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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

#201

Post by zozbot234 »

credit_guy wrote: post #154

I read Mearsheimer's "Tragedy of Great Power Politics", and I think it's one of the most important books ever written. It completely changed the way I think about what's going on in the world. That being said, I think on the topic of Russia and Ukraine, Mearsheimer is not consistent with his own theory (defensive realism). I completely understand why Putin is doing what he's doing, his actions are very well explained…

The thing about this archaic, old-fashioned "power politics" is that it's self-defeating in the age of late-stage modernity. You want to talk about power? China has certainly gained plenty of real-world power since the days of Mao Zedong. Japan has power. South Korea has power. But the thing is that, invariably, they did not gain that power by playing zero-sum "power politics" games, but rather as a side-effect of broad-based economic development, mutually beneficial trade and successful multi-national cooperation. Russia has just willfully thrown away a lot of their potential power and influence for the foreseeable future, with no gains whatsoever to make up for that - and they're yet to look down into the abyss and face that situation. They seem incredibly complacent - that's ultimately what's so strikingly irrational about their current stance.

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

#202

Post by lykahb »

From the Kievan Rus times Ukraine has fought many times for its independence. They have fought the Russian empire, Ottoman Empire, and often joined sides with a former foe to fight off a bigger menace.

Until about ten years ago Ukraine has tried to maintain sovereignty by doing a balancing act between West and Russia - similar to what Belarus did until the recently. In 2005 I realized that balancing is impossible when Russia supported the election fraud and poisoned the western-leaning president Yushchenko.

Mearsheimer is right that the US and Europe are using Ukraine as a shield for the Western Europe. However, this aligns well with the desires of the Ukrainians - most would rather fight for independence than live oppressed under a decaying chauvinistic dictatorship. Another motivation is that Russia has long history of ethnic cleansing in the regions it captured - that includes Crimea, Western and Eastern Ukraine, and the Caucasus.

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

#203

Post by TMWNN »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #156
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'm also surprised at just how many of my friends have turned from dovish "can't we all just get along" types into rabid "Russia Delenda Est" types who think that anyone who believes that even a modicum of this is perhaps America's fault is committing treason. For what it's worth, what Russia is doing is wrong. But I do absolutely understand Mearsheimer's perspective that this is basically a Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0…

>But I do absolutely understand Mearsheimer's perspective that this is basically a Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0 moment.

There was no hope of Ukraine joining NATO without the resolving of the Crimea/eastern Ukraine territories. In other words, not in the foreseeable future. Same with the EU, in practice.

Even if Ukraine were to a) resolve the territorial issues and b) convince the rest of NATO (any one member country being able to veto accession), this would not have brought NATO to the Russian border; Norway was a founding NATO member in 1949, and Poland and the Baltic states joined 15 years ago.

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

#204

Post by projektfu »

rakejake wrote: post #132
projektfu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's different in many degrees. Canada has been warmer and colder to the US at various times but since NAFTA has been very friendly. If a less-US-friendly politics started winning out, Canada could back away from the US orbit in a lot of ways and the US probably would not push for regime change. A future of a pro-Putin Canada is just absurd in its own right. Why not North Korea or Iran? It only really makes sense to…

I think you countered your own counter argument there. Embedded in your argument is this tidbit: "A future where Canada is pro-Russia is unthinkable, not ever going to happen". Canada-US relations may freeze and thaw but even at the deepest freeze, you know Canada is never going break with the US and associate with Russia. What the poster is saying is "IF Canada were to make significant overtures to Russia, US would…

And I think it requires a realistic view of the world and what is actually possible. There was a time (1812-1815) when Canada and the US were at war. The circumstances of that are no longer relevant. If the US had decided to ally with the Nazis in World War II, what then? Oh, it didn't happen? But what if, huh?

If the US became a worse option for Canada than Russia, none of this discussion would be relevant. For one thing, Putin wouldn't be running Russia. And the US would be a very different place as well. Either that or Canada would have to have been overrun by an incredibly anti-American streak that doesn't really seem natural in the country right now.

The Monroe doctrine is important, but it is currently nothing like what Mearsheimer claims Ukraine owes Russia, which is fealty. I can see many places where the cold-war order has gone away. Perhaps in 1983, someone like Evo Morales would not have been allowed to run Bolivia. Ortega came back to power and was not opposed by a new batch of Contras. Brazil suggested that it was friendly to Putin and was not sanctioned for it. I think the times when Latin America was dominated by a few US multinational corporations backed by the Marines have passed and now the dynamic is much more like the relationships of smaller independent countries around their larger neighbors. When we are describing what relationship Ukraine deserves with Russia in the modern world, it should be much more like the US-Mexico relationship or the US-Canada relationship than the pre-2014 Russia-Ukraine relationship.

