Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer

I fully support the sovereignty of Ukraine, but I understand the Russian position from watching Prof. John Mearsheimer lectures, particularly this one: Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? [VIDEO] John Mearsheimer John Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and international relations scholar, who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He has been described as the most influential realist of his generation. [LINK]

I think this is naive and ignores the long-term big picture [1]. Russia is being surrounded by NATO weaponry and having their former sphere of influence slowly peeled away from them and it also disregards the general geographic problem that I mentioned before. Until the interests are aligned, all of this will continue. The geopolitical is the core of what's going on here and unification is the only way to stop it [1]. 1. [VIDEO]

Here’s a good explanation: [VIDEO] In short, Russia has no intention to conquer Ukraine, but Russia has vital strategic interest there. With its actions it pursues to block eastwards expansion of NATO by wrecking the candidate states. At the same time, NATO policy is quite contradictory: Ukraine is not a vital strategic interest for USA, and thus NATO was not ready to fight for it in Donbass. At the same time they are happy to offer Article 5, which will oblige them to engage in the future conflicts in this area. Policy of open doors that NATO declares does not make much sense: by design it supposed to be a defensive alliance, not an empire, so why inviting countries which won’t really contribute to your security?

I believe the take from John Mearsheimer after the Crimean crisis in 2015 [1] to be a bit more elucidating based on realpolitik than just the reductive take based off Russian imperialism, the issue is larger than just a madman trying to regain control of past territory. [1] [VIDEO]

I'm not "enlightened", and you can draw your own conclusions. But they don't have to annex Ukraine, they can just mess it up and cripple its military. At the least, Putin's stated aim is "demilitarization" of Ukraine. As for the comparison with the Baltic states, I would note that this entire situation evolved over decades. Perhaps Russia would have more strongly opposed NATO membership for the Baltics had it been in a more powerful position when that was happening. Perhaps they thought that NATO-expansion would stop there. A lot has happened in the past 3 decades and some patterns are much more clear now than they were back then. One that Putin has repeatedly pointed to is that the USA is continuously supporting overthrow of governments that it doesn't like, even in the case of democratically-elected Yanukovich in Ukraine. Maybe Putin is paranoid to think the same can happen in Russia, maybe not. But I think in his view, maintaining the nuclear deterrent with the West is an existential concern, like it had been for the USSR. Having NATO missiles and bases in Ukraine is clearly a step in the wrong direction for that concern. I'm not saying that this justifies war or that Putin is right. I just think that Putin perceives himself as a cornered rat, and that from this perspective his actions make a lot more sense than just seeing him as deranged or a power-hungry demagogue. This perspective is laid out more fully in this talk by John Mearsheimer if you're interested: [VIDEO] Thi

If you want a short summary of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, I suggest this presentation/speech by John Mearsheimer - [VIDEO] - he explains it really well.

"If you want to wreck Russia what you should do is tell them to try and create a greater Russia. It will lead to no end of trouble. I think Putin is much too smart for that." - John Mearsheimer 2015 [VIDEO] Wowza. That aged like milk. Really glad this guy didn't have a hand in our foreign policy. His apologist attitude towards autocrats is pretty gross too. "I believe he is sowing divisions in The West that will manifest over time. If he is smart he will sit back and continue to pull levers as he has over the past year or so, and in the end ... he will get what he wants." - John Mearsheimer 2022 [LINK] Yep. I didn't know who John Mearsheimer was an hour ago, now I actively dislike him. Pretty impressive how consistently he's been wrong about Putin and his intentions over the years.

(1) You're leaving out the rest of that quote. "Putin again is much too smart to do that... what Putin is doing is he's basically in the process of wrecking Ukraine and he's telling the West in very simple terms you have two choices: you either back off and we go back to the status quo ante before February 22 2014 where Ukraine is a buffer state or you continue to play these games where you try and take Ukraine and make it a Western bastion on their doorstep in which case we'll wreck the country." 23 min mark: [VIDEO] Either the Russian's gets the regime change they want or they will continue to wreck Ukraine. They have no desire to own the country.

