re: #136 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Really. The Russian Empire includes the old Soviet Republics, the Baltic States, Ukraine, White Russia, the Caucasus and all the various ‘Stans of Central Asia. That is enough to keep them occupied for the time being.

They want to bring them back into Russia’s political and economic sphere. I want to stress that it is a mistaken approach to think or respond in Cold War terms: Russia is no longer pushing an internationalist communist ideology, but rather a nationalist, Russian-Orthodox one.

Ok, I don’t think we are as far apart as the original posts suggested. I agree that their approach is based on nationalism (and likely an ethno-nationalism) rather than a communist ideology. I was thinking more in terms of what the map would look like in Putin’s wildest dreams, and how we and our allies would respond to that.