Keeeed man one of the most ironic parts of coming here is seeing you turn into the pedantic bullshit peddler you continually complain me of being.
1 Like
yeah ikes its like rain on your wedding day
It is known that people donât follow links or watch videos. Itâs dumb for people to try to debate here by posting links instead of quoting extensively the most salient parts of their links. Lol at posting videos.
Offensive realism predicts what Russiaâs goals are.
categorizing russian invasions of its neighbors as a necessary response to nato is even dumber in retrospect. itâs strengthening nato, costing russia thousands of lives and millions of emigrants, hundreds of billions and decades of economic development. thatâs opportunity that could have developed millions of square miles of territory russia already has, rather than annex far smaller chunks of territory they can never develop due to being an international parriah.
on top of that apparently everyone including measheimer and putin himself knew they could never hold the whole country and were always in it for only certain areas? GMAFB! if they knew it was always an impossible task, then itâs not an imperative at all. itâs simply an expansionist dictatorship cherry-picking western academics as justification for clinging to power.
the whole measheimerâs argument rests on an assumption that if putin didnât come to power, or perhaps didnât return in 2012, russia would have done the same invasion under a different leadership. that view is of course unfalsifiable, but itâs also monumentally bad reading of russian political context before and after putinâs ascent. which hadnât even yet come to be when measheimer initially wrote his argument.
there hasnât been anyone among realistic russian presidential contenders for the past 15 years who would have gone off the deep end like putin did. nemtsov, navalny, even medvedev, prokhorov, and grudinin, all had very soft public platforms of cooperation with the west, and moving away from authoritarian models eg central asian republics. perhaps zyuganov would have been more dictatorial and isolationist as the staunchest soviet disciple, but heâs still not a warmonger and curently afraid of his own shadow. yeltsin was an old guard communist who felt uneasy about nato moving closer, but even he saw much greater rewards to never being at war with the west and the world, and he was ahead of his contemporaries on that.
3 Likes
Strategically, yes, and I think Mearsheimerâs statement from 2014 encompasses what the goals broadly are: Russia will wreck Ukraine as a functioning country rather than let it align with the West. But how that strategic objective is accomplished, and whether it is on track to be accomplished are two different questions.
And of course this is true but itâs far from clear thatâs the case. Ukrainian propaganda on Twitter seems to think so but opinions vary on how reliable that narrative is.
Putin in 2002:
âI am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day, the decision is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.â
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21598
Medvedev in 2010:
âperiod of distance in our relations and claims against each other is over now. We view the future with optimism and will work on developing relations between Russia and NATO in all areas ⌠[as they progress toward] a full-fledged partnership.â
What Putin fears is democracy.
If I were a realist, I would think the West has an interest in preventing Russia from installing pro-Russian governments in its neighbors because Russia lacks the capacity to act as a regional hegemon and the West wants to keep it from attaining that status. This includes allowing Ukraine to be wrecked rather than allowing it to become aligned with Russia.
However, the US has an interest in buck-passing, encouraging other states to be the ones to confront Russia directly and only engaging as a last resort. Other NATO nations would prefer the US, and not they, do the confronting.
Maybe the long-run involves some sort of alliance between Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and other countries that feel threatened by Russia and the US providing enough military aid to balance Russia and prevent hegemony. This alliance should explore the possibility of regime change in Belarus.
So, how does Russia act if it is a wannabe regional hegemon that is prevented from attaining that goal?
Normally Iâd agree - but here where the debate is so focused - was Mearsheimer right in his analysis on Ukraine, Iâm a bit baffled that people have such strong opinions without bothering to read his seminal work that is the basis of this debate (especially as itâs not even that long). I donât get how you can really evaluate his positions otherwise.
1 Like
You can be a realist and choose to not contest Ukraine (Mearsheimer is!) and you can be a realist and cynically provoke a war in Ukraine to bleed Russia literally and economically. Both can be realist, kind of step zero of realism is deciding whatâs worth fighting for. Is it important to antagonize and diminish Russia at any cost? I donât see why, but I guess opinions vary. But the realist case for war in Ukraine (provoke another Afghanistan for Russia, I guess?) is morally monstrous and doesnât serve American interests as far as I can see.
Which is where the morally bankruptcy comes in: if this is realism, weâre buck passing to the Ukrainians. Weâll fight to the last one!
You canât be a realist and moral at the same time. From the realist perspective, strategic considerations Trump moral considerations every time. Regardless of past history, do you believe that US foreign policy should be dictated by amoral realism or should the US strive to be a moral force in international relations? Why should one be a realist?
The American interest is in preventing Russia from becoming a hegemon that is a rival for influence in Europe. I thought that was obvious.
Were Ukraine, NATO, and the US morally justified in acting the way they did even if Mearsheimer was accurate in his analysis? Is it okay to act based on morality? Do you think reading the article would change peopleâs positions on those questions?
