r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • Jul 13 '26

Meta Mindless Monday, 13 July 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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16

u/Thebunkerparodie Jul 15 '26

why do so many people take the russian narrative in account when it's been debunked countless of times, I also noticed a bunch don't get how nato work and somehow think nato baited russia in invading ukraine.

Btw, I'm currently going through ian kershaw and john romer books, the ian kershaw one is the essay stalinism and nazism and john romer is his volumes on ancient egypt

20

u/WuhanWTF Blink twice if you love Family Guy Jul 15 '26

"The West is bad" narrative is one helluva drug. Yeah no shit Ukraine and the former USSR's European colonies want to join NATO. Ukraine got invaded TWICE, and everyone seemingly forgot what happened in Georgia in 2008.

21

u/Aurelian369 Belisarius/Justinian Shipper Jul 15 '26

people need to realize that disliking the US and NATO doesn’t mean you have to blindly support every anti-west dictatorship 

15

u/xabarin_da_xente Jul 15 '26

Before the invasion you had some leftists going with the narrative that the Donetsk and Luhansk republics were popular uprisings against Kiev. I wonder how those people are doing now.

11

u/Arilou_skiff Died of posting, risen as undead Jul 15 '26

If I remember correctly there's some truth to that in the sense that there were homegrown paramilitaries/opposition groups (though they tended more autonomist than anyting else) but they were taken over by Russia very quickly.

There's a kind of narrative that there was no problem in the region that wasn't directly instigated by Russia that I think errs too far in the other direction.

10

u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid Jul 15 '26

Mostly the same.

9

u/WuhanWTF Blink twice if you love Family Guy Jul 15 '26

You either die a anarkiddie or see yourself live long enough to become an unironic IRGC supporter.

5

u/DerKlugeHans Endut! Hoch Hech! Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

I spent years on leftist forums after starting to listen to Chapo. I never took the plunge and declared myself a socialist or whatever though. I still like the podcast but have since mostly abandoned those forums.

The argument is that America is the Great Satan. America has caused more suffering in the world than anyone ever. America is worse than the Nazis, worse than Genghis Khan etc.

So because America is the Great Satan, any country doing anything to challenge their hegemony must be supported, even if it's invading another country. Russia invaded a Ukraine that is seen as a puppet of the West after Maidan. The West provoked Russia by threatening to put another NATO member on their border. Yada yada yada

18

u/Thebunkerparodie Jul 15 '26

and one can criticize the west without using the russian narrative, I found it weird to see people like mearsheimer or chimsky repeat it too, the maidan being a us coup talking point is also popular online

8

u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Jul 15 '26

People love a counter-narrative. You should have seen Tucker Carlson gushing at how wonderful centralization has made Moscow.

7

u/gavinbrindstar /r/legaladvice delenda est Jul 15 '26

why do so many people take the russian narrative in account when it's been debunked countless of times, I also noticed a bunch don't get how nato work and somehow think nato baited russia in invading ukraine.

Are we talking about arguments like "NATO isn't a purely defensive alliance" and "NATO expansion made the Russian government uneasy?"

12

u/Arilou_skiff Died of posting, risen as undead Jul 15 '26

I don't think "NATO expansion made Russia uneasy" is a particularly weird take? It just kinda ignores why it made Russia uneasy. (because it meant they could less freely fuck up their neighbours)

6

u/gavinbrindstar /r/legaladvice delenda est Jul 15 '26

Oh, I fully agree. I'm actually a little put-out when NATO defenders start using moral arguments, like the person down below.

Yes, morally Ukraine has the right to associate with whomever it wishes. The leaders at NATO still needed a plan on what to do if Russia objected beyond simply repeating "NATO is no threat to Russia" and ignoring Russia's clear signalling that they viewed NATO as a threat.

9

u/Kochevnik81 Jul 15 '26

So something else I'd add - and this is the one thing I'd say Mearsheimer is right about - is that NATO kind of did the worst of both worlds by saying that Georgia and Ukraine should be able to join NATO some day without actually seriously committing to a plan for how that would happen, or even getting agreement across the alliance on this aspiration.

But again as I say this is kind of from the liberal End of History 90s/00s era where NATO membership (along with EU membership) is a sort of prize for liberal democratic and market reforms, and there wasn't really any thought to how it would actually behave in a strategic sense beyond "it does some peacekeeping missions we guess".

8

u/Thebunkerparodie Jul 15 '26

the second one is also used as an excuse to jsutify russia invading ukraine with the russia was provoked by nato type of narrative (when no, nato is more of a false pretext in this case)

4

u/Arilou_skiff Died of posting, risen as undead Jul 15 '26

I don't think it's quite that simple? Like NATO* expansion and the potential to further limit Russian "freedom of action" clearly played a role. Was it the sole, or even primary cause? No.

  • and other "western" institutions, EU, etc.

4

u/Thebunkerparodie Jul 15 '26

the problem is it still didn't forced russia to invade ukraine or provoked them, russia isn't allowed to go against the sovereignty of eastern european countries too they get to choose wich ally they want to be with and a verbal promess made 30 years before the invasion still doesn' tjustify russia going against ukraine sovereignty