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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

#391

Post by dragonwriter »

bllguo wrote: post #225
jazzyjackson wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are literally sacrificing their country and encouraging suicide. This. is. just. wrong! what on earth? Who is we? Policy that pisses Russia off I can take blame for, but Americans sacrificing Ukrainians? I really just cannot parse how you lay guilt at our feet for Ukrainians’ propensity for defending their sovereignty from invaders.

do you not understand how pissing Russia off leads to sacrificing Ukrainian lives, or are you choosing not to?

> do you not understand how pissing Russia off leads to sacrificing Ukrainian lives,

Russia has been literally inventing pretexts for this action and keeps inventing new ones. No one's outside action “pissing them off” (in any immediate sense) is relevant here. It's driven more by economic gain and national greatness ideology than as a response to any immediate action or inaction of outside actors.

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

#392

Post by warner_of_doom »

331c8c71 wrote: post #327
mcguire wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These audio tapes: * https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 * https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/... (I like the line, " A "new low?" From a Russian perspective, assuming they did it, it was brilliant. And it didn't require assassinating a former spy in a foreign capital with a radioactive isotope. ") There's nothing there about a "US instigated coup." What you're looking at are borin…

"Instigated" is inaccurate, I agree. There were protests going on but there's still a legitimate president (de jure at least). US diplomats are caught on tape discussing who should be and should not be in the new government. To me it means that they were directly talking to the protesters leaders and assuring them of us support. If that kind of diplomacy sounds fine I don't quite understand why the Americans were so…

https://mate.substack.com/p/by-using-ukraine-to-fight-russia...

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

#393

Post by warner_of_doom »

cuteboy19 wrote: post #308
jazzyjackson wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is important to remember that Chomsky has repeatedly supported actual genocides so long as the person committing the genocides was anti western in some way. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide_denial

Dude. This is just not true. He didn't deny genocide. There are many reasons not to like Chomsky. I don't like him as of late. But, genocide-denial isn't one of them.

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

#394

Post by warner_of_doom »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #280
chucklenorris wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ground-based hypersonics and right-wing neo-fascist terrorist groups right on your border are not threat you can respond to quickly enough.

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

#395

Post by warner_of_doom »

tim333 wrote: post #386
thraneh wrote: post #4

A lot of current news feels very biased, even from sources I previously found unbiased. Fortunately I was recently shared a link to John Mearsheimers 2015 YT video where he very clearly explains what has led to the current situation. In that light I now feel it's a lot easier to filter the news.

Rather than filtering from one perspective like Mearsheimers I find it interesting to see what both sides argue. But from the Russian side you get stuff like >Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov set out Russia’s objectives in the Eastern European nation. >“After the 2014 coup d’état, Ukraine has become influenced by Nazi ideology. We want to free her from this ideology,” he claimed. Which doesn't really make sense with a d…

> Which doesn't really make sense with a democratically elected jewish former comedian being president. (thats from https://www.rt.com/russia/551294-kremlin-goal-ukraine-offens...)

Is racism in America gone because we had a black POTUS?

Zelenskyy is backed by an oligarch who funds right-wing neo-fascist groups.

Dig deeper.

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

#396

Post by warner_of_doom »

tim333 wrote: post #378
throwaways85989 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I despise this western-centric view- were only the people in the west are real people, that can make decisions for themselves, and the rest is just pawns for playing a funny great board game. The idea that even a new-born nation, could walk out of the board game and do its own thing is so outrageous to the players, it is not even considered. Well, ukraine just tried that. Its a sovereign nation, and it wanted nothing…

It's not really western centric so much as military power centric - that only the military powers count and less armed people in the middle are pawns. For example in the 1904 skirmish between Russia and Japan those two powers were arguing over who should control Korea and nearby areas with weak militaries. It's become a bit passe with the internet and human rights movements and the like - you can't just go militarily…

> It's possible that history will play out in a similar way - Putin thought taking Ukraine would be easy but loses that and then loses power at home and ends up replaced. Perhaps by a normal democracy, looking on the optimistic side.

This usually doesn't work. We've tried this before, believe it or not.

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

#397

Post by nsonha »

throwaways85989 wrote: post #161
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 despise this western-centric view- were only the people in the west are real people, that can make decisions for themselves, and the rest is just pawns for playing a funny great board game. The idea that even a new-born nation, could walk out of the board game and do its own thing is so outrageous to the players, it is not even considered. Well, ukraine just tried that. Its a sovereign nation, and it wanted nothing…

> Ukraine just tried that

no they did not, what they did is nothing like what Sweden, Finland, or Singapore did. Joining the EU, sure, but joining NATO and claim to be trying to "walk out of the game"?

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

#398

Post by warner_of_doom »

prostoalex wrote: post #175
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…

> We encouraged Zelensky to talk about acquiring nukes, grabbing Crimea back, grabbing Luhansk and Donestk, joining NATO and the EU, etc. This seems to be a US-centric view of the world, which assumes that Ukraine following blindly in whatever encouragement was provided. Zelensky is Ukraine’s 7th President, 3 years into his term. Ukraine has had administrations that were Russia-centric (two Kuchma terms, and then hal…

> Is it too radical to assume that Ukrainians were acting out of self interest?

Zelenskyy ran on a platform of peace with Russia and neutrality vis-a-vis Russia and the West.

What changed?

The puppet-masters pulled strings or he was lying all along.

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

#399

Post by warner_of_doom »

keewee7 wrote: post #269
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…

>We encouraged Zelensky to talk about acquiring nukes This is literally Kremlin lies and talking points.

https://news.am/eng/news/687674.html

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

#400

Post by nsonha »

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…

> This type of article is the international relations equivalent off economists have predicted 5 of the last 3 recessions.

I don't see why being able to predict events is important here because for this particular conflict, the key take away is how the knot became entangled since the late 90s and how we get can back to a more predictable, less paranoid Russia by untying it the same way we tied it.

> Notably absent from this article is any discussion of "why now?"

"Now" is a relative term in big history time scale, Putin's plan and might have been in action for a while, and now is just the time some strategic factors happen to be in their favour, or so they thought.

The "why now?" question doesn't seem to be very important to me comparing to "how to get out of this?". And you don't get out of this simply by addressing some recent trigger. Sounds like what Dr Mearsheimer said is that we should reverse course.

> why the Baltics entering NATO did not trigger the same reaction

Ukraine is the last straw, well, before Belarus that is, if that ever happens. They have always been calling for NATO to stop expansions for 20 years,

> agency of Ukrainians in this article

Could you give me the name of a country in the world that doesn't side with a great power? There should be some, but what they did is fundamentally different than what Ukraine is doing.

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