Who Caused the Ukraine War?

John J. Mearsheimer

Aug 05, 2024

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The question of who is responsible for causing the Ukraine war has been a deeply contentious issue since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

The answer to this question matters enormously because the war has been a disaster for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that Ukraine has effectively been wrecked. It has lost a substantial amount of its territory and is likely to lose more, its economy is in tatters, huge numbers of Ukrainians are internally displaced or have fled the country, and it has suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. Of course, Russia has paid a significant blood price as well. On the strategic level, relations between Russia and Europe, not to mention Russia and Ukraine, have been poisoned for the foreseeable future, which means that the threat of a major war in Europe will be with us well after the Ukraine war turns into a frozen conflict. Who bears responsibility for this disaster is a question that will not go away anytime soon and if anything is likely to become more prominent as the extent of the disaster becomes more apparent to more people.

The conventional wisdom in the West is that Vladimir Putin is responsible for causing the Ukraine war. The invasion aimed at conquering all of Ukraine and making it part of a greater Russia, so the argument goes. Once that goal was achieved, the Russians would move to create an empire in eastern Europe, much like the Soviet Union did after World War II. Thus, Putin is ultimately a threat to the West and must be dealt with forcefully. In short, Putin is an imperialist with a master plan who fits neatly into a rich Russian tradition.

The alternative argument, which I identify with, and which is clearly the minority view in the West, is that the United States and its allies provoked the war. This is not to deny, of course, that Russia invaded Ukraine and started the war. But the principal cause of the conflict is the NATO decision to bring Ukraine into the alliance, which virtually all Russian leaders see as an existential threat that must be eliminated. NATO expansion, however, is part of a broader strategy that is designed to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. Bringing Kyiv into the European Union (EU) and promoting a color revolution in Ukraine – turning it into pro-Western liberal democracy – are the other two prongs of the policy. Russia leaders fear all three prongs, but they fear NATO expansion the most. To deal with this threat, Russia launched a preventive war on 24 February 2022.

The debate about who caused the Ukraine war recently heated up when two prominent Western leaders – former President Donald Trump and prominent British MP Nigel Farage – made the argument that NATO expansion was the driving force behind the conflict. Unsurprisingly, their comments were met with a ferocious counterattack from defenders of the conventional wisdom. It is also worth noting that the outgoing Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said twice over the past year that “President Putin started this war because he wanted to close NATO’s door and deny Ukraine the right to choose its own path.” Hardly anyone in the West challenged this remarkable admission by NATO’s head and he did not retract it.

My aim here is to provide a primer, which lays out the key points that support the view that Putin invaded Ukraine not because he was an imperialist bent on making Ukraine part of a greater Russia, but mainly because of NATO expansion and the West’s efforts to make Ukraine a Western stronghold on Russia’s border.

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Let me start with the SEVEN MAIN REASONS to reject the conventional wisdom.

FIRST, there is simply no evidence from before 24 February 2022 that Putin wanted to conquer Ukraine and incorporate it into Russia. Proponents of the conventional wisdom cannot point to anything Putin wrote or said that indicates he was bent on conquering Ukraine.

When challenged on this point, purveyors of the conventional wisdom provide evidence that has little if any bearing on Putin’s motives for invading Ukraine. For example, some emphasize that he said Ukraine is an “artificial state“ or not a “real state.” Such opaque comments, however, say nothing about his reason for going to war. The same is true of Putin’s statement that he views Russians and Ukrainians as “one people“ with a common history. Others point out that he called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” But Putin also said, “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.” Still, others point to a speech in which he declared that “Modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia.” But that hardly constitutes evidence that he was interested in conquering Ukraine. Moreover, he said in that same speech: “Of course, we cannot change past events, but we must at least admit them openly and honestly.”

To make the case that Putin was bent on conquering all of Ukraine and incorporating it into Russia, it is necessary to provide evidence that 1) he thought it was a desirable goal, 2) he thought it was a feasible goal, and 3) he intended to pursue that goal. There is no evidence in the public record that Putin was contemplating, much less intending to put an end to Ukraine as an independent state and make it part of greater Russia when he sent his troops into Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

In fact, there is significant evidence that Putin recognized Ukraine as an independent country. In his well-known 12 July 2021 article dealing with Russian-Ukrainian relations, which proponents of the conventional wisdom often point to as evidence of his imperial ambitions, he tells the Ukrainian people, “You want to establish a state of your own: you are welcome!” Regarding how Russia should treat Ukraine, he writes, “There is only one answer: with respect.” He concludes that lengthy article with the following words: “And what Ukraine will be—it is up to its citizens to decide.” These statements are directly at odds with the claim that Putin wanted to incorporate Ukraine within a greater Russia.

In that same 12 July 2021 article and again in an important speech he gave on 21 February 2022, Putin emphasized that Russia accepts “the new geopolitical reality that took shape after the dissolution of the USSR.” He reiterated that same point for a third time on 24 February 2022, when he announced that Russia would invade Ukraine. In particular, he declared that “It is not our plan to occupy Ukrainian territory” and made it clear that he respected Ukrainian sovereignty, although only up to a point: “Russia cannot feel safe, develop, and exist while facing a permanent threat from the territory of today’s Ukraine.” In essence, Putin was not interested in making Ukraine a part of Russia; he was interested in making sure it did not become a “springboard“ for Western aggression against Russia.

SECOND, there is no evidence that Putin was preparing a puppet government for Ukraine, cultivating pro-Russian leaders in Kyiv, or pursuing any political measures that would make it possible to occupy the entire country and eventually integrate it into Russia.

Those facts fly in the face of the claim that Putin was interested in erasing Ukraine from the map.

THIRD, Putin did not have anywhere near enough troops to conquer Ukraine.

Let’s start with the overall numbers. I have long estimated that the Russians invaded Ukraine with at most 190,000 troops. General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the present commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, recently said in an interview with The Guardian that Russia’s invasion force was only 100,000 strong. Indeed, The Guardian used that same number before the war started. There is no way that a force of either 100,000 or 190,000 could conquer, occupy, and absorb all of Ukraine into a greater Russia.

