system
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human
What is an 'eastern mindset'? In analysis of our current confrontation with Russia, many note that Russia 'is influenced by both western and eastern thinking'. What do they mean?

I like to travel and I feel that I have a pretty comfortable grasp of the differences of worldviews between north americans, UK people, french, german, italians, scandinavians, etc, but the farthest east I've traveled is Czech Republic and I'm not exactly sure what commenters mean when they refer to Russia's "eastern influence".

Are they talking about a preference for collectivism? A preference for strong central control? What does that have to do with the current conflict which seems to be about territorial maintenance in the face of former satellite countries that are becoming more closely aligned with the west?
gpt
>>Are they talking about a preference for collectivism? A preference for strong central control? What does that have to do with the current conflict which seems to be about territorial maintenance in the face of former satellite countries that are becoming more closely aligned with the west?

We can talk all we want about Tsarism or the tradition Russian state or debate the insights of Dostoyevsky into the Russian mind but in reality the causes are much more immediate. Most Russians today are really pissed off over what happened since the fall of the Soviet Union and have seen their country fall from superpower status into the chaos and depression of the 90s into what is today at best a declining regional power. There is a very strong sense of resentment by the ordinary Russian towards the west for what it sees as betrayal.

What is actually hard to westerners to grasp is what it feels like to be on the losing end of a geopolitical struggle (because the west as a whole have being top-dogs since the mid 19th century if not the 18th) and seeing your country literally fall apart into a dozen pieces. Imagine if the US fell apart into like 10 different parts and you were a citizen in rump US 20 years later. There's a pretty good chance you'd be cheering at rump US reconquering the seceded area of California or whatever.

Crimea is something which most Russians sees as Russian because lots and lots of Russian blood has being shed over it in the 19th (Crimean war) and 20th centuries (WW2) and is historically Russian (as oppose to Ukrainian). Whereas most of the other areas former USSR has either 1) too many people of the wrong ethnicity (central Asia, western Ukraine) to consider reabsorbing or 2) Is on friendly terms with Russia and looks like its going to be part of Russia/Russian led Eurasian Union anyway (Belarus).

So basically it sort of comes down to Crimea is historically Russian territory whom the ordinary Russian has a good deal of emotional attachment to and really wants to get back. This has very little to do Russian philosophy or w/e but is mostly just Revanchism for lost territories.

P.S Putin don't actually expects anyone to believe the story about "self-defense" forces taking over the Crimea. They are basically just using this as an opening negotiating position with the west. This makes a lot more sense once you realize Russians sees western rhetoric about human rights in the exactly same way and as a tool to beat down their country.