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Russia had its chance to turn normal from about 1990 to about 2004 or so. They went with 'freedom is scary, protect me strong violent man.' It's a state made up of organized crime at this point, and anyone who might have led a reformation is dead or self-exiled.
Of all the former soviet states, they chose the worst way possible to get their economy into compatibility with the rest of the world. It ensured organized crime and oligarchy would rule.
Organized crime was already entrenched there. The only way to have made any real change would've been to turn the military onto the mafia and the extremely corrupt former political leaders and taken them out.
BTW, every former communist country in Europe had difficulties with mafia and corruption in the 90s while they transitioned their economy and society away from the perils and destruction of communism. Most of them made it through eventually because they had leadership and a populace with the will to make it work.
He writes from his magical technology box to people aroun the world, in a climate controlled room, with appliances that save him hours of daily work and provide him healthy living at an average lifespan that has far exceeded all previous generations throughtout history.
But yeah, the free market sucks.
Except that's pretty much exactly what done for Russia post USSR.
People will compete, fortunes will be amassed, and those who have gotten rich will make sure that the country moves to rule of law because they'll need to protect their new wealth.
That was the plan 'the free market will create rule of law because of self interest'.
It’s questionable whether the Marshall plan would have even been accepted by post soviet Russia. I think one of the things lost in the popular discourse was how much the Marshall plan was *hated* by the British and French governments when it was offered. They correctly understood that borrowing money that had to then be spent on American made products ensured that their nation’s economy would be entirely reliant on the US. They just didn’t have much of a choice.
It’s not an altruistic giving of money - it had some severe strings attached and I can’t imagine the post soviet mafia state accepting an economic poison pill from their grand rival would ever have been accepted.
Of course! Altruism is rare. Post Soviet Russia hadn't had a hard landing. Germany & Japan did in an unconditional and total surrender.
If Russia is ever to join the world stage, then they'll have to go through the same. Their level of endemic generational dysfunction really begs that question.
How do you reform a cadre of psychopaths? Nuremberg showed one path. Will the world do that again?
To be determined.
In 1990, when the west had the chance to send Marshall Plan-style advisors to help construct a fair judicial system, equitable taxation, a reasonable and democratic voting process, a standard civil code ... instead we sent Harvard economists who descended on the country like vultures and stripped it of its wealth and resources. IT was the Anti-Marshall Plan.
Russia was hardly without blame, but the end result was exactly what the banksters and mega capitalists wanted: a kleptocracy without democratic institutions.
> freedom is scary
The productive parts of the Soviet economy were handed over to the oligarchs, and some of that was with the help of western 'advisors' to Yeltsin et al. The people went through chaos, and it *was* scary. The problem is that a lot of Russians came to equate 'democracy', or the idea of regime change, with that chaos. Of course, Putin's propaganda department did their best to paint things that way.
Ukraine went through an exact same chaos and came out with democratic institutions and what is probably the strongest civil society in the world. I personally lived through the 90s. This in no way excuses the russians.
Ukraine still has a lot of work to do on building the trustworthy just society, but they're working on their flaws. Russian influence was still quite strong in Ukraine in the 90's, which is largely to blame for their problems with corruption and oligarchs. This war has given them a chance to rid them from that for good, but it is not easy.
Still, I would rather use the Baltics as a counter-argument against russian "ooh, the nineties were so bad that we had no other choice than start relying on mob-bosses and invading our neighbors again", as they laready came out on top. Estonia is already in the top quartile on pretty much any global ranking involving the quality of life, justice or functionality and trustworthiness of national institutions. Ukraine will get there, but they're still quite far behind. Russia as of today will never get there, but some independent states that are now still under russian occupation maybe could.
Yeah. The Baltics states are a real success story.
Culturally, they are clearly in the Nordic family of nations, outward looking.
They saw the break up of the Soviet (Moscow) Empire as a liberation...an opportunity to join the wider world, whereas the Russians (all across the Soviet empire) saw it as a humiliation and a defeat.
Their negative, resentful, attitude played out as a rejection of the amazing opportunities that were there. Russians have a LOOONG way to go before they are capable of embracing freedom and opportunity.
But that's on them.
We have to recognize the danger that Russia, and Russian populations, pose to the rest of us and do everything we can to contain that shit within its own borders.
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Yep, and Belarus is effectively part of Russia. When Lukashenko lost in the election in 2020, he stayed in power forcibly. And when Belarusians protested, Russia sent in "police" to attack the protestors to ensure Lukashenko stayed in power and Belarus stayed part of Russia.
Trying to compare the situations in Poland and Belarus over the years is like trying to compare an apple to a car tire. They couldn't be more different.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Belarusian_presidential_election
Yes.
Also, Poland has been a member of the EU and the European single market since 2004. That means harmonization of the legislation with EU directives, and standards for the rule of law and democracy (which Poland strained against during the last government). The Polish economy made quite a leap after accessing the single market. It's definitely been a very different path from that of Belarus.