Consider that when Germany invaded the western half of Poland in September 1939, the Wehrmacht numbered about 1.5 million men. Ukraine is geographically more than 3 times larger than the western half of Poland was in 1939 and Ukraine in 2022 had almost twice as many people as Poland did when the German invaded. If we accept General Syrskyi’s estimate that 100,000 Russian troops invaded Ukraine in 2022, that means Russia had an invasion force that was 1/15th the size of the German force that went into Poland. And that small Russian army was invading a country that was much larger than Poland in terms of both territorial size and population.

Numbers aside, there is the matter of the quality of the Russian army. For starters, it was a military force largely designed to defend Russia from invasion. It was not an army primed to launch a major offensive that would end up conquering all of Ukraine, much less threatening the rest of Europe. Furthermore, the quality of the fighting forces left much to be desired, as the Russians were not expecting a war when the crisis began to heat up in the spring of 2021. Thus, they had little opportunity to train-up a skilled invasion force. In terms of both quality and quantity, the Russian invasion force was not close to being the equivalent of the Wehrmacht in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

One might argue that Russians leaders thought that the Ukrainian military was so small and so outgunned that their army could easily defeat Ukraine’s forces and conquer the entire country. In fact, Putin and his lieutenants were well-aware that the United States and its European allies had been arming and training the Ukrainian military since the crisis first broke out on 22 February 2014. Moscow’s great fear was that Ukraine was becoming a defacto member of NATO. Moreover, Russian leaders observed the Ukrainian army, which was larger than their invasion force, fighting effectively in the Donbass between 2014 and 2022. They surely understood that the Ukrainian military was not a paper tiger that could be defeated quickly and decisively, especially since it had powerful backing from the West.

Finally, over the course of 2022, the Russians were forced to withdraw their army from the Kharkiv oblast and from the western part of the Kherson oblast. In effect, Moscow surrendered territory that its army had conquered in the opening days of the war. There is no question that pressure from the Ukrainian army played a role in forcing the Russian withdrawal. But more importantly, Putin and his generals realized that they did not have sufficient forces to hold all the territory their army had conquered in Kharkiv and Kherson. So, they retreated and created more manageable defensive positions. This is hardly the behavior one would expect from an army that was built and trained to conquer and occupy all of Ukraine. Of course, it was not designed for that purpose and thus could not achieve that Herculean task.

FOURTH, in the months before the war started, Putin tried to find a diplomatic solution to the brewing crisis.

On 17 December 2021, Putin sent a letter to both President Joe Biden and NATO chief Stoltenberg proposing a solution to the crisis based on a written guarantee that: 1) Ukraine would not join NATO, 2) no offensive weapons would be stationed near Russia’s borders, and 3) NATO troops and equipment moved into eastern Europe since 1997 would be moved back to western Europe. Whatever one thinks of the feasibility of reaching a bargain based on Putin’s opening demands, which the United States refused to negotiate over, it shows that he was trying to avoid war.

FIFTH, immediately after the war began, Russia reached out to Ukraine to start negotiations to end the war and work out a modus vivendi between the two countries.

Negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow began in Belarus just four days after Russian troops entered Ukraine. That Belarus track was eventually replaced by an Israeli as well as an Istanbul track. All the available evidence indicates that the Russia was negotiating seriously and was not interested in absorbing Ukrainian territory, save for Crimea, which they had annexed in 2014, and possibly the Donbass. The negotiations ended when the Ukrainians, with prodding from Britain and the United States, walked away from the negotiations, which were making good progress when they ended.

Furthermore, Putin reports that when the negotiations were taking place and making progress, he was asked to remove Russian troops from the area around Kyiv as a good will gesture, which he did on 29 March 2022 . No government in the West or former policymaker has challenged Putin’s claim, which is directly at odds with the claim that he was bent on conquering all of Ukraine.

SIXTH, putting Ukraine aside, there is not a scintilla of evidence that Putin was contemplating conquering any other countries in eastern Europe.

Moreover, the Russian army is not even large enough to overrun all of Ukraine, much less try to conquer the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania. Plus, all those countries are NATO members, which would almost certainly mean war with the United States and its allies.

SEVENTH, hardly anyone in the West argued that Putin had imperial ambitions from the time he took the reins of power in 2000 until the Ukraine crisis started on 22 February 2014. At that point, he suddenly became an imperial aggressor. Why? Because Western leaders needed a reason to blame him for causing the crisis.

Probably the best evidence that Putin was not seen as a serious threat during his first fourteen years in office is that he was an invited guest at the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, which is where the alliance announced that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually become members. Putin, of course, was enraged by that decision and made his anger known. But his opposition to that announcement had hardly any effect on Washington because Russia’s military was judged to be too weak to stop further NATO enlargement, just as it had been too weak to stop the 1999 and 2004 waves of expansion. The West thought it could once again shove NATO expansion down Russia’s throat.

Relatedly, NATO enlargement before 22 February 2014 was not aimed at containing Russia. Given the sad state of Russian military power, Moscow was in no position to conquer Ukraine, much less pursue revanchist policies in eastern Europe. Tellingly, former US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul, who is a staunch defender of Ukraine and scathing critic of Putin, notes that Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014 was not planned before the crisis broke out; it was an impulsive move in response to the coup that overthrew Ukraine’s pro-Russian leader. In short, NATO expansion was not intended to contain a Russian threat, because the West did not think there was one.

It was only when the Ukraine crisis erupted in February 2014 that the United States and its allies suddenly began describing Putin as a dangerous leader with imperial ambitions and Russia as a serious military threat that NATO had to contain. This abrupt shift in rhetoric was designed to serve one essential purpose: to enable the West to blame Putin for the crisis and absolve the West of responsibility. Unsurprisingly, that portrayal of Putin gained much greater traction after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

There is one twist on the conventional wisdom that bears mentioning. Some argue that Moscow’s decision to invade Ukraine has little to do with Putin himself and instead is part of an expansionist tradition that long predates Putin and is deeply wired into Russian society. This penchant for aggression, which is said to be driven by internal forces, not Russia’s external threat environment, has driven virtually all Russian leaders over time to behave violently toward their neighbors. There is no denying that Putin is in charge in this story or that he led Russia to war, but he is said to have little agency. Almost any other Russian leader would have acted the same way.

