The watershed

watershed 1992 and the final collapse the soviet union
watershed 2.a around 1995 when the east discovers there isnt going to be help and a free ride to take more money from Which sets up today and russia still being cranky about everything.
Russia is Yugoslavia (well, Serbia's) historic and ethnic ally, being Orthodox Slavs. Yes, the Stalinist/Titoist split marred relations between them, but there was a sense that the Balkans were Russia's sphere of interest. When NATO simply barged ahead without consulting the Russians, it made things pretty clear where the Russians, a former superpower, stand - and it wasn't pleasant.

I think a more important one was the First Chechen War. The Russian army had been once the terror of the battlefield, now it couldn't handle some pissant little separatist bunch. That became the motivation to improve its power and solve the Chechen issue at all costs, including the rise of Vladimir Putin to power.


not going to disagree .. but i will say that everything comes in varying shades of gray ..
The Balkans while orthodox and somewhat culturally and i will sue that word loosely to russians.. isnt

Blakans are shaped by Bulgars, Turks, Hungarians, Austrians, Italians, croat, bosniak, serbian ,montenegrin and Greek Culture more than Russian and that is why i believe there is a misconception to people that slav is slav.. it isnt.

Sure Malsovic is going to play every card he can to be and stay in power and even win the 9 millionth balkan war. Yugoslavia was traditionally in the soviet camp to large degree, but this doesnt make them russian anymore than being greek makes you russian cause your orthodox

problem is the west, and for good reason was done with it. this wasnt 1910 anymore and having this stain on european soil just wasnt palatable.


I will also say that they didn't want the Americans there either:) they just were happy going about killing each other for the 9 millionth time for slivers of land and some internal belief that they are the righteous in doing so. I believe it had to end, and the balkans are better off because it was forced to end in a way that let the peoples make up their own path
 
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The Abu Ghreib scandal added to that. The USA had entered as the liberator, a force for good to stop an evil, torture-loving sadist tyrant with a blatant disregard for human lives and dignity.
By the time it happened, only the US still believed that. Look at the massive demonstrations all over the planet from before the invasion: I'm sorry to say it bluntly, but from the day the US invaded Iraq, it was perceived as the war-monger faction that would mess an entire region for no good reason. It's why tens of millions walked in the streets. It's why the UN never gave its assent for that invasion. It's why the US' oldest ally told it to not go with this insane plan only to be rebuked and mocked. The shift you describe happened in 2003, not 2006. The moment when the public opinion all over the planet went from "we stand together with the people who suffered the worst terrorist attack in History" to "the people who start new wars for fun and oil profit".
 
By the time it happened, only the US still believed that. Look at the massive demonstrations all over the planet from before the invasion: I'm sorry to say it bluntly, but from the day the US invaded Iraq, it was perceived as the war-monger faction that would mess an entire region for no good reason. It's why tens of millions walked in the streets. It's why the UN never gave its assent for that invasion. It's why the US' oldest ally told it to not go with this insane plan only to be rebuked and mocked. The shift you describe happened in 2003, not 2006. The moment when the public opinion all over the planet went from "we stand together with the people who suffered the worst terrorist attack in History" to "the people who start new wars for fun and oil profit".
Okay, that's true. The Dubya had badly hurt its own credibility by refusing to accept UN inspector's witness, calling them either in cahoots with Iraq, or ignorant. It refused to build a proper international support/coalition under the UN banner, like Papa Bush did with the Gulf War - and that made a huge difference. Papa Bush was seen as a man who did the right thing in the end, given how a full-on invasion of Iraq ended up ruining the legacy of both Bushes (Papa for how a hallmark of American diplomatic achievement was rendered ultimately for naught as Iraq collapsed into anarchy and threatened to drag the rest of the region down with in, after it had been isolated and neutered).

Of course, the insulting of France and Germany at the start gave them plenty fodder to go "told you so" once the whole thing blew up in the US' face.

