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I'm not in the US, I'm in the UK and I was talking about Iraq. I'm not saying Russians are an alien race but their political culture is distinctly different from that of Western liberal democracies. I don't get why this is hard to grasp.

I'd say part of that failure is not to recognise the type of state that Russia is.

There were some of the biggest protests that have happened in my lifetime about the former, if not the latter.

Germany & France have both pursued a policy of open links with Russia in the hope that this'd bring them into the wider European community. How's this working out?

What negotiatioing strategy would work, do you think? What's their track record on sticking to treaties?

Idk. All of the polling I've seen of Russian public opinion shows the opposite. But regardless, the fact there is minimal negative public sentiment about the war is kinda my point.

Yeah, our political discourse doesn't allow that it was a crime. It sure as fuck sees it as a colossal failure though and that's shaped policy ever since.

I'm not trying to argue that Iraq was not criminal. I think there's really powerful grounds for persecution of those responsible. But the critique of it - you berating me here, for instance - is the central part of the discourse. Russian attitudes appear to be fundamentally different at all...

Any discussion of Iraq is framed as it being a monumental failure that left 100s of thousands dead and a (potentially) a grave breach of international law. I only say "potentially" because thus far the architects have avoided any consequences. I just cannot imagine a similar discourse taking...

I'm not trying to downplay any of that. We know about these absolute failures and how fucked up things got there and that's the major and significant part of the discourse around it. It garnered the biggest protests in my memory - biggest ever in UK? - and It's shaped Western policy every...

Thing is though, the massive failure in Iraq unleashed huge consequences domestically. Huge reduction of majority for Blair, ongoing hatred, and most importantly, it put a curb on interventionism as a policy of Western governments. It's one of the reason the West was so hands off in Syria...

It's more the outcomes - the position which most realists operate from seems to suggest you can arrive at a sensible set of compromises with Russia, that they behave and think something like "us". I don't think that's at all the case, as the evidence since Feb 2022 shows.

Part of the reason this is worth listening to is because he's very very critical of those who still understand Russia in these terms, the academics and others who've made careers out of it, the columnists who talk in these terms, people who're hoping for "normalisation", a negotiated settlement...

Just looked up a list - I remember seeing Solaris, F for Fake, Mad Max 2, Dead Ringers, Vamp, Django - all via Moviedrome. So fucking good.

To stay with the fictional, arguably there's more high-concept drama these days - Succession, White Lotus etc

TV as unashamedly intellectual? Idk, don't we still get the same thing with Adam Curtis and the buzz around him? Is he a complete outlier?

Was hugely important to me. First saw Performance, Fat City, Man Who Fell to Earth, Rumblefish and a host of others via Alex Cox

@vimothy Try this for a TLDR The essential idea is that Mearshiemer et al have it wrong trying to weigh up Russian interests in a kind of balance of power equation. It might've worked with the Soviet Union but doesn't really work with the modern Russia state which is essentially a throwback to...

You'll get the basics in the first 10m or so. The rest is very worthwhile IMO but you can make up yr own mind after the first 10m

This was a contender for the chart above - listen to that fucking bassline I remember it at the time but it didn't strike me with the same future shock as it does now, as I was immersed.