Originally Posted by
etudiant
Why would you believe that intelligent people ruling Russia are so bereft of sense that they would prefer to ride a dying system to a serious restructuring?
My take is that the European integration effort (aka Nord Stream 2) is getting red lights from the US and from local European politicians. That makes Moscow's stance easier to understand.
What I cannot understand is that none of these politicians has dared stick his/her head above the parapet to say the truth, that Europe needs Russia to save itself from irrelevance.
Russian Natural Gas isn't the thing holding Europe from irrelevance. If you believe so, I'd ask to see your work.
Why the Russians do odd stuff for no reason, like hosing down European towns with nerve gas, assassinating dissidents, denying obvious government connections to things like MH17, blowing up ammo dumps, threatening capitals with nuclear weapons, engaging in cartoonishly stupid attempted coup d' etat?
I don't know. I mean, maybe Putin DOES want European integration, but his actions are those of a barely deterred strongman. Frankly, those aren't the actions of a person engaged in the serious work of political and economic integration. Frankly, its a near maddening level of provocative behavior that no General Secretary of the Soviet Union would have dreamt to try.