251–260 of 411 posts
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The notion of "blame" isn't really useful when you're leading a country, and want to not get invaded. Moral superiority won't repel attacks of enemy troops.
Then why are we even talking about who Mearsheimer blames?
I took a number of classes with Mearshiemer in college. He's right on many things, wrong on others. In this case, he's right that NATO expansion at least contributed to the current situation, but I think he's wrong in undervaluing the great increases in peace and prosperity that have been gained in those countries that did join NATO.
Maybe Russia should just join NATO. This would require Russia to change in a lot of ways from how Putin runs things, but who would that be bad for, really?
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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.
Zelenskyy is corrupt as they get. Don't buy the SM propaganda.
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> turned from dovish "can't we all just get along" types into rabid "Russia Delenda Est" types Manufactured consent.
I agree with Chomsky on a lot of things, don’t think I need to watch CNN or read the New York Times to take Ukraine’s side on this one. The international condemnation and lock step sanctions, is that the media’s doing? Or is it the consequence of Russia being the aggressor? I agree with my sibling, opinions tend to stiffen up when war breaks out, with or without the radio.
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I agree - it was abundantly clear Isaac wanted to push the prevailing narrative, had no interest in alternative perspectives, and wanted to score some smartypants points in the process. Mearsheimer sounded cogent and intelligent, and I think he made some very interesting points. His article from 2014 seems like it could have been written this week with how prescient it is: https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploa…
Woah. If you want to read one article to better understand what's going on, this is it. It's hard for people from the west to see things from a different point of view than modern liberalism. This article shows where and why. It also shows how intolerant the liberal mindset is to other global viewpoints.
But reading that article, its main foreign assumption is that the desires of the individual Ukrainians for freedom is irrelevant. Not temporarily ignored out of pragmatism. Not disappointingly accepted due to force majeure. But rather rendered irrelevant by the desire of Russia to rule over them as subjects.
Coming from the Western world, this is called tyranny. And it's on proud display in the wanton destruction of civilian targets in Ukraine. The effects on the people don't matter - the subjugation of them is the priority. Is it any wonder that the further east you go in Europe, the more people suffered under the USSR, the stronger the support for Ukraine is? One generation later, and we have Ukrainians from all walks of life taking up arms in defense of their individual liberties - the young because they've known nothing else, and the old so that their children never have to know.
Despite using plenty of normative language, the only moral contribution of articles like this is illustrating that freedom is an aberration that needs defending. There are moral concepts worth fighting for, and Western liberalism is one of them. As my grandmother often said, "they don't know how good they have it in this country".
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> The West is clearly egging the Ukrainians on Is that why they keep fighting? OTOH The east is clearly bombing Ukraine
They're fighting because they are being attacked, and because Slavs are courageous and stubborn. But the West are not telling them to give up, to save civilian lives. Instead they encourage them to keep fighting, delaying the inevitable. I don't know by how many days that will prolong the war, but it's reckless.
Ultimately there will have to be some sort of negotiated peace (Ukraine can't fight all the way to Moscow) but the more of the Russian Army they destroy and the longer they hold them off the better the terms they will get.
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 no fan of the USian empire, but there is a categorical difference between playing the propaganda / political puppet game to affect a democratic process, and open war against another sovereign country because you don't like the result. All this talk of Russia getting upset that "its" sphere of influence would rather look westward is completely writing off the agency of individual countries that haven't been part o…
Exactly. Russia has no inherent right to a sphere of influence. If it wants the support of its neighbours it will have to work hard to win that support.
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…
The answer to 'why now' is COVID. People in the west are already worn-out by the pandemic and are in no mood to engage in a new conflict. Putin has simply picked an advantageous moment to make his move. Also China. Even Biden recognizes China is a problem and is making moves to attempt to manage them (renewed alliance with Australia, domestic manufacturing). China has likely made some guarantees to Russia with regard…
That may have been what Putin thought but it seems like a terrible misunderstanding of western resolve on his part.
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 br…
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I wonder if Ukraine should possibly get any say in the matter.
Of course, Ukraine can talk all they want (and they are). At some point, though, boots on the ground matter more than words. The Russians have evidently reached that point. As best I can tell, this conflict was entirely, completely, utterly avoidable simply by Ukraine following the terms of the Minsk agreements[0], voted on unanimously by the UN (including Ukraine and Russia). Why Ukraine chose not to live up to thei…
Those were the agreements that said Russia wasn't allowed to pump money and weapons into the separatist regions of Ukraine, yeah? Huh.
Well then, too bad Russia's fucking the invasion up so utterly. Whatever replaces them will be a whole lot worse for it.