Should Russia create a union with all ex-soviet countries?

With some recent changes in ex soviet countries leaning more to Russian than to the western countries, should Russia try to re-unite a union with all the ex soviet countries???
I know various forms on unions have been setup with a handful of ex soviet countries signing up, but should Russia activately try to re-unite them all???

please vote on the poll and any comments would be great.

No.

I think most of the ex Soviet states held Russia back and were more dependencies rather than assets.

Russia should try to have good relations with its neighbours, but there is no need to create any binding EU type structure. Political or military.

I totally aggree with GarryB on this.

Werewolf wrote:I totally aggree with GarryB on this.

Also agree with Garry, although Russia should at least try to form friendlier relations with them as best they could. 

Don't get me wrong... Russia should work to build good relations with all of its neighbours... east, west, south, but it should not become the gravy train for other countries to bludge from.

Not all Soviet countries were useless money sponges. Soviet union industrialised Baltics and Ukraine, hell no matter where You go in my city there were major factories, technical centres, perfect infrastructure, excavated and widened rivers, railways.. After Soviet union collapsed all industry went tits up, everything was stolen, privatised, exported..
Now what would be reason for Russia to get new territory, most of whats left of Soviet Union is agrarian lands and that Russia has plenty of it's own.
And there is too much friction between ex Soviet states, like You are Scottish and You want Your country to be independent so do we. No one wants to be ruled by foreign power, be it Washington or Moscow.
even today there is good amount of cooperation between Russia and ex soviet states. As Russian economical situation gets better so does relations between lets say, my country. Russian business is spreading westwards too. Give it 10-20 years and Russia would be icorporated in to EU unoffially. If EU will survive till then

hi thanks for the input. But just wanted to point out that I never quoted saying ex soviet countries as useless and didnt say for Russia to have full control like the soviet union but more like the EU type of union. I just think USA likes to discourage ex soviet countries from getting closer to Russia, the thought of Russia gaining more influence and possible base locations makes USA cringe. I hope ex soviet states and many other countries start seeing what USA and Europe are doing and that grass isnt always greener over in the west, just look cyrpus for example bet they regret joining eu now.

Regular wrote:Not all Soviet countries were useless money sponges. Soviet union industrialised Baltics and Ukraine, hell no matter where You go in my city  there were major factories, technical centres, perfect infrastructure, excavated and widened rivers, railways.. After Soviet union collapsed all industry went tits up, everything was stolen, privatised, exported..
Now what would be reason for Russia to get new territory, most of whats left of Soviet Union is agrarian lands and that Russia has plenty of it's own.
And there is too much friction between ex Soviet states, like You are Scottish and You want Your country to be independent so  do we. No one wants to be ruled by foreign power, be it Washington or Moscow.
even today there is good amount of cooperation between Russia and ex soviet states. As Russian economical situation gets better so does relations between lets say, my country. Russian business is spreading westwards too. Give it 10-20 years and Russia would be icorporated in to EU unoffially. If EU will survive till then

On second note kasakhstan would be quite useful since it has a significant military and spce infrastructure and its vast spaces of land are good a for WMD test site.

The best candidate for uniting with Russia is Transnistria with its highly anto NATO and prosoviet population.

thanks for the input, i agree with the points you made, but Kazahkstan is a big country and would need alot huge amount of money spent on it. I am going to Moldova in September and hoping to visit Transnistria when i am there.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:On second note kasakhstan would be quite useful since it has a significant military and spce infrastructure and  its vast spaces of land are good a for WMD test site.

The best candidate for uniting with Russia is Transnistria with its highly anto NATO and prosoviet population.

Russia can be superpowr again but it needs some things ,:
unite fully with belarus , take 33% of ukraine in the east thats most industrious part anyway and crimea with mostly russian population and pro-rus ukranians ,then take half of kazahstan - the agriculture productive north with good climate and most industry and minerals .
After that it should have about 200mill population and best areas of former Soviet union and be superpower again.

Rpg type 7v wrote:Russia can be superpowr again but it needs some things ,:
unite fully with belarus , take 33% of ukraine in the east thats most industrious part anyway and crimea with mostly russian population and pro-rus ukranians ,then take half of kazahstan - the agriculture productive north with good climate and most industry and minerals .
After that it should have about 200mill population and best areas of former Soviet union and be superpower again.

