>Yes but that is all before the advent of modern ship technology. Alaska was part of the eastward expansion led by the cossacks in the age of discovery.
The US got California as result of westward expansion led by gold rushers and entrepreneurs. The point here isn't that Russia didn't want and didn't try. Russia tried and failed.
>I think the parent comment in mostly right. Remember that the US and USSR were both mostly concerned about the state of Western Europe; that was the focus of attention for most of the cold war. The Soviets had an enormous land boundary and no need for ships if they wanted to invade western europe.
That is the situation post-Crimean war. The point of Crimean War was Russian expansion southward, ultimately to control the straits and have the access to Mediterranean, to the soft unprotected belly of Europe, like the Osman Empire had for centuries before. Obviously Western Europe, in particular Britain and France didn't want it, as having the threat limited to land and attenuated by significant land distance between them and Russia was much strategically much more beneficial for Western Europe. And Russia lost the war (for all the typical Russian reasons - bad tech, bad management, etc.). The same way like losing Tsushima and the whole Russo-Japan war closed Russian attempts to be ocean faring state in Pacific.
So the point here is that Russia did try and failed and thus it has that land based priority that parent is talking about not by choice - it it just natural consequence of failing to make it into big Navy league with those 2 wars being the key stopping points.
You make good points. I think we are talking besides each other. Imperial Russia was an expansionist monarchy but it would never reach the level of Industrialization that the Soviet Union did. All the failures you mention are by a Pre-Soviet Russia, whose priorities were different from its successor. With the industrial capacity at hand in post WW2 Soviet Union, the question is why was it not used to manufacture a blue water navy on the same scale as the US. And the answer is: because it wasn't important to Soviet interests.
Note that the Soviet Navy was pretty formidable in itself; perhaps just not advanced as the US due to lack of investment which was arguably caused by a lack of interest.
I don't disagree with you in general - my point was also, essentially, that the failure of all those attempts was not by choice - but I think it's rather dictated by physical and political geography, and not blind luck (or lack thereof) in a couple of wars. Russia was always playing catch-up with other major European powers wrt its navy, as well as with overseas expansion.
The US got California as result of westward expansion led by gold rushers and entrepreneurs. The point here isn't that Russia didn't want and didn't try. Russia tried and failed.
>I think the parent comment in mostly right. Remember that the US and USSR were both mostly concerned about the state of Western Europe; that was the focus of attention for most of the cold war. The Soviets had an enormous land boundary and no need for ships if they wanted to invade western europe.
That is the situation post-Crimean war. The point of Crimean War was Russian expansion southward, ultimately to control the straits and have the access to Mediterranean, to the soft unprotected belly of Europe, like the Osman Empire had for centuries before. Obviously Western Europe, in particular Britain and France didn't want it, as having the threat limited to land and attenuated by significant land distance between them and Russia was much strategically much more beneficial for Western Europe. And Russia lost the war (for all the typical Russian reasons - bad tech, bad management, etc.). The same way like losing Tsushima and the whole Russo-Japan war closed Russian attempts to be ocean faring state in Pacific.
So the point here is that Russia did try and failed and thus it has that land based priority that parent is talking about not by choice - it it just natural consequence of failing to make it into big Navy league with those 2 wars being the key stopping points.