I write all of this to help others understand the issue from multiple perspectives, not to justify or defend anyone. Here’s what I’ve learned in the last week or so. There is a good lecture on YouTube called Why Ukraine is the West’s Fault. [VIDEO] Mearsheimer, a foreign policy expert of 50+ years, belongs to the “realist” school. I find his viewpoint helpful as it’s very much Machiavellian and not focused on demonizing the Other. I’m not sure how accurate his analysis is, but it seems worth looking at. [LINK] The gist is essentially this: - NATO, a Soviet-era military alliance, has continued to expand closer to Russia’s borders. Russia feels threatened by this. - Russia tried to join NATO in the early 2000s but was rebuffed. - Russia adamantly opposed including Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, but America didn’t care and pushed for it in 2008. - The US has largely driven this effort and has dragged the EU and Britain along for the ride. - The revolution/coup in 2014 (depending on which side you believe, I guess) removed more a neutral / pro-Russian government and put in a Western-focused one. This was followed by the separatism in the Donbas and Russia’s taking of Crimea. However, note that this lecture was before the recent escalation and Mearsheimer didn’t seem to think that Russia would actually launch a full-scale invasion. I would also note that he doesn't cover other important issues that are relevant to the conflict, namely: - The history of Ukraine in the last ±500 yea

John Mearscheimer said the same in 2016[1]. Stephen Cohen apparently said the same. They don't need to "take" Ukraine. They just want it as a buffer zone. The Q/A at the end of John Mearscheimers talk is actually quite interesting. Ukraine is not of vital interested to the West. If it had been they would have integrated it into NATO already. They tried the same with Georgia and right away Russia attacked Georgia. More importantly he said that the west actually needs Russia against China, because once China becomes an actual threat it will become incomparable to any previous threat. Throwing Russia into China's arms over something that is not of vital interest to the US is insane. [1] [VIDEO]

> While there are no specific or credible cyber threats to the U.S. homeland at this time, Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, which has involved cyber-attacks on Ukrainian government and critical infrastructure organizations, may impact organizations both within and beyond the region. ... That word "unprovoked" is... loaded. Here's a definition: > (of an attack, or a display of aggression or emotion) not caused by anything done or said. Stepping out of the current climate, one might characterize NATO's relentless, creeping eastward expansion right up to Russia's border as something that might provoke a response. The Monroe Doctrine defines two entire continents as the US sphere of influence. The Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated the US commitment to nuclear war if need be to avoid the placement of hostile forced on its borders. This is not what people want to hear right now. But it is exactly what they should be hearing. This lecture might be eye opening if any of this sounds contrived or like propaganda. [VIDEO]

Thank you for your interesting line of thought. I do not know why you are downvoted - you have my upvote. I also think it is crucial to see the whole picture, and to take counter positions into account e.g. this [1] interesting talk by John Mearsheimer. It is not only Russia that lost its position in the world, the West has been playing contradictionary set of games in the last two decades as well: The events in Iraq and Afghanistan, the approach that outsourcing of production and technology for short term capital gains that was sold as an act that will bring the world together and not carry any risk in the form of a shift of industrial and military dominance. How did you come up with your position? Are you a pol.sci., or history aficionado? While I don't have any deep insight what actually drove Churchill what you described to the be an almost inquisitive research on Hitler's motives, I do think that he was able to see beyond the first level array of interests of his political class and understood the second order and long term implications for the British Empire and the European society as a whole when it came to let fascist take power on the continent. I always thought it was not morals that drove him, but a strong sense of Realpolitik and political opportunity. He had the same reasons to be wary of the terror in Russia - an antagonistic system to the British order and tradition... it was just that they were the enemy of his enemy and thus a very useful ally that turned ou

You have a throwaway account solely created to try to make us, Westerners, believe that the War by Russia is as evil as Hitler's War because it has the same root motivation: ethnic hatred with a genocidal goal. You may be motivated by your rage against Russia starting this terrible war, or it may be simple counter-propaganda, i.e. Ukrainians lowering themselves to the level they believe the enemy to be for the purpose of motivating despicable actions from either side. Your interpretation of the Russian motivation for the war shows either complete ignorance of the facts (the historically friendly relationship between Ukrainians and Russians within and across the borders of the two nations) or a disregard for truthness that can only be attributed to being a propagandist who will stop at nothing to get people to believe and do whatever it is you want them to. Some sources that might educate you a little bit: [1] [LINK] (this is strongly anti-Russia, but describes in a much better way the relationship between Russians/Belarussians/Ukrainians and their "nationhood", unlike your distorted view of reality). [2] [VIDEO] - Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer (American geopolitics expert, while being less anti-Russia, also attributes blame to the West in this whole story)

