one of the worst people you know made a good point he didn’t realize he was making
https://mobile.twitter.com/tankiemilk/status/1589256555190718466
2 Likes
i can’t tell between real or gogol anymore
2 Likes
Mearsheimer - Putting the idiot in “useful idiot” since 1990.
5 Likes
There’s no evidence that he was interested in conquering those four oblasts. The war started on February 24th. On February 21st, he gave a famous speech—this is three days before the war started—where he recognized the two oblasts in the Donbas. This is Donetsk and Lugansk. He recognized them as independent republics. So he was not interested in conquering that territory.
It’s like how in the Texas Revolution, the United States had no interest in annexing Texas, and that’s why we still have an independent Republic of Texas today.
It’s a mystery to me why anyone talks to Chotiner.
He meets a head-of-state and doesn’t want to talk about it. Weird.
1 Like
Authoritarian tool
From the article:
When we last talked, you told me, “My argument is that [Putin is] not going to re-create the Soviet Union or try to build a greater Russia, that he’s not interested in conquering and integrating Ukraine into Russia. It’s very important to understand that we invented this story that Putin is highly aggressive and he’s principally responsible for this crisis in Ukraine.” How do you think that argument holds up?
I think it’s still true. What we were talking about back in February was whether or not he was interested in conquering all of Ukraine, occupying it, and then integrating into a greater Russia. And I do not think he’s interested in doing that now. What he is interested in doing now that he was not interested in doing when we talked is integrating those four oblasts in the eastern part of Ukraine into Russia. I think there’s no question that his goals have escalated since the war started on February 24th, but not to the point where he’s interested in conquering all of Ukraine. But he is interested for sure in conquering a part of Ukraine and incorporating that part into Russia.
Meanwhile, in the speech that Putin gave 2/21:
I would like to emphasise again that Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space. These are our comrades, those dearest to us – not only colleagues, friends and people who once served together, but also relatives, people bound by blood, by family ties.
Since time immemorial, the people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russians and Orthodox Christians. This was the case before the 17th century, when a portion of this territory rejoined the Russian state, and after.
It seems to us that, generally speaking, we all know these facts, that this is common knowledge. Still, it is necessary to say at least a few words about the history of this issue in order to understand what is happening today, to explain the motives behind Russia’s actions and what we aim to achieve.
So, I will start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution, and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia – by separating, severing what is historically Russian land. Nobody asked the millions of people living there what they thought.
Emphases mine.
Mearsh skipped over, deliberately perhaps, crucial parts of Putin’s speech in which he denies the right of Ukraine to exist as a separate country and claims that the land and people belong to Russia. Not just Luhansk and Donetsk. Not the other two oblasts. The whole thing. It’s nonsense to say Putin never had any aspirations of conquering the whole of Ukraine.
1 Like
Btw mersh has his own domain: https://www.mearsheimer.com
Like I don’t know how many academics still run their own cheesy websites, but he even paid for a transition animation that shows “jjm” every time you click between things on the nav bar.
Totes giving me the intellectual honesty vibes
5 Likes
why do bad things happen to good nations?
just FYI, putin floated adding “preventative nuclear strikes” into russia’s doctrine. like he said it might make sense for RF to rethink that.