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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

#271

Post by KptMarchewa »

331c8c71 wrote: post #179
mcguire wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lessee here,... Following several hundred years of rule by Poland and then Russia, in 1991 the Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence from Russia. (I assume you think that was a mistake?) Between 1991 and 2004, two the administrations of two presidents retained close ties to Russia. However, in 2004, in an election festooned with accusations of fraud (serious accusations, not Trump-accusations), another pro…

> 2014 led to the Euromaidan protests, complete with violence, that led to that government's collapse. This was the time when Russia annexed Crimea and civil war broke out in Donetsk and Luhansk Your have written a lot but omitted the crucial details about the maidan. US instigated the coup and installed nationalistic government. The separatist tendencies were the direct result of that government's actions.

No post body was provided.

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

#272

Post by KptMarchewa »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #209
mcguire wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" ...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 Dako…

If only they tried 00000000...

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

#273

Post by keewee7 »

331c8c71 wrote: post #160
timeon wrote: post #137

As someone from Central and Eastern Europe - blaming U.S. or 'west' is just cope mechanism for some people in the west. "If we did this or that differently Russia would not attack". Well that may be just wishful thinking. But they haven`t realized that we are sovereign countries and it is not Russian business where we want to belong. Just ours. These so called "realists" haven`t considered one simple fact. Ukraine wa…

> 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…

No post body was provided.

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

#274

Post by keewee7 »

Comevius wrote: post #104

Mearsheimer thinks that the United States would have benefited from allying themselves with Russia and the post-Soviet states (under Russian influence) against China. I think that it's still Russia's fault for using a stick and not having a carrot. The United States, China, the European Union or even Saudi Arabia are influential because of their economy, and not because of their military or democracy.

>Mearsheimer thinks that the United States would have benefited from allying themselves with Russia

Why do we need Russia? Their GDP is smaller than Italy's.

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

#275

Post by KptMarchewa »

331c8c71 wrote: post #122
steveylang wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day most people still have some sense of justice and morality (misguided or not.) In the interview, he could have acknowledged that these values still exist and influence the decisions of individuals and countries, without at all compromising his (many good) points about the politics of the region. The people of Ukraine have overturned a fraudulent election, overthrown a president who betrayed his c…

> The people of Ukraine have ... overthrown a president ... It's more accurate to say that some ukranian people have ousted the president and let US decide whom to put in place The country was split nearly 50/50 between pro-us and pro-russian. Surely enough the second half was cancelled after the coup (change in language laws for instance).

It was 50/50 before Russia annexed Crimea and started war in Donbass.

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

#276

Post by KptMarchewa »

ComradePhil wrote: post #126
majormajor wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the US and then Canada. But what if the Russian military didn't even have any significant presence in Canada but the US invaded anyway? Then I'd absolutely blame the US primarily. I wouldn't blame Russia in that situation.

What if Russia had their bases in most of the South American countries and had been openly discussing having their base in Mexico for 14 years. And then 5 years ago, if all of the Mexican leaders that America was maintaining relationship with were suddenly arrested for "corruption" and then Gabriel Iglesias was elected for the president... and you try to befrend the new leadership, but then they start speaking the Ru…

Who is democratic in this scenario?

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

#277

Post by qqqwerty »

empressplay wrote: post #21
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'm Canadian. As a Canadian I am fully aware that my country exists strictly at the whim of the US. If we were to decide to form a military alliance with Russia, hosting Russian troops on our soil, Canada would be invaded by the US in a New York minute. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. It sucks of course but it is what it is. That is all he is saying.

This is a bad analogy.

First of all, we have nukes. Why would we care if Russian troops showed up on the border. If they cross that line, their country gets wiped off the map. The same dynamic exists with Ukraine and Russia.

Also, you analogy completely ignores the economic relationships that the West has been trying to build with Russia for the last few decades. Western doctrine has been largely focused on building international trade and economic relationships as a method for maintaining peace. There is a reason we exported a good chunk of our manufacturing after all.

The only way your analogy holds is if Russia and Canada had been spending decades trying to build peaceful economic relationships with the US. And they openly express little interest in invading the US. But then the US starts saber rattling at Canada and claims that they feel their security is threatened. I think most people would agree that the US is behaving belligerently in that scenario and that Canada would be justified in building up defenses.

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

#278

Post by s1artibartfast »

credit_guy wrote: post #264
s1artibartfast wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How close would you let your enemy put a knife to your throat before stopping them? The best way to avoid a knife fight is for two people to stay far apart. If you keep getting closer to someone with a knife, you shouldn't be surprised when you get stabbed.

But Russia has thousands of nukes, and that's not a secret. Russia knows that nobody would dare attack them, ever. And the rest of the world knows that too. The whole thing about Russia feeling "threatened" is just total BS. Putin just knows that in this day and age you need to play the victim, and lots of people instinctively would take your side. It doesn't matter how absurd the claim is.

MAD is a defense against complete invasion, but not a defense against strangulation via power projection.

Non nuclear military projection matters because not everything is a nuclear war. They are encircled by the US which has invaded and toppled more regimes than any other country in the world, and destroyed or destabilized several Russian allied countries in the last 2 decades alone.

It still matters where bases are.

If it comes to nuclear war, it also matters where bases are.

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

#279

Post by microtherion »

Grustaf wrote: post #186

Instinctively it makes sense that Putin doesn't want NATO on his doorsteps, but at the same time, why not? He already has NATO in the Baltics, and it's not like NATO would try to invade Russia just because they are neighbours. They are showing now very clearly that they are not interested in a conflict with Russia. Sure I understand it's not black and white, but NATO is already the stronger party, by far, so what doe…

Since it is now Putin's stated goal to annex Ukraine, he's going to end up with more NATO states on his doorstep if he wins this war. So is he going to demand that Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia renounce their membership next?

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

#280

Post by KptMarchewa »

chucklenorris wrote: post #195
wahern wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of current news feels very biased, even from sources I previously found unbiased. I wholeheartedly agree. I feel like I could write an entire book of what it reveals about the state of Western culture. But when something is so obnoxious I try to remind myself to be especially careful about how I react. Because one of the other obnoxious things about contemporary Western culture is how partisan political senti…

The reasons for Russia's hyperagression are simple and stated by Putin himself - he sees it as reacting to an existential threat. Right now US can't do a preemptive nuclear strike without retaliation. If military bases pop up in Ukraine the russians will have no chance to react. And US knows it and has been actively involved in Ukraine's affairs for a decade and now Ukrainians are paying the price. Putin will "watch…

This is a bullshit argument. US could do nuclear submarine strike as close to Russia's shores as they wanted. Or from Latvia or Estonia.
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