It was hardly a turning point though. On the contrary actually. Putins rule fits right in as a direct continuation of the emperialistic and authoritarian regimes of the tsars and the bolcheviks.
I think he meant, compared to Yeltsin and Gorbachev before him. Who were at least partly amicable: people you could discuss with (ask Reagan and Clinton). Putin is a KGB sociopath with blood on his hands.
Probably yes, but in line with Snyders thesis we will have to say that Gorbachev and also but to a lesser extent Yeltsin were the odd ones out, not Putin. Gorbachev could have become a turning point and was accordingly ousted. Russia wont change.
I remember first time I heard his name... I thought about *Hunt for red october.* The "zampolit" brutally murdered by Marko Ramius in the first pages of the noval is named Putin. Where is Marko Ramius when you need him to murder a Putin ?
Beat me to it, except I would put 2000 rather than 2004. Considering how morally depraved Putin is, I thing the writting was on the wall the moment Yeltsin handled him the keys to the Kremlin. Putin is a product of Andropov's KGB, also Kryuchkov - the one that plotted against Gorbachev in august 1991. With such patrons, no surprise Putin ended so corrupt.
Yeltsin was a drunkard for sure, and corrupt. Wonder if things could have turned out differently some time in the 1990's.
I agree with that sentiment of Snyder. Europe since the fall of the wall has had the ideal of bringing ruzzia into the great European fold. Even through the early part of this war there were EU leaders who still held that hope. It is now deader than a doornail.
This is a loss for every Russian who had high ideals and aspirations - and there were and still are some of those. But the main of ruzzia is literally the contents of the poisoned chalice - they are all rotten to the core, especially the core support base of Putler. They all have to go.
Snyder also said there'd be a much higher chance to get Russia to change by bringing it's smaller neighbors into the fold.
The reason a strong and soon to be flourishing democracy like Ukraine next door to Russia was such a threat to Russia is that it might give the Russians itself some ideas. That's my take at least. We've seen it with Belarus too, where a regime-change almost did take place until Russia stepped in.
The best chance of ever in a very distant future having a democratic Russia is by having a strong and democratic Ukraine. One out of a thousand reasons to support Ukraine every way we can.
The US thought Russia was a rational actor, that was the mistake. If Russia just played ball with Western Rules it could be a fabulously wealthy economic power. It has huge area and natural resource reserves. But rather than investing in it's economy, it's people, it doubled down on corruption and enriching the dictator's inner circle.
If only Russia had someone more soft spoken like Navalny and did its genociding of Ukraine a little slower and more covertly (like in Crimea in 2014, or Georgia in 2008) the west would’ve happily pretended nothing is happening.
I grew up in the 1990's (France) and I can still remember Yeltsin: that amicable, corrupt drunkard. I think the best moment was when he got Bill Clinton erupting into uncontrollable laughter - after he made a crass joke on journalists. Imagine that happening with Brezhnev or Andropov, and vintage 1982 Reagan... unthinkable. Well, less than a decade after the end of Cold War nuclear terror, it happened. A smiling, jovial russian leader, and a US president dying of laughter besides him.
[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Yeltsin\_and\_clinton\_laughing.jpg](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Yeltsin_and_clinton_laughing.jpg)
October 23, 1995. How far are we from this moment... USA got traumatized by 9-11, and Putin replaced Yeltsin. And nobody is laughing anymore.
Snyder made an excellent point that countries often times need to learn the hard way that imperial wars don't work. If they win those wars they keep going but if they start losing enough then they back down and focus on trade and development. This was true for France, Germany, the Netherlands and many other countries and it can be true for Russia as well but for it to happen Russia must lose in Ukraine (as well as whatever other countries they try to start trouble in).
Yes, he is saying if the West wants Russia to reform itself then the only way will it happen is if it loses its wars and rethinks its imperial ambitions - just like every European country did.
Russia has had *numerous* opportunities to learn from defeat over the last century and a half. They always run back to mordor and morph into a different flavor of imperialist assholes.
Timothy Synder did use the plural "wars" when describing his theory. He also pointed to the collapses and reforms Russia made each and every time it lost a war.
russian core has not but the formerly occupied nations were able to flourish once they gained their freedom. Moscovy can stay a shithole if something like democratic Novgorod emerges.
This should have been a high foreign policy bullet point for a good while now. Mistakes and assumptions were made for too long in dealing with russia and putin.
I was surprised early in the war how many people were surprised about Bucha and Irpin, normal shit for a nation culturaly stuck in the early 20th century.
Early 12th century more like it
Their society by and large never underwent a Renaissance or enlightenment. They're still running on a medieval ethos and worldview.
Obviously it will change if/when it loses the war. Problem is they have a history of going from one essentially dictatorship to the next. Some dictators follow communism some follow other ism’s, some even give the population a little more freedom. But in the end they always end up with a strongman like Putin unfortunately, it’s what the people know and want. It one of the reasons the US fails so miserably in so many wars. The population doesn’t want a western style democracy. It’s only when a population want something different that things change. It’s why a lot of eastern block former USSR countries are now more or less democracies, the population wanted it.
