Quote:
Originally Posted by Oberon
I don't think they want to force Russia into obedience, it's hard to make a nuclear power be obedient to be honest, however I think they seek to make their position as advantageous as possible, as indeed any major power would do.
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I think you are wrong there, at least regarding the US. Some Eurpopeans may have had a more realistic view on Russia at times, but in Washington, encircling Russia, strangling it, pushing it further and further into the corner and finally making it disappear by regime change, is an obsession, and has never been given up since the wall fell - never. Americans have pushing Russia it in their genes, so to speak, like mocking French "cowardice", and an obsessive attitude regarding private firearms.
And from a historians' perspective, it also is not surprising. America has a selfunderstanding of being a global hegemon, the standard and exmaple to whichh all other countries in the world have to follow - so they think. This attitude it shares with almost any empire there ever has been. Its part of the imperial culture. This also means to crack down on every possible, potential challenger whenever it can - this also has been something that every empire ever has done against others.
And if there will rise another empire after America declined, I tell you that that empire will act exactly the same way, and merciless crack down on everybody, by all means promising success, who could put a risk to the new empire's claim for the global pole-position.
Even empires that once have been but are no more, find it difficult to let go that habitus. Britain struggled for long time that it had lost its global empirial status. France dreams of shadows of past glory until today. Russia wants to boast as if it still were the Soviet Union's military block.
Empires are the born egoists. Not even babies are that bad in that regard.
