The Russia as "Imperialist" Thesis Is Wrong

[MisterP]

7. there's different models at work here: Russia's focus is on the

"Near Abroad": Stalin was focused more on getting obedient buffer states between him and the Western "Bloc" than on conquering the globe; Russia still wants everyone on its borders to be at least in sync: the "nation-state" is absolutely not its unit of analysis: to Moscow the former USSR is basically one big unit, with Moscow's sovereignty happening to extend only up to the borders of the former RSFSR+Crimea; in Russian eyes Abkhazia, Crimea, and Ossetia are autonomous units--period, not autonomous units controlled entirely and by right by Tbilisi or Kiev; to Moscow it's all the same whether Karakalpakstan goes to Kazakhstan or stays Uzbek, since it was arbitrarily assigned to that SSR back in the 30s; Poland and Slovenia can be sovereign countries or republics in a federal superstate for all they care
China's foreign policy is even more hierarchical, Beijing at the middle of a mandala of provinces, Sinicized satellites, "barbarian" tributary realms, and wildlings kept out by deserts and walls
Washington's foreign policy is typically done by people who don't see other countries as REAL places--Kuwait or Congo or Mozambique empty stages for us to "fight" Saddam or Brezhnev (even when we're not), with some resources under them; presidents can be swapped out, generals greenlit for assassination, business elites wooed because ultimately Foggy Bottom
even classic colonialism can get tricky, since there's liabilities under any profits: Africa wasn't profitable (i.e., sufficiently exploited) for Britain and France until the 1920s, and India and industrialized Canada still outshone the rest of the Empire