Russia's enemy countries

I would say all of the above, and add the UK.

I would also add Saudi Arabia, who is not overtly hostile to Russia, but I think in the background that the Saudis don't like the Russians because the Russians don't support their little religious wars against Iran.

For the same reason I would add Pakistan, though traditionally the animosity from Pakistan has been fueled by cold war crap.

I would think Russias relationship with Pakistan might get better with worsening relations with the US and Pakistan, and a need to cooperate over the future of Afghanistan.

The real core of the problem is... which route will Pakistan take?

Pakistan... very much like Saudi Arabia, has a lot of extremist religious nutters, which in the past they have let do what they like. Osama Bin Laden is one example of a Saudi National who was pretty much bribed... don't do anything to us and we will leave you alone to do what you like sort of thing.

Obviously the US solution of ignoring it didn't work and they had to resort to using the CIA to kill key people in Pakistan, which the Pakistan government publicly objects to, but never actually really does anything about it... how hard would it be to send up a few F-16s and shoot down any unmanned drones?

I mean if they really wanted to.

Now that US forces have killed more than two dozen Pakistani soldiers at a checkpoint in Pakistan the government has become much more serious and active in its opposition to US activity in Pakistan and serious options like blocking land transport routes through Pakistan for supplies are interesting.

The problem is that the radical extremists the US are trying to kill in Pakistan are no friends of Russia either, so a shift for Pakistan from the US to Russia would... in addition to being very unlikely, would also put Russia in the same boat... the dilemma is that there are "goodies" and "baddies" in Afghanistan and the two groups are fairly defined as taliban and Al queda as the baddies with the latter mostly foreigners anyway. The only problem there is that lots of people change between groups depending on their situation. In Pakistan the problem is that the taleban and al queda are tolerated by the locals so there are no goodies and baddies, or there are, but they are all part of the one group, which makes fighting on and staying on good terms with the other is impossible.

The real solution is to separate the goodies from the baddies and get the goodies on side to fight the baddies... but that wont happen unless the Pakistani people want it to happen... they need to decide whether they want to stay friends with al queda and the taliban and get support only from Saudi Arabia, or turn their back on AQ and the T and either hitch their wagon to the US or Russia... the former being most likely, but now that Russia is no longer communist there is really no reason why they can't go for both... like India has decided to do.

The problem is that the Taleban and AQ are no more impressed by Russia as they are the US, so Pakistan needs to decide.

The CIA entered Afghanistan in 1973 and started fomenting opposition to the government that was on friendly terms with the Soviets. It wasn't an accident that the Afghan military was largely Soviet equipped.

In Afghanistan as we see throughout history everybody is opposition when there is a government. Which was the opposition in 1973?

Didn't matter.

The CIA just funded the opposition groups... anyone that was unfriendly to Russia... the Irony is that in 1979 they were kicked out of Iran, so they lost that avenue to interfere in Afghanistan but found Pakistan a willing helper to continue to foment conflict.

The Soviets couldn't afford to have the US in Afghanistan... it was bad enough when the US was in Iran... the US quickly armed the Persians with F-14s and F-4s and all sorts of goodies. The British were building the Iranians what later became the Challenger tank. Imagine if they had created a similar puppet regime in Afghanistan... knowing the history of Afghanistan they should have let them try of course, but they wanted to nip it in the bud early.

The most hilarious thing was that the US tried to sell to the world that the invasion of Afghanistan was an attempt to get warm water ports... ignoring the fact that Afghanistan is a land locked country.

Seemed to work on Pakistan, who clearly believed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a "you are next" situation rather than an attempt to stop the US infiltrating another country to turn against the Soviets.


@Lulldapull
Al quada is a case of playing with fire and getting burned.

In the 1980s when OBL directed his efforts at helping the Muj against the Soviets in Afghanistan the US and in particular the CIA was happy to fund and support them.

The problem was with Desert Storm when the US had the cheek to send their infidel soldiers in large numbers to the holy land of Saudi Arabia.

OBL basically was Al Quada, and when the American infidels refused to leave SA then their little pit bull turned and started biting them on the backside.

