re: #230 HappyWarrior

Trump always said “wouldn’t it be great if we were friends with Russia?” Russia especially Putin was never interested in being ours. IMO Putin is a shrewd guy who used his wits to rise in the post USSR world not to being a true democrat but someone who wanted to return to the Russia of pre-1991. He’s a Russian nationalist first and foremost and he sees us building relationships with the former SRs i.e. Ukraine or satellites i.e. Poland as a threat to him and has a problem with our social liberalism that was spreading under Obama and the HRC State Department.

There have been Russians(e.g. Gorbachev) with whom we could have collaborated to produce a better world; unfortunately, like Trump, Putin is a man with no morals or ethics who is working to transform the world into his own image: a ruthless autocrat whose goal is personal enrichment and power, with no concern for his own people, let alone the rest of the world. Chinese leaders are nationalists too — but their pursuit of power involves lifting up their population, to make them the most educated and productive nation on this planet. Of course, one could argue that China is just reverting to its historical past with the Communist Party being the new Mandarins; China was the wealthiest nation on the planet until the late nineteenth century and now it’s regaining its crown. Russia never had good leadership — now it’s basically North Korea with nuclear bombs and oil.