[The] current Russian government has accused NATO of plotting to destroy Russia. This fantasy is a ploy by the current (since 1999) Russian leaders to justify reviving police state rule. To get away with this Russia needs a scary foe that will not actually become a threat. China won’t do because China has claims on much of the Russian Far East while there is no such claims by any Western nation.
I've noted this odd Russian focus on NATO while the threat in the east rises. But it actually makes sense:
So Russia sells weapons designed to point China's modernizing military out to see against America, Taiwan, and Japan rather than against Russia.
This isn't just clever politics. This is a form of appeasement.
Which, as it was before World War II, a reasonable reaction to a stronger power that has gotten a bad name from World War II as a means to delude yourself into thinking you've stopped an aggressor with pieces of paper.
As I've written, appeasement properly done can make sense if it allows you to avoid war with a stronger power and then use that time to build up your strength to reverse that imbalance.
In many ways, that is what Russia is doing. They have been appeasing China until they can rebuild their strength. One sign of their rebuilding is their massive slow down in weapons sales to China that allowed China to steal military technology from Russia.
But appeasing a stronger power is humiliating. Especially for a former superpower suddenly turned into a near-Third World, alcohol-addled country losing population every day.
So what are you to do when you must appease China?
Pretend the real threat is something that is actually no threat at all--NATO and behind that alliance, America.
Poke at us and what are we going to do? Invade Russia? Hah! European NATO countries struggled to put a division's worth of real troops in Afghanistan.
So NATO is a safe threat for Russia to highlight. NATO isn't going to make Russia pay much a price for treating us as an enemy. And the lack of threat can be put down to the vigilance of Russia in holding back the next Hitler or Napoleon who dreams of sweeping all the way to Moscow and owning that Jewel of the Steppe.
The problem for Russia is that by the time they feel secure enough to recognize that China is the real threat to Mother Russia, NATO and the West will be so disgusted with Russia that Moscow won't be able to even hope for our help should China decide that Russia's Far East is really a Core Interest of China that should return to the loving embrace of the Han Empire.
I have to believe that Russia really thought they'd be stronger and able to face China by now without pretending to be focused on NATO. Because really the key to railing against NATO to justify rearmament that doesn't provoke China is to be strong enough to end the pretense before NATO reacts to the hostility by arming and becoming a potential threat to Russia--in addition to the threat China poses.
Russia's strategic position sucks, as I've noted. But they make it worse by making America pay attention to them again when without Russian threats we'd be perfectly happy to ignore them--notwithstanding their nuclear arsenal--to deal with more immediate threats.
#WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings
