Argh. That Chinese guy at the MSC gave me a headache about that one. Paraphrasing: "China does consider the Russian invasion a result of NATO expansion: The Russians think that you're stepping on their toes, they think in influence spheres, and neither we nor you can change their mind about that".
More or less "you bumped into a stupid drunk, now they're hitting you, what did you expect, the drunk to not be stupid?"
Yeah they're not imperialist, the "People's Republics" that keep popping up in different places and then get attacked by Russia to "protect them" are totally organic.
Honestly this person has to be American. You hear so much less of this bullshit in Europe (although definitely not nonzero amounts… we have more than our share of idiots and fascists too, unfortunately), especially anywhere near Russia. "Russia isn't imperialist" sounds so much dumber when their imperialism is happening right next door.
But they were invited! You see, when African autocrats invite Wagner to strip mine their nations it’s their right as sovereign states. Don’t confuse this for support of European states using their right to self determination to associate with NATO, however. That’s clearly imperialism, because reasons.
Enhanced interrogation techniques in the "police action" in the middle east because we had "proof" they had "WMDs" no less. It definitely "wasn't" a war based on lies for oil...
I mean... they wasted so many resources in Ukraine that they had to pull out of their imperialist schemes like in Syria which collapsed in a matter of weeks lol. Could go with flailing imperialist.
i've read a book once that was just an introductory overview on what theories of imperialism are out there. why don't other ppl try to read a book once?
Because it's much easier to not read any books, tell anyone who recommends reading 'don't tell me what to do', and then adopt all of the opinions of a demagogue who sounds smart to uneducated people and uses lies and misinformation to reinforce confirmation biases
It's fun with this rhetoric, 'cause if you replace imperialism by capitalism, and country name with corporation name, we immediately see how confuse it is.
"You can't say Shell is capitalist, it's not the global leader in the Petrolum Market. BT is"
We are talking about system. The Federation of Russia engaged in a competition against NATO, which result in wars and economic predation for power and ressources.
The same logic apply for Iran and China, but not on the same scale. A state is structured with the current international relationship; it need to gather power to secure its existence. Exactly like a corporation. North Korea is weak example of imperialism, not because it would be "socialist", but because it is losing the competition against other states.
That's why strong workers organisations where independent from states and political parties. And that's why we may mobilize first and mainly (but not only) against our one State imperialism, in order to not feeding this international competition.
And if you think that's their is no colonial history in Russia, you may think again. The Eastern conquest had some similarity with the western one in the USA.