I'm wrong about the "capital" bit, the rest is all you, Putin33. Getting "sprayed in the face" is the tip of the American imperial spear? Or distributing some books? Should those books be banned instead?

Protests are chaos; the underlying aversion to Russia is the result of Russia's behavior toward it's neighbors in the past is the fundamental bit underneath it all and it is one of the reasons why some of them lean toward NATO. It's *not* an aggressive encirclement of Russia as a prelude to... whatever. Actually what is the end of this nefarious American plot on Russia that you are imagining?

You don't bother to read what I *already wrote*. Until you actually bother to read, I'm not responding to another one of your inane and repetitive questions.

What, divide up it's resources through capitalist exploitation? That's what I recall you said. Why would we need to have neighboring countries in NATO to do that? Neighboring countries in NATO would only be 1) a defensive umbrella against Russian invasion for those countries, or 2) a prelude to an invasion of Russia. Option 1 makes sense, option 2 is crazy. The idea that "encirclement" has anything to do with a nefarious capitalist plot is ridiculous. The circle shape comes from the Soviet empire receding from it's edges toward it's center leaving a ring of frightened neighbors.

The end game is to dismantle the federation via separatism and subversion. Placing Ukraine in NATO means cutting off a vital transit route of Russian energy to Europe, its main buyer. It also would mean placing Russian speakers at the mercy of nationalist Orangists who have the protection of NATO guns, much like what has happened in the Baltics and what almost happened in Georgia. Creating a ring of hostile, well armed nationalist state-lets that oppose Russia and block Russian interests weakens the Russian economy by undermining their economic ties to Europe, Turkey and elsewhere. It also is a means by which they could foment separatism within the restive areas long the periphery of the federation.

Divide and conquer is the age-old strategy of western empire. It's not "crazy", and it's what Russian military advisers strongly believe. You grossly exaggerate the role of nuclear weapons in keeping the peace.

As for Ukrainians being "subjugated" by the USSR, it was the Red Army who expanded Ukrainian territory to include the Galician areas, which you people call the "invasion of Poland" of 1939, and which the Ukrainians celebrate as a national holiday. Had it not been for the evil USSR the Orangists wouldn't have western Ukraine to begin with. And the only Soviet administration that tended to leave out Ukrainians from the top posts was your buddy Gorbachov's.

@Putin33 Of course Russian Generals are going to interpret the situation as a nefarious American plot; that interpretation brings them a tremendous amount of job security and power.

A more parsimonious explanation than a theoretical "American takeover" is that Russia's neighbors fear Russia after being subjects of a totalitarian Soviet power centered in Moscow, and would like to have some guarantees against that happening again.

What difference does it make that some Ukrainians were in top Soviet posts? Most Ukrainians weren't.

Nevertheless, if the pro-Russian Ukrainians can peacefully set the course of their country, so be it. Ukraine can hold it's own with respect to Russia without NATO or the EU.

My point is that if they *don't*, it's not necessary to introduce nefarious plots for American conquest to explain it. Russia's neighbors fear Russia, with good reason, and having an interest in NATO helps them to not look like easy targets for re-subjugation.

Wait... you can't even condemn the USSR for its part in the destruction of the Polish state in 1939? You're a joke.

"that interpretation brings them a tremendous amount of job security and power."

Just like your interpretation does nothing but aid the hand of the Americans and their agents.

"A more parsimonious explanation"

You mean a more useful for your purposes. You can see conspiratorial interests when it comes to the Russians but not the Americans, naturally. Repeating the phrase "totalitarian" as it pertains to Ukraine and Russia's relationship just exposes you as being a blind partisan and not really interested in objective analysis.

"What difference does it make that some Ukrainians were in top Soviet posts? Most Ukrainians weren't."

What do you mean most Ukrainians? Did the Soviet state have to be wholly Ukrainian to avoid you claiming that they were the victims of "totalitarian control"? They had the premiership and the foreign ministry. You couldn't get more power than that in the Soviet state.

"t's not necessary to introduce nefarious plots for American conquest to explain it."

It is necessary if that's what's going on, and that's what the American planners state is going on.

"Wait... you can't even condemn the USSR for its part in the destruction of the Polish state in 1939? You're a joke."

No, I'm not going to weep for the Polish nationalists who annexed western Belarus and Ukraine in a bloody war, connived with the Germans for over a decade while refusing any help from the Russians, and then decided to pick a fight over the Danzig when the British and French, not to mention the Americans, were egging them on but doing nothing to come to their aid.

