Fascinating Video Explains the Russian Mindset
“Geography determines destiny.”
This video has been making the rounds on Reddit and stacking up tons of positive comments. The narrator takes you through Russian history explaining how geography helped define the nation politically.
Zach Noble of The Blaze provides a description:
‘Russia in a Nutshell’: Learn the Real Reasons Why Russia Is So Big — And So Brutal
Geography determines destiny — so goes the historian’s saying.
Does Russia’s geography explain the nation’s history of bloodshed, overbearing government, secret police and poverty — and does it explain why Vladimir Putin is such a bellicose president?
In a video published on YouTube earlier this year, geopolitical guru Caspian Report took a look at Russia’s history and geography and made the essential connections: Occupying a vast, flat land without significant mountains or seas to serve as natural barriers, the Russian people were forced to become brutal and bureaucratic in order to survive.
After throwing off Mongol and Tatar domination in the first half of the last millennium, Russia’s rulers found themselves in a “conquer or be conquered” situation, Caspian Report noted.
Seeking security, Russia’s czars led their people on a massive quest to expand, taking over lands to the south, west and especially east.
They could not keep invaders from attacking, but by taking over huge swathes of territory, Russia’s rulers could ensure that Russia always had a “backup plan” to fall back on — and that plan proved invaluable when Napoleon and Hitler came rampaging through.
Anyone with an interest in history will find this entertaining and informative:
The message in the video may explain some recent developments in Russia.
Putin seems to think America has designs on Siberia. No, really.
Robert Mackey of the New York Times reported:
Putin Cites Claim About U.S. Designs on Siberia Traced to Russian Mind Readers
Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Thursday, Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, claimed that economic sanctions were not primarily a response to the annexation of Crimea but part of a long-running plot by Western powers to weaken his nation and steal its natural resources.
As evidence, Mr. Putin cited first what he called “direct and fully fledged support for terrorism in the North Caucasus” in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet Union’s demise.
Then, he said, even before Russia annexed Crimea earlier this year, “unprecedented and clearly orchestrated attempts were made to discredit our efforts to organize and host the Olympics” in Sochi.
Finally, after an extended detour into metaphor, with Mr. Putin comparing Russia to its national symbol, the bear — beset, he said, by enemies who wish to seize its territory — he referred to one last piece of evidence that he was only acting to protect his nation from the aggressive designs of the West. “We have heard it even from high-level officials,” he said, “that it is unfair that the whole of Siberia with its immense resources belongs to Russia in its entirety.”
Hey Vlad, the 80’s called…
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
People can be a little jumpy when they live at the crossroads of murder, pillage, and burn.
At least you got the order correct.
Maxim 1 “Pillage, then burn.”
There is a concerted effort to marginalize Russians and Putin in particular. It’s not surprising to observe that they overlap with the same interests who marginalize Americans political, economically, socially, religiously (i.e. morally), and democratically in America.
So, the brutal interests left, right, and center that have oppressed, enslaved, and slaughtered Russians and Slavic people generally are the cause of a perceived Russian brutality. Given this historical explanation, what explains Americans slaughtering wholly innocent human lives in the privacy of a clinic by the millions annually? Is there an existential threat? Or is the motive money, sex, ego, and convenience? As well as to secure taxable assets and reduce the problem set?
While Russians had their bouts with leftists regimes and ideologues, they are not Marxists. However, that seems to be a progressive threat in the West.
Excellent video. Two things to always remember about history: it was harsh and it cannot be undone. The important question is not how we got here but where will we go from here.
Hey, all you need to do is actually pay attention to what Dick Cheney and his fellow travelers want to do to Russia to understand they’re paranoid because there’s people after them. Not to judge, just saying they’re not simply making up that outsiders wish them ill.
And if the world just rolled over and showed Putin it’s soft underbelly, he would be benevolent, I’m sure. Are you? After all, what does the history say?