That argument does not work since you have not come up with a new security argument after a pointed out there was not concrete security argument after you withdrew the nuclear threat: [LINK] For the argument to work, for the analogy to work, NATO's threat to Russia needs to substantially change if Ukraine joins NATO. Russia does not trust NATO and especially the USA, any neighboring country joining NATO allows them place more military assets close to the Russian border and having military assets close to a target is obviously more threatening. Russia had all those assets that are in Ukraine now all the time but moving them to the Ukrainian border made a heck of a difference. I have now also looked at more resources and they mostly support what I researched before. I am somewhat worried that I accidently got trapped in a bubble as the pieces fit together almost to well, so I will have to look more for opposing opinions. M. E. Sarotte: Not One Inch - America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (2022) [1] John Mearsheimer: Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? (2015) [2] Vladimir Pozner: How the United States Created Vladimir Putin (2018) [3] Vladimir Putin: Speech at Munich Security Conference (2007) [4] As a probably opposing opinion I found »Documents Talk - NATO-RUSSIA Relations after the Cold War« [5] but it is 600 pages and I really only read a few paragraphs from a few documents so far. It is however co-sponsored by NATO, so there is certainly the possibility of

Definitely agree with the summary of your views. I think your point on the motivation of eugenics coming from the desire to build a welfare state is very interesting. (I need to think more about the motivation for people that want to build a more AI-driven society or who fear AI technology in today's day and age). Though, on a separate note, I would question your view of Putin as suddenly "losing touch with reality". Is it not possible that it's just a strategic response to NATO encroachment? [VIDEO]

> The most important technology of the First World War was not the machine gun but the railroad I disagree. First, the railroad already existed. You can argue its use in war was new. The Germans notably built railroads to the front at huge scale. But this presupposes a relatively static front, which was the reality of WWI. Probably the most important technological development was neither of these things: it was artillery. I cannot recommend enough Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast. There is a 6 part series called A Blueprint for Armageddon [1] that is well worth the 30+ hours it'll take to listen to. Additionally, the full power of railroads (in terms of logistics) wasn't unleashed until the 1920s. Why? The invention of the humble pallet. I highly recommend reading this [2]. > Today the closest analogue to the logic of the strategic bomber lies in the world of economics. I speak of sanctions. I 100% agree: economic sanctions are violence and not that far removed from strategic bombing. It's honestly a little surprising to hear an American saying this. Sanctions ultimately are a form of collective punishment and in many such circumstances we consider that a war crime for good reason. In the 1990s, then US Ambassador to the UN later Us Secretary of STate Madeleine Albright was quoted as saying [3]: > "We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima," Stahl said. "And, you know, is the price worth it?" > "I t

You're doing historical revisionism here. US ran a coup in Ukraine to overthrow a democratically elected government in 2014. This resulted in a civil war between Donbas and western Ukraine. All this has been extensively documented in mainstream western media. It's pretty shocking that you appear to be utterly unaware of this. [LINK] ( [LINK] ) [VIDEO] [LINK] [LINK] If you won't acknowledge that what Russia is doing in Ukraine is precisely what NATO was doing in Yugoslavia then there really isn't anything left to discuss. I'll just leave you with this quote from NATO during the war in Yugoslavia: If President Milosevic really wants all of his population to have water and electricity all he has to do is accept NATO’s five conditions and we will stop this campaign. [LINK]

> Russia has nobody else to blame from breaking ties with Europe but themselves. There are always two sides to every story, and it’s not that hard to find credible western foreign policy experts who are more than willing to point out that decisions by the west going back to the fall of the Soviet Union played a big role in where we are today[0]. Geopolitics, just like everything else, has nuance. 0: [VIDEO]

These anti disinformation posts are quite peculiar. I'd advise anyone who wants to dig deeper to listen to West Point graduate Mearsheimer: [VIDEO] It takes one hour to listen. Take notes and verify the facts afterwards. No disinformation there, much less Russian.

There's that emotional thinking again. _We_ started that war when we funded a coup there in 2013 and hand-picked[1] their rabidly anti-Russian government. We also funded and condoned their neo-Nazis, without whom none of this would work [2]. Mostly Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine disagreed with that kind of thing. After all, it was mostly them who elected the president that we overthrew. West Ukraine started shelling east trying to subdue them, calling it an "anti-terror operation". Russia provided "lethal aid". Things escalated. The conflict did not start in 2022. Suggesting that we can just go ahead and build tactical nuke bases right next to where ~70% of Russia's population lives, and Russia should just roll over and let it happen, is idiotic and reckless. Here's John Mearsheimer telling you _exactly_ what was going to happen, in 2015: [VIDEO] [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK]