Some Insight on the Russian Psyche from a Russian

From Stanislav Mishin's blog Mat Rodina, we find The Sixteen Reasons Why Russia Should NEVER Trust the West.

You can go to the site to get a bit more in exposition.

About half of the reasons are true, or at least true as one can when one is talking about international relations:

• Western banks and institutions raped Russia in the 1990s, which is true. The bankers made money, the pensioners were out on the street, and teen aged girls were selling themselves as prostitutes in order to keep from starving.
• Western Governments did cheer when Yeltsin shelled his own parliament
• The West, particularly western oil companies do want control of Russian oil
• NATO was expanded to the Russian border, despite promises to the contrary
• NATO bombed Serbia, though I would argue that there were legitimate reasons, a genocidal regime, for doing so.
• The West has a policy of explicit and extensive support to political enemies of Russia in the nations of the former USSR.
• That the West's moves into Central Asia following 911 were accompanied by attempts at regime change, or regime foreign policy change to create states generally hostile to Russian interests.
• That the west abrogated treaties as soon as they were no longer convenient, most notably the ABM treaty.
• That the west has provided fairly explicit aid to opposition groups in Russia. Clearly true, though I think he lists this one item as two on his list of 16.

Then there are those that I have doubts as to their significance or veracity. Either I have no knowledge of the truth of the statements, or I think that he is conflating basic international Realpolitik with explicit hostility:

• That the west has been backing secessionist and Islamist movements within Russia, most notably in Chechnya. Certainly, given the consequences and how they might effect access to Caspian oil make them plausible, particularly when it appears clear that the US gave tacit approval for Saakisvili to launch assaults in South Ossetia.
  
• That the Polish missile defense silos for could be used for the deployment of short range nuclear missile....Technically true, I put this in the paranoid section, it's easier/safer to use SSBNs firing missiles on depressed trajectories.
• That the West is giving asylum to people wanted by Russia, while demanding extradition of Russians to face western courts...Technically true, but meaningless, as a pretty standard standard state of diplomacy.
• That the west went soft on the Taliban, and pressured the Russians not to respond militarily to them prior to 911 because they wanted an oil pipeline that avoided both Russia and Iran. True, but I don't see it as overtly hostile, it's just the Texas oil men running the US government. To quote The Godfather, it's not personal, it's, "Just Business".
  

Then there is the tinfoil hat stuff:

• That the West despises "Russian Patriotism and Christianity"
• That the, "The West back every Jihad aimed at Orthodox Christians"

These are tinfoil hat, but it does reflect the deeply Xenophobic character of the worldview expressed here.

What I see as stupidity, he sees as malice.

I would say that this is particularly the case with NATO expansion, where the Euros were just too busy partying about the fall of the wall, and the US was looking at new markets for their military hardware and saw the need to replace Soviet legacy systems in new NATO members as a profit center.

I do think that Mr. Mishin represents a mainstream view in Russia, which begs the question, how is this addressed.

Unfortunately, many of the things that have been done, the feeding frenzy of the 1990s and the expansion of NATO cannot be easily undone.

As start, a forceful statement that the US is opposed to NATO membership for the Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan would be constructive.

I have little knowledge of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, but it is clear that the presidents of Ukraine and Georgia have a few screws loose.

Additionally, it's clear that the state security apparatus of Georgia has been thoroughly penetrated by the Russians, as the speed and effectiveness of the Russian military response shows that they knew of the specifics of the assault on South Ossetia for weeks in advance.

I am not a military man, but the idea of having an ally whose defense establishment is completely penetrated by another country does not fill me with glee.