The fantasies of a child.

Russia has enough issues putting what it has back to a useful state, adding on anything won't help.

Being a superpower should be the last concern of Russian leadership.

Pretty unrealistic, i highly doubt any of those countries would let Russia carve it up and take the best bits and leave the rest for those countries, if any of those countries did decide to go back to Russian rule, it would have to be the whole country or nothing. Think before Russia could decide to take other countries under its wing, it would have to improve greatly its own country, and Russia has alot of problems to tackle, if this was ever achieved then Russia would seem more attractable to those countries to consider joining.

Rpg type 7v wrote:Russia can be superpowr again but it needs some things ,:
unite fully with belarus , take 33% of ukraine in the east thats most industrious part anyway and crimea with mostly russian population and pro-rus ukranians ,then take half of kazahstan - the agriculture productive north with good climate and most industry and minerals .
After that it should have about 200mill population and best areas of former Soviet union and be superpower again.

Not all Soviet countries were useless money sponges.

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that.

However the picture I get is that life in most Eastern European countries was actually better than in many parts of Russia and that living standards tended to be not that bad in comparison... yet after the end of the Cold War everything was Russias fault and nothing was their own fault... it just seems to me that they appear a little ungrateful and a little insensitive.

A bit like a kidnapping victim complaining about the food when they ate better than their supposed captor.

Very simply most of the countries that border Russia that are not and were not part of the west (ie former Soviet and Warsaw Pact states as well as China and North Korea) were not in great shape in 1990 and would need a lot of investment and support to "fix". Russia has its hands full fixing its own problems and should not waste time and money solving the problems of its neighbours.

When problems are shared however... like the disappearance of the Aral Sea and a solution is achievable then of course for good relations then work to solve such mutual problems makes sense, but at the end of the day Russia needs to sort itself out and get progress to effect from the centre of Moscow out to the most isolated part of Russia before it starts giving its mates a leg up on the gravy train.

Exceptions include good relations with traditional allies like Cuba and Vietnam and India etc.

d_taddei2 wrote:Pretty unrealistic, i highly doubt any of those countries would let Russia carve it up and take the best bits and leave the rest for those countries, if any of those countries did decide to go back to Russian rule, it would have to be the whole country or nothing. Think before Russia could decide to take other countries under its wing, it would have to improve greatly its own country, and Russia has alot of problems to tackle, if this was ever achieved then Russia would seem more attractable to those countries to consider joining.

Rpg type 7v wrote:Russia can be superpowr again but it needs some things ,:
unite fully with belarus , take 33% of ukraine in the east thats most industrious part anyway and crimea with mostly russian population and pro-rus ukranians ,then take half of kazahstan - the agriculture productive north with good climate and most industry and minerals .
After that it should have about 200mill population and best areas of former Soviet union and be superpower again.

Lol russia is a biggest cpountry by far it will always have problems and needs and will never meet them all in 1000 years. Its sparsely populated.
That is not carving up- people there are russian and want to be with russia. did you know 40% of kazahstan population were russians in 90s.And 25% in ukraine.
They can have their autonomy like any large minority and then decide to go peacefully their own way and join russia. Russia must be a superpower because that way it can nprotect its interests much better then a secondary power. More power is always better and more population gives more power too in this world. But must do it wisely.

Does population make China or India superpowers in the sense you are talking about?

I think you over rate population as a factor... Britain and the US were not heavily populated when they became superpowers.

Before the last two decades or so when China was largely ignored by western investment China wasn't a global power. Now it has more reach, but I wouldn't call it a global power and many other things have changed for that to come to pass than population growth.

Yes it does.
Britain held 1/4 of world land and population.
Usa had large population at that time -yes ,and was not ravaged in war.
And Russia can support much larger population actually. Its sparsely populated.
Usa has 300mill population, Russian is half that and can never reach it in military and economy.
China and India wouldnt be in top 10 if they had Russian population.

GarryB wrote:

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that.

However the picture I get is that life in most Eastern European countries was actually better than in many parts of Russia and that living standards tended to be not that bad in comparison... yet after the end of the Cold War everything was Russias fault and nothing was their own fault... it just seems to me that they appear a little ungrateful and a little insensitive.