So yeah, good point.

not going to disagree .. but i will say that everything comes in varying shades of gray ..
The Balkans while orthodox and somewhat culturally and i will sue that word loosely to russians.. isnt

Blakans are shaped by Bulgars, Turks, Hungarians, Austrians, Italians, croat, bosniak, serbian ,montenegrin and Greek Culture more than Russian and that is why i believe there is a misconception to people that slav is slav.. it isnt.

Sure Malsovic is going to play every card he can to be and stay in power and even win the 9 millionth balkan war. Yugoslavia was traditionally in the soviet camp to large degree, but this doesnt make them russian anymore than being greek makes you russian cause your orthodox

problem is the west, and for good reason was done with it. this wasnt 1910 anymore and having this stain on european soil just wasnt palatable.


I will also say that they didn't want the Americans there either:) they just were happy going about killing each other for the 9 millionth time for slivers of land and some internal belief that they are the righteous in doing so. I believe it had to end, and the balkans are better off because it was forced to end in a way that let the peoples make up their own path
If the balkans had been influenced by only one group, it would not have been nearly the mess it is today. It's the interactions of all these cultures, and the legacies that they left behind, that are the main reasons the region is an ethnic powder keg, from the withdrawal of the Ottomans from the region to the present. Russia has a vested interest there, not because the Slavs, but because it has no sea port on the Med, and more influence within the Adriatic is a step towards spreading its influence into the Mediterranean that Britain and other powers have long denied it.

But I concede you have a point.
 
Okay, that's true. The Dubya had badly hurt its own credibility by refusing to accept UN inspector's witness, calling them either in cahoots with Iraq, or ignorant. It refused to build a proper international support/coalition under the UN banner, like Papa Bush did with the Gulf War - and that made a huge difference. Papa Bush was seen as a man who did the right thing in the end, given how a full-on invasion of Iraq ended up ruining the legacy of both Bushes (Papa for how a hallmark of American diplomatic achievement was rendered ultimately for naught as Iraq collapsed into anarchy and threatened to drag the rest of the region down with in, after it had been isolated and neutered).

Of course, the insulting of France and Germany at the start gave them plenty fodder to go "told you so" once the whole thing blew up in the US' face.

So yeah, good point.
The annoying thing is that a proper build-up, taking a lot more time, would have possibly reached the result of pushing Sadam out peacefully without violence. It wouldn't have been easy, but getting him to step down with credible guarantees of safety and prosperity for him and his inner circle (trying to whack the only SoB who knows how to keep the country in one piece is a big mistake, as France demonstrated by going that way with Ghadaffi a decade later) might have allowed a much better, if slower, transition towards an acceptable regime. 2006, and to a lesser extent, the rise of ISIS, was however a watershed moment for the US population, IMO, in that it became much clearer that the post-1945 reconstruction of the Axis was an exception rather than the rule when it comes to nation-building. It buried for good the Fukuyama's End of History theory after China's meteoritic rise as an economically and technologically successful authoritarian nation killed it in the eyes of most of the rest of the planet.
 
Okay, that's true. The Dubya had badly hurt its own credibility by refusing to accept UN inspector's witness, calling them either in cahoots with Iraq, or ignorant. It refused to build a proper international support/coalition under the UN banner, like Papa Bush did with the Gulf War - and that made a huge difference. Papa Bush was seen as a man who did the right thing in the end, given how a full-on invasion of Iraq ended up ruining the legacy of both Bushes (Papa for how a hallmark of American diplomatic achievement was rendered ultimately for naught as Iraq collapsed into anarchy and threatened to drag the rest of the region down with in, after it had been isolated and neutered).

Of course, the insulting of France and Germany at the start gave them plenty fodder to go "told you so" once the whole thing blew up in the US' face.

So yeah, good point.


If the balkans had been influenced by only one group, it would not have been nearly the mess it is today. It's the interactions of all these cultures, and the legacies that they left behind, that are the main reasons the region is an ethnic powder keg, from the withdrawal of the Ottomans from the region to the present. Russia has a vested interest there, not because the Slavs, but because it has no sea port on the Med, and more influence within the Adriatic is a step towards spreading its influence into the Mediterranean that Britain and other powers have long denied it.

