In a recent appearance on Russia’s state-run television, Russian political scientist Sergey Mikheyev suggested that the country’s “empire” should grow to encompass three American states.
“I want the Russian empire with Alaska, Hawaii, California, Finland, and Poland,” he said, as translated by Gerashchenko for the clip he shared. “Although Poland and Finland are so stinky, I’m not sure, to be honest. We’ll clean them.”
All of these locations (Alaska, California, Hawaii, much of eastern Europe) are ones that Russia has at one point in its imperial or soviet history had either outposts or territorial claim to. Of course, much of Eastern Europe was as recently as the 1980s under the Kremlin’s direct control, either as puppet states or as territory Russia or the USSR directly claimed. Finland and Poland in particular have both been completely invaded by Russian forces multiple times, but at the moment they are built up defensively in ways that Russia quite honestly has zero chances of winning against.
Alaska was territory that imperial Russia claimed before any European country did. It was sold to the US during the Crimean war (1853) because Russia needed the money and in all likelihood it was going to lose it to Britain. Russia established early trading outposts in Alaska and California but sold or abandoned them after wiping out the fur animals they’d come to harvest and trade.
This talk for the benefit of Russian audiences is about reminding Russians of former imperial or soviet glory, but the problem with that historically is that it wasn’t actually glorious.
The current propaganda push to get Russians thinking they really have a shot at rolling back the map changes since Imperial times is just an effort to sustain Russia’s modern project: dismantling the post-WWII order in which the West (the US, in particular, but NATO and much of the UN) upholds alliances that Putin sees as against Russia’s interests.
Well, yeah. In very real ways WWII was about upending the post-WW1 order (which was punitive of Germany generally). It’s really interesting to understand how crazy the flows of money were, and how badly the US in particular bungled its role as the issuer of the world’s de facto reserve currency at the time- in the aftermath of WWI, Germany and its allies were made to pay reparations, France occupied the industrial territory on their border, and any money France or Belgium or Holland received in reparations promptly went to American banks, to repay war bonds borrowed to finance the fighting (which had, in turn, been spent in American factories on war materiel, weapons, munitions, etc).
By the end of the first world war, all of the belligerent nations’ economies were in tatters, their leadership were forced to inflate their currencies to make payments- but the US declined to inflate its own currency to make it workable for them- and when the US didn’t think about its new role in maintaining a viable world order, it put everyone that owed it anything in the position of paying their debts not in their own inflated currencies, but in US dollars. This essentially collapsed the German economy and its currency, and it was just unnecessary.
All of these locations (Alaska, California, Hawaii, much of eastern Europe) are ones that Russia has at one point in its imperial or soviet history had either outposts or territorial claim to.
Come on dawg, you can’t just drop Hawaii in there and not tell us what the fuck the Russians were doing over there!
Sorry- I didn’t know that part off the top of my head But since you asked, Russia’s presence in Hawaii was sort of like its presence in Alaska and California: early 1800s outposts established by agents acting on behalf of the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian-American_Company, which the Russian Crown had granted a monopoly on operations in North America and the Pacific but was unable to back or support such claims.
I’d love to see Putin spend a week in the wrong part of Los Angeles and have his a__ handed to him by some Mexican American gang, or black gang. You want California, dude? As a white (non-Russian) living here, I have had gangs threatened to shoot me about five times now, because I accepted a job assignment in an area they considered to be their turf.
In WWII, a lot of Russians got damage from easily preventable things that the Finns didn’t, as we had saunas and better equipment. Something as simple as getting dry, clean socks and getting to wash your feet can be incredibly important. Just hygiene in general. Not to mention how a good sauna can improve moral.
I take slight offense at a Finn being taken for a Russian. It’s a Finnish man just taking a breather from sauna shown in the other image.
The ability to use the sauna brings with it the possibility of washing clothes as well, at least underwear and socks. This is why saunas were so important, and why the Russians probably stank a bit, as they huddled in the cold without saunas, in dirty clothing. Some from areas who had never even seen such winters.
Anyone taking this seriously should think again. Of course Russia isn’t going to invade the US, it would be suicide on too many levels to count. This is just posturing to tile up their own base, get people to still believe in the supposed might of mother Russia.
It’s the same bullshit coming from the Republican party as well
Why do people insist on partisan rhetoric? Your point could have been made better without the constant, cliche, stereotypical anti-Republican partisan rhetoric that you find in every comment about everything.
Because Republicans have all but sold their souls to Putin, perhaps? At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if Republicans suggest selling Alaska to Russia because it’s in US interests, somehow.
And of course that wouldn’t happen, it’s all base riling posturing but that is the point.
probably because republicans also do very similar things. Just look at the recent CPAC and it’s mess of “we’re going to overthrow democracy and instantiate a christian nation”
Isn’t even just hexbear these days. The Genocide Joe crowd posts nonstop anti-Israel, anti-Biden articles, but as soon as a Republican says something like “finish the job” they’re radio silent.
I am not denying a genocide is going on. I’m tired of the narrative I see where one political party is bad yet there is radio silence about the other side being complicit as well or rooting on the death of Palestinians.
What did you think about “finish the problem” from Trump?
But you cannot have a political position that isn’t team based nor benefits Trump, because the both sides bad argument shows a pretty clear bias in favor of the much much worse side.
If you’re worried about either team then you should be voting responsibly against the christofascist racist authoritarian. Nobody is going to benefit from that kind of leader, historically it has been shown to be the end of entire nations, which is exactly what some bad faith arguments here on Lemmy want to happen.
Historically weak opposition to fascism still leads to fascism. The Democrats must put better candidates forward. They aren’t going to do it until they’re punished for not doing so.
Then there’s that problem. Democrats have been campaigning on that since Reagan. Obama was a departure because he made his campaign about hope. But Clinton, Kerry, The Other Clinton, and Biden all used fear. And none of them addressed the core problem.
It does seem comforting knowing that the hexbear people are such a tiny fringe minority that they’re likely to have very little impact unless they are or become domestic terrorists in any significant number (I could see a few of them suicide-bombing in major cities, coordinated, but they’ll Darwin themselves out of existence eventually without leaving any real impact on this earth.)
Yeah I would advise throwing the 3 tanky instances on your Blocklist (Hexbear, Lemmygrad, lemmy.ml) and find alternative communities if you subbed to any on these instances (mostly .ml communities).
Then you can block maybe the 10 users you start to recognize for their extremist or depressing views. And you’re golden.
I personally used my client to also mute the Gaza crisis with a small list because that is also just slapfests and verbal diarrhea.
Be careful, they might show up and start posting gifts and emojis, thus negating everything you say, or any evidence of wrongdoing you may present!
Its totally all media lies and checks notes you being a racist cishet white male, regardless if you are any of those, and therefore your entire worldview is irrelevant and wrong. Oh and if you’re from AmEriKa (the K is important to them, it makes them feel smugly superior) then anything you say is automatically wrong and you’re an imperialist pig who deserves to die. Even if you actively protest against things. Because you aren’t violently rioting.Which they TOTALLY would be doing… Not that their parents would let them out past sunset since teenagers have a curfew.
And even if you agree with them, go kill yourself because you’re probably older than they are and old people killed the world so you are also at fault despite the fact that the modern problems of the world are millenia in the making, centuries of intentional planning, and decades of underhanded subversion by people who died long ago or are old enough to remember the moon landing.
Or just mute them like I do and never have to read another response as they scream pointlessly into the void since lemmy doesn’t hide my posts from them, just theirs from me. Every so often someone will tell me what’s being said but honestly the only thing I care to do when they show up is either pretend they don’t exist or make fun of their insane bullshit.
I could absolutely see Turnip Dump willingly “trade” those states to Russia to get something else in return, if he won a 2nd term as President.
That is to say, he would float the idea to see the response, then say he wouldn’t do it, then turn around and do it anyway.
People who are saying “that would never happen,” answer me this: what happened on 1/6/21? Specifically what happened with a confederate flag in the Capitol building? Something you thought would never happen?
Not what t-dump wanted to happen. If that loser-in-chief couldn’t pull off 1,000 guys storming capital hill, what makes you think that he could pull off selling states with a combined population of about 44 million to our sworn enemy?
Even his best “allies” and his own vp left him out to dry after 1/6.
SCOTUS has said no. Also, the Confederacy lost the whole war over their state members trying to leave. There is no legal means of seceding from the Union aside from persuading three quarters of the other states to let you leave by amending the constitution.
There are institutions that are designed to prevent it, but as we saw in 45’s first term, he has absolutely no qualms about dismantling meddlesome institutions.
I don’t think there’s any real mechanism for it, but they could certainly do it regardless, and ultimately I’m sure it would end up in front of the Supreme Court.
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