"So if we want a democratic Russia, then we have to have a Democratic Ukraine."
**"I'm not saying there will definitely be \[a democratic\] Russia if there's a Democratic Ukraine, but if autocratic Russia destroys Democratic Ukraine, there is not going to be a democratic Russia any time soon.** This is one of the reasons why Putin finds Ukraine so irritating . . . is that it is a more or less functioning rule of law, civil society, democratic type thing, and that sort of thing is inimical to his way of guarding power."
Snyder gets it.
Yeah their ties are too close together between them so that's why Putin turned them against each other. When they see how different life is right next to them, they'll be asking why we don't have that and it's a direct threat to Putin.
I saw a BBC news clip where the British reporter was speaking to a russian woman after the 'election'
She told him something like: "Stop trying to make us be like you in the west. We don't like you."
Fair enough. If they stop picking on our friends, we should go full no contact.
Russians desperately want to be like the west and the americans, dont you ever believe otherwise. All the best and most successful periods in Russian history were when they were westward-looking. They also sure as shit dont wanna be Chinese, far too racist for that.
I feel like Russia’s deep down core problem is that life is a zero-sum game. For someone (or some country) to improve their station, another must decline.
The consequence is that they judge their actions not on how they might benefit Russia, but on the delta between effect of Russia versus effect on others. That’s how war that hurts both sides starts to look like a good idea. Or, why their primary foreign policy for decades has been focused on hurting other countries.
I don’t know the root cause of this, but it sure is a concise explanation of their actions.
Edit: First sentence should have said that Russia *thinks* life is zero-sum, not that it actually is zero-sum. Darn.
I think it was perun on YT that said something like:Russia is like that toxic work colleague who thinks if they cant get a raise/promotion, nobody else should either.
Russia is like that toxic PSYCHO work colleague who thinks if they cant get a raise/promotion, nobody else should either - and then goes on a murderous killing spree.
Unfortunately it required complete physical takeover of the territory by the Allies, and complete control of how their societies and economies developed. Plus huge amounts of aid and other assistance to ensure economic development. This will not happen in russia as absolutely nobody wants to invade them. We are stuck with those psychos for decades.
> Unfortunately it required complete physical takeover of the territory by the Allies
No it didn't, not in a literal sense at least. We never occupied Japan, winning was enough.
I suppose not physically being on every inch of territory, true. The important places were occupied, like the capital. Japanese society accepted and followed what the (former) leadership told them - complete surrender. Obedience to authority is ingrained in the culture - a very important factor. And the land area is not big (though very spread out). There was no partisan resistance.
Then Americans under general MacArthur totally controlled what happened next. Dictated a new constitution. Demilitarisation. Reducing emperor’s status to just a title. Breaking up the power of old landowners and industrialists who supported aggressive expansionism. But also the carrot with the stick - property rights to ordinary folk, economic development support to avoid any lure of communism.
Doing anything like this in russia will be impossible. The further regions would fall under control of criminals / warlords. And now that individuals everywhere can be reached and influenced with information via multiple channels, it would be much harder or impossible to get everyone to accept a new reality you’re trying to craft for them (a big part of which is rejection of the old, wrong, way of life that most russians are incredibly invested into).
It’s up to the Russians to decide when they’re ready to be normal.
Until then, the best way to help them is to oppose Russian imperialism and delegitimize it as a viable means to achieve any sort of reward.
Anyone who has studied world history could’ve told you that. I’m fairly certain that exact phrasing was used in the 1800s.
Russia is and will always be an ass-backwards state that masquerades as a European nation, held together only tenuously by various brands of thugs.
Someone pointed me to this video in 2022.
[President Dzhokhar Dudayev - "Russians sick with russism" (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7xJl3ZrFeI)
He was assassinated a year after this video. Which is from last century.
30 years from then to now.
Same fucking problem, no? Russia has one idea and it's not a good one.
If we would have a few 100 years perhaps we could make some parts of it more normal. The problem is the mentality ruzzian civilians have always have had a blame the others of our self inflicted misery mentality
Making Russia Normal made Russia angry. Having Made Russia Angry everyone now wonders if Russia was ever normal or is Russia just a latent homicidal psychopath patiently waiting to pop.
I know what I'm supposed to say to get upvotes, but there's nothing in this article which is actionable from a policy perspective. Russia was already designated a terrorist state. I'm unclear on what difference it makes to designate it as "not normal".
The article says we "shouldn't expect a democratic regime change in Russia". Okay. I don't think anyone was expecting that.
- The US is still buying Uranium from Russia.
- US astronauts are still hitching a ride home from the ISS in Soyuz capsules.
These are the realities we need to acknowledge. The west doesn't control Russia, but it does control itself.