Not surprised you weep for them though.

Decided to pick a fight over Danzig? You'll even swallow Nazi propaganda as fact if it makes your beloved Soviet Union look better.

It's really quite a feat that you're so consistently off-the-wall nuts on so many things.

You're a walking propaganda machine whining about propaganda. You can't make a single argument. You're physically incapable of doing it without resorting to pithy one-liners and calling people nuts or insane. A truly delightful trait.

Doing anything else with you is a waste of time. You're championing the destruction of Poland right now. Why the put in the effort on a swivel-eyed loon like you?

@Putin33

"You can see conspiratorial interests when it comes to the Russians but not the Americans"

and... you can see conspiratorial interests when it comes to the Americans but not the Russians.

Anyone can argue vehemently for anything really. I guess it's a relief that your ideals are *so far removed* from reality that it would take too many common-sense defying steps to achieve them. Me, I'd just like to keep voting out the bastards I can vote out, as often as I get the opportunity.

"I'd just like to keep voting out the bastards I can vote out, as often as I get the opportunity." - QFT

"You're championing the destruction of Poland right now."

I'm "championing" the recovery of lost territory from Polish nationalists who were rapacious conquerors in their own right since becoming independent, exemplified by the Treaty of Riga and their conduct at Munich. I have no sympathy for the Sanation regime of Beck & Piwsudski, and neither does any of their neighbors or most historians.

But why bother responding to a person who sympathizes with Hungarian aggression and expansionism? Could you be a bigger hypocrite?

You're championing the partition of Poland between the USSR and Nazi Germany. That's what you're doing. Supporting naked aggression.

So you believe the Poles should rule (and colonize) "Kresy" which incorporated half of Belarus, large sections of Ukraine, and most of the major Lithuanian population centers. Got it.

You're such a principled opponent of aggression.

As for Hungary, I just think that if Hungary's post-WWI borders were drawn slightly differently so as to include most majority Magyar areas then the country would not have had reason to align with Hitler. In terms of territorial losses Trianon was far harsher than Versailles, and we don't call people who acknowledge the harshness of that treaty Nazi sympathizers. Much like if Versailles had just ceded Posen (always Polish-majority) rather than also create the Polish corridor (in then almost all German West Prussia) then the issue of lost land would have been a smaller issue for Germany, so if Trianon had let Hungary keep contiguous majority Magyar areas then the issue of lost land would be a smaller one for Hungary. Without the grievance of a third of Magyars now living outside Hungary then Hungary might never have sided with Nazi Germany in an attempt to recover those peoples and land. Not an unreasonable position for me to hold.

But standard commie smoke-and-mirrors from you.

So you believe Poland should be annexed by Soviet Russia and NAZI GERMANY?

Breathtaking.

Yes or no, Poland should be ruling half of Belarus right now as well as Vilnius. Answer the question.

"So you believe Poland should be annexed by Soviet Russia and NAZI GERMANY?
"

No, I think the territories of Riga should have been restored to Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania and Polish leaders deserve blame for their fate. It should be obvious what I am saying, but you distort and vilify, as usual. That's all you do. And in the next breath you make the same arguments you always make for Greater Hungary. You're the most ridiculous kind of tool.

That's not what this is about. The Soviets didn't just take back land ceded after the Polish-Soviet War. They destroyed Poland in concert with Nazi Germany. Moscow could have just taken Belorussian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian areas (itself an illegitimate act of aggression), but instead was complicit in wiping the state off the map entirely.

This is a new low for you.

@Putin33, here’s the thing. Your arguments are generally consistent with themselves and each other. But they’re rooted in a view of the world that most people don’t recognize as real.

Sure, Danzig was a contentious issue. But no one is going to see it as a justification for a Nazi/Soviet invasion of Poland.

There is a never-ending violation of the “least surprise” principle discussing anything with you; at every turn, some seemingly unrelated item is introduced, given a surprising “twist”, until by accumulation and fatigue the argument dies out with no one learning anything.

If engaging in a discussion with you requires every single assumption about reality to be adjusted to your particular “take” on it, no one is ever going to be persuaded by anything you say, because argument is meaningless if it doesn’t connect to the world we live in. The way you see things doesn’t correspond to the way most people see them, *as a starting point*; there’s not enough shared assumptions for these arguments to have any value.

It's not an argument for a Greater Hungary, it's an argument that more sensible borders at Trianon would have prevented Hungary from allying with Germany. It's not like I'm talking about moving borders now. Standard obfuscation from you.

