this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2026
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russia is anti-imperialist and irredentist.
they aid countries like cuba against the imperialist blockade (anti-imperialism), and they also conquer land from ukraine (irredentism)
of course you're going to completely reject this cus of my instance, but anyway
i do not support the russian invasion of ukraine btw
If an imperialist nation opposes an imperialist nation (to serve their own imperialist goals), neither can be realistically labeled anti-imperialist.
what imperialist goals does russia have
Irredentism, for one. You taught me that word so I'm surprised you already forgot it.
irredentism doesn't make a country imperialist
i don't think you would call south or north korea imperialist or well i'm not too sure at this point
I would say it does, by definition.
If you count North Korea and South Korea as different countries, I would argue North Korea is definitely imperialist and South Korea could be considered imperialist. Russia is absolutely imperialist:
"Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power and soft power."
"Irredentism is one state's desire to annex the territory of another state. This desire can be motivated by ethnic reasons because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to or the same as the population of the parent state."
How are you defining the terms?
why is north korea imperialist in your opinion?
"employing both hard power and soft power". russia only uses military might (hard power)
i'd say modern imperialism is much more complex than grabbing land (irredentism). for example, the best example of imperialism, the US, has tied european defense to the US via nato. if their european vassals don't buy enough weapons from them or are about to buy weapons from the wrong country, they get heavily punished economically (terminating trade deals, tariffs, threats etc.)
a lot of european NATO and other vassal countries weapon systems are tied to the US so it's likely that they could just shut down my home country's air force by pressing a button, if we switched over to politics they don't like.
our (finland) voting systems, e-authentications, healthcare systems are being moved to the US cloud. this gives america leverage to basically shut our country down if we ever go against their politics. from what i've heard, microsoft's services are spreading like a cancer despite this being the homeland of linux.
i saw a news article that claimed that the biggest american companies control like 60% of the internet's traffic. the americans could initiate a disaster to any "western" country if they wished by cutting them off.
this is what modern imperalism looks like.
now take anti-imperialist countries like russia or china. they would sell all kinds of things (including weapons) to satan if he treated them fairly. they have their own internet services, they don't give a fuck. they don't push them to anyone else to make them conform to their political ideals by holding the wire cutter. this is what makes the difference.
that being said, irredentism is still awful. i'm ideologically against all forms of killing, and that includes the russian attack on ukraine. just so we're clear here, this is just about definitions, i'm not trying to argue that russia attacking its neighbors is good in any way.
Because they aspire to (and occasionally have proven to) fit the widely-accepted definition described above.
Why isn't it, in your opinion?
Your comment carves out your own pet definition, asserting that financial dependency equates to people getting bombed. While not ideal, it's far from comparable.
If you define words like "imperialism" however you want, of course you can craft perfect boxes to fit countries you don't like but exclude countries you do like. You're just piggybacking off a word you know people don't like.
As I said above, both of those countries are very obviously imperialist, and opposing another imperialist country does not make them anti-imperialist.
Just say "Russia are The Good Guys and the USA are The Bad Guys" and you will be speaking from your heart instead of redefining terms to propagandize.
Here, I'll bootstrap some empathy for you:
If I personally feel like "murderer" should mean "someone who thinks Russia and China are anti-imperialist," does that mean it makes sense to call you a murderer? Or is that an inherently dishonest form of communication, and starting off a conversation calling you a murderer without clarifying I'm using a secret non-standard definition is ridiculous?
obama reduced the blockade against cuba
is obama anti-imperialist
no