Putin: I am invading Ukraine to reunite Mother Russia.
Russian state media: Here’s a manifesto that explicitly lays out how and why we invaded Ukraine to reunite Mother Russia.
Manifesto written by Putin that is required reading for everyone in Russia’s military: We need to reunite Ukraine into Mother Russia.
Bill Haywood and Professor John J. Mearsheimer: No see, that’s just Putin’s stated reason. We know somehow that the real reason is we made him mad by expanding NATO. See? It’s really our fault he hits us. We just make him so mad sometimes.
most people who call for abolition or non-expansion of NATO utterly misunderstand the structure of a mutual-defense pact, and by extension are favoring a world where militaries are not required to talk and collaborate with each other regularly for defensive purposes. What they are in effect favoring is a world where every military is separately under political control of whichever madman managed to win a popularity contest.
This is just nonsense. If anything, admitting Ukraine to NATO is less belligerent than actively arming Ukrainians in response to a Russian invasion. The latter literally kills Russians. The notion that the former is more provocative towards nuclear war than the latter just doesn’t hold water.
The Cuban missile crisis wasn’t about Cuba being aligned with the USSR though. Get back to me when NATO puts nuclear missiles within a hundred miles of the Russian border.
You know who doesn’t get to call the shots in the world today? The Ottoman Empire, the Napoleonic Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Prussian Empire. These are the appropriate analogs for the Russian Empire.
No.
That’s why I’ve taken pains to applaud aid to the Ukrainians. Responsibility for the invasion is overwhelmingly Putin’s. But we can’t control him, we can only control what we do. And expansion of Nato lead to a predictable place.
And a domestic abuse metaphor does not scale up to international real politik.
Again, bullshit. Russias own read of the situation was that they were too fractured and weak politically to even defend an overt land grab. They were not, and are not, concerned about being invaded at all
Counterpoint, the only Ukrainian I’ve ever known I real life was a classmate in lawschool whose family immigrated here when he was a baby. He was the most dour person I’ve ever met. Toward the end of law school we found out that he did stand up comedy and so a group of us went to check it out and it was as terrible as any of us imagined.
No. Stationing nuclear missiles, Nato tanks and planes on the border is far more provocative than handing out Stingers. One is a war of attrition, the other is an existential threat.
Are people not aware what the term Tankie means? It’s not a Russian it’s a communist (most associated with Stalinist Soviet Union). Just me being pedantic.
I always thought it meant modern ultra-lefty under the sway of Russian propaganda. Obviously that wasn’t the original usage but is that not how it’s being applied now?
Fear of invasion is in the Kremlin’s subconscious.
And it’s not a fear that in the present circumstances, a Nato invasion will come out of the blue. The worry is that if some situation escalates and gets out of hand, then you have to worry about basic capabilities of Nato. You think Nato doesn’t have tank routes mapped out?
You really should watch the Mearsh. vid, it’s less than 3:00.
Ironically, Putin has chosen a course of action that looks like it’s going to make both arming Ukrainian and letting it into NATO incredibly popular and politically acceptable.