[HN Gopher] Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West's Fault (2014) [pdf]
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Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West's Fault (2014) [pdf]
Author : Matetricks
Score : 18 points
Date : 2022-02-24 20:22 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.mearsheimer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.mearsheimer.com)
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Tankies. Tankies everywhere. Leave off Tankies. Imperialism is
| Imperialism, and it has nothing to do with NATO.
| dang wrote:
| Please do not post flamebait, name calling, or unsubstantive
| comments. Those things are against the site guidelines, because
| they destroy what this place is supposed to be for. You can
| make your substantive points without any of that.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| I found his lecture quite interesting as well on YouTube.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
| ratg13 wrote:
| Author argues that NATO gains nothing out of Ukraine joining
| NATO.
|
| NATO is a threat to Russia as they are declining power. Equates
| it with China forming a military alliance with Canada or Mexico
| to allow weapons placement.
|
| Says the whole thing could just be avoided by NATO just saying a
| flat 'no' to Ukraine so that Russia wouldn't have to feel
| threatened.
|
| It's not a totally crazy argument, but clearly one that possibly
| should have been considered better in the past.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| It may be the case that "The West" could have done things to
| prevent this invasion, but the choice to start blowing up
| children and families was Putin's. It is his fault.
| ratg13 wrote:
| The author is arguing that the west is provoking this. Smacking
| the proverbial 'bees nest' instead of just not hitting the bees
| nest.
|
| If you read the paper, it's an argument worth considering.
|
| Please note this was written in 2014 and is not relevant to the
| current situation for anything other than historical context.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This kind of analysis ignores what Ukraine and Ukrainians
| actually want. Western Ukraine, at the very least, is extremely
| nationalist and anti-Russian. Do they not have the right of self-
| determination as a sovereign country?
| ukrthrowaway wrote:
| No, not if it significantly affects others, as it would in this
| case, by risking a nuclear war.
|
| Should countries be able to get nuclear weapons just because
| they want them?
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| Russia is the one threatening nuclear war here.
|
| That's on Russia, no one else.
| ukrthrowaway wrote:
| tschwimmer wrote:
| There is a reason Mearsheimer is part of an IR school of
| thought called "Realists." This analysis doesn't focus much on
| self-determinism or international law because it assumes that
| these concepts don't have much influence. I also think that
| it's regrettable, but people making foreign policy calls should
| be aware of this line of thinking.
|
| For what it's worth, what Mearsheimer is saying here about NATO
| expansion being destabilizing is pretty much exactly what Putin
| is saying in his various speeches.
| mjh2539 wrote:
| The author doesn't care what Ukrainians want, and neither does
| Russia or the United States for that matter. He's a political
| realist. I think the author would say that you have the right
| to self-determination if you actually possess the political
| capital to have the right to begin with. It is obvious that the
| Ukrainians do not (whereas the Poles, French, Germans, etc.
| do).
| partiallypro wrote:
| The US, etc could have banned Ukraine from NATO forever and it
| wouldn't have mattered at all. Putin's speech rarely mentioned
| NATO as his deciding factor. He said doesn't believe Ukraine
| should exist independently of Russia.
| netsharc wrote:
| There's often a difference between what people say and what
| people think, as well as justifications for actions against the
| actual reasons they did the action. Because telling the public
| the real reason might be embarrassing.
|
| He's saying Ukraine is ruled by Nazis and he's getting rid of
| them. That's made up. The real reason in his mind might be
| NATO, it could also be he doesn't want liberal democracies so
| close to Russia, what if his own citizenry gets the idea that
| if their neighbors can topple corrupt dictators, maybe they can
| do that as well..
| jiqiren wrote:
| From the opening paragraph this is extremely dated.
|
| Recently, in so many words, Putin himself said he wanted the
| rebuilding of the old Soviet empire. This might have seemed like
| a plausible explanation during Crimea. But this is all garbage
| when hearing straight from Putin a couple of days ago.
| ratg13 wrote:
| I recommend continuing to read the article.
| ranqet wrote:
| Then why does the West give him reason for "expansion" through
| aggressive expansion of NATO?
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| I've collected the speeches on my website. He didn't say that.
| http://pauleccles.co.za/
| mcguire wrote:
| He's quite critical of the Soviet Union.
|
| " _Lenin criticised this plan and suggested making
| concessions to the nationalists, whom he called
| "independents" at that time. Lenin's ideas of what amounted
| in essence to a confederative state arrangement and a slogan
| about the right of nations to self-determination, up to
| secession, were laid in the foundation of Soviet statehood.
| Initially they were confirmed in the Declaration on the
| Formation of the USSR in 1922, and later on, after Lenin's
| death, were enshrined in the 1924 Soviet Constitution._
|
| " _This immediately raises many questions. The first is
| really the main one: why was it necessary to appease the
| nationalists, to satisfy the ceaselessly growing nationalist
| ambitions on the outskirts of the former empire? What was the
| point of transferring to the newly, often arbitrarily formed
| administrative units - the union republics - vast territories
| that had nothing to do with them? Let me repeat that these
| territories were transferred along with the population of
| what was historically Russia._
|
| ...
|
| " _When it comes to the historical destiny of Russia and its
| peoples, Lenin's principles of state development were not
| just a mistake; they were worse than a mistake, as the saying
| goes. This became patently clear after the dissolution of the
| Soviet Union in 1991._
|
| ...
