In other cases? Perhaps. There is the famous story of Boris Yeltsin visiting the US in 1989, visiting a grocery store, and realizing that capitalism was superior (honestly the whole thing never smelled right to me and I’ve never seen a direct quote from Yeltsin about it, but whatever). I’m sure there are other cases where normalizing relations and sharing culture has helped to ease tensions.
Kim Jong Un doesn’t need any of that. He grew up and went to school in Switzerland. He’s a huge fan of basketball and American movies. He is familiar with American culture already. North Korea’s hostilities aren’t about competing ideology, but about Kim Jong Un maintaining power by carefully maintaining a balance between his own military leaders, China and (to a lesser extent) Russia versus the US, South Korea, and their allies. It’s in China’s interest right now to have a belligerent puppet state who is annoying to the west without actually escalating to war. Until those geopolitics change, taking Kim Jong Un to see America’s least favorite past time is only promoting and encouraging authoritarianism.
Given that Yeltsin would proceed to coup the USSR and bring back capitalism, decreasing life expectancy by 20 years, which it has barely recovered from, immiserating the entire country, causing widespread famine, and paving the way for Putin, you could have picked a better example.
I meant in terms of establishing good diplomatic relations between the US and Russia. From the fall of the Berlin wall up until the Obama administration it looked like relations were steadily improving as Russia was becoming more capitalist. Also at least from the US perspective it’s probably the most famous case of exposing a hostile foreign diplomat to American values.
I remember reading articles about how Russia was giving away land and paying people to come populate their rural eastern provinces. I’m not sure exactly when the sentiment changed- Putin clearly didn’t like Obama, but at this moment I can’t remember any specific incidents pior to the Crimea invasion. Before that, I remember them being seen as an economically inferior, but developing, potential ally. Similar to Japan before it’s “miracle”, lumped into BRIC with Brazil, India, and China as a potential new place to do business.
As for Yeltsin being bad for Russians? Eh, probably. I’m content leaving discussion to those whose special interest is recent Russian history.
I remember them being seen as an economically inferior, but developing
In the 70s, they were comparable with the US. It cannot be overstated how disastrous the 90s were; imagine if overnight the entire population of the US was reduced to the economic conditions of India.
A warm relationship with the US was premised on the immiseration of the Russian people for the benefit of international capital, with the Russian national bourgeoisie eventually joining them, but the specifics are a bit more complicated.
I can’t remember any specific incidents pior to the Crimea invasion
The coup in Ukraine, where the US supported right-wing factions hostile to Russia in the newly formed government was the immediate incident prior to that.
This chapter of The Shock Doctrine does a great job of covering the US policy maker’s actions and their perspectives during the 90s and 2010s:
In other cases? Perhaps. There is the famous story of Boris Yeltsin visiting the US in 1989, visiting a grocery store, and realizing that capitalism was superior (honestly the whole thing never smelled right to me and I’ve never seen a direct quote from Yeltsin about it, but whatever). I’m sure there are other cases where normalizing relations and sharing culture has helped to ease tensions.
Kim Jong Un doesn’t need any of that. He grew up and went to school in Switzerland. He’s a huge fan of basketball and American movies. He is familiar with American culture already. North Korea’s hostilities aren’t about competing ideology, but about Kim Jong Un maintaining power by carefully maintaining a balance between his own military leaders, China and (to a lesser extent) Russia versus the US, South Korea, and their allies. It’s in China’s interest right now to have a belligerent puppet state who is annoying to the west without actually escalating to war. Until those geopolitics change, taking Kim Jong Un to see America’s least favorite past time is only promoting and encouraging authoritarianism.
Given that Yeltsin would proceed to coup the USSR and bring back capitalism, decreasing life expectancy by 20 years, which it has barely recovered from, immiserating the entire country, causing widespread famine, and paving the way for Putin, you could have picked a better example.
I meant in terms of establishing good diplomatic relations between the US and Russia. From the fall of the Berlin wall up until the Obama administration it looked like relations were steadily improving as Russia was becoming more capitalist. Also at least from the US perspective it’s probably the most famous case of exposing a hostile foreign diplomat to American values.
I remember reading articles about how Russia was giving away land and paying people to come populate their rural eastern provinces. I’m not sure exactly when the sentiment changed- Putin clearly didn’t like Obama, but at this moment I can’t remember any specific incidents pior to the Crimea invasion. Before that, I remember them being seen as an economically inferior, but developing, potential ally. Similar to Japan before it’s “miracle”, lumped into BRIC with Brazil, India, and China as a potential new place to do business.
As for Yeltsin being bad for Russians? Eh, probably. I’m content leaving discussion to those whose special interest is recent Russian history.
In the 70s, they were comparable with the US. It cannot be overstated how disastrous the 90s were; imagine if overnight the entire population of the US was reduced to the economic conditions of India.
A warm relationship with the US was premised on the immiseration of the Russian people for the benefit of international capital, with the Russian national bourgeoisie eventually joining them, but the specifics are a bit more complicated.
The coup in Ukraine, where the US supported right-wing factions hostile to Russia in the newly formed government was the immediate incident prior to that.
This chapter of The Shock Doctrine does a great job of covering the US policy maker’s actions and their perspectives during the 90s and 2010s:
https://archive.org/details/fp_Naomi_Klein-The_Shock_Doctrine/page/n251/mode/2up