When did you start believing Russia was the Enemy of the United States/the Western World?

[molten_dragon]

I've never considered Russia an enemy (since the Cold War ended when I was too young to pay any attention to politics). They're definitely unfriendly, and it's been getting worse the last few years, but I wouldn't consider them an enemy either.

 

[PirateMk1]

What? are you a parrot? I don't get why all these forums are flooded with childish people posting the dumbest **** ever. What do they seriously get out of making no arguments and just flooding the forum with dumb one liners and deflections?

Poly wants a cracker, barraaaaack!!!

 

[Cephus]

Can't vote because I don't think that. Russia has their own interests, just like we do. We're not the enemies of Russia because we exist, any more than they are the enemies of the U.S. just because they exist. Often, our interests come into conflict. That doesn't make us inherent enemies, just people on opposing sides of a question.

 

[rickc]

This is for those in the room who consider themselves anti-Russian and view the Russian Federation presently led by Vladimir Putin as either the enemy or geopolitical rival of the United States and the Western World in general.

My particular animus towards Russia came about in 2008 when they invaded Georgia, and I realized just how thuggish the Russian regime truly was. I realized that Russia had been a rather sad, corrupt backwater. But the Georgian invasion made me realize the depth and sinister elements of Russian nationalism and the ruthlessness of the Russian state itself.

What about you? When did you have your awakening and realize that the Russian state was the enemy of the United States?

well i remember grammer school when we used to get under our desk in preparation of a nuclear attack. Lots of public buildings basements were designated fallout structures with supplies stored there.



both the Russians and Chinese have been enemies of America my entire life.

anyone who has ever thought different is a fool.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

This is for those in the room who consider themselves anti-Russian and view the Russian Federation presently led by Vladimir Putin as either the enemy or geopolitical rival of the United States and the Western World in general.

My particular animus towards Russia came about in 2008 when they invaded Georgia, and I realized just how thuggish the Russian regime truly was. I realized that Russia had been a rather sad, corrupt backwater. But the Georgian invasion made me realize the depth and sinister elements of Russian nationalism and the ruthlessness of the Russian state itself.

What about you? When did you have your awakening and realize that the Russian state was the enemy of the United States?

I always believed it. Sure, there were periods where we have been able to cooperate, and of course during WW2 they provided invaluable help, even if it was for their own ends, doesn't matter. The fact that we can cooperate on space projects is significant however the USSR was always a hostile adversary and Putin's Russian Empire is perhaps even more so, because: Putin and his view of the West.

This does not mean that I hold animosity toward Russian people. I spent six years working camera and editing for American-Russian Television in West Hollywood in the 1980's and early 90's. It just means that we as Americans should not fool ourselves into thinking that the Russian government is any kind of ally or friend. It isn't and it never has been, and likely never will be.

The Russian people have plenty of capacity to be warm and kind, smart and even funny.
The Russian government however, is a gas station posing as a country.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

For me, it was when Ivan Drago said "I must break you."

My boss at American-Russian Television played the role of the Russian ring announcer in that movie.



When I asked him about his experiences working on the film, he said, "Stallone is actor like I am cosmonaut!"

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

They convinced the democrats it never started.

Considering that you just admitted that you were a wee tot when the Cold War ended, you don't have much of a frame of reference. I was married and working for a Russian language cable TV production company when the Cold War ended, thank you very much.

So much for your copy/paste and somewhat knee jerk slam on "Democrats as commies" remarks.

 

[calamity]

This is for those in the room who consider themselves anti-Russian and view the Russian Federation presently led by Vladimir Putin as either the enemy or geopolitical rival of the United States and the Western World in general.

My particular animus towards Russia came about in 2008 when they invaded Georgia, and I realized just how thuggish the Russian regime truly was. I realized that Russia had been a rather sad, corrupt backwater. But the Georgian invasion made me realize the depth and sinister elements of Russian nationalism and the ruthlessness of the Russian state itself.

What about you? When did you have your awakening and realize that the Russian state was the enemy of the United States?

Since at least 1972

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I would say it was the latter situation. I do not think the men presently in charge of Russia are die-hard Marxist-Leninists who want to recreate a Utopian Workers State.

I could confidently bet my life savings that they aren't.
Quite the contrary, if anything, Putin sees himself as something of a Tsar and dreams of a restored Imperial Russian Empire.
If it takes a blend of fascist autocracy and a helping hand from the Russian Orthodox Church along with a mobbed up conclave of oiligarchs and oil barons, so be it.

But there will be no Communist revival on Putin's watch, you can bank on that.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Hey, I saw Red Dawn, I know school kids would one day be our last defense against the Ruskies!

Once Putin took power...probably shortly after that. But you're right to question...I don't *really* recall when.
Once they stopped moving towards Democracy, maybe that's actually like 2006 or something. But there was always that latent red-scare era upbringing in the back of the mind.
Remember, Hunt for Red October too...the Arnold movie Red Heat, I mean, Russia was the villain in American popular culture for a long time.

