Because I was born in 1948 within a year or two when the last Cold War began I think I can speak to this because I lived through the almost 50 years of terror living through this before.
When I look back and see the mistakes made on both sides the main mistake was 2 fold. One we always saw this war as "All Russians are going to die in this war" OR "All Americans and Russians are going to die in this war" OR All life on earth and earth itself will die in this war.
This traumatized both Russians, Americans and Europeans (as well as everyone else on earth to the extreme).
And many many people on their suicide notes between 1950 and 1991 as the main reason worldwide they were killing themselves because they couldn't stand the stress of waiting for this to happen anymore.
So, it was a world PTSD that was hundreds of times worse in it's own way worldwide than anything ISIS is doing now or that Russia is doing now in Ukraine. In fact, I must say that the Cold War damaged more people than World War II did psychologically to the point where they became dysfunctional worrying about it. However, World War II likely killed more people outright at a rate of 50 to 100 million people with 20 million dead (mostly from starvation) when the Germans invaded Soviet Russia.
However, not only Russians but also German soldiers starved and froze to death then too.
So, what I'm saying here is no one really got over "The whole Evil Empire thing" psychologically.
So, when the Soviet Union collapsed trying to compete with Free economies (which it couldn't successfully do) when they invaded Afghanistan and Chernobyl happened the Soviet Union just collapsed economically upon itself.
The world saw this as an opportunity but didn't really treat Russia in a good enough way economically for it to recover properly from what had happened. Then Yeltsin and one of his understudies, Putin, came on the scene which brings us to today.
However, Putin is not Yeltsin, Putin is like Hitler or STalin in the way he really thinks. Also, he is really pissed off about what happened to the Soviet Union and wants to take revenge on Europe and the U.S. for it's demise.
But, some of the things he is pissed off about are genuine (from a Russian Standpoint). In other words both Europe and the U.S. promised a lot of things to Russia that they never came through on. Then, Russians historically are not really a human rights (individual rights) kind of culture.
They are more like the Chinese in that they believe in order over human rights.
As Americans and Europeans we cannot understand this difference in a useful way where order is more important than human rights.
The point of view goes like this: "It is better that some of us survive than none of us survive!"
This is the basis of Order over rights.
If you understand this one thing then Both Russia and China are going to make a lot of sense to you.
If you don't get this one thing then neither of these countries are going to make any sense at all as a westerner from Europe, the U.S. , Canada or Australia or other parts of the world.
And this is why Putin said, "Assad will stay in power no matter what any Syrian says." Also, their only warm water port was in Syria, but now they have a warm water port in Crimea too, so this strategically changed the whole middle east for Russia and forcing Assad to stay in power militarily Russia created ISIS directly or indirectly.
This is a very simplistic view of all this but understanding these mechanisms in cultures allow one to begin to grasp the differences between the western world and Russia and China.
Later:
The other thing one needs to grasp about Russia is the "Be True to your Team!" kind of thinking. If all you have known is what you have known and America hasn't been depicted the way you and I living in the U.S. know it actually to be, then you don't have any idea what the U.S. is all about unless you have actually been here and gone to school or unless you have met some Americans (which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending upon what you as a Russian thought of those Americans).
But, one thing is likely sure if you are Raised in Russia, Americans would have surprised you because they wouldn't be as racist and anti-semitic as most people are in Russia starting with Putin.
Because Putin is sort of like the Macho kind of racist that was killing blacks (and any other ethnic group they didn't like including Jewish people) in the 1950s in the South of the U.S.
He is a throwback to the killers of black and gay and Jewish people of those times.
So, the first thing you would notice is that American people are a lot less openly racist than in Russia. In other words it is politically correct if you are a racist in the U.S. not to show it openly.
However, in Putin's case the opposite is true. He lets his racist colors fly and thinks Obama is a derogatory word for a black person.
This is also something to understand about Putin too, along with many many Russian people. They are a lot like Conservative Republicans and Conservative Democrats were in the South in the 1950s. They had no trouble at all telling people their feelings even on the TV.
So, talking about hating ethnic groups and killing ethnic groups was openly done then in the south to some degree and the same is true of Putin now. This includes rubbing out Gay and Lesbian people too.
Understanding this kind of thinking allows you to see how violent a person Putin actually is. He is also responsible for the deaths of at least 250,000 Chechens as well in the Chechen Wars.
This is no lightweight and to underestimate his brutality is to be pretty ridiculous as a person.
So, who is scarier? Al Baghdadi of ISIS or Putin?
Putin is 1000s of times scarier than Al Baghdadi of ISIS because he could blow up the whole world and all life upon it without even blinking an eye with the nuclear weapons he has. This is how scary Putin actually is to the world.
So, without fully understanding what the U.S. and Europe did wrong by not honoring their commitments since 1991 will backfire very soon in a nuclear confrontation unless we get our western world acts together.
It is now about the survival of all life on earth.
And the only way we are all going to survive is to understand better what Putin wants for Russia. Otherwise, if we only see things from a western viewpoint we all are going to be dead soon.
Because this is just who Putin is right now.
Will he stay like this?
Probably not. But, underestimating the man now will kill all life on earth. IT is now we have to survive. We are not in the future just yet.
We in the West see in a very ethnocentric way based upon the propaganda we all listened to from World War II until 1991. However, it hasn't entirely ended and this is a part of the problem we all are facing now. Without more understanding of how upset and feeling harmed Russians often feel this cannot be resolved.
Putin is like a Tiger backed into a corner. The more backed into a corner he feels the more likely he will nuke the world and end all life upon it rather than to see Russia fall economically. This is the way things are right now. What they will change to within 5 to 10 years is anyone's guess at this point?
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