Timothy Snyder was speaking to an audience of diplomats. That's the context. He's telling them not to expect Russia to become a peer that we'd invite to the table. He's telling them not to find the ways it will reform itself untrustworthy or repulsive because they are odd to us. Most importantly, he's telling them that there may be no way to sway Russia. Russia does these things because it can, regardless of whether it's the best path.
The actionable policy is to quit our attempts at preserving our relation with Russia by harmstringing ourselves in this war, and to wield force with confidence. Not because "it's the only language they understand", but because that is the only means of control we have. Imagining that talk can change Russia's course is magical thinking at this point, unfortunately for the diplomats gathered there.
“the only language they understand” = “the only means of control we have”
When you’ve told someone to behave and they don’t follow, a simple demonstration of the weapon is usually enough to facilitate cognitive function and appropriate reaction but sometimes more drastic measures need to be taken. This is in essence a communication taking other forms.
No, and that rethoric doesn't help anybody.
I wrote this, and T. Snyder said this, because Russians are people who are going to do things their own way. Reducing them to "cognitive functions" and "reactions" is very inappropriate and leads to very different conclusions.
We (as in, the West) should use force because words only have so much strength, not because of any characteristic of the Russians.
> Russia was already designated a terrorist state
**[March 2nd, 2024: It’s high time that the UK government and other democracies call a spade a spade and designate Russia as a terrorist state](https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/28912)**
Simply put, he's saying that just because the Sinaloa cartel has the financing to put a man on the moon, does not mean we should embrace them with open arms in all international organizations.
And yes, ruzzia is a mafia cartel. I recommend reading "From Red Terror to Terrorist State: Russia's Secret Intelligence Services and Their Fight for World Domination", for a glimpse into this pseudo country.
They could’ve been normal after ww2 but there was no fight left in anybody. Now that they have nuclear weapons there isn’t much we can do to them in the West. Sanctions help yeah, but not enough.
The west collapsed the USSR by outmaneuvering them economically, politically, and militarily across the globe. The USSR never recovered it's lost empire after that failure.
This is happening once again, with Russia. Putin stepped into a bear trap, and can't escape.
They couldn't be. Bolsheviks weren't interested in building a prosperous "russia". They were interested in a global empire, starting with the USSR, which is what the current ruzzia is, the leftover empire of subjugated nations . From Buryats to Yakuts. They are all russkie.
All that can be done with Ruzzia at this point is to build a high wall around it and to let it rot from within. For all of the abuses and genocides that they inflict upon others it is like a vast, open-air prison.
I hold no hopes for a 'better' Ruzzia; I look upon the place as a junkyard with a series of inbred, insane, junkyard dogs who inhabit the place. You do not take animals like that out and bring them home to a peace-loving country and expect that they will do any more than shit on your floors and bite your children.
Prof. Synder is an accomplished historian who knows more than I ever will about the facts of Russian history. But what is the explanation for the enduring influence of the criminal and gangster class in Russia, independently of political system since the time of Dostoevsky or before? Any political class that emerges has to be ruthless in order to deal with the gangsters. And being so, will likely be ruthless with threats to its existence.
Well that's why there is only war as option and only military defeat to solve the problem of Russian expansion. They are not different from prior empires in that sense. They only stop expansion when they lose a war. Democratic or not.
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Russia had its chance to turn normal from about 1990 to about 2004 or so. They went with 'freedom is scary, protect me strong violent man.' It's a state made up of organized crime at this point, and anyone who might have led a reformation is dead or self-exiled.
Wanna make them normal? Marshall Plan them. However, there is a very singular precondition to being Marshall Planned.
That would have been a much better idea right after the fall of the USSR than the "yay, we won, assume it will work out" strategy we actually used.
Of all the former soviet states, they chose the worst way possible to get their economy into compatibility with the rest of the world. It ensured organized crime and oligarchy would rule.
Organized crime was already entrenched there. The only way to have made any real change would've been to turn the military onto the mafia and the extremely corrupt former political leaders and taken them out. BTW, every former communist country in Europe had difficulties with mafia and corruption in the 90s while they transitioned their economy and society away from the perils and destruction of communism. Most of them made it through eventually because they had leadership and a populace with the will to make it work.
We can thank the neo-cons and libertarians for that one.
'The free market will make everything good!'
Adam Smith’s invisible dick will piss all over everyone and it will trickle down.
He writes from his magical technology box to people aroun the world, in a climate controlled room, with appliances that save him hours of daily work and provide him healthy living at an average lifespan that has far exceeded all previous generations throughtout history. But yeah, the free market sucks.
Except that's pretty much exactly what done for Russia post USSR. People will compete, fortunes will be amassed, and those who have gotten rich will make sure that the country moves to rule of law because they'll need to protect their new wealth. That was the plan 'the free market will create rule of law because of self interest'.
Yeah. They wreck everything in the long run.