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

#205

Post by Grustaf »

teachrdan wrote: post #194
Grustaf wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The propaganda onslaught is unparalleled. Ukraine is painted as heaven on Earth, a beacon of democracy. McFaul even suggested that Putin essentially "hated Ukraine because it was free". In reality Ukraine is even more corrupt than Russia, their economy is in terrible shape, despite having more natural resources than most, and a diligent educated population. GDP per capita is a third of Russia's, lower than Belarus! T…

Does Ukraine kill journalists who criticize their government? Does it send assassins who murder political dissidents abroad with polonium? Do they imprison and torture people for being queer? It seems your argument that Ukraine is corrupt and poor creates a false equivalence with Russia. It seems to me that Russia under Putin is far, far worse.

There is definitely less violent repression of journalists in Ukraine. But the corruption is worse, and the economy is doing very badly, it's the poorest country in Europe, despite fantastic conditions.

I'm obviously not saying it's OK to invade a country just because it's corrupt, and that's obviously not the reason. I'm only talking about the absurd apotheosis of the corrupt Zelensky and the crazy idea that Ukraine is some kind of democratic paradise.

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

#206

Post by Grustaf »

avasylev wrote: post #193
Grustaf wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This time it wasn't very secret though, they were quite open about it.

why would USA be secret about supporting Ukraine? USA was one of the countries guaranteeing Ukraine's safety in exchange for nuclear weapons release. I would argue USA is not doing enough for what they signed up for.

We are not talking about "supporting", we are talking about staging coups and meddling in their internal politics and economy.

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

#207

Post by scruple »

sidibe wrote: post #180
331c8c71 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just ours. I understand your sentiment. The point is that in case of Ukraine the pro-russian half of the population did not want to be governed by us-installed government who started their reign by changing the language legislature in favor of the ukranian language. The anti-russian political tilt resulted in federalisation demands from the eastern regions as well as crimea which progressed into full-blown separati…

> pro-russian half of the population Half?! Putin's propaganda is quite effective

> Putin's propaganda is quite effective

It is. It is fascism and it is very effective. Frighteningly so. Twitter videos conducting interviews with Russian citizens on the streets are easy to come by. Many of them wholly support their president and his actions.

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

#208

Post by remarkEon »

avasylev wrote: post #193
Grustaf wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This time it wasn't very secret though, they were quite open about it.

why would USA be secret about supporting Ukraine? USA was one of the countries guaranteeing Ukraine's safety in exchange for nuclear weapons release. I would argue USA is not doing enough for what they signed up for.

We made no such guarantee. This is a tiresome revisionist reading of history. No one in the United States signed up to turn Ukraine into an American protectorate in 1994.

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

#209

Post by BitwiseFool »

mcguire wrote: post #166
s1artibartfast wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 t…

" ...NATO/US troops in Ukraine... " Do you have a source for that? Don't forget, " On June 1, 1996, Ukraine became a non-nuclear nation, sending the last of the 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads it had inherited from the Soviet Union to Russia for dismantling. Ukraine had committed to this by signing the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in January 1994. " That was certainly a stupid idea.

It's a little more complicated than that. Ukraine did not have the ability to use any of those nuclear weapons because they never had the launch codes. They were basically stationed in Ukraine but were still under Moscow's control. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link

A rough analogy would be this, if the United States broke apart South Dakota would have hundreds of nuclear warheads but the South Dakotan Governor / State National Guard would not be able to use them because they never had the ability in the first place.

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

#210

Post by [deleted] »

teachrdan wrote: post #194
Grustaf wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The propaganda onslaught is unparalleled. Ukraine is painted as heaven on Earth, a beacon of democracy. McFaul even suggested that Putin essentially "hated Ukraine because it was free". In reality Ukraine is even more corrupt than Russia, their economy is in terrible shape, despite having more natural resources than most, and a diligent educated population. GDP per capita is a third of Russia's, lower than Belarus! T…

Does Ukraine kill journalists who criticize their government? Does it send assassins who murder political dissidents abroad with polonium? Do they imprison and torture people for being queer? It seems your argument that Ukraine is corrupt and poor creates a false equivalence with Russia. It seems to me that Russia under Putin is far, far worse.

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