Russia
Over the past 1000 years, the Rus have united many diverse populations who now proudly call themselves Ros.
Here are some fun facts you probably haven't been told. Our population is twice the size of Russia's, but we have ten times as many people in prison. Less than 0.5% of prisoners serving life sentences worldwide are in Russia. The United States has 40% of the world's lifers and 83% of those serving life without the possibility of parole. Put that in your brain and smoke it.
Last year, they set their historical record of life sentences, and it was a total of 100 people. There are single counties in Texas that sentenced almost the same amount. Yeah.
Russia has not carried out the death penalty in over 30 years. It's still on the books just in case, but they are abolitionist in practice. How many executions can you remember here in the US just this year?
So the cops there beat the crap out of protestors? Lord knows that doesn't happen here, right? Oh, wait, they do, and it doesn't matter which major party is in control.
It's time to bury the hatchet.
Somehow, western foreign policy is still caught in an ancient dispute between Frank and Slav. This dispute is both foolish and obsolete. When the Soviet Union fell, Russia was ready and eager to join the world on equal footing. We, the US, squandered that opportunity with our behaviors during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Even before then, they should have been admitted fully into NATO as opposed to being given just an observer role.
Yes, the war in Ukraine is a horrible situation, but dumping fuel on a fire is not the way to put it out. The glaring hypocrisy of nations arming one side of a war while still doing business with the other is appalling. Back in 2022, Russia's president said very clearly that if Ukraine was going to join NATO, he was going to put a stop to that. They positioned troops and set a deadline. When their deadline was not met, they stayed true to their word. This was in clear violation of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, and was a horrible mistake. At the time, I followed Fiona Hill's assessment that he would not go through with it. Boy, was I wrong. Our government, as well as NATO leadership, attempted to call a bluff. He wasn't bluffing.
Let's do a thought experiment real quick here.
Imagine if a military alliance that's sole purpose was the containment of the United States was courting Mexico or Canada. What do you think we'd do? Do you really think we'd wait for them to get in? Depending on the administration, we'd either talk it over with them or make both the courted nation and the alliance doing the courtship see that as a non-starter.
As of now, understand that the issue at hand is not Ukraine at all. It is about Russia's real standing on the world stage. This can no longer be resolved as quickly as it could have been in the 1990's, but the stakes are far too high to continue down this path.
This is another case where we are failing to recognize the equality of nations, and people are being killed over it. Russia is ready to join the world as an equal. Don't act like we don't have fresh skeletons in our closet.