The Planetary Trolls

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Clarissa

April 5, 2017

Started reading Huntington and got unhappy on page 2. He says Russia supported Serbia in the Yugoslavian conflict because of a cultural affinity they share. That’s a very insane statement. No such affinity exists, and there is no Russian person who’d claim there is. And as a Russian-speaker, I find it deeply aggravating when Americans tell me, “Ah, Ukraine! It’s like Serbia, right?” Both Russia and Ukraine are “like Serbia” in the same way we are “like Australia”. We are all humans, so there’s that commonality but nothing much else.

Then, as now, the only motivation that Russia had was to troll the US. Trolling is an end in itself. Serbia, schmerbia – who cares, as long as you can stick it to Americans? It’s all about that, all the time.

This is also an answer to the question of why the Russians promoted Trump’s candidacy. To troll, they did it to troll the US. Let’s not look for complexity where there isn’t one. Russia is like a 9-year-old boy who feels an overpowering need to tug on a girl’s braid.

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2 responses to “The Planetary Trolls ”

cliff arroyo

April 6, 2017

“Ah, Ukraine! It’s like Serbia, right?” Both Russia and Ukraine are “like Serbia” in the same way we are “like Australia”

Australia has a past with an Orthodox tradition? Australians speak Slavic languages and use the Cyrillic alphabet?

I do agree that the… commonalities shared by Russia and Serbia had no real effect on determining Russian policy (such as it was) at the time.

What I remember was that Germany exacerbated the Bosnian conflict by trying to be too liberal and progressive, recognizing Bosnian independence before a power sharing agreement was worked out (one of the reasons that Germany is forever doomed to cause problems internationally is their lack of people and negotiating skills)

IIRC Germany was more on the Croatian side (since most Jugoslavians in Germany were from there) and France was on the Serbian side for historical something (and maybe partly to troll the US too). Poland mostly was mostly as uninterested as possible but maybe slightly more pro-Serbian since the Croatians were enthusiastic nazi supporters in WWII.

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1. Clarissa
  
  April 6, 2017
  
  Today it’s become fashionable in Russia and Ukraine to fake religiosity but back in the 1990s nobody remembered the existence of the Orthodox tradition. And I can’t imagine anybody in Russia being able to say what alphabet is used in Serbia.
  
  The narrative surrounding the conflict back in the 1990s was all about Americans. I had no idea, for instance, that there were Muslims involved. Nobody was mentioning that on the news. It was all about evil Americans all of the time.
  
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