|
| " _In fact, what Stalin fully implemented was not Lenin's but
| his own principles of government. But he did not make the
| relevant amendments to the cornerstone documents, to the
| Constitution, and he did not formally revise Lenin's
| principles underlying the Soviet Union. From the look of it,
| there seemed to be no need for that, because everything
| seemed to be working well in conditions of the totalitarian
| regime, and outwardly it looked wonderful, attractive and
| even super-democratic._
|
| " _And yet, it is a great pity that the fundamental and
| formally legal foundations of our state were not promptly
| cleansed of the odious and utopian fantasies inspired by the
| revolution, which are absolutely destructive for any normal
| state. As it often happened in our country before, nobody
| gave any thought to the future._
|
| ...
|
| " _I would like to repeat that today such a centre has
| already been deployed in Ochakov. In the 18th century,
| soldiers of Alexander Suvorov fought for this city. Owing to
| their courage, it became part of Russia. Also in the 18th
| century, the lands of the Black Sea littoral, incorporated in
| Russia as a result of wars with the Ottoman Empire, were
| given the name of Novorossiya (New Russia). Now attempts are
| being made to condemn these landmarks of history to oblivion,
| along with the names of state and military figures of the
| Russian Empire without whose efforts modern Ukraine would not
| have many big cities or even access to the Black Sea._ "
| pasabagi wrote:
| Is this surprising? He's a right wing guy - he doesn't like
| "the odious and utopian fantasies" of socialism, and his
| read of Stalin (and how Stalinism worked) is pretty
| standard.
|
| It's actually a common understanding of what went so
| horribly wrong in the USSR: the party formed a sort of
| parallel administrative structure that basically undermined
| and supplanted all the actual laws and institutions of
| state.
| ukrthrowaway wrote:
| He also said that he wanted to negotiate a peace agreement
| which excludes NATO from Ukraine. Why not take that statement
| at face value too?
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Russia has already guaranteed Ukraine's sovereignty and
| territorial integrity in 1994. Oops then helped itself to
| Crimea and the "people's republics".
|
| Now "don't arm Ukraine and we pinky promise not to attack it
| further"? Hmm...
| ukrthrowaway wrote:
| If you take as an assumption that you can't negotiate with
| them then it's you who isn't willing to negotiate not them.
| boardwaalk wrote:
| He said he wanting negotiations and then attacked days later.
| Suggesting we take that statement face value is patently
| absurd.
| ukrthrowaway wrote:
| It was many weeks and the US basically said they would not
| even consider the main points at issue.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| When the abusive ex-husband tells you that dating his ex-
| wife is crossing his "red line", do you carefully
| consider his position? Or do you refuse to consider it,
| because that's none of his business?
|
| Putin's demand was none of his business, and was
| completely unacceptable. It wasn't going to be
| considered, not in days, not in weeks, and not in
| decades.
| dTal wrote:
| Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't take Putin's word at face
| value.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory
| 988747 wrote:
| Or maybe we should take Putin's words more seriously? He was
| planning to invade Ukraine for at least a decade now, and was
| quite openly talking about it - all those times when he
| claimed that "The fall of Soviet Union was a great tragedy"
| it was quite obvious that he'll try to rebuild it, in its
| former borders. Western leaders chose to ignore all warning
| signs because of they greed (looking at you, Germany, with
| your Nord Stream 2), and that's how we end up in this mess
| today.
| pasabagi wrote:
| I think for many people in the former USSR, that the fall
| of the USSR was a tragedy is kind of obvious. Living
| standards dropped precipitously, whole industries closed
| overnight, and the state was basically stolen from under
| the citizen's feet. Even in east germany, probably best
| served by decomunization, you live amongst the carcasses of
| all the industries that closed down.
|
| It doesn't mean that you can reverse that tragedy by
| lobbing missiles around. That's absurd.
| [deleted]
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Sounds like a useful idiot to me.
|
| Russia has been dislocating extremely threatening weaponry right
| on NATO doorstep and treating it as its holy right, for a long
| time. The Kaliningrad region is Europe's most militarised area,
| with SAM and tactical ballistic weaponry extending over most of
| Poland and the Baltic's, quite possibly most of Europe in fact.
| Russian nuke-capable bombers graze NATO airspaces on an almost
| daily rate.
|
| But Ukraine _thinks_ about joining NATO and Russia has _no
| choice_ but carve out some of its territory? And it's the
| _west's_ fault?
|
| In a 19th century Polish book (very racist by modern standards)
| by Nobel prize winning author Sienkiewicz, "In the desert and in
| the jungle", an indigenous man Kali is being "enlightened" about
| Christianity. When asked to provide an example of a bad deed, he
| says "when someone take cow from Kali". Asked for a good deed, he
| volunteers: "when Kali take cow".
|
| Basically, you don't need to understand more about morality to
| understand Putin's idea of statehood and leadership.
| Yoofie wrote:
| > Russia has been dislocating extremely threatening weaponry
| right on NATO doorstep and treating it as its holy right, for a
| long time.
|
| You got this exactly backwards. NATO has been expanding towards
| Russia and is seen as aggressive by Russia. NATO/US "graze"
| Russian and Chinese airspace aswell - whats your point? This is
| just military tactics 101.
|
| >But Ukraine thinks about joining NATO and Russia has no choice
| but carve out some of its territory? And it's the west's fault?
|
| Ukraine is a buffer state. When your buffer state is being
| armed and funded by your political enemies, you draw a red
| line. When you cross a red line and you fail a diplomatic
| negotiations, what do you expect to happen?
| squabble wrote:
| Ukraine should have kept their nukes or joined Nato or Russia.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| Shockingly prescient and a well-done analysis in general, but I
| still don't buy the "Putin had no other choice" argument.
|
| It boils down to the equivalent of the "It wasn't my fault that I
| raped the woman, she wore a short skirt!" bullshit argument.
|
| I understand the "this is how realpolitik works" line of thought,
| I really do. But it doesn't change who's at fault here.
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(page generated 2022-02-24 23:01 UTC)