Yup. HW made a point of not doing victory laps about it, which was a smart move I think. But for the average Russian nationalist, the humiliation was already complete no matter what we did in the aftermath. It's like how MAGA was always going to hate post-college progressives no matter how many olive branches were extended. Russians were always going to hate western democracies simply as a matter of haves and have nots and who gets to tell who to do what. This was always about who is preaching to who and who is coercing who. They hate us because we moralize to them on human rights while our police shoot unarmed suspects when they get scared enough and our occupation in Afghanistan collapsed just as catastrophically as theirs did. We've been the ones coercing them since they've been born. They want to coerce us now. They want the shoe to be on the other foot. They want us to feel like they felt when we were the ones forcing ourselves on their world. Now they're forcing themselves on our world via Ukraine, the global inflation that ensued as a result, and the economic pain we're going to go through to control that inflation domestically. It's Putin's turn to push the buttons now, not the west's. At least that's my interpretation for what's driving Russian anti-western nationalism.
George H.W. Bush did warn us about the perils of gloating; I remember that much about his presidency.
Yup. HW made a point of not doing victory laps about it, which was a smart move I think. But for the average Russian nationalist, the humiliation was already complete no matter what we did in the aftermath. It's like how MAGA was always going to hate post-college progressives no matter how many olive branches were extended. Russians were always going to hate western democracies simply as a matter of haves and have nots and who gets to tell who to do what. This was always about who is preaching to who and who is coercing who. They hate us because we moralize to them on human rights while our police shoot unarmed suspects when they get scared enough and our occupation in Afghanistan collapsed just as catastrophically as theirs did. We've been the ones coercing them since they've been born. They want to coerce us now. They want the shoe to be on the other foot. They want us to feel like they felt when we were the ones forcing ourselves on their world. Now they're forcing themselves on our world via Ukraine, the global inflation that ensued as a result, and the economic pain we're going to go through to control that inflation domestically. It's Putin's turn to push the buttons now, not the west's. At least that's my interpretation for what's driving Russian anti-western nationalism.