{"id":10865,"date":"2019-11-28T20:39:29","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T04:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/?p=10865"},"modified":"2019-12-08T22:08:02","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T06:08:02","slug":"russia-friend-or-foe-the-russian-conundrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/russia-friend-or-foe-the-russian-conundrum\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia: Friend or Foe ? The Russian Conundrum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Russia: Friend or Foe ?<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The Russian Conundrum<\/strong><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Scott Michael Rohter, November 2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For over a thousand years Russia has looked to the West to Europe for innovation and for\u00a0advances in science and technology. French and Italian architects designed and constructed many of its most famous buildings including its lavish palaces, the former residences of the Tsars, as well as its iconic churches, and museums. English geologists explored the Ural Mountains in search of copper and iron ore deposits and they helped Russia turn its vast supplies of iron ore into the bridges\u00a0that would eventually span\u00a0its\u00a0rivers and the railroads\u00a0that would eventually connect its cities.\u00a0A Dutch entrepreneur built Russia’s first armory which manufactured the\u00a0first Russian made guns.\u00a0These same deposits of iron ore were\u00a0later used\u00a0to manufacture the tanks that\u00a0defeated the NAZI\u2019s\u00a0 in World War II, and\u00a0the cars, trucks, and planes that propelled Russia into the 20th<\/sup> Century and beyond.<\/p>\n

When the oil industry\u00a0began to take off in the 20th Century Russia\u00a0with\u00a0the help of Western\u00a0financeers help and Western technology\u00a0help convert one of the world\u2019s largest supplies of oil and gas into the economic engine that transformed\u00a0its economy and still powers it today.<\/p>\n

Russians have always admired the West. They have always thought of themselves as Europeans even while their\u00a0country was being attacked and plundered by armies of Swedes and Poles in the 16th<\/sup> and 17th<\/sup> centuries and by the French and German invaders under Napoleon and Hitler in the 19th and 20th centuries.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It seemed like nothing could dissuade the Russians from their fascination with\u00a0 all things European\u00a0nor their desire to be accepted by\u00a0other European countries\u00a0and welcomed into the European family of nations.\u00a0\u00a0To that end Russian Tsars married\u00a0the daughters of Europe’s leading royal families right up until the end. The last Russian Tsar, Alexander II who was murdered\u00a0by\u00a0the Bolsheviks was\u00a0married to the granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Every European nation including Russia shares a common history which dates back to the Roman Empire.\u00a0 When Rome split into Eastern and Western halves, the capitol of the Eastern\u00a0half of the\u00a0empire was re-located at Constantinople.\u00a0 After\u00a0the\u00a0western half of the empire\u00a0fell to Barbarians, the\u00a0eastern half lived on for another thousand years at Constantinople. The church that was established there by the Roman emperor, Constantine was called the Byzantine Church.\u00a0later\u00a0it became know as\u00a0the Eastern Orthodox Church .It developed its own liturgy which is different than that of the Roman Catholic Church.\u00a0After Constantinople was conquered by the Muslims all that was left of the Roman Empire, the Eastern Orthodox Church\u00a0was relocated\u00a0to\u00a0Moscow where it became known as the Russian Orthodox Church,\u00a0or to\u00a0Greece where it became known as the Greek Orthodox Church.\u00a0 The liturgies of the two Orthodox Churches are very similar. The Russian word for king is Tsar. The German word for king is Kaisar. The similarity is no coincidence. They\u00a0are both derived from the name of the first Roman emperor.. Julius Caesar.<\/p>\n

In the 18th Century the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great traveled to Europe\u00a0where he\u00a0took up residence in Holland for a time to learn the shipbuilding business from the world\u2019s greatest seafaring nation at that time. In the 19th Century The Tsarina, Catherine the Great corresponded with leading French intellectuals including Voltaire. She\u00a0welcomed the ideas of the French enlightenment\u00a0though\u00a0they ultimately proved detrimental to her\u00a0rule. In the 20th Century Russia even experimented with the German idea of Communism which was the brainchild of two German intellectuals, Karl Marx and Frederich Engels.<\/p>\n

