2008, and as Prime Minister of ...
begin partial quote from above:
"For 16 years Putin served as an officer in the KGB, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired to enter politics in his native Saint Petersburg in 1991. He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsin's administration where he rose quickly, becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999 when Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly. Putin won the subsequent 2000 presidential election and was re-elected in 2004. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term in 2008. Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008  
end partial quote from the Wikipedia section on Vladimir Putin. 
Since the fall of the Soviet Union Putin, I believe has been waiting to reinstate the best of the old Soviet Union back into the limelight. He isn't the only one that wants this either. I think there are many that want all of the "best" things they liked from the Soviet Union days reoccurring today.
However, the rest of the world likely isn't ready for that in much the same way the world wasn't ready for Hitler or Stalin.
So, unless the western world stands up in a useful way to Putin things are going to get pretty nasty in Europe for some time.
Also, Putin might see no reason to back down because the only way forward for him he might see as taking other countries sort of like a pirate and like Hitler did in 1940. In 1940 Hitler took over Denmark and Norway.

So, if Putin is following in Hitler's historical tracks likely this year he will take the Crimea (which he already has) and during the rest of this year he will take the rest of the Ukraine. Next year it likely will be another nearby country until someone stops him from taking over more and more countries.


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