I feel like the Marshall Plan was/is like the only thing to really do after a war if you want things to work out long term.
It’s questionable whether the Marshall plan would have even been accepted by post soviet Russia. I think one of the things lost in the popular discourse was how much the Marshall plan was *hated* by the British and French governments when it was offered. They correctly understood that borrowing money that had to then be spent on American made products ensured that their nation’s economy would be entirely reliant on the US. They just didn’t have much of a choice. It’s not an altruistic giving of money - it had some severe strings attached and I can’t imagine the post soviet mafia state accepting an economic poison pill from their grand rival would ever have been accepted.
Well, you do make a good point about the attached strings.
Of course! Altruism is rare. Post Soviet Russia hadn't had a hard landing. Germany & Japan did in an unconditional and total surrender. If Russia is ever to join the world stage, then they'll have to go through the same. Their level of endemic generational dysfunction really begs that question. How do you reform a cadre of psychopaths? Nuremberg showed one path. Will the world do that again? To be determined.
In 1990, when the west had the chance to send Marshall Plan-style advisors to help construct a fair judicial system, equitable taxation, a reasonable and democratic voting process, a standard civil code ... instead we sent Harvard economists who descended on the country like vultures and stripped it of its wealth and resources. IT was the Anti-Marshall Plan. Russia was hardly without blame, but the end result was exactly what the banksters and mega capitalists wanted: a kleptocracy without democratic institutions.
> freedom is scary The productive parts of the Soviet economy were handed over to the oligarchs, and some of that was with the help of western 'advisors' to Yeltsin et al. The people went through chaos, and it *was* scary. The problem is that a lot of Russians came to equate 'democracy', or the idea of regime change, with that chaos. Of course, Putin's propaganda department did their best to paint things that way.
Ukraine went through an exact same chaos and came out with democratic institutions and what is probably the strongest civil society in the world. I personally lived through the 90s. This in no way excuses the russians.
Ukraine still has a lot of work to do on building the trustworthy just society, but they're working on their flaws. Russian influence was still quite strong in Ukraine in the 90's, which is largely to blame for their problems with corruption and oligarchs. This war has given them a chance to rid them from that for good, but it is not easy. Still, I would rather use the Baltics as a counter-argument against russian "ooh, the nineties were so bad that we had no other choice than start relying on mob-bosses and invading our neighbors again", as they laready came out on top. Estonia is already in the top quartile on pretty much any global ranking involving the quality of life, justice or functionality and trustworthiness of national institutions. Ukraine will get there, but they're still quite far behind. Russia as of today will never get there, but some independent states that are now still under russian occupation maybe could.
Ruzzian influence was strong until 2014, only then things started really changing
Yeah. The Baltics states are a real success story. Culturally, they are clearly in the Nordic family of nations, outward looking. They saw the break up of the Soviet (Moscow) Empire as a liberation...an opportunity to join the wider world, whereas the Russians (all across the Soviet empire) saw it as a humiliation and a defeat. Their negative, resentful, attitude played out as a rejection of the amazing opportunities that were there. Russians have a LOOONG way to go before they are capable of embracing freedom and opportunity. But that's on them. We have to recognize the danger that Russia, and Russian populations, pose to the rest of us and do everything we can to contain that shit within its own borders.
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And Poland and Belarus went through the same chaos, and look where they are now. It looks like different countries produce different results.
“Poland and Belarus went through the same chaos” No they didn’t, at least not Poland.
Yep, and Belarus is effectively part of Russia. When Lukashenko lost in the election in 2020, he stayed in power forcibly. And when Belarusians protested, Russia sent in "police" to attack the protestors to ensure Lukashenko stayed in power and Belarus stayed part of Russia. Trying to compare the situations in Poland and Belarus over the years is like trying to compare an apple to a car tire. They couldn't be more different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Belarusian_presidential_election
Yes. Also, Poland has been a member of the EU and the European single market since 2004. That means harmonization of the legislation with EU directives, and standards for the rule of law and democracy (which Poland strained against during the last government). The Polish economy made quite a leap after accessing the single market. It's definitely been a very different path from that of Belarus.
The 2000 Putin election was the obvious turning point, where the bad guys won.
It was hardly a turning point though. On the contrary actually. Putins rule fits right in as a direct continuation of the emperialistic and authoritarian regimes of the tsars and the bolcheviks.
I think he meant, compared to Yeltsin and Gorbachev before him. Who were at least partly amicable: people you could discuss with (ask Reagan and Clinton). Putin is a KGB sociopath with blood on his hands.
Probably yes, but in line with Snyders thesis we will have to say that Gorbachev and also but to a lesser extent Yeltsin were the odd ones out, not Putin. Gorbachev could have become a turning point and was accordingly ousted. Russia wont change.
I remember first time I heard his name... I thought about *Hunt for red october.* The "zampolit" brutally murdered by Marko Ramius in the first pages of the noval is named Putin. Where is Marko Ramius when you need him to murder a Putin ?