The Americans didn't understand it because they thought their dog was trained to hate the Ruskies, but this dog hated all infidels and was basically doing what America does all the time... uses one enemy to fight another.

During the Cold war the US got into bed with the Communist Chinese to deal with the Soviets, and the Islamic Saudis and Al Quada to deal with Soviets in Afghanistan.

As a result they made China rich because it was so appealing to have a cheap labour force with low costs and easily bribed local officials that didn't care about pollution laws or workers rights and for $10 agitators disappeared with their families overnight... it is the closest thing to slave labour the West could find so it got heavy investment.

Al Quada also turned and bit them too... the result is that the US has decided to "counter" China with India and Russia... remember that reset?

What they want is a conflict between either Russia and China or India and China... they don't care which... either result will be good for them.

Th reset so far has been the new START treaty to limit Russian strategic nuclear weapons, Russian assistance for sanctions against Iran, Russian assistance in Afghanistan like transport routes, but little cooperation regarding the drugs coming out of Afghanistan. (You can bet your a$$ if it was ilegal copies of US drugs like the drugs used to treat aids and cancer, that the US armed forces would come down hard and wipe out all elements of it overnight).

Not really very much of a reset then is it?

Actually I would like to hear more from Garry about NZ's and the Zealander's views on how they see Russia and the USA.

First of all let me say I am biased... and not ashamed to admit it either.

I get a ribbing from most of my friends about my views on Russia and the western world.

Culturally New Zealand was very pro Uk understandibly, but when Europe started blocking our imports of dairy products and hugely subsidised their own farming industry we started to look to the US.

That got us ANZUS (Australia/New Zealand/US) which was basically a military cooperation deal, and of course with going to Vietnam with the US and our anti nuke policy things got a little strained and we got cut out of ANZUS.

Needless to say I think most New Zealanders are bewildered by Americas bullying and double standards... they demand tarrifs on our beef exports to protect their farmers, but haven't fully explained why we can produce meat and ship it over there cheaper than they can make it and sell it domestically.

If the US says jump, the Australian and UK leaders say how high and when. Currently we have a national government that is more likely than not to say OK after thinking about whether it might lose them the next election. Under labour we would have asked why.

But we have troops in Afghanistan... we have SAS helping the US forces and we have Army soldiers in the north on a nation building mission. My nephew was there 3-4 years ago and he said that the US soldiers treated then really well and the NZ forces were given US codes, so for rescue missions or support missions the Kiwis got the same priority of resources as they would if they were American forces.
Of course because our conventional troops are not hunting for OBL they don't smash down doors at 2am and murder whole families, they build wells and schools and hospitals so the locals like them and actually help them when taleban elements come and ask the locals for help to get rid of the infidels.

To be honest I think most kiwis are more practical than the Brits and the Aussies and Americans and figure that if Russia wants democracy then the best way to build ties and be friends is through fair and open trade.

Rather than animosity, I think most Kiwis think of Russians as being poor european cousins that they really don't know much about...

The problems in Syria have nothing to do with "barbaric murder" just like the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with bringing peace and democracy.

The attempts at regime change in Syria is all about sunni muslims wanting to take over from shia muslims.

The reason the US has backed off from direct intervention and regime change is that they know a muslim brotherhood regime that would likely take power would be very anti Israel and anti west... the only benefit they would get is that it would also be anti Iran.

More importantly the Syrian opposition is splintered and I rather doubt any consensus apart from being anti Assad will be possible.

In many ways it is a bit like Afghanistan in that the opposition knew they opposed the Russians and then the Taleban and now the foreigners but when everyone leaves they start fighting amongst themselves and the faction with outside support will generally win... except that more blood will be spilt than the Soviets ever would have, and after 1990 Afghanistan might have ended up like Poland... commie government replaced... perhaps without bloodshed.

It has nothing to do with democracy or even the US or EU, this is western supported but totally Sunni driven anti Shia revolution sweeping the Middle East.

Actually it should be Turkey that is afraid, because if the Sunnis succeed in Syria... which moderate muslim country will be next on their sht list?

And when hostility greatly increases towards Israel... watch the US and her toadies jump ship and change sides.