But I concede you have a point.
fully agree .. its just a complicated mess there .. I have lots of friends in the region and they all say the same thing.. they hate no one .. and hate everyone .. honestly the people just want to go about their lives ..

but fully agree its been a mess for so long that im glad that for the most part people are starting to just move forward now.

but Yugoslavia was a watershed moment to showed that the west and the east were not going to see eye to eye.. but it was also a watershed moment in that the west said.. NO.. enough stop.

biggest watershed moment of the last 25 years is 9/11 that by far changes more things than not.. more so than Chechnya .. Iraq.. the fall of the soviet union . it made all the bad things about America real.. it made people paranoid and started 2 ongoing wars and spurred a few others. it also changed going to the airport to get a flight forever too
 
The Armenian Genocide might also be seen as a watershed. A major country, THAT LOST THE WAR, basically was able to sweep the atrocity under the rug and mostly leave it there. I have to suspect that the Ottomans getting away with it encouraged Hitler and company...
 
9-11 must have been the time where it dawned on everyone (also in Europe) that terrorism can reach everywhere. The London bombing came shortly after?

To what extent has the advent of ISIS proven that there are no easy solutions and that the world is far more complex? Has it been accepted wisdom that 'winning' is a fluid concept?

The usage of drones (and the mistakes made with those) can be said to herald robot-wars. Impact in the mind of all people?
 
The annoying thing is that a proper build-up, taking a lot more time, would have possibly reached the result of pushing Sadam out peacefully without violence. It wouldn't have been easy, but getting him to step down with credible guarantees of safety and prosperity for him and his inner circle (trying to whack the only SoB who knows how to keep the country in one piece is a big mistake, as France demonstrated by going that way with Ghadaffi a decade later) might have allowed a much better, if slower, transition towards an acceptable regime. 2006, and to a lesser extent, the rise of ISIS, was however a watershed moment for the US population, IMO, in that it became much clearer that the post-1945 reconstruction of the Axis was an exception rather than the rule when it comes to nation-building. It buried for good the Fukuyama's End of History theory after China's meteoritic rise as an economically and technologically successful authoritarian nation killed it in the eyes of most of the rest of the planet.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the post-1945 reconstruction of Axis countries may be difficult, but it's entirely within the realm of possibility to do them again in other nations.

America's problem in Iraq was that the whole project was tainted by ideology and wishful thinking. That all it would take is to kick the bad guys out of command and everything would be peaches and cream. That Iraq could be entirely reconstructed within a decade or two by the oil profits alone. That democracy can be installed overnight. That inside every Iraqi is an American trying to get out, have democracy and freedom, and be a new partner for Middle East peace for America's grand vision.

The post-1945 attempts went so well because the Allies harbored no illusions about the job they were doing. They had a continent to fix, and it would be a long, difficult road ahead. That the best way to do it was to have an entire roadmap at the ready, and sometimes have to accept that some 'bad guys' are going to slip through the net for the sake of stability. Many of the worst Nazis were sentenced to life in prison or the gallows, but others were allowed to stay in government in a transitory function, so that what was left of the German government didn't collapse overnight before they could install a new one. Same with Japan. It helped that democracy existed in these states, but that it had been subverted by people with an agenda. They tried their hardest to make sure the system was hardier this time around, and even then, they didn't have ridiculous expectations of everything.
 
Ys, I also think that 9-11 was the watershed in a US context.

However, the different error attacks throughout Europe were scary (I was in Europe at that time). Sure the Hyde Park bombing was scary (I had just left actually). RAF, Baader-Meinhof, Action Direct, Brigada Rossa, PLO and so on. But thinking back, it was more of a slow realization. 9-11 was more than that I think. Also in a European mind-set.

The previous attempt on WTC did not do anything in the general population, I believe. Neither the Oklahoma bombing.

Could be wrong there.
 
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