The much more important point is: he understands that he cannot conquer Ukraine and integrate it into a greater Russia or into a reincarnation of the former Soviet Union. He can’t do that. What he’s doing in Ukraine is fundamentally different. He is obviously lopping off some territory. He’s going to take some territory away from Ukraine, in addition to what happened with Crimea, in 2014. Furthermore, he is definitely interested in regime change. Beyond that, it’s hard to say exactly what this will all lead to, except for the fact that he is not going to conquer all of Ukraine. It would be a blunder of colossal proportions to try to do that.
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Not exactly hard to say they can’t take Ukraine after the war started. They clearly tried to take the whole country.
Yeah, and he said the same thing for years before Russia invaded.
Sure thing! Cite it
Why?
Consistent failure to cite makes you lack credibility, so you should cite if you care about that.
I definitely don’t care if ikes thinks I lack credibility. My point is that people like ikes, bob, and suzzer have strong opinions about Mearsheimer but don’t know anything about what he’s actually saying. I could link to more of his speeches or writings, but they won’t listen to or read that either. Why bother?
I think Mearsheimer has a good case for predicting how Russia has been and will act. I don’t think Mearsheimer necessarily is good for predicting how the US and NATO will act or prescribing how they should act. Certainly, it’s bad for his theory if American foreign policy deviates from what he predicts, so he wants the US to act in a way that confirms his expertise.
His theory ignores domestic politics, which seems to me to be saying that the US strategic response would be the same whether Biden or Trump was president.
You could quote instead of linking. Know your audience.
Right, I do know my audience here: ikestoys.
These two lectures are very relevant to that point if you have some time and are interested in that question:
Man you’re really going to do the Ron Paul slappy move of “watch my 2.5 hours of YouTube”?
Everyone here knows that is bullshit. You’re fooling no one
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Maybe your audience is people trying to decide who is more worthy of derision, you or him. Arguably, you’re losing that fight.
Actually, this is fair. I was conflating a bit between regime change and full-on occupation. But I do think it fundamentally changes the analysis if Ukraine has the capacity to defend itself militarily. As I understood it, the argument was always that Russia wanted to, and would, enforce some form of domination over Ukraine, and that taking half-measures to resist that was foolish, because it just leads to pointless conflict in a doomed cause.
But now the story seems to be that Putin wanted Ukraine to be a puppet state of some flavor, but they kicked out the puppet and successfully developed the capacity (with outside help) to defend a politically independent state. If that’s the outcome, seems like the true realism foul is Putin getting high on his own supply and trying to impose a political solution that he lacks the power to impose.
Within Mearsheimer’s theoretical framework, maybe it makes more sense to treat Russia as a potential hegemon rather than an actual regional hegemon.
I still don’t think anyone in the US has any idea what the military situation on the ground in Ukraine is like, what Russia’s actual war aims are/were. The idea that Russia was going to conquer and hold Ukraine with 180,000 troops was always very dubious. More limited goals of destroying Ukrainian units and infrastructure, seizing and annexing territory in the south and southwest? Seems a lot more doable.
Can you explain why they went so hard at Kyiv then?
You’re obviously not going to. NBZ seems genuinely interested in the question so I linked it for him, he can watch or not.
Meh. The main Mearsheimer article from 2014 on Ukraine that started this debate is like 10 pages. It’s not a long read, yet people want to have big debates on his views without even reading that article. People have probably spent more time arguing about his position than it would take to read the article.
Here is the article - https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf
Check out page 9.
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I already said I have no idea what has happened militarily in Ukraine, what will happen, or what Russia’s actual war aims were and are. So of course I can’t say if what you say is even true, or if it is true, why the Russians did what they did.