What’s the future of the Great Bear?
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Scholarly Pursuits
Forum Name: Intellectual discussions
Forum Discription: Discuss political and philosophical theories, religious beliefs and other academic subjects
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1434
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Topic: What’s the future of the Great Bear?
Posted By: Spartakus
Subject: What’s the future of the Great Bear?
Date Posted: 03-Dec-2004 at 15:30
What's the future of Russia and of the Russian armed forces?Will be a superpower again or just a watcher of the international political scene?
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"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
--- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)
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Replies:
Posted By: Murph
Date Posted: 03-Dec-2004 at 15:34
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any country that has ICBMs will always be a force to be reckoned with, so i dont think that they will ever be a spectator
however, internal issues (economy) will keep them from becoming a superpower again
also, its unfortunate how the country under Putin is reverting to totalitarian regime...russia seems to not be capable of a functioning democracy
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Posted By: Spartakus
Date Posted: 03-Dec-2004 at 16:04
Putin is a modern Tsar for Russia.
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"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
--- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)
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Posted By: Murph
Date Posted: 03-Dec-2004 at 16:06
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yeah he really is
russia simply has had authoritarian rule for thousands of years and can not function as a democracy
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Posted By: Tobodai
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2004 at 19:16
Russia is still a power, and Ukraine shows that despite the government having changed, the cold war is not totally over. It was never really an ideologival battle anyway, just a power struggle, so theres no reason that should have changed just with the fall of the commies.
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"the people are nothing but a great beast...
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
-Alexander Hamilton
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Posted By: Winterhaze13
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2004 at 19:22
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I still think that Russia is a very important member of the international community and I think the crisis in the Ukraine exhibited that in a sense. In 15 years the U.S. will no longer be the only superpower and therefore there would likely be more room for Russia to manouvre.
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Posted By: Tobodai
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2004 at 19:27
Even the the US has many sighns of decline I dont think it will have a major competitor for 50 years because of the defense spending gap but I agree in principle.
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"the people are nothing but a great beast...
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
-Alexander Hamilton
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Posted By: Winterhaze13
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2004 at 19:31
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The U.S. I am afraid is on a threadmill to self-destruction. Not to turn this into a political debate, but the U.S. has a 450 billion dollar deficit, their troops are stretched thin and they certainly harmed their image and crediability by invading Iraq.
But in the long run, the U.S. will be surpassed in economic size by the EU, China and India.
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Posted By: Tobodai
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2004 at 19:50
I agree, but I think that long run is longer than 15 years nonetheless, adn I dont think the EU will ever become a legitimate power, the time of Europe is over, the time of Asia is back.
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"the people are nothing but a great beast...
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
-Alexander Hamilton
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Posted By: Winterhaze13
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2004 at 19:56
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That is an excellent debating topic, can the EU become a global superpower that rivals the United States. Maybe I'll start it in the intellectual discussion forum. There is an article in this months The Economist which deals with that issue. It doesn't rule out that it is possibel but it does say that they have a couple of obstables to overcome. I think I will start that topic.
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Posted By: Winterhaze13
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2004 at 20:08
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http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1442&KW=Winterhaze13 - http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1442& ;KW=Winterhaze13
This is a new topic create by myself about the possibility of the EU becoming a superpower.
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Posted By: warlord
Date Posted: 18-Dec-2004 at 01:46
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Putin is restoring Russia to it's former glory. All power to him.
Russia will have to diversify it's economy away from oil.
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Posted By: dark_one
Date Posted: 18-Dec-2004 at 11:05
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however, internal issues (economy) will keep them from becoming a superpower again
also, its unfortunate how the country under Putin is reverting to
totalitarian regime...russia seems to not be capable of a functioning
democracy |
Russia(since the fall of Yeltzin) is actually becoming much stronger
economically and overall a better place. Also I bleieve that the
Russian people need totalitarian rule, since we had it for over a
thousand years (with the exception of Gorachev who let his rule
collapse through liberal policies). Russia always benefitted from
Totalitrain rule(again this has an exception in Nikolai II who was not
capable of maintaing Russia).
