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Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine

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Re: Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine

#141

Post by s1artibartfast »

bbatha wrote: post #78

My problem with Mearsheimer and the other realists is they have a very poor explanation why the status quo changes. Yes great power competition explains why tensions are high but does little explain why and when they spill over to war. Notably absent from this article is any discussion of "why now?". Commenters in the thread are saying that his 2015 article on the subject could be written last week. That's precisely…

>Why did Russia raise the stakes in December? Sure, NATO's eastward push has demonstrably increased tensions but the eastward push has been frozen since about 2014 since countries can't join NATO if they have territorial conflicts.

Formal joining was on hold, but everything else was accelerating since 2014. Most notably arms shipments, military funding, and NATO/US troops in Ukraine. At some point, there are simply too many NATO arms in Ukraine to invade. Russian power is waning, and at the same time Ukraine-NATO integration was approaching the point of irreversibility.

In 2016, Ukraine was granted a NATO Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP), comprising the advisory mission at the NATO Representation to Ukraine as well as 16 capacity-building programmes and Trust Funds.

In 2018, Ukraine was officially given an aspiring member status.

In 2021 NATO reaffirmed that “Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP)", which is the most traction on the topic since 2008.

From the Russian perspective the window to stop Ukraine was closing. Look at how much trouble they are having now. It would only have been worse with another year of arms shipments and training. Perhaps Russia miscalculated an they already waited too long.

Re: Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine

#142

Post by warner_of_doom »

thraneh wrote: post #130
warner_of_doom wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the fact that these sanctions are going to make poor people starve. Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine make up a huge chunk of world grain, fertilizer, oil, and gas exports. In the Grand Chessboard, former NSA Zbigniew Brzezinski openly talks about oil and gas pipelines and diverting them away from Russia. That's what this war is really about.

> Not to mention the fact that these sanctions are going to make poor people starve. This seems a very likely outcome. The EU obviously has no other "weapon" than sanctions. In my view, it has become a social media popularity contest. Let's punish everyone in Russia financially so maybe there will be an uprising. And, let's top it up with a free for all hunt on the assets of oligarchs. Is it anything else than the po…

> about control of the oil and gas coming from Russia.

No one focuses on this, but that's what WW1 and WW2 were always about. The eastern theatre was the most active one and it still is.

The EU should just increase its defensive capabilities and call it a day.

Make Poland and the Baltics the new red-line/frontier.

Re: Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine

#143

Post by warner_of_doom »

mcphage wrote: post #138
331c8c71 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gives US the right to take Ukraine from Ukraine? Thats where the story started

> Thats where the story started Did I miss the bit where the US invaded Ukraine in effort to take it over?

No post body was provided.

Re: Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine

#144

Post by [deleted] »

bbatha wrote: post #78

My problem with Mearsheimer and the other realists is they have a very poor explanation why the status quo changes. Yes great power competition explains why tensions are high but does little explain why and when they spill over to war. Notably absent from this article is any discussion of "why now?". Commenters in the thread are saying that his 2015 article on the subject could be written last week. That's precisely…

[deleted]

Re: Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine

#145

Post by 331c8c71 »

mcphage wrote: post #138
331c8c71 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gives US the right to take Ukraine from Ukraine? Thats where the story started

> Thats where the story started Did I miss the bit where the US invaded Ukraine in effort to take it over?

No post body was provided.

Re: Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine

#146

Post by calyth2018 »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #64
warner_of_doom wrote: post #38

Seeing this play out in the media reminds me of the Iraq War hysteria in 2003. Completely one-sided coverage, classic war-time propaganda (ghost of kiev), banning Russian arts and paralympians, etc. I've lost all faith in the media. Period. You may think that there is an absolute answer to this situation, but there isn't. I recommend that you study commentators and scholars such as: John Mearsheimer, Zbigniew Brezins…

I have studied this situation nonstop for the last week and I pretty much have the same opinion as you. If you ask a simple question, Cui bono? (Who benefits?) it becomes clear that it’s ultimately another military industrial complex project. The sad part is that the only real victims here are the Ukrainian people, who were led along with false promises. Had NATO been wiser, none of this would be happening.