The old USSR of Red Dawn days always believed in the long game and the power of propaganda and espionage and sabotage against the United States instead of an invasion or a hot shooting war.

PS: My first wife's ex-husband was one of the producers on the original 1984 "Red Dawn".
Barry Beckerman.

 

[haymarket]

Shortly after World War II ended.

 

[haymarket]

My boss at American-Russian Television played the role of the Russian ring announcer in that movie.

View attachment 67248269

When I asked him about his experiences working on the film, he said, "Stallone is actor like I am cosmonaut!"

Hey now ... I happen to like Sly in the ROCKY films. He is just about perfection.

 

[Fledermaus]

This is for those in the room who consider themselves anti-Russian and view the Russian Federation presently led by Vladimir Putin as either the enemy or geopolitical rival of the United States and the Western World in general.

My particular animus towards Russia came about in 2008 when they invaded Georgia, and I realized just how thuggish the Russian regime truly was. I realized that Russia had been a rather sad, corrupt backwater. But the Georgian invasion made me realize the depth and sinister elements of Russian nationalism and the ruthlessness of the Russian state itself.

What about you? When did you have your awakening and realize that the Russian state was the enemy of the United States?

From the 1960s to 1991... A few years of hope. And back to the post 1945 normal.

 

[Candyman]

I'd say since the end of WWII. Though our allies by convenience in the war against Nazi Germany they certainly abandoned that in their post-war fervor to gather up as much of Eastern Europe as the could after the fall of Hitler.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Hey now ... I happen to like Sly in the ROCKY films. He is just about perfection.

I didn't say it, Sergey Levin said it. :lamo
By the way, Levin really WAS built like Boris Badenov and he had a temper to match.
He died relatively "young" at 63 years old of a heart attack, most likely while he was screaming at somebody.

And God help you if you were in a car with him driving, even in the USA.

 

[Abbazorkzog]

The United States is the enemy of the United States. Nobody ever talks about how the Obama administration and Gov. Snyder essentially declared war on Flint in 2015. And Trump won't do ****. I'm sure the Kremlin are applauding and taking notes, however.

 

[PleasantValley]

Other. I never believed Russia was a threat to the United States.
Even as a kid, I felt this deep down.
Even as I participated in the "duck & cover" drills in Elementary School, I know they would not attack us.

Then when i joined the Navy and got specialized training, the more i learned, the more i knew they were no threat.
1. In Soviet Russia the corruption was so prevalent if they tried an attack, someone would have alerted us to it long before it began.
2. Their Politburo had no idea what they were doing from one month to the next.
3. They just recently finished a war that killed 20 million of them. They were in no hurry to have even worse casualties in a war against us.
4. They had no way of actually coming over here in any real strength to take and hold land. Cargo planes do not carry enough to sustain a beachhead.
5. Their fleet would have been a pleasant memory within a week or so. You need ships to take and sustain a beachhead. Their would be at the bottom of the ocean just outside the breakwater of their home posts. You can bomb and shoot missiles, but without boots on the ground, you are wasting your time.

No, I never saw Russia as any threat. Still don't.
Those two huge oceans we have on either side of us are very formidable barriers to invasion.

 

[Surrealistik]

Well, yes, Sampson Simpson, that is clear but I contend only in hindsight or to those who kept close watch on the developments within Russia throughout the late-1990s and into the early 2000s. Many (including myself) thought that the cooling-off period would lead the Russian Federation into becoming a fellow "Westernized" nation with open democratic institutions, increased civil liberties and rule of law, rather than a corrupt, nationalistic, militaristic autocracy. Many thought that the threat posed by Russia was largely over and that Russia would join the family of nations (the democratic law-governed ones, that is). I was wrong to have been so overly optimistic. And I do not think I was alone in my optimism.

I feel it was fairly clear after the rise of Putin, and a taste of his dictatorial, oppressive style of governance with all of its nationalist underpinnings and toxic resentment of and hostility towards America, that things just weren't going to turn out that way.

 

[Phys251]

When Obama and Medvedev held a summit in 2009, for the first time I thought there might be hope of civil, even warm, relations between America and Russia. Both sides knew they were starting miles apart and would need many steps to get there, but they were willing to try.

But something happened along the way. That something was Vladmir Putin. And as he's seized more and more power inside and outside his borders, it's been aaallllll downhill, baby, all downhill. Their illegal occupation of Crimea sealed the deal long before they ever interfered with our elections and compromised a man that would become our next POTUS.

 

[Crosscheck]

Other. I never believed Russia was a threat to the United States.
Even as a kid, I felt this deep down.
Even as I participated in the "duck & cover" drills in Elementary School, I know they would not attack us.