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Posted By: Winterhaze13
Date Posted: 18-Dec-2004 at 13:12
Originally posted by dark_one
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however, internal issues (economy) will keep them from becoming a superpower again
also, its unfortunate how the country under Putin is reverting to totalitarian regime...russia seems to not be capable of a functioning democracy |
Russia(since the fall of Yeltzin) is actually becoming much stronger economically and overall a better place. Also I bleieve that the Russian people need totalitarian rule, since we had it for over a thousand years (with the exception of Gorachev who let his rule collapse through liberal policies). Russia always benefitted from Totalitrain rule(again this has an exception in Nikolai II who was not capable of maintaing Russia).
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I don't think Russia is better off under a totalitarian regime. The communist regime was benovolen in some form, but in a much wider scope it was very repressive to minorities and political deviants. The absolute monarchies incompotent administration lead to the 1917 Revolutions, the Communist parties transparency lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. So, how long do you think this current administration will survive. I will admit that Putin has brought upon economic prosperity, but will that benefit the people over the long run. Russia continues too be backwards and undemocratic. Indicative in the conflict in Chechnya and the corrupt case involving Yukos. Russia needs democracy and democracy needs Russia.
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Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
-- Voltaire
French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778)
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Posted By: dark_one
Date Posted: 19-Dec-2004 at 11:59
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All you westerners speak like democracy is the ultimate goal of
humanity. Totalitarian stateslast as long as the talent of the ruller
does. In our monarchy each generation had talent and contributed
somethign, except for the last one. It is no coincidence. That's the
beauty of totalitarian rule, if you are untalented you are disposed
off. Same thing with Gorbachev. You know that either Andropov or
Chernenko(keep confusing those two)was put into power because everyone
knew he had less than a year to live and they needed time to decide who
would be the real ruller. Gorbachev turned out to be too liberal.
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 19-Dec-2004 at 16:12
Originally posted by dark_one
That's the
beauty of totalitarian rule, if you are untalented you are disposed
off.
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Indeed Lenin, Stalin & co were beautiful.
They were so talented in killing people, I'm glad they weren't disposed off.
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Posted By: dark_one
Date Posted: 19-Dec-2004 at 17:13
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Lenin dies of syphillis after ruling about 7 years, during a
civil war. We don't know him welll enough as a ruller. Stalin on the
other hand made it so that Russia could defend itself against Germany
in WW2, and rebuilt our economy.
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Posted By: Winterhaze13
Date Posted: 19-Dec-2004 at 19:34
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Originally posted by dark_one
All you westerners speak like democracy is the ultimate goal of humanity. Totalitarian stateslast as long as the talent of the ruller does. In our monarchy each generation had talent and contributed somethign, except for the last one. It is no coincidence. That's the beauty of totalitarian rule, if you are untalented you are disposed off. Same thing with Gorbachev. You know that either Andropov or Chernenko(keep confusing those two)was put into power because everyone knew he had less than a year to live and they needed time to decide who would be the real ruller. Gorbachev turned out to be too liberal. |
Well in fact I don't believe that democracy is perfect, I believe that it has many flaws. How can you defend the fact that totalitarian rule has failed several times in your country and yet you continue to defend it as a necessary evil. After Putin who will come along to fill the void, totalitarian regimes exist only on a temporary basis because it has no real enduring mechanism.
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Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
-- Voltaire
French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778)
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Posted By: dark_one
Date Posted: 19-Dec-2004 at 20:56
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Totalitarian rule failed exactly twice. And both times it was replaced by something better. The system wroks.
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 20-Dec-2004 at 07:28
Originally posted by dark_one
Totalitarian rule failed exactly twice. And both
times it was replaced by something better. The system wroks.
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Depends on how you define 'working'.
If 'working' becoming a strong, powerfull country, it works more or less
But if 'working' means giving your citizens a good life it's the suckiest system that ever existed.
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Posted By: warlord
Date Posted: 23-Dec-2004 at 01:20
Originally posted by Winterhaze13
the corrupt case involving Yukos. Russia needs democracy and democracy needs Russia.
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The Yukos case has to be seen in the context of what happened earlier. The oligarchs took advantage of the chaos and corruption of the 90s to make immense profits at the expense of the Russian state. Putin is only correcting those mistakes.
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Posted By: Christscrusader
Date Posted: 23-Dec-2004 at 01:53
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Ha this is a lil offtopic, but how can I get a picture like you have Arnold?
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Heaven helps those, who help themselves.
-Jc
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Posted By: dark_one
Date Posted: 23-Dec-2004 at 13:39
Exactly. We do not need the inefficiency of democracy.
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