I’ve come to agree with John Mearsheimer’s position on Ukraine: that the US and the West precipitated the crisis in Ukraine by trying to extend NATO and EU expansion right up to Russia’s borders, including particularly sensitive states to Russia like Ukraine and Georgia. And that those actions by the West are what led to the Russian interventions in Georgia and Crimea.
But this account is wrong: the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West. At the same time, the EU’s expansion eastward and the West’s backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004—were critical elements, too. Since the mid1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president—which he rightly labeled a “coup”—was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West.
Ukraine was always a red line for the Russians. Mearsheimer’s thesis is that Ukraine trying to get into NATO and the EU is what caused the Crimean crisis, that the Crimean annexation was Russia reacting to this red line being violated. And that if Ukraine kept trying to cozy up to the West Russia could and would wreck Ukraine:
Next, Putin put massive pressure on the new government in Kiev to discourage it from siding with the West against Moscow, making it clear that he would wreck Ukraine as a functioning state before he would allow it to become a Western stronghold on Russia’s doorstep. Toward that end, he has provided advisers, arms, and diplomatic support to the Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, who are pushing the country toward civil war. He has massed a large army on the Ukrainian border, threatening to invade if the government cracks down on the rebels. And he has sharply raised the price of the natural gas Russia sells to Ukraine and demanded payment for past exports. Putin is playing hardball.
This is a speech and Q&A that’s largely based on this PDF if anyone would prefer watching. Pretty interesting imo.
Why don’t they? Would the US allow China to form an alliance with Mexico that involved Chinese army and naval bases in Mexico? Of course not. Why shouldn’t Mexico be allowed by the US to join whatever association they want?
OK, sure they deserve self-determination. All nations do. But what does Ukrainian ambitions to join NATO have to do with the US? The US should only extend offers of alliance to countries that benefits the US, right? There’s zero benefit to offering NATO membership to Ukraine, since it actually makes the alliance weaker and more brittle. Because of two things: first, trying to include Ukraine is inflammatory to Russia, since Ukraine has been in Russia’s orbit for many years. And second, there’s no compelling interest in the US defending Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Those are two seperate points though. Is helping Ukraine is in US interests and is Ukraine seeking to distance itself from Russia legitimate? NATO isn’t the only way that Ukraine is trying to get away from Russia’s grip and I’m not sure a pledge that Ukraine would never join NATO would be enough to prevent a Russian invasion.
Yes, that’s exactly my point. It makes sense for Ukraine to want to join the West. That would be good for Ukraine, they’d probably benefit a lot. But Russia won’t let it join the West, which sucks for Ukraine. As Mearsheimer says:
Next, Putin put massive pressure on the new government in Kiev to discourage it from siding with the West against Moscow, making it clear that he would wreck Ukraine as a functioning state before he would allow it to become a Western stronghold on Russia’s doorstep. Toward that end, he has provided advisers, arms, and diplomatic support to the Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, who are pushing the country toward civil war. He has massed a large army on the Ukrainian border, threatening to invade if the government cracks down on the rebels. And he has sharply raised the price of the natural gas Russia sells to Ukraine and demanded payment for past exports. Putin is playing hardball.
So the choice for Ukraine isn’t between joining the West and becoming a prosperous liberal democracy and being some sort of neutral buffer state. It’s a choice between trying to join the West and having the Russians wreck your country to keep that from happening and backing off that ambition and becoming a neutral buffer state.
Russia would rather burn a country to the ground than let it become a liberal democracy? Sounds like a country with heinously evil leadership that should be universally condemned by any right thinking person!
Sanctions, strategic ambiguity on the part of the US as to if it would actually meet such an invasion with force, etc. But my whole point is that trying to welcome Ukraine into NATO makes conflict more likely, not less. So we shouldn’t do that!
You must not be aware of Russia-Ukraine treaty that dictated nuclear arms transfer and territorial sovereignty. Nothing in there prevented Ukraine joining whatever alliance whatsoever, and it was agreed to after the the dissolution of USSR, and supposed episode between Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and the US diplomat doing negotiations. I.e. Ukraine did not violate it by seeking membership in NATO and EU, yet russia did violate it by annexing Crimea and sending troops to Donbass.
No promises by the US were ever signed, or could have possibly been agreed upon between only those two parties. Other NATO members would have had to sign as well.
Putin thinking that he should just be gifted a buffer zone for pillaging is just delusional thinking by someone who has no other options to staying in power. But thanks for blaming check notes every president since Bush Sr for apparently expanding NATO as if it were an empire rather than a pact of mutual defense.
Bush Sr promised Yeltsin that NATO expansion would stop with the Poland round. Sure did teach the Russians to make sure to get stuff in writing from US Americans. You’re right that Clinton, Bush 2, and Obama were all equally horrible and short-sighted in their desire to expand NATO. Trump asked some interesting questions about the utility of NATO in the post-Soviet environment, but then bizarrely started expanding Obama’s support for Ukraine, sending lethal arms to them. Biden seems to be following in the neoliberal/neocon footsteps of Clinton, Bush, and Obummer.