These would be of interest for you: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16117-document-06-record-... https://archive.ph/gnqkv - among the signers who opposed the NATO expansion during the late 90s to include the Visegrad group, Former SoD MacNamara https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300259933/not-one-inch Fog of War (Errol Morris documentary) - rather telling in there is empathy for your adversary, and the fact that there's so many parallels with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Seems like we've learnt nothing from it.

Re: Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine

#147

Post by warner_of_doom »

kashunstva wrote: post #136
warner_of_doom wrote: post #38

Seeing this play out in the media reminds me of the Iraq War hysteria in 2003. Completely one-sided coverage, classic war-time propaganda (ghost of kiev), banning Russian arts and paralympians, etc. I've lost all faith in the media. Period. You may think that there is an absolute answer to this situation, but there isn't. I recommend that you study commentators and scholars such as: John Mearsheimer, Zbigniew Brezins…

> I am convinced that my country started this entire episode Unequivocally the government of the Russian Federation is the aggressor here. That the United States has been inconsistent with respect to Ukraine doesn't diminish the fact that the military of the Russian Federation is actively shelling hospitals, schools, residential dwellings and precipitating a humanitarian crisis in Europe.

No. Not unequivocally.

Do you know about what Victoria Nuland (leaked intercepted tapes), Senator John McCain, Senator Lindsay Graham, Hunter Biden, CIA John Brennan, etc. did in Ukraine?

Zelenskyy ran on peace with Russia, but his puppet masters in Washington would never have allowed that.

So, by late-2021, do you know that Zelenskyy had a sub-28% approval rating from his own population because he threatened to acquire nuclear weapons, threatened to join NATO, join the EU (comes with military connections also, BTW), take back Crimea and the entirety of the Donbas, etc.? His population mostly wanted Austria-style neutrality but he was being strung along by the US because we wanted to turn it into a battering ram against Russia.

So, Russia acted pre-emptively. Heck, by our logic, this war is more justified than the Invasion of Iraq in 2003.

You have to look at the entire political situation in Ukraine, starting at least since 2003-4. And, especially 2014 and the US-backed putsch that took place that year.

Re: Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine

#148

Post by warner_of_doom »

331c8c71 wrote: post #145
mcphage wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thats where the story started Did I miss the bit where the US invaded Ukraine in effort to take it over?

Quoted post unavailable.

Even the "pro-Ukrainian" population in Ukraine has sought neutrality in the US-Russian conflict but American regime-control and regime-change operations ensured that whoever came to power would have to kowtow to American demands. This is a proxy-war. Plain and simple.

Re: Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine

#149

Post by wangii »

The field of international politics has been embarrassingly primitive to the degree that "The end of history" is a work of a serious scholar. Luckily we still have Mearsheimer, Walt and the old school of realpolitik.

I think Mearsheimer intentionally ignores the facts that "power corrupts, great power corrupts greatly", so that he doesn't need to address the annoying abnormalities that great powers fall eventually, and the incoming fall of USA sooner or later, even if the `blob` gets all the strategic decisions right. After all, the blackboxes of great powers would mess up from inside.

Re: Why John Mearsheimer Blames the U.S. for the Crisis in Ukraine

#150

Post by leobg »

majormajor wrote: post #9

Mearsheimer also is directly blaming Ukraine here in a way that hardly seems reasonable. "When you’re a country like Ukraine and you live next door to a great power like Russia, you have to pay careful attention to what the Russians think, because if you take a stick and you poke them in the eye, they’re going to retaliate. States in the Western hemisphere understand this full well with regard to the United States."…

I don’t think the word “blaming“ describes what it’s about. Blaming doesn’t help anybody. What it is about is agency. It’s an important distinction.
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