Russians have always\u00a0tried to be like other Europeans and in vein have wanted to be accepted by their\u00a0more advanced neighbors\u00a0to the West,\u00a0but\u00a0acceptance\u00a0has always\u00a0eluded\u00a0them. The French and the British have always felt superior\u00a0to\u00a0the rest of Europe, even to Germany. Due to their small size\u00a0England and France\u00a0have probably feel threatened by Russia while Germany has traditionally looked down upon\u00a0its Slavic\u00a0neighbors\u00a0to the east as\u00a0a rather backward and inferior race. Nevertheless\u00a0this rejection\u00a0did not deter or diminish\u00a0Russia’s ambition to be accepted by their European neighbors\u2026 Not until after World War II when the United States of America began to perceive Russia as a rival, and later as a threat did a majority of Russians begin to rethink they way they view the West.<\/p>\n

The 1980\u2018s was a high point in Russian American relations. It was an era of unbridled optimism projected by two\u00a0courageous leaders who shared\u00a0a dream and a positive vision\u00a0for the future. Together they\u00a0 ushered in a new era of detante and cooperation between our two countries. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbechev were\u00a0visionaries who shared a dream, but after their departure from the world stage influential members of America\u2019s foreign policy establishment with no positive vision for the future known collectively as the Deep State managed to reverse\u00a0positive developments in our bi-lateral relations and turned back the hands of time. Small minded men with no vision\u00a0successfully manipulated public opinion and destroyed Ronald Reagan\u2019s dream of cooperation and peaceful coexistence with our main rival in the world. Instead of a dream they returned us to the nightmare of the Cold War… and they resurrected the old narrative that Russia poses a threat to\u00a0our democracy and\u00a0to\u00a0America’s survival.<\/p>\n

Just Hitler and the NAZI’s were a political\u00a0anomaly in Germany, and\u00a0Napoleon and Robespierre were anomalies in France,\u00a0Russia has had its own political anomalies, but that being said, with the\u00a0exceptions of Lenin and Stalin Russia has never posed a threat to Europe\u00a0or to America. In fact Russia\u00a0twice saved Europe from\u00a0total annihilation, once\u00a0by Napoleon and the second time\u00a0by Hitler.<\/p>\n

As far as Vladimir Lenin\u00a0is concerned\u00a0he was a revolutionary who was arrested and deported to Siberia in 1897 where he served a three year sentence for sedition after which he was allowed to emigrate to Germany where he became a lifelong Communist. When Germany was on the verge of losing World War I he was deported back to Russia in order to stir up trouble and divert Russia from the war effort.<\/p>\n

The other aberration in Russian history is\u00a0the anomaly of Joseph Stalin who wasn\u2019t even a Russian\u2026 He was from Georgia. After eliminating all of his political rivals following Lenin\u2019s death he took control of the government and went on to murder millions of innocent Russians while threatening to export his communist revolution\u00a0to the rest of the world. Neither\u00a0Lenin\u00a0nor Stalin represent Russia any more than Napoleon or Hitler represent\u00a0France or Germany.\u00a0The myth that modern Russia somehow poses a threat to the United States or to any of our European allies is absolute nonsense.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Maybe Poland and Lithuania should stop looking over\u00a0their collective shoulders for some imaginary Russian invaders along\u00a0their eastern borders and take a\u00a0 long, hard look at their own history of aggression against Russia and come to terms with their own guilty conscience. The Russians actually want to get along with Europe and the United States. The only condition is that we accept them as partners and equals.<\/p>\n

The Russian threat is a myth that was fabricated and embellished during the Administrations of four American Presidents, George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. This myth is perpetuated and reinforced in the minds of millions of Americans by the fake news media, not by anything that Russia has actually done, but rather by our own domestic partisan politics and political rivalries in collusion with the American military industrial complex which can always use a good bogey man to gin up arms sales and increase corporate profits. President Eisenhower warned us about this.\u00a0 The Russian threat hoax attempts to explain why Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 Presidential election to Donald Trump by shifting\u00a0 responsibility for her loss away from her and blaming\u00a0it on someone\u00a0else. To further assist in that goal the media keeps stirring up the pot with numerous false allegations of Russian interference or Trump Russia collusion. This led first to the\u00a0Mueller investigation and\u00a0later to the House Impeachment Inquiry which has occupied the national attention for so long that even if President Trump does want to restore friendly diplomatic relations with Russia, he can\u2019t do it. His hands are completely tied.<\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

For over a thousand years Russia has looked to the West to Europe for innovation and inspiration, for advances in science and technology. French and Italian architects designed and constructed many of its most famous buildings including its lavish palaces, the residences of the Tsars, as well as its iconic churches, and museums. German and Dutch scientists and engineers explored its vast interior in search of valuable natural resources<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,20],"tags":[635,904,903,535,899,900,901,902],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10865"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10865"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10933,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10865\/revisions\/10933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}