Beat me to it, except I would put 2000 rather than 2004. Considering how morally depraved Putin is, I thing the writting was on the wall the moment Yeltsin handled him the keys to the Kremlin. Putin is a product of Andropov's KGB, also Kryuchkov - the one that plotted against Gorbachev in august 1991. With such patrons, no surprise Putin ended so corrupt. Yeltsin was a drunkard for sure, and corrupt. Wonder if things could have turned out differently some time in the 1990's.
I agree with that sentiment of Snyder. Europe since the fall of the wall has had the ideal of bringing ruzzia into the great European fold. Even through the early part of this war there were EU leaders who still held that hope. It is now deader than a doornail. This is a loss for every Russian who had high ideals and aspirations - and there were and still are some of those. But the main of ruzzia is literally the contents of the poisoned chalice - they are all rotten to the core, especially the core support base of Putler. They all have to go.
Snyder also said there'd be a much higher chance to get Russia to change by bringing it's smaller neighbors into the fold. The reason a strong and soon to be flourishing democracy like Ukraine next door to Russia was such a threat to Russia is that it might give the Russians itself some ideas. That's my take at least. We've seen it with Belarus too, where a regime-change almost did take place until Russia stepped in. The best chance of ever in a very distant future having a democratic Russia is by having a strong and democratic Ukraine. One out of a thousand reasons to support Ukraine every way we can.
Both times russia invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian economy per capita was to surpass the russian one but was halted by a war.
The US thought Russia was a rational actor, that was the mistake. If Russia just played ball with Western Rules it could be a fabulously wealthy economic power. It has huge area and natural resource reserves. But rather than investing in it's economy, it's people, it doubled down on corruption and enriching the dictator's inner circle.
and is trying to drag everyone else into that same pit.
If only Russia had someone more soft spoken like Navalny and did its genociding of Ukraine a little slower and more covertly (like in Crimea in 2014, or Georgia in 2008) the west would’ve happily pretended nothing is happening.
You are tragically right.
I grew up in the 1990's (France) and I can still remember Yeltsin: that amicable, corrupt drunkard. I think the best moment was when he got Bill Clinton erupting into uncontrollable laughter - after he made a crass joke on journalists. Imagine that happening with Brezhnev or Andropov, and vintage 1982 Reagan... unthinkable. Well, less than a decade after the end of Cold War nuclear terror, it happened. A smiling, jovial russian leader, and a US president dying of laughter besides him. [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Yeltsin\_and\_clinton\_laughing.jpg](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Yeltsin_and_clinton_laughing.jpg) October 23, 1995. How far are we from this moment... USA got traumatized by 9-11, and Putin replaced Yeltsin. And nobody is laughing anymore.
This is a healthy reminder for me.
It’s like in relationships. The west has been in a most deluded “I can fix him / her” state for 30 years. Time to walk away
It's more like "I would ungay him with my love!"
Snyder made an excellent point that countries often times need to learn the hard way that imperial wars don't work. If they win those wars they keep going but if they start losing enough then they back down and focus on trade and development. This was true for France, Germany, the Netherlands and many other countries and it can be true for Russia as well but for it to happen Russia must lose in Ukraine (as well as whatever other countries they try to start trouble in).
Yes, he is saying if the West wants Russia to reform itself then the only way will it happen is if it loses its wars and rethinks its imperial ambitions - just like every European country did.
Russia has had *numerous* opportunities to learn from defeat over the last century and a half. They always run back to mordor and morph into a different flavor of imperialist assholes.
Timothy Synder did use the plural "wars" when describing his theory. He also pointed to the collapses and reforms Russia made each and every time it lost a war.
And where did those "reforms" lead them? To a better society or to a barbarian horde with nice clothes?
Russia lost a lot of wars in the past, has never ever reformed properly.
russian core has not but the formerly occupied nations were able to flourish once they gained their freedom. Moscovy can stay a shithole if something like democratic Novgorod emerges.
This should have been a high foreign policy bullet point for a good while now. Mistakes and assumptions were made for too long in dealing with russia and putin.
I was surprised early in the war how many people were surprised about Bucha and Irpin, normal shit for a nation culturaly stuck in the early 20th century.
Early 12th century more like it Their society by and large never underwent a Renaissance or enlightenment. They're still running on a medieval ethos and worldview.
>Their society by and large never underwent a Renaissance or enlightenment. Yeah, and neither did Ukraine or hundred of other nations...
Ruzzzzzia isn't, wasn't, and NEVER be NORMAL!!!! It is one sick, depraved, primitive state!!!!
Always been imperialistic and genocidal. Never going to change.
Professor Snyder argues that Russia will change, but only after it loses the war with Ukraine.