There are two problems with this argument. For starters, it is non-falsifiable, as the longstanding trait in Russian society that produces this aggressive impulse is never identified. Russians are said to have always been aggressive – no matter who is in charge – and always will be. It is almost as if it were in their DNA. This same claim was once made about Germans, who were often portrayed during the twentieth century as congenital aggressors. Arguments of this sort are not taken seriously in the academic world for good reason.

Furthermore, hardly anyone in the United States or Western Europe characterized Russia as innately aggressive between 1991 and 2014, when the Ukraine crisis broke out. Outside of Poland and the Baltic states, fear of Russian aggression was not a concern frequently voiced during those twenty-four years, which one would expect if the Russians were wired for aggression. It seems clear that the sudden appearance of this line of argument was a convenient excuse to blame Russia for causing the Ukraine war.

*****************

Let me shift gears and lay out the THREE MAIN REASONS to think that NATO expansion was the principal cause of the Ukraine war.

FIRST, Russian leaders across the board said repeatedly before the war started that they considered NATO expansion into Ukraine to be an existential threat that had to be eliminated.

Putin made numerous public statements laying out this line of argument before 24 February 2022. Speaking to the Defense Ministry Board on 21 December 2021, he stated: “what they are doing, or trying or planning to do in Ukraine, is not happening thousands of kilometers away from our national border. It is on the doorstep of our house. They must understand that we simply have nowhere further to retreat to. Do they really think we do not see these threats? Or do they think that we will just stand idly watching threats to Russia emerge?” Two months later at a press conference on 22 February 2022, just days before the war started, Putin said: “We are categorically opposed to Ukraine joining NATO because this poses a threat to us, and we have arguments to support this. I have repeatedly spoken about it in this hall.” He then made it clear that he recognized that Ukraine was becoming a defacto member of NATO. The United States and its allies, he said, “continue to pump the current Kiev authorities full of modern types of weapons.” He went on to say that if this was not stopped, Moscow “would be left with an ‘anti- Russia’ armed to the teeth. This is totally unacceptable.”

Other Russian leaders – including the defense minister, the foreign minister, the deputy foreign minister, and the Russian ambassador to Washington – also stressed the centrality of NATO expansion for causing the Ukraine crisis. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made this point succinctly at a press conference on 14 January 2022: “The key to everything is the guarantee that NATO will not expand eastward.”

One often hears the argument that Russian fears were unfounded because there was no chance that Ukraine would join the alliance in the foreseeable future, if ever. Indeed, it is said that the United States and its European allies paid little attention to bringing Ukraine into NATO before the war. But even if Ukraine joined the alliance, that would not be an existential threat to Russia because NATO is a defensive alliance. Thus, NATO expansion could not have been a cause of the original crisis, which broke out in February 2014 or the war that began in February 2022.

This line of argument is false. In fact, the Western response to the events of 2014 was to double down on the existing strategy and draw Ukraine even closer to NATO. The alliance began training the Ukrainian military in 2014, averaging 10,000 trained troops annually over the next eight years. In December 2017, the Trump administration decided to provide Kyiv with “defensive weapons.” Other NATO countries soon got into the act, shipping even more weapons to Ukraine. Furthermore, Ukraine’s army, navy, and air force began participating in joint military exercises with NATO forces. The West’s effort to arm and train Ukraine’s military explains in good part why it fared so well against the Russian army in the first year of the war. As a headline in The Wall Street Journal from April 2022 put it, “The Secret of Ukraine’s Military Success: Years of NATO Training.”

Putting aside the alliance’s ongoing efforts to make the Ukrainian military a more formidable fighting force that could operate alongside NATO troops, there was renewed enthusiasm in the West during 2021 for bringing Ukraine into NATO. At the same time, President Zelensky, who had never shown much enthusiasm for bringing Ukraine into the alliance and who was elected in March 2019 on a platform that called for working with Russia to settle the ongoing crisis, reversed course in early 2021 and not only embraced NATO membership for Ukraine, but also adopted a hardline approach toward Moscow.

President Biden, who moved into the White House in January 2021, had long been committed to bringing Ukraine into NATO and was a super-hawk toward Russia. Unsurprisingly, on 14 June 2021, NATO issued a communiqué at its annual summit in Brussels, which said: “We reiterate the decision made at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance.” On 1 September 2021, Zelensky visited the White House, where Biden made it clear that the United States was “firmly committed” to “Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations.” Then on 10 November 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, signed an important document – the “US-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership.” The aim of both parties, the document stated, is to “underscore … a commitment to Ukraine’s implementation of the deep and comprehensive reforms necessary for full integration into European and Euro-Atlantic institutions.” It also explicitly reaffirms the U.S. commitment to the “2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration.”

There appears to be little doubt that Ukraine was well on its way to becoming a member of NATO by the end of 2021. Even so, some supporters of this policy argue that Moscow should not have been concerned about that outcome, because “NATO is a defensive alliance and poses no threat to Russia.” But that is not how Putin and other Russian leaders think about NATO, and it is what they think that matters. In short, there is no question that Moscow saw Ukraine joining NATO as an existential threat that could not be allowed to stand.

SECOND, a substantial number of influential and highly regarded individuals in the West recognized before the war that NATO expansion – especially into Ukraine – would be seen by Russian leaders as a mortal threat and eventually lead to disaster.

William Burns, who now heads the CIA, but was the US ambassador to Moscow at the time of the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, wrote a memo to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that succinctly describes Russian thinking about bringing Ukraine into the alliance. “Ukrainian entry into NATO,” he wrote, “is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” NATO, he said, “would be seen … as throwing down the strategic gauntlet. Today’s Russia will respond. Russian-Ukrainian relations will go into a deep freeze...It will create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.”

Burns was not the only Western policymaker in 2008 who understood that bringing Ukraine into NATO was fraught with danger. Indeed, at the Bucharest summit, both German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy opposed moving forward on NATO membership for Ukraine because they understood it would alarm and infuriate Russia. Merkel recently explained her opposition: “I was very sure … that Putin is not going to just let that happen. From his perspective, that would be a declaration of war."

To take this a step further, numerous American policymakers and strategists opposed President Clinton’s decision to expand NATO during the 1990s, when the decision was being debated. Those opponents understood from the start that Russian leaders would see it as a threat to their vital interests, and that the policy would eventually lead to disaster. The list of opponents includes prominent establishment figures like George Kennan, both President Clinton’s Secretary of Defense, William Perry, and his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, Paul Nitze, Robert Gates, Robert McNamara, Richard Pipes, and Jack Matlock, just to name a few.

The logic of Putin’s position should make perfect sense to Americans, who have long been committed to the Monroe Doctrine, which stipulates that no distant great power is allowed to form an alliance with a country in the Western Hemisphere and locate its military forces there. The United States would interpret a move of that sort as an existential threat and go to great lengths to eliminate the danger. Of course, this is what happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when President Kennedy made it clear to the Soviets that their nuclear-tipped missiles would have to be removed from Cuba. Putin is deeply influenced by the same logic. After all, great powers do not want distant great powers moving into their backyard.

THIRD, the centrality of Russia’s profound fear of Ukraine joining NATO is illustrated by two developments that have occurred since the war began.

During the Istanbul negotiations that took place immediately after the invasion began, the Russians made it manifestly clear that Ukraine had to accept “permanent neutrality” and could not join NATO. The Ukrainians accepted Russia’s demand without any serious resistance, surely because they knew that it was otherwise impossible to end the war. More recently, on 14 June 2024, Putin laid out two demands that Ukraine would have to meet before he would agree to a ceasefire and the start of negotiations to end the war. One of those demands was that Kyiv “officially” state “that it abandons its plans to join NATO.”

None of this is surprising, as Russia has always seen Ukraine in NATO as an existential threat that must be prevented at all costs. That logic is the driving force behind the Ukraine war.

Finally, it is obvious from Russia’s negotiating position at Istanbul as well as Putin’s comments on ending the war in his 14 June 2024 address that he is not interested in conquering all of Ukraine and making it part of a greater Russia

Who Caused the Ukraine War?

John J. Mearsheimer

653

433

The question of who is responsible for causing the Ukraine war has been a deeply contentious issue since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

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Andrew Surman

Andrew’s Substack

Aug 5

Getting a notification from John Mearsheimer makes me really happy

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 5

you and putin

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Nick

Aug 5

Go back to watching CNN if facts make you so uncomfortable.

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Fran

Aug 6

If you have such a different perspective on this issue, and are at odds with Mearsheimer, why are you here? Are you here to spew insults with those that disagree, and if so why don't you do a magic act and disappear.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

not everybody here follows the party line. and the party line is very ugly regarding ukraine and as i pointed out very inconsistent when compared to israel. because the israel genocide came along and meeershimer doesn't like it one has to ask why is that. why can't netanyahu commit the same horrors that are acceptable for putin? seems fishy. pointing this out is spewing insults.?

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Fran

Aug 6·edited Aug 6

I think you put the onus on Russia because you don't get the whole picture and that picture will tell you that the US is simply using Ukrainian lives to bring Putin down and undermine Russia's influence in the world. Why all our Middle Eastern wars? Why Iraq?  Biden certainly pushed that one down the throats of his colleagues using his position as chair of the foreign relations comm. Saddam  had weapons of mass destruction he said, and people like Judith Miller who worked for the NY Times published the same lies knowing her source had a stake in wanting Saddam gone. We lied our way through all our Middle Eastern wars, destroying countries, leaving rubble in the wake of those wars as we destroyed the lives of their people, many of whom died, or were displaced. Read about them from someone who will provide you with an honest perspective and you'll come to understand what we want in Ukraine and realize the lives of others matter little to us, since our politicians are there mostly to serve themselves.  We are supplying weapons to assist Israel in implementing a genocide, killing mostly children, innocents, and there are those who will say that's okay. Did you see our representatives applaud Netanyahu's every word, a man who belongs in jail, and would be if he were no implementing this genocide. They are applauding a genocide, the death of women, children, men, the young and the old. Their living space, an outdoor concentration camp true, but home nonetheless and now it is in rubble. Where do they go if they should survive? Please remember we are supplying the bombs that are killing them, and Israel demands it. The world is sick.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 6

If the Americans think they can bring Putin down they are even more stupid than they look. American Presidents can only dream of the sort of support Putin has from the public.

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OverFlowError

Aug 7

I would say also this. His popular support in Russia largely flows from the fact that he took the Russian bear on his back and carried it away from the absolute depths of economic, medical, military, and cultural destruction and degradation left in the aftermath of the utter collapse of that Nation and society. To be sure he was of necessity an authoritarian. I don’t think Western citizens can fathom the depths of human destruction and despair Russia found itself after approximately 80 years of communist degradation. He is not universally popular. But most of that nation recognizes the path forward he forged for his people. I don’t admire him but I do recognize his surprising achievements.

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unwarranted

Aug 10

From your phrasing, I cannot tell if you’re intentionally omitting the American role in exploiting Russia’s precarious beginning as a non-communist state, where it looted, and appropriated rights to vast holdings of the former regime. However feeble the Russian state was when Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union, it was far from the hollowed out shell that was the result of a decade of western “influence.” The IMF was intent on making Russia a client-state.

Boris Yeltsin was the easy mark for Clinton and his band of hustlers. When Yeltsin grasped the damage that he had allowed, he appointed Putin to right the listing Russian ship. Putin clearly is an authoritarian, because thieves and trained con artists don’t respond to civility.

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OverFlowError

Aug 10

I am not intentionally omitting that. There certainly was considerable self dealing in the West’s (post fall of the Soviet Union) actions.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

Eloquently put. Yes, I agree with your assessment. What the West also fails to take into account is that the Russians like a strong leader. Any understanding of their history explains why. It also explains the paranoia of the Soviets in terms of controlling outside its borders.

Also having spent a bit of time in Russia, it is important to understand the trauma Russians suffered when the Soviet union fell, to which Putin referred and has been consistently misquoted.

Yes terrible things happened to some under the Soviets but, for most Russians, particularly females, there was more opportunity, a good education, a reliable job, a home, and security. The loss of that is still mourned by many Russians even though most would not want to return to the Soviet era.

One can admire Putin for his principles and his commitment to his nation and his people. No-one is perfect. Even the much admired Churchill was at times a racist thug and responsible for atrocities and war crimes.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 12

traumatized people are willing to traumatize others. you give them the excuse for a criminal war of aggression against ukraine. that is why there are laws and rules so that people don't just let their traumas determine their actions.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 12

nsakum

You have been here on substack for a while now.

Have you looked anything up or are you so secure in your 'propagandized' version of Russia?

STOP messing around on here and go away or read something other than MSM (Mainstream Media)

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 14

hey jenny, the people here who you are not chasing away are repeating putin talking points. is that the source of truth for you?

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Fran

Aug 7

Well, they did once, in Afghanistan using the Mujahideen, that bogged Russia down for years and years. Mission accomplished, but this time our antics won't work and I'm glad of it.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 16

exactly, that's why it is so ridiculous when dissidents that are "rescued" from putin seem so silly when they say that they want to bring democracy to russia even if it costs them their freedom. the russians as you clearly see love their zar putin. they love it that he wants to expand their empire to include ukrainians. the ukraianians don't love it but the russians and the meershimer enthusiasts love putin's empire builiding

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 16

WHO started this war in Ukraine?

Putin is NOT stupid he doesn;t want the headache of Ukraine.....US knows they will back off and leave the Europeans to sort it all out!

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 16

putin doesn't want the headache of ukraine. no he wanted an easy landgrab of course. it turned into a headache. are you aware that it was putin who invaded ukraine? it seems so obvious but yet the meershimers can't see it. the rest of the world sees it but the meershimers can't. and i guess the RT employees can't either, or aren't allowed to see it.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 16

As the largest country in the world Russia does not need land. It does however need protected borders to fend off US/Nato aggression.

Putin invaded Ukraine for the same reason the Allies invaded in WWII, to come to the aid of others and to protect borders.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 16

Since there is no evidence for any of your claims we can only assume you are a biased Ukrainian or a biased disaffected ex-Russian. I read many military experts and the consensus is that Putin is doing what he said he would do, protecting his borders and ethnic Russians in what is called Ukraine, near the Russian border. There is zero evidence for empire building and since Ukraine for virtually all of its existence was Russian, to take all of it, which is not the plan, would not be empire building but protecting borders and reinstating historical givens.

By all means, when you can provide evidence of empire building be sure to let us know.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 6

Well said and meanwhile in Venezuela the US decides Maduro didn't win although their were many foreign 'watchdogs' during the election.

OIL

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Fran

Aug 7

Yep, we decide he didn't win because we backed the opposition who would benefit us if in office, so lets show our opposition since we are the policemen of the world and because we care about people so much we'll impose sanctions, even though we'll make the people's lives miserable. We're willing to do that because we love democracy that much, and really care. Chavez too, and I cried when he died of cancer.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 7

The thing about sanctions is that it doesn't work. Countries that are sanctioned often find ways of not dealing with the west or producing a product in their own country.

It's like being told off by a teacher when she/he made a mistake and you correct them!

I think many countries turn away because of this nonsense.

Chavez I remember went through hell fighting the USA off.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

Sanctions worked to end apartheid in South Africa. I think it depends on how self-sufficient the country is and the reason why sanctions are imposed. Sanctions against Russia and Iran are pure hypocrisy while sanctions against South Africa were not and sanctions against Israel would not be.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 12

IF a country is NOT self sufficient the Chinese will come in and help them.

At this time USA is one of the few countries without high speed rail..why?

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 16

Israel is dying .....BDSM is working.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 17

Israel is rotting from within and always has been. It was founded in hatred, irrational paranoid fear, elitism, racism and colonial fascism and was always doomed.

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OverFlowError

Aug 9

Asserting that there is or has been a genocide in Gaza is false. Even if one accepts at face value the number of civilian deaths, it’s not a genocide. And no one can in good conscience accept Hamas’ numbers as honest. Even the UN admitted that.

Second, the IDF does not target Palestinian civilians, unlike Hamas indiscriminately firing thousands of rockets at Israeli population centers.

Third, Hamas’ terrorist strategy is to keep and use military assets in heavily populated areas. Hamas leaders desire large numbers of Palestinian civilian casualties. They have admitted this. The recently deceased Haniyah explicitly said so.

Fourth, the IDFs military operations seek to minimize civilian casualties and have and have done so far better than any military anywhere at any time.

Fifth, the Nazi Holocaust murdered 60% of European Jews. So have some perspective when you speak of a genocide in Gaza.

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Fran

Aug 10·edited Aug 10

You can't except that a people that were subject to a genocide in the 1940's under Hitler is implementing one of their own, well, sorry but that is what Israel is doing. You provide information so distorted in order to reassure yourself. The total death toll has not been determined since many of the dead lie under the rubble, and no doubt most are children, and women. Hospitals usually determine the overall death toll, but Israel destroyed those. However tens of thousands of deaths have been accounted for and mostly women and children, babies, sad. "Second, the IDF does not target Palestinian civilians, unlike Hamas indiscriminately firing thousands of rockets at Israeli population centers." Have you seen the rubble Gaza has become? Have you not heard of the thousands killed in hospitals Israel has bombed? You are totally divorced from reality. If there is anyone who needs perspective, and granted more difficult for you, but it is you. Sorry but I can't help you avoid the reality of what Israel is doing and in so doing will pay a heavy price on many levels.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

Jews are not a people and most Jews, real and fake, in what is called Israel and Occupied Palestine were never subjected to genocide under Hitler.

A lot of the Israeli colonists are from Russia and places which were never occupied by the Germans. Many of the recent Jewish colonists are from the US, UK, Canada, even Australia and none of them experienced genocide under Hitler.

Otherwise I totally agree with your sttements.

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Fran

Aug 11

Jews are not a people? I'm confused by what you say since I know that about 150 thousand holocaust survivors entered Israel when it became a state in 1948. There were many, some 500 thousand who entered the country from the twenties through the 1930's. Also, the Zionist movement established in the 1800's wanted a state of their own referencing the prejudice they were subject to. There were millions of Jews who lived in Russia and many of them were killed by Hitler. We're talking about a war and Hitler didn't stay put in Germany, and Poland also suffered, both Jews and non Jews died in camps set up in Poland, AUSCHWITZ! Of course immigration to Israel continued through the years.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11·edited Aug 11

Well, if Jews were a people then every religion would make a people. They do not, so why would Jews.

And to be a people there must be a common language and history and there is not. Jews comprise all races and hundreds of nationalities. What they share is the religion and that is no different to any other religion.

Put an American, French, Ethiopian, Scottish, Indian, Israeli Jew in a room and they have nothing in common but the religion. They all speak different languages except the American and Scots and no-one understands Scots speaking English anyway.

More European Jews, fleeing holocaust went to the US than to Israel and about as many went to Australia as went to what is called Israel. Plenty went to Canada and the UK.

Yes, I know the history of Jewish colonists in Palestine. It started in the 1830's and really took off when Zionism was invented in the 1890's.

Yes the Zionists, atheists and political fascists exploiting Jews wanted a state of their own but not for Jews. They just provided money and labour.

How did Hitler kill millions of Jews in Russia when the German invasion failed? Tens of millions of non-Jews died in Russia because of the German invasion so why single out Jews?

Jews have no right to claim a grain of sand on planet earth just like any other religion. No religion has a right to a homeland or self determination. Israel was founded on lies as you know.

And since most Israelis are not Jews or not real Jews, it is farcical for Israel to claim it represents Judaism and its followers. Nearly a quarter of Israelis are Muslims or Christians and many of the rest are atheist/secular which means they are not followers of Judaism and therefore not Jews. Not real ones anyway.

Although there are no Israelis because Israel passed a law in 2018 saying there is no Israeli nationality, just Jewish. So Israel does not really exist. And since Israel has no declared borders it all remains Palestine.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 16

On top of this: Israeli's flleeing from the holocaust were not allowed entry into the USA!

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Fran

Aug 11

Well, I guess to settle your issue with this question perhaps you should look into the genetics of it all, since DNA testing will identify you as Jewish whether you're a religious Jew, or not.

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Fran

Aug 11

Estimated pre-war Jewish population and estimated number of murdered Jews per country during the Holocaust from 1930 to 1945

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1070564/jewish-populations-deaths-by-country/

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

And then there is the data showing a decrease of 600,000 Jews in European censuses taken in 1939 and then 1949? Lies, damned lies and statistics.

We have no idea how many Jews died in WWII and there is some evidence that the figures used include every single Jew who died in Europe over the period, of any cause.

We do know tens of millions died in holocaust experiences in WWII and most of them were not Jews.

Also of note is that the Zionists were warning of 6 million Jews dead in Europe if their plans to colonise Palestine were not supported, from 1900 onwards, long before Hitler.

Nothing about this issue can be trusted because it is subject to Zionist/Israeli/Jewish agendas and censored and that includes Statista.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 16

IF this is NOT Genocide....what the hell is.?

Imagine a country coming into the USA and taking all the white Evangelicals out!

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 11

It is a genocide.....sorry to burst your uninformed bubble.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

but i totally agree that the US is wrong, very wrong, immoral really to help netanyahu commit genocide. i am just saying meershimer lost the right to complain about netanyahu if he says putin is fine.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 6

READ, read and read. Putin does NOT want Ukraine. He is a smart man and even the Europeans don't want it. Just Blackrock and other chemical companies.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 12

of course he doesn't want ukraine. that's why he has sent hundreds of thousands of russians to die in ukraine. he thought he would get this nice plum with something he called a special military operation. he imprisoned people just for calling it a war. do you believe what you are saying? i don't believe you believe what you are saying.

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Fran

Aug 7·edited Aug 7

Some more "immorality" from the past. I put that in quotes because it's an incredible understatement. It is not meant to negate your feelings about Ukraine and the horror that is going on there, but to broaden your perspective on the US role in generating the massacre in Ukraine. That is, be aware of our past and what we are capable of doing, and maybe it will broaden your perspective of what the US is capable of implementing.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/the-indonesia-documents-and-the-us-agenda/543534/

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 12

you have no credibility at all if you can say that the US is generating a massacre in ukraine. this while you are justifying the war criminal putin. either a useful idiot or a worker for RT

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Fran

Aug 12

Well, why don't you go after Mearsheimer, since he expouses the same opinion, as do many hear. By the way, why are you on this sight?

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Fran

Aug 7

To compare the two you don't understand either one.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 7

or you can't see the obvious similarities. colonizing is the hint i will give you. grabbing other people's land. killing to achieve your objectives. too subtle i suppose

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Fran

Aug 7

You are not interested in anyone's perspective other then your own and you are attached to it like a religious fanatic. Believe what you want.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 12

japan recently did a commemoration of the bombing of its two cities in 1945. they didn't invite either israel or russia and belorussia. maybe i am not the only one who compares putin and netanyahu. are you interested in their perspective?

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

Putin Relies on Reason Which the West Has Abandoned

By Paul Craig Roberts

PaulCraigRoberts.org

August 10, 2024

Vladimir Putin is an old-fashioned American liberal. He believes in reason, good will, working things out, and agreements despite having zero evidence that any such reciprocating belief exists in the West.

Putin’s illusions have caused him and Russia extraordinary difficulties. Russia is currently at war in Ukraine, although Putin still doesn’t seem to realize it, referring to it as a “limited military operation” despite the obvious fact that Russia is at war with NATO which includes the US.

It is sad that Putin, a person with good intentions, doesn’t have his counterparts in the Western world.

Now it comes to light that the British and Ukrainian governments planned to assassinate both Russia’s President Putin and Defense Minister Andrei Belousov at the Navy Day parade in St Petersburg.

In my columns I have several times mentioned that Putin and Trump are candidates for assassination. The recent attempt on Trump, which has been removed from the “news,” has now been matched by the statement of Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, on Russian national television that Belousov called US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and squashed the assassination plan, explaining, apparently, that World War III would be the result.

Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry said: “There is no doubt that the assassination attempt was planned with the participation of the Anglo-Saxon masters of Kiev.”

Still, Putin wants to negotiate the end of the Ukrainian conflict. How precisely do you negotiate with people who are trying to assassinate you?

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 16

US scapegoating as usual.

Have you any idea how many countries would like to see the US wiped off the map?

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 12

of course it is so easy to negotiate with a man who invaded your country. who attacks civilian targets every day. that's not hard at all.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

fran, you can't imagine that ukraine wants its sovereignty regardless of what the US wants, or has done. putin thinks ukraine should be his colony and ukraine wants its sovereignty. what is so hard to understand here? it's the most normal thing in the world to want sovereignty. i want it for myself, you i am guessing want it on a personal level for yourself. turning ukraine into a pawn or puppet of the US is very ugly really, but meershimer has made people lose that natural ability to see ugliness when they see it. realpolitik uber alles

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Bonnie Blodgett

Aug 6

I want my sovereignty, too. I am ashamed to be an American. Can I just opt out? Like, call myself a country? Bonnieland?

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

yes, i think you can, but the meershimer folks will probably look at your history and if for instance you have a husband who doesn't want to grant you sovereignty or maybe even a parent from long ago then i am afraid iit will not be ok for you to have sovereignty. so sorry.

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Thismachinekillsjingoists

Aug 11

The answer is no, they can't. Because of actually really real material conditions that exist and affect our lives and not whatever the fuck fake madeup bullshit you are on about

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

Putin has clearly stated for more than a decade, and still, he has no problem with Ukraine as an independent State, but it cannot be a part of Nato. Nothing unreasonable about that.

Ukraine is a pawn of the US and has been for more than a decade. That is fact.

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Thismachinekillsjingoists

Aug 11

What do you mean they want their sovereignty? Who is they? Ukraine has been fighting a civil war since 2014 due to a US backed color revolution. Things happen because of history, like dude try to use your brain like a tiny bit harder please I'm begging you

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 7

nsakun. I don't think Ukraine KNOWS what it wants frankly. Have you actually looked and read about the corruption and Nazi's in Ukraine?

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 11

yes you see ukraine as full of nazis. with your keen eyes can you see the fascists in russia by any chance? have you read about any corruption in russia maybe? just a wild guess, you haven't read about fascists and corruption in russia

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 16

I guess you think there are no facists in the USA.

Give me a break you are now a satellite country of Zionism and you will go down with them

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Hollis Brown

Hollis Brown

Aug 6

can you provide a counter to Mearsheimers points here?

do you really think he is a Putin shill or are you just trolling? anything valid to contribute?

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

i think he is so used to seeing the faults of the US (granted very many to see) that he sees none or none of consequence in putin. putin can colonize ukraine, or continue to keep ukraine in colony status following centuries of russian history. this could be just silly, but for ukraine it has horrible consequences when meershimer types come along and say let's not help ukraine because ukraine is weaker and bec the US has many sins in its history. totall;y ignoring tht the person they are justifying is a war criminal many times over.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 6

If the Russians had wanted to take Ukraine they would have done what the Americans did in Iraq, within days, take out all utilities, water, power, rail, the lot. They did not do that and only began to attack such things when the idiot Ukrainians, no doubt on orders from US/Nato minders started doing it.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

putin thought it would be a cakewalk. well a cakewalk that would require war crimes, but so what, what are a few 1000 war crimes for the kgb boy. but of course ukrainians are idiots or pawns. they could not possibly be as smart or as informed about their history with russia as you are with your info from RT and meershimer

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 7

You are repeating propaganda. Any knowledge of the history of this war and Putin's statements and actions show that he worked hard to prevent it happening, then worked hard to stop it and was thwarted at every turn by the Americans who wanted the slaughter in the hope it would depose Putin, it won't, and destroy Russia, it won't.

As to war crimes, if that were a criteria then both Israel and Ukraine would have been dismantled already.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 16

You have clearly never read or listened to anything Putin has said. He is not a fool. Only a fool would think it would be a cakewalk and Putin tried to prevent the war from happening and then tried to stop it. All foiled by the Americans.

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Hollis Brown

Hollis Brown

Aug 6

is he saying we shouldn’t help? I would imagine the best way to help Ukraine would be to negotiate a fair peace if they have no chance of victory.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 6

Russia has been trying to negotiate peace.....each time this happens the US says no.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

lovely how you make it between russia and the US. who cares what the ukrainians want. they are just pawns, puppets, have no brains, and the brains they have are used to put their people into the meat grinder. and russia didn't invade them, isn';t attacking them daily. the evil one is the US. if the ukrainians were a little smarter they would realize this. when they are sitting without electricity many hours of the day they think it has been caused by the russians. how stupid of them. they didn't read meershimer or the posters here.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 7

BIG question for you nsakun: Why are the Ukranians puppets.

Maybe you should take a LONG look at Victoria Nuland.

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Kouros

Aug 7

When the right wing Ukrainian Arianism ideology is supported by the state openly and en masse between 2014 and 2022, that gives a lot of time to brainwash a population. Same amount of time (1933 to 1939) it took Adolf to brainwash German people to join him in starting his wars.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 7

so now ukrainians who have been invaded are equated with germans who did the invading. oh so clever so clever you are

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Fran

Aug 6

No one is saying Putin has no flaws, but if one looks objectively starting in 2014, and one is familiar with our neocon polices I'm not looking kindly at the US, and by that I don't mean it's people. Read about how we used the Mujahideen to bring down Russia in the 1980s in Afghanistan. Yeah another cold war struggle with Russia and we made it slide from it's perch with a lot of death and real consequences for us, like 9/11. Always consequences. I seem great similarities between the two in regard to our paying others to bring down Russia.

https://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/10/ghost_wars_how_reagan_armed_the

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 7

nsakun. Excuse me BUT who are the war criminals here? It certainly isn't Russia.