Then when i joined the Navy and got specialized training, the more i learned, the more i knew they were no threat.
1. In Soviet Russia the corruption was so prevalent if they tried an attack, someone would have alerted us to it long before it began.
2. Their Politburo had no idea what they were doing from one month to the next.
3. They just recently finished a war that killed 20 million of them. They were in no hurry to have even worse casualties in a war against us.
4. They had no way of actually coming over here in any real strength to take and hold land. Cargo planes do not carry enough to sustain a beachhead.
5. Their fleet would have been a pleasant memory within a week or so. You need ships to take and sustain a beachhead. Their would be at the bottom of the ocean just outside the breakwater of their home posts. You can bomb and shoot missiles, but without boots on the ground, you are wasting your time.

No, I never saw Russia as any threat. Still don't.
Those two huge oceans we have on either side of us are very formidable barriers to invasion.

I think I agree with most of that. No way does Russia want a war with us.

With that said, it is a very corrupt country and one must be cautious in any dealing with them.

I've said before they are a different culture than us. Just what they went through during WWII is mammoth to what we suffered.
We lost about 400,000 soldiers. Russia lost 8-11 million soldiers and about 8-9 million civilians.
Those people went through hell. So am certain that plays a role in their not trusting anyone.

 

[joko104]

Not since the break up of the USSR. All the talk of "enemy" is to maintain the almost unlimited power and trillions of dollars profit of the Cold War - which is to be continued apparently forever.

 

[PleasantValley]

I think I agree with most of that. No way does Russia want a war with us.

With that said, it is a very corrupt country and one must be cautious in any dealing with them.

I've said before they are a different culture than us. Just what they went through during WWII is mammoth to what we suffered.
We lost about 400,000 soldiers. Russia lost 8-11 million soldiers and about 8-9 million civilians.
Those people went through hell. So am certain that plays a role in their not trusting anyone.

Agreed. Almost every country in Europe has fought the Russians at one time or another. But then again, almost every country in Europe have fought almost every other country in Europe at one time or another too. They sure love to kill each other over there....and for the damnedest reasons.

One a lighter note...You might like this story
My Russian teacher told me an interesting story about how cats saved Leningrad after the siege.
She said after the siege was lifted there were rats everywhere place eating the dead bodies laying all over the place.
In the streets, in homes, in alleys...everywhere. They were frozen, and it was hard during the siege to bury them.
Now that the weather was warmer, everyone was more "aware" of them.
Then the hordes of rats came and were taking over the city and getting fat on the dead corpses.
People were afraid to even go outside.

Some genius decided to ship in stray cats from all over Russia. People caught them and all were put on several railroad cars and sent to Leningrad.

As the story goes, almost as soon as the railroad cars were opened all these zillions of cats spilled out and immediately went to work killing any and all rats they saw.
The city was almost rat free shortly soon after.
I was told there is a monument to the "Cats that saved Leningrad" someplace, but don't know for sure.

Her mother and father were alive then and she said they still have a special affinity for cats to this day.
It is called St. Petersburg now.

**********************************************
As a side note: Soviet troops during that siege and others learned to wiggle off a pistol bullet, which was .30 caliber (7.62X25), then wiggle off a rifle bullet, which was also a .30 caliber (7.62X54R), shake out all the rifle powder, then pour in a small amount of the pistol powder, then seat the pistol bullet over the rifle case. When you fired it in your rifle, the report was rather mild and pretty silent, but it would kill a big fat rat, so you would have some fresh meat that day to eat. The troops called those homemade rounds the "Cat's Sneeze", because it was deadly on rats and not very loud.

 

[Rexedgar]

Monument to cats of blockade Leningrad


PV, never heard that story, though we have visited and I have read a few book and there was a film. “Attack on Leningrad.” Thanks.

 

[PirateMk1]

Considering that you just admitted that you were a wee tot when the Cold War ended, you don't have much of a frame of reference. I was married and working for a Russian language cable TV production company when the Cold War ended, thank you very much.

So much for your copy/paste and somewhat knee jerk slam on "Democrats as commies" remarks.

That was Molten Dragon, thank you very much. I remember when Ted Kennedy and the rest of the doves in the Democratic party would fawn all over the Russians saying how great they were. By the way ole Ted wrote letters to the Russians asking for them to interfere in our elections way back in the 80's. Oh and I didnt call the democrats commies recently, but thanks for reminding me what pinko commie rat bastards a good chunk of the Dems have been over the years. I really hate pushy communists. Makes me want to hulk smash em.

 

[PleasantValley]

Monument to cats of blockade Leningrad


PV, never heard that story, though we have visited and I have read a few book and there was a film. “Attack on Leningrad.” Thanks.

Thank you so much for looking up and finding the actual monument.
Now i can say for certainty there is one.

PS...I have the DVD of "Attack On Leningrad" but have not watched it yet.