I understand, but my issue is that our leaders always take this weird messy middle approach that makes everyone angry at us. For example, IK's visit to Russia. It was totally unnecessary. There literally was no reason to go there. None. We should either lick the boots harder, or take a hard stand and work through the consequences, but this messy middle stuff is killing us. It's confusing our population. It's angering our key trade partners. It's making our strategic partners (e.g. China) suspicious of us. It's literally not doing anything productive.
If we decide to stand up against the West, then yes, we'll get sanctioned to hell. But at the same time, we eliminate the ambiguity between where the 'establishment' stands vis-a-vis the population. They'd be on the same page (e.g., anti-West) so, at least, we might gain internal stability and cohesion out of it. That might finally give us the framework to develop properly again, especially if we remove ourselves from all foreign games.
There's a cost to the action, but at least, we get the action and some potential direction for the future.