Of course you can be a realist and let morality impact your decision making. Mearsheimerâs observation is that when morality meets a great power clashing in its own backyard over something it considers vital, it isnât a consideration. But for something of trivial importance to the US like Ukraine, of course you could let morality impact the decision making. If itâs an incursion into the US sphere of influence? Not so much.
I think that the US has been trying to have a âmoral forceâ foreign policy since the Clinton years and itâs been disastrous and highly immoral. Weâve had a policy of liberal democratic evangelism. I think the US should mostly mind its own business, which is more consistent with Mearshiemierâs offshore balancing framework and more moral to boot.
But the idea that US foreign policy is, ever has been, or ever will be some moral force for good is fucken hilarious. You cannot possibly believe this.
A peaceful, stable Europe is absolutely in our interest. Not allowing Russia veto power over NATO membership is also.
lol at trivial importance. producer of 10% of worldâs wheat.
this isnât the same thing as spreading democracy to unwilling countries like afghanistan and iraq. this is a response to a willing democratic nation wishing to keep its own form of government. the morality difference isnât trivial.
1 Like
Iâm in favor of a middle ground where the US doesnât seek regime change to liberal democracy as a general policy but supports peoples who are able to establish a liberal democracy when they try to retain it. I believe the US should support Ukraine in any effort to prevent Putin from installing a pro-Russian government that hasnât been chosen by the Ukrainians in a free and fair election.
I feel this is a somewhat hard question to answer, but will do my best. Apologies in advance as itâs going to be long.
In short, I donât think that the US and NATOâs action were morally justified.
First, I donât think the aid to Ukraine was motivated by moral reasons. I donât think the West cared about the Ukrainian people or our primary goal was to support a Democratic Ukraine (for instance, had a dictator/military government/etc. taken over after the 2014 revolution, and that government decided to align itself with the West vs. Russia, I donât think our actions would have been any different, even if that government was cruel to itâs own citizens). I think the goal in helping Ukraine was simply part of our efforts to isolate Russia and increase our sphere of influence for economic and other selfish reasons.
Second, I think the West never really intended to give Ukraine enough aid to win a war vs. Russia, but simply enough to put up a fight and show that Russiaâs military wasnât as strong as they projected. While we did give them training and lethal weapons, it wasnât nearly what they asked for. All our military analysts - including those in the government - projected that even with our aid, Ukraine would lose the war, and that the only question was how long it would take. Thus, I think we knew our aid was at best a half-measure. We also seem largely fine with Ukraine being destroyed and thousands of citizens being killed and even more deported. It seems we wanted Russia to be drawn into another Afghanistan where they suffer lots of losses and eventually have to leave/install a puppet who wouldnât last, but that we were fine with lots of Ukrainian suffering to achieve that.
I think it would have been moral to take steps that would have actually prevented Russia from attacking (e.g. NATO membership, stationing troops in Ukraine, providing them with all the equipment they asked for, etc.), but the limited aid with the possibility of NATO membership (which I donât think we ever would have actually done) was moral. Obviously those steps would have increased the odds of a full war with Russia, but in terms of pure morality, I think that would have been the right course.
As for whether reading the article would change anyoneâs mind, I have no clue. Probably not as it seems no one really ever changes their mind here and just wants to dunk on everyone else. That said, I still think it would be good for people to read more and post less in general, but donât expect it to actually happen.
2 Likes
OK, letâs look at what he had to say:
Other analysts allege, more plausibly, that Putin regrets the demise
of the Soviet Union and is determined to reverse it by expanding Rus-
siaâs borders. According to this interpretation, Putin, having taken
Crimea, is now testing the waters to see i! the time is right to conquer
Ukraine, or at least its eastern part, and he will eventually behave ag-
gressively toward other countries in Russiaâs neighborhood. For some
in this camp, Putin represents a modern-day Adol& Hitler, and strik-
ing any kind o! deal with him would repeat the mistake o& Munich.
Thus, NATO must admit Georgia and Ukraine to contain Russia be-
fore it dominates its neighbors and threatens western Europe.This argument falls apart on close inspection. I& Putin were com-
mitted to creating a greater Russia, signs o1 his intentions would al-
most certainly have arisen before February 22. But there is virtually
no evidence that he was bent on taking Crimea, much less any other
territory in Ukraine, before that date. Even Western leaders who sup-
ported NATO expansion were not doing so out o! a fear that Russia was
about to use military force. Putinâs actions in Crimea took them by
complete surprise and appear to have been a spontaneous reaction to
Yanukovychâs ouster. Right afterward, even Putin said he opposed
Crimean secession, before quickly changing his mind.
Great call, bro. Definitely has his finger on the pulse.
1 Like
I enjoy how only 2 people (before me) in four hours clicked the link lol
1 Like