I know that, it's getting very old, but it was politicians that had to find scapegoat blame all social/economical problems on someone else. We share same mentality through all Eastern Europe. Be it jews, russians, oligarchs, other governments, all are blamed but not us..
It was our mutual neroism that put us in situation here. Yelcin and other "great" Eastern European leaders were praised by the West because we were kept at check by their incompetence.

A bit like a kidnapping victim complaining about the food when they ate better than their supposed captor.

But to be grateful for Russians would be rather silly too, but to blame them is even bigger nonsense.
Someday we have to accept it that we were all together in same stew and put the blaming/liberation thing asides as we seen it doesn't help with relationships.

Very simply most of the countries that border Russia that are not and were not part of the west (ie former Soviet and Warsaw Pact states as well as China and North Korea) were not in great shape in 1990 and would need a lot of investment and support to "fix". Russia has its hands full fixing its own problems and should not waste time and money solving the problems of its neighbours.

I agree with this 100 percent.

That is not carving up- people there are russian and want to be with russia.

I ask again, how belorussians are Russians? And definitely not all Russians want to live in Russia, especially the ones that served with me. You would be surprised how many Russians that grew up abroad are patriotic to countries they reside and not all of them are 5th column as You suggested.
You talk about Belarus, they would want to join with EU more than join with Russia according to IISEPS. Don't see why Belarus would want to integrate with Russia, what would it gain more than what they have now? Russia should be Russia, not an union of some states.

Rpg type 7v wrote:Yes it does.
Britain held 1/4 of world land and population.
Usa had large population at that time -yes ,and was not ravaged in war.
And Russia can support much larger population actually. Its sparsely populated.
Usa has 300mill population, Russian is half that and can never reach it in military and economy.
China and India wouldnt be in top 10 if they had Russian population.

No, it doesnt.  Even with India's large population, its GDP is grossly outmatched compared to the amount of people in the country.  The country has a high illiteracy rate, high unemployment and the living standards are significantly lower than a lot of countries.  Its population does NOT make it a super power.  England was a Superpower itself not because of its large population, but about how effective they were at defeating others or turning one against the other (hence how they got India, was not by conquest but convincing the kings of various regions in Hindustan to fight amongst each other).  England's population is less than that of Russia.  England is a shadow of its former self because it is collapsing from within, not because of any external threat.  It is their own faults and corruption.  Reason why USSR collapsed.

Obtaining Ukraine would be more of a burden for Russia than anything else.  They would need to modernized Ukraines infrastructure, and it would cost about the same as they are paying now to modernize their own, which is greatly needed.  Ukraine has very little to offer other than maybe some experts from certain fields as well as some of its industrial base (I can only think of Antanov off the top of my head).  Ukraine is in dire straights and obtaining them would be a step back rather than forward.  Instead, Russia should try to influence Ukraine to be part of the organizations like CSTO and Customs borders, as they could use the concept of private industries from either Kazakhstan and Russia to help develop their country, rather than have Russia do it on its own under Russian tax money.  This is one of the many reasons why USSR failed.  Too many countries leaching off of the main economy.

Customs Union is a different beast, and it is the right direction.  It allows Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia to invest in each other to build each other up.  As well, it keeps them under the spotlight and prevents any embargoes which is a step in the wrong direction as well.

I, in my opinion, think Russia will never be a superpower again, but for that matter, I do not think any country will ever be. The term superpower is so grossly thrown around, its meaning is lost. Technically, a Superpower can do anything it wants to any country without facing retaliation. USA is the closest to that but even then, it really only counts in countries that have very little means of protecting itself or is grossly overmatched (see Yugoslavia as an example). But you will never see it really go up against a nation that is indeed capable of retaliating. Example is Russia or China. You will not see any engagement of the three countries going against each other than a silly border skirmish or external skirmish, as all three sides can retaliate to the point of total destruction. Be it either nukes or just causing mass casualties of other proportions.

China knows they cannot act with impunity. Same with Russia. Only reason USA can push its agenda and face very little retaliation at the moment is because 1) it goes against countries with lack of capabilities and (2) majority of the countries involved with USA and its actions are also very capable nations themselves (France, UK, Germany, etc). What Russia can do, is what China is doing now: Invest in others and work along with them. Finland is facing this now with Russia where Russia is investing a lot of money and development in Finland, and in exchange, Finland is investing more into Russia. This will create an economical tie, and allow countries like Russia to gain the support from country like Finland, as Finland has a lot to lose, financially, over some stupid political debate. Russia is gaining that from Belarus and Kazakhstan, as these two countries rely on Russia and its economy, and that alone, will pretty much guarantee cooperation from those countries. USA has that leverage on already developed countries like UK and France, and so they have the upper hand against Russia since Russia's partners are poorly developed and have little leverage.

Maybe Russia would be better with 50mill ,or 5 mill population?
Ofcourse population gives you more workers ,more scientists working in more fields, and stonger economy- higher gdp ,thus more military equipment and soldiers. (for example instead of 1-2 carriers you can support 10).

Large population can be a burden ,if you cant feed it and just try to get food all day. Once you get them middle income so they can do sciense and have free time-then things really start to take off.
This are not backward african areas kazahstan belarus and ukraine were in 1 state for many centuries and already have integrated infrastructure and supply chains. They belong together ,this areas have good income too they would NOT be a drain on Russia. Only as a superpower you can protect your interests the best ,every country want to be on top your comment is for pathetic losers and hippies ,not a serious politician.

And what is customs union if not 1 state ,just more presidents and governments and different passports...

Whiterus and Blackrus are the same, belarus were under catholic lithuanian polish rule for some centuries so they tried to pull them away giving them special indentity from their brothers who were under mongol occupation and latter free russian state. Belarus-Rus- its a difference based on geography nothing else.

Size of population brings negative impact too. Moscow is already overcrowded. You have to develop Russia fully to be able to provide closest to equal opportunities for all population. I doubt that there would be any benefit of sudden population rise.

Just FYI, in early middle age, Belarus inhabitants were baltic and slavic too., Rather interesting mix of tribes who lived together/ And what christianity You are talking about, till 15th century most Lithuanians were pagans.
And interesting fact, Grand Duchy of Lithuania official language was Rusyn, based on Belorussian dialect. Slavs were mostly orthodox, some of them were unites and they were big influence in Grand Duchy cultural and political life. Even Grand Duchy name was " Великого князства Литовского, Руского, Жомойтского и иных" and most of Slavic lands were united under its banner because of Mongol and Tatar danger, most of them by diplomatic means. Compare it to teutonic crusades by Germans and other countries alike. Teutonic blitzkrieg even then was systematic germanisation and religious conversion. Or Golden horde oppression.
Today Belorussians are belorussians, even if they are not boasting their national identity. And as far I've seen, their country is doing fine,It was better before currency devaluation hit hem, but socially You are more secure than in Russia or other ex Soviet country. The ones that want to live in Russia are very welcome as they have no visa regime. No matter if You like Luka or not, Belarus is worth to visit

Rpg type 7v wrote:Maybe Russia would be better with 50mill ,or 5 mill population?
Ofcourse population gives you more workers ,more scientists working in more fields, and stonger economy- higher gdp ,thus more military equipment and soldiers. (for example instead of 1-2 carriers you can support 10).

Large population can be a burden ,if you cant feed it and just try to get food all day. Once you get them middle income so they can do sciense and have free time-then things really start to take off.
This are not backward african areas kazahstan belarus and ukraine were in 1 state for many centuries and already have integrated infrastructure and supply chains. They belong together ,this areas have good income too they would NOT be a drain on Russia. Only as a superpower you can protect your interests the best ,every country want to be on top your comment is for pathetic losers and hippies ,not a serious politician.

And what is customs union if not 1 state ,just more presidents and governments and different passports...

Whiterus and Blackrus are the same, belarus were under catholic lithuanian polish rule for some centuries so they tried to pull them away giving them special indentity from their brothers who were under mongol occupation and latter free russian state. Belarus-Rus- its a difference based on geography nothing else.

Israel, with its much lower population, is a significant more power than Ukraine is. So did population really help Ukraine over Israel? No.

we cant compare israel as it has the full support of USA , and its not a big power anyway.

Russia needs to get its house in order before planning a population expansion... the potential for safe and cleaner nuclear energy could open up Siberia with heat waste from power generation used for heating instead of wood fires and an abundance of electrical power making the lives of people in such a harsh region much easier.