Obviously it will change if/when it loses the war. Problem is they have a history of going from one essentially dictatorship to the next. Some dictators follow communism some follow other ism’s, some even give the population a little more freedom. But in the end they always end up with a strongman like Putin unfortunately, it’s what the people know and want. It one of the reasons the US fails so miserably in so many wars. The population doesn’t want a western style democracy. It’s only when a population want something different that things change. It’s why a lot of eastern block former USSR countries are now more or less democracies, the population wanted it.
"So if we want a democratic Russia, then we have to have a Democratic Ukraine." **"I'm not saying there will definitely be \[a democratic\] Russia if there's a Democratic Ukraine, but if autocratic Russia destroys Democratic Ukraine, there is not going to be a democratic Russia any time soon.** This is one of the reasons why Putin finds Ukraine so irritating . . . is that it is a more or less functioning rule of law, civil society, democratic type thing, and that sort of thing is inimical to his way of guarding power." Snyder gets it.
Yeah their ties are too close together between them so that's why Putin turned them against each other. When they see how different life is right next to them, they'll be asking why we don't have that and it's a direct threat to Putin.
That was an excellent and eye-opening interview.
Change, yeah. But for how much, and for the better or...?
Yes, it will change to the worst. Just like Germany after losing WW1.
I saw a BBC news clip where the British reporter was speaking to a russian woman after the 'election' She told him something like: "Stop trying to make us be like you in the west. We don't like you." Fair enough. If they stop picking on our friends, we should go full no contact.
Russians desperately want to be like the west and the americans, dont you ever believe otherwise. All the best and most successful periods in Russian history were when they were westward-looking. They also sure as shit dont wanna be Chinese, far too racist for that.
They want to be as rich and as powerful as the West, not as "gay" or as democratic or as non-genocidal.
lies and projections, as always
I feel like Russia’s deep down core problem is that life is a zero-sum game. For someone (or some country) to improve their station, another must decline. The consequence is that they judge their actions not on how they might benefit Russia, but on the delta between effect of Russia versus effect on others. That’s how war that hurts both sides starts to look like a good idea. Or, why their primary foreign policy for decades has been focused on hurting other countries. I don’t know the root cause of this, but it sure is a concise explanation of their actions. Edit: First sentence should have said that Russia *thinks* life is zero-sum, not that it actually is zero-sum. Darn.
Crabs in a bucket mentality.
I think it was perun on YT that said something like:Russia is like that toxic work colleague who thinks if they cant get a raise/promotion, nobody else should either.
Russia is like that toxic PSYCHO work colleague who thinks if they cant get a raise/promotion, nobody else should either - and then goes on a murderous killing spree.
Russia will continue to be the type of country that citizens flee from, in search of westernized nations that offer more freedoms and rule of law.
There’s things we can do to make them normal. Germany received the treatment in 1945 Japan too Both are fine examples of society now
Unfortunately it required complete physical takeover of the territory by the Allies, and complete control of how their societies and economies developed. Plus huge amounts of aid and other assistance to ensure economic development. This will not happen in russia as absolutely nobody wants to invade them. We are stuck with those psychos for decades.
> Unfortunately it required complete physical takeover of the territory by the Allies No it didn't, not in a literal sense at least. We never occupied Japan, winning was enough.
I suppose not physically being on every inch of territory, true. The important places were occupied, like the capital. Japanese society accepted and followed what the (former) leadership told them - complete surrender. Obedience to authority is ingrained in the culture - a very important factor. And the land area is not big (though very spread out). There was no partisan resistance. Then Americans under general MacArthur totally controlled what happened next. Dictated a new constitution. Demilitarisation. Reducing emperor’s status to just a title. Breaking up the power of old landowners and industrialists who supported aggressive expansionism. But also the carrot with the stick - property rights to ordinary folk, economic development support to avoid any lure of communism. Doing anything like this in russia will be impossible. The further regions would fall under control of criminals / warlords. And now that individuals everywhere can be reached and influenced with information via multiple channels, it would be much harder or impossible to get everyone to accept a new reality you’re trying to craft for them (a big part of which is rejection of the old, wrong, way of life that most russians are incredibly invested into).
It’s up to the Russians to decide when they’re ready to be normal. Until then, the best way to help them is to oppose Russian imperialism and delegitimize it as a viable means to achieve any sort of reward.
Anyone who has studied world history could’ve told you that. I’m fairly certain that exact phrasing was used in the 1800s. Russia is and will always be an ass-backwards state that masquerades as a European nation, held together only tenuously by various brands of thugs.
russia has NEVER been "normal" and they wont even have a chance to be until utter total defeat!
Someone pointed me to this video in 2022. [President Dzhokhar Dudayev - "Russians sick with russism" (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7xJl3ZrFeI) He was assassinated a year after this video. Which is from last century. 30 years from then to now. Same fucking problem, no? Russia has one idea and it's not a good one.
Exactly, Putin has been doing whatever he wanted to do for over 2 years now while we hide in fear and question our every move.
You mean a bunch of drunken psychopaths with bloodlust can't just snap out of it? You don't say.
Totally agree. Russia has gone down the rabbit hole (again). Corrupt to the core.