Typical evasion from Invictus.

"it's an argument that more sensible borders at Trianon "

That's what every greater nation movement says. Typical rank hypocrisy from the king of rank hypocrites.

I don't see how slight alterations along the Slovak and Serbian borders in 1919 is so wild an idea. It's not like I'm arguing for Hungary keeping 1867 borders or even the Szekley land.

All I'm saying, ALL I'm saying, is that if at Trianon Hungary had been given borders which did not cut off 1/3 of the Magyar population from Hungary then there would have been less of an incentive for Hungary to later align itself with Germany. Even Austria proper was allowed to have borders which reflected ethnic self-determination (with the exception of the Sudetenland). Not doing the same for Hungary (with the exception of the Szekely land) just made trouble where there didn't need to be any.

"The Soviets didn't just take back land ceded after the Polish-Soviet War."

That's exactly what they did. Just like your precious Poland did to Czechoslovakia, except Cieszyn Silesia was heavily Czech and they never lost it in war.

As for Hungary, we addressed this already.

"Much of what was called 'ethnic Hungarian land' is suspect considering the quite brutal nationality law which imposed forced Magyarization on everybody living in Hungarian Crown lands. The population of Hungarians skyrocketed, magically, under that regime, relative to everybody else. Also, Hungarians have a habit of losing wars, and thus losing claims to particular areas. For example Vojvodina, a region I have great familiarity with having lived there for over a month, was site of a war between the Serbs and Hungarians, who were fighting the Hapsburg Monarchy at the time. The Hungarians lost that war, but took it over again when the Dual Monarchy was formed. So after WWI when a number of new countries were to be created, it is likely that like Vojvodina, these other countries had very strong claims to controlling these supposed ethnic Hungarian lands."

"Hungary in 1918 was 125,500 sq. mi.
Croatia, which they absurdly acquired after being defeated by the Hapsburgs, is 22,000 sq. mi.
Transylvania, the birthplace of Romania which is absurdly given to the Kingdom of Hungary after 1867, is 40,000 sq. mi.

These two territories you say they shouldn't have gotten back in 1919. So when people claim that Hungary lost 70% of 'historic Hungary', 50% of that 70% are those two territories. Two territories they unjustly received after being defeated by the Croatians and Romanians in the 1848 war.

In addition to those, the Hungarians lost the aforementioned (Serb plurality) Vojvodina, which is 8,300 sq. mi. They also lost the Ukrainian majority territory of Transcarpathia to Czechoslovakia (5,000 sq. mi). This region voted for union with Czechoslovakia, so I'm wondering what the problem was there. Upper Hungary, which you claim is not "so-called" Upper Hungary but an actual legitimate term, comprises most of current day Slovakia, and is 20,000 sq. mi.

If you're keeping track, all of that adds up to 75% of 'historic Hungary'.

So somebody tell me what injustice was done here. None of these areas were Hungarian majority areas. And in at least one of them (Carpathia) there was a plebliscite. In two others (Vojvodina & Transylvania), bloody wars were fought against Hungarian rule.

Looks like justice to me. The 1940 borders gave Hungary a huge number of Slovak speaking areas and effectively closed off Slovak transportation links with Europe. Their annexations in Ukraine took the best farmland from Transcarpathia. Even after Hungarian annexations in the Vienna awards in the late 1930s, Hungary still, even against German wishes, moved to take more Slovak speaking regions.

So sorry, they were led by nationalists, they didn't have just grievances."

Putin33, July 2012.

@Invictus Don't take the bait! Putin33 will bring in a surprising new assumption at any time! It's turtles all the way down!

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure how I pointed out how much of that is wrong.

As for Poland, you're just lying. The areas around Bialystok and Przemsyl were wholly Polish and nevertheless were annexed. Also, you're casting aside the fact that the Soviet Union's invasion was a WAR OF AGGRESSION FOR TERRITORIAL EXPANSION done in concert with Nazi Germany with the intent of extinguishing the Polish state.

You're so far gone it's sad.

Putin33 can argue anything about anything historical, because he can always bring in something you don't know about with his own slant on it. It's not quite never-ending but he does know a lot of history. What he can't do is make an argument where the premises are something you and your common sense know is true. And when he does mention something anyone is knowledgeable about, it's always a "what the fuck" take on it. Putin33, do you have any facts that are *not* surprising? Or is it all reasoning from twist and surprise?