TFLYTSNBN wrote:It absolutely is in Russia's best interest to reduce tensions with the US because Russia understands what the consequences of a nuclear war with the US would be.
Which would be a valid argument is ANYONE on the planet was worried the US would be the instigators of a nuclear war. But even with Trump in office nobody is seriously worried the US is firing the first nuke. Worried Trump might do something so astonishingly stupid he instigates something that causes some lunatic like Kim Jong Un to fire first? Maybe.... but not worried the US will launch first.
So a nuclear war with the US is only a worry for Russia if THEY are planning on starting one. And guess what? They're not.
What they ARE doing is using conventional and non conventional warfare to expand their influence and power and undermine and erode that of the US. And they are doing it amazingly successfully the last few years.
Russia has always been and always will be a competitor to the US but not neccessarily an enemy. Russia was actually an ally during World War 2.
Of the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" variety only. And only because Hitler was stupid enough to backstab Stalin and invade Russia. Otherwise Stalin would have cheerfully sat back under the non aggression pact he had signed with Hitler and watched the west burn.
Tensions with Russia have escalated as a direct consequence of the United States inciting a coup in Ukraine during the Obama/Clinton Presidency. That was abject stupidity.
Might have been, if it wasn't also pure fiction. They didn't "incite" anything.
A neutral Ukraine enabled a stable relationship with Russia
The whole spark for the protests was Yanukovych and his Party of Regions becoming exposed more and more clearly as being in Russia's pocket and anti NATO and anything but 'neutral'.
Oh, btw, guess who worked to get Yanukovych in power? (Hint, he was on the payroll of a Russian Oligarch Mueller reported employed him for the purposes of installing Russia-friendly politicians in other nations and he is currently sitting in a prison cell in America after working to install a certain politician in a rather high office in the US. Rhymes with Saul Banafort.)
while a nationalistic, racist Ukraine hostile to Russia and the ethnic Russian majority in Crimea guarentees conflict. Surprise, surprise, surprise, Russia was not going to surrender Crimea without a fight.
And your language betrays you. They wouldn't "surrender" part of someone else's country?
The Arab Spring fiasco which gave us the Libyan civil war and the Syrian civil war was motivated primarily by France, England and Itally objecting to China getting the big oil contracts from Libya.
Yeah, it wasn't AT ALL about people wanting to not be ruled by dictators...