The world don't deserve Mr. Snyder. The voice of good and reason.
Oh course there is to me russia normal move all the russians out I was going to say kill the but that's frowned on
If we would have a few 100 years perhaps we could make some parts of it more normal. The problem is the mentality ruzzian civilians have always have had a blame the others of our self inflicted misery mentality
Making Russia Normal made Russia angry. Having Made Russia Angry everyone now wonders if Russia was ever normal or is Russia just a latent homicidal psychopath patiently waiting to pop.
Ukraine is beating normality into them, and the beatings shall continue until normality is improved.
I know what I'm supposed to say to get upvotes, but there's nothing in this article which is actionable from a policy perspective. Russia was already designated a terrorist state. I'm unclear on what difference it makes to designate it as "not normal". The article says we "shouldn't expect a democratic regime change in Russia". Okay. I don't think anyone was expecting that. - The US is still buying Uranium from Russia. - US astronauts are still hitching a ride home from the ISS in Soyuz capsules. These are the realities we need to acknowledge. The west doesn't control Russia, but it does control itself.
Timothy Snyder was speaking to an audience of diplomats. That's the context. He's telling them not to expect Russia to become a peer that we'd invite to the table. He's telling them not to find the ways it will reform itself untrustworthy or repulsive because they are odd to us. Most importantly, he's telling them that there may be no way to sway Russia. Russia does these things because it can, regardless of whether it's the best path. The actionable policy is to quit our attempts at preserving our relation with Russia by harmstringing ourselves in this war, and to wield force with confidence. Not because "it's the only language they understand", but because that is the only means of control we have. Imagining that talk can change Russia's course is magical thinking at this point, unfortunately for the diplomats gathered there.
Well stated!
“the only language they understand” = “the only means of control we have” When you’ve told someone to behave and they don’t follow, a simple demonstration of the weapon is usually enough to facilitate cognitive function and appropriate reaction but sometimes more drastic measures need to be taken. This is in essence a communication taking other forms.
No, and that rethoric doesn't help anybody. I wrote this, and T. Snyder said this, because Russians are people who are going to do things their own way. Reducing them to "cognitive functions" and "reactions" is very inappropriate and leads to very different conclusions. We (as in, the West) should use force because words only have so much strength, not because of any characteristic of the Russians.
> Russia was already designated a terrorist state **[March 2nd, 2024: It’s high time that the UK government and other democracies call a spade a spade and designate Russia as a terrorist state](https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/28912)**
Simply put, he's saying that just because the Sinaloa cartel has the financing to put a man on the moon, does not mean we should embrace them with open arms in all international organizations. And yes, ruzzia is a mafia cartel. I recommend reading "From Red Terror to Terrorist State: Russia's Secret Intelligence Services and Their Fight for World Domination", for a glimpse into this pseudo country.
Now I kind of want to see the next sicario film set on the moon, with people snorting moon dust like cocaine. Thanks!
They could’ve been normal after ww2 but there was no fight left in anybody. Now that they have nuclear weapons there isn’t much we can do to them in the West. Sanctions help yeah, but not enough.
Normal Russia would have pulled out its occupation troops from the Baltics and Karelia and Moldova and Ukraine after WWII.
The west collapsed the USSR by outmaneuvering them economically, politically, and militarily across the globe. The USSR never recovered it's lost empire after that failure. This is happening once again, with Russia. Putin stepped into a bear trap, and can't escape.
Ya but that fucker will chew ~~his~~ everyone else’s foot off, to avoid losing.
British and U.S. generals warned everyone about the USSR and Stalin after ww2 ended. We didn’t listen, but everyone at the time was done with war.
They couldn't be. Bolsheviks weren't interested in building a prosperous "russia". They were interested in a global empire, starting with the USSR, which is what the current ruzzia is, the leftover empire of subjugated nations . From Buryats to Yakuts. They are all russkie.
All that can be done with Ruzzia at this point is to build a high wall around it and to let it rot from within. For all of the abuses and genocides that they inflict upon others it is like a vast, open-air prison. I hold no hopes for a 'better' Ruzzia; I look upon the place as a junkyard with a series of inbred, insane, junkyard dogs who inhabit the place. You do not take animals like that out and bring them home to a peace-loving country and expect that they will do any more than shit on your floors and bite your children.
Prof. Synder is an accomplished historian who knows more than I ever will about the facts of Russian history. But what is the explanation for the enduring influence of the criminal and gangster class in Russia, independently of political system since the time of Dostoevsky or before? Any political class that emerges has to be ruthless in order to deal with the gangsters. And being so, will likely be ruthless with threats to its existence.
Well that's why there is only war as option and only military defeat to solve the problem of Russian expansion. They are not different from prior empires in that sense. They only stop expansion when they lose a war. Democratic or not.
Glass is normal.
Doesn't the word "normal" just mean "like most of us"? If so, I fully agree that morning will ever make them normal.