Is everyone here forgetting that this is the country that put the massacre into Communism? There seems to be a concerted effort to excuse Putin for his thuggish behavior. Must be by the same people that are the Masters of Disinformation.
You mean it worked fine before 1917?
Russia has a leader who actually knows his country’s history and cares about its future.
Can US citizens say that?
The same could be said of every one of America’s enemies over the last 100 years. Do you really want to go there?
So… “we’re so vulnerable” is an excuse to conquer everyone around you. Gotcha.
Excellent! During the Cold War, many people believed the Russians were the way they were because of Communism. Those in the know realized very quickly they were the way they were cause they were Russians. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
“Those in the know realized very quickly they were the way they were cause they were Russians.”
Except for Ioseb Besarionis Dze Jugashvili aka Josef Stalin, who was Georgian, not Russian.
They were what they were – Bolshevik revolutionaries willing to kill anyone and everyone who got in their way to seize and maintain control of others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin
This appears to be nothing more than apologia for paranoia. “Conquer, or be conquered” has been used many times in history to justify aggression against neighboring states. In the 21st century, do any of Russia’s close neighbors seriously present a threat?
That depends entirely on who Russia’s close neighbors are allied with and offer basing and transit rights to. But Russia’s reasons for its attitude (my thread reply on that got two downvotes I noticed) are entirely separate from any rational, real-world justification for particular instances of meddling with its neighbors. I certainly don’t think that paranoia is a justification for these things. The propaganda gets silly.
But yes, when they talk like certain Westerners want to use Russia’s neighbors and unrest in areas like Chechnya to break up Russia and end it as a potential world power, this is absolutely correct. The current US President may not be among them, but there’s plenty of people for whom this is true. That’s indeed what they want – which has little relationship to their actually obtaining it. It’s also what many political figures in the region want, for all the good it does them.
Russia is a bad neighbor. True, they have historically valid reasons for caution, but they continue to be unable to handle success and a lack of real enemies, so the create their own problems by being hostile and pushy jerks. It creates a comfort zone for them.
Russia’s potential for being a world power is probably done with at this point. They have a crumbling economy, a collapsing demographic and Ukraine to pick up from the rubble. They will, however, do nasty things to us as much as they can. Aid the creation of Aztlan? Nukes in Cuba?
This at least brushes up against what is happening to Putin. ‘The West’, beginning in earnest in the mid-nineties, began to overtly attempt westernizing (taking) the Crimea–essentially poking the Bear with a very sharp stick. All Russia wants is an independent buffer between Russia and the West. If Crimea goes NATO, which is the West’s imperialist goal, Putin will react first. Who wants to bet who’ll come out best–obama or Putin? This is no different than Russia making Cuba a full-blown, nuclear-armed Russian state 90 miles from Florida. What would American do? (Not obama) It’s similar to the Israeli problem . . . if no one is allowed to call a spade a spade, tell the truth, then no solution can be forthcoming without overwhelming force enforcing it. If anyone honestly wants to stop Putin from ‘taking’ the Crimea, then leave it alone to be it’s own independent state!
My mother was born in the middle of WW2 in Chelyabinsk where my grandparents worked on T34 production. My late grandfather was an executive on a factory that made the tank, and they were evacuated from Kharkov, Ukraine to the Urals. (My grandmother’s dad didn’t want to leave Kharkov because he hated the commissars and was of the opinion that Germans, being a civilized people, will let him be. Thankfully, my family talked him into coming with them.)
The wast expanses of eastern Russia are certainly a problems. But think of the US. Some leftist writer — forgot who — called it “air conditioned nightmare.” Much of the country is made livable thanks to technology, and there are states where one can drive and drive and drive without seeing a human being.
Alister, if you find it ridiculous that Putin believes that the US has designs on Siberia, ask yourself what should we do once Russia collapses, which is a likely event in our lifetime. The important thing is not to overstretch. Personally, I worry that we went too far with Ukraine which will require continuo use infusions of cash just to survive for… I don’t know how long.