Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Going by my experience the now threadbanned chap gives insight into some Russian thinking, which imho is valuable to consider. And debate/point out the internal contradictions of that thinking.

EG: I should ask a very simple question and it is this: Why are we fighting Russia? They are natural neighbours. Natural partners etc

Note how it starts from the position of how it's Russia who's being attacked. It's always someone else at fault. This is a very common thread in both Kremlin spin and among many average Russians. Of course the former pushes the latter for obvious reasons. It also has a long historical angle that Russia can't seem to let go of.

You'll also notice the usual amnesia about the past. Europe was indeed trying to be "natural neighbours". Europe has been buying Russian oil and gas since the early 1980's when it was Soviet oil and gas. After the Soviet system fell it continued to do so and after things settled down in the aftermath was building infrastructure with Russia in Russia investing billions in same.

Russia should indeed have been a natural partner, but the problem is Russia never really got on board with the rest of Europe politically or socially. For a start it clung to its past as the last European empire standing, whereas the rest of once imperial Europe at least acknowledged that past was in the past. This imperial thinking still informs much of how Russia thinks and operates. It also remained mired in old structures with levels of corruption and state control pretty much unthinkable in the rest of Europe.

But someone doesn't want that to happen

More enemies from without. If it weren't America/CIA/Nazis it would always be someone.

Russia is the biggest country in the world. Why would they want to add to that?

Because it's far more an empire than a country like Spain or Belgium and empires are paranoid about their borders. This goes triple for land empires because it's a lot closer to home than some part of the world you plant a flag in overseas.

The Americans certainly did ignore Russia and saw it as Soviets gone, job done, war won, ha ha ha(stupidly). Europe by comparison didn't to nearly the same degree. As I pointed out Europe was buying their oil and gas since the early 80s. Much to the chagrin of some in America too. After the Soviet Union fell and after Russia had settled down somewhat post oligarchs robbing their own blind Europe was investing and investing heavily in Russia. A huge chunk of the infrastructure that moves their oil and gas around came from Europe. Never mind European companies building plants in Russia.

And Russia had always been a threat to The West© since WW2. A direct threat too, especially to Europe on her doorstep. While the other European empires were crumbling post war, Russia had consolidated and extended her empire across a carved up post war central and Eastern Europe(not far off what pre war Stalin had agreed with Hitler either) needing barbed wire and walls to keep people in, with occasional tanks on the streets to make sure. The Yanks didn't invent all that. Never mind all the proxy wars of the Cold War between them and the US that killed countless numbers. The minute Moscow lost control of those countries all save for Belarus and Ukraine looked "West" and joined Europe and NATO. They had bloody good reasons for that. Compare and contrast East and West Germany. A decade after Nazism fell West Germany held free elections. Hell, even a few old Nazi's tried their luck. That's the thing with actually free elections. They also had a free press reflecting all sorts of opinions. When did East Germany get free elections? When did East Germany get a free press? The social and economic differences between the two systems couldn't be more stark too. Which system would you want to deal with? More, which system would you want to trust?

And nations always see rivals, interests or clashes of same. China is just as much prey to this as the US. Never mind that China's economic growth was driven a lot by Western investment and Western products. But again trust comes into it. Intellectual property seems to be hard to translate into Mandarin, Beijing's books are notoriously cooked and try getting investment out of China. They don't have an open system, so again trust is an issue, no matter who they're dealing with.