Russia could have decimated Ukraine but it hasn't.

Try looking at the Donbas region and tell me they don't want to be part of Russia.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 12

putin thought he would have an easy time of grabbing ukraine. it was supposed to happen with a cute little military operation. of course he amassed thousands of tanks and soldiers, just in case. and then even that wasn't enough. i think by now it is allowed to be called a war. not sure, but for a while he was putting people in prison for calling a war a war. so admirable, no wonder you justify and admire him

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 16

Putin a war criminal?

Look at your bloody history!

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 16

ah yes, i understand, the US history justifies anything putin does now. i see. but i think russia has had plenty of bloody history before putin. so the US can hardly keep up with all of the gulags, the torture, the land grabs. i guess you are not familiar with russian, pre soviet and soviet and post soviet, history. or maybe you are but do noit want to remind others of it.

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deletedAug 6

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 6

Russia is invading the Donbas region for a reason the same reason the US would have if Nukes and weapons were put on the Mexican border1

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

i don't know why you mention gaza to me. i am not for netanyahu's genocide in gaza and as i have said already i am totally against the US supporting this genocide which is what we have been doing. but i know that ukrainians want sovereignty. if their sovereignty aligns with US plans that doesn't concern them. they have known russian horrors for centuries. they do not see the US as onesidedly as most people on this site. The US is not the main source of evil for them and they do not think they are pawns of the US but that they know what they want. whether they can get what they want (freedom from the russian empire lustings) depends on getting western help. but they are going for what they want. your view of them as simpleminded pawns being played by the US is insulting besides wrong.

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unwarranted

Aug 10

Ukrainian sovereignty was violated in 2014.

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Kouros

Aug 7

The only sovereignity Russia was denying Ukraine was that of joining NATO. Like Austria nowadays... Or as UKR agreed to be after 1991 and had ensrined in its Constitution until 2019... You know, like Mexico has done to appease the US, or like Ireland has done in 1923 to appease the UK...

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 11

i wonder how many people on this site get their marching orders, i guess their typing orders from RT? they are so determined to prove the aggressor country is the innocent victim. i don't believe this is by chance only, that is it is only the useful idiots or whatever lenin's phrase was. i think it is a combination of sincere useful idiots and workers for RT.

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Thismachinekillsjingoists

Aug 11

People are trying to teach you extremely verifiable history and context and you are shoving your head in the sand and pushing your two middle fingers up and out while showing your entire ass

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Kouros

Aug 7

Far less civilians have died in UKR in 2.5 years of war than in 10 months in Gaza and West Bank.

Also, Putin, for saving children got an arrest warant from ICC, while Bibi, for killing over 20,000 children and women is applauded 58 times by the joint US Congress.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 6

If you do not know enough to differentiate then there is probably little to be said, but here goes.

The situation between Ukraine and Russia has nothing in common with that between Israel and Palestine.

Ukraine is an independent country with a large population of ethnic Russians who were being attacked by the Government and the Russians sought to protect them. Ukraine entered into a military alliance with the US/Nato who have clearly stated their plan to break up Russia, i.e. destroy it. Ukraine had great power behind it and was a clear and present danger to the Russians.

The Russians have sought to avoid civilian casualties and made many efforts to firstly not begin the war and then to end it.

The Russians do not seek to exterminate the Ukrainians, they just seek to defend and protect their borders by ensuring Ukraine remains neutral. That is not unreasonable.

Palestine is a country crushed under colonial rule and occupation which ranks as one of the most sadistic, savage and bestial in modern history. Israel has total power over the Palestinians, occupies all of their country, continues to dispossess them, has a stated goal to exterminate or expel them and is committing genocide against the native people of the land it has stolen.

The Palestinians are powerless beyond their limited ability to fight their evil oppressors and to continue their resistance. Israel is massively armed and backed by the US and other Western nations and is the one responsible for all violence.

There would be no Hamas, no Palestinian Resistance, no October 7 if Israel had not been founded in genocidal ethnic cleansing, rape, theft and murder in 1947/48 and had then spent nearly 80 years subjecting the Palestinians to a level of sadistic cruelty which makes even the Nazis look benign.

So, in Ukraine we have a State which has formed a military alliance with others who wish to destroy Russia. Imagine how the Americans would act if Mexico or Canada entered into a military alliance with China? The Russians want a neutral Ukraine and do not want to annexe Ukraine.

And in Palestine, we have an occupying State, Israel with clearly articulated goals of extermination or expulsion of the native people and eradication of their country, their nationhood, culture, history and existence.

We have also seen Israel actively target civilians, nearly half of them children, resort to rape of men, women and children, torture, abuse and continued dispossession throughout all of Occupied Palestine not just Gaza.

The war in Ukraine is unfortunate and caused by Ukrainian, American and Nato stupidity and arrogance.

The war Israel wages against Palestine is nearly a century old and is a crime of enormous proportions, caused by arrogance, bigotry and Israeli, Zionist, American stupidity.

They have stupidity and arrogance in common but nothing else.

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unwarranted

Aug 11

Your history attaches much more autonomy to Ukraine that it hasn’t had since 2014. Victoria Nuland and John McCain were on hand for the crime, and Nuland actually told the neo-Nazis who their next leader would be.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

I was doing a comparison with Palestine against Israel. Yes, I agree with you that Ukraine is a US puppet being used to attempt to destroy Russia.

As Israel is a US puppet being used to attempt to destroy Iran and Taiwan is on the path to being used in the same way to destroy China.

Only a fool keeps doing the same things and expecting a different result. The Americans have been doing the same things and failing in bloody misery (for others mainly) for decades. When do they learn?

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OverFlowError

Aug 10

Palestine is a country crushed under colonial rule.....lIsrael occupies all of their country.....has a stated goal to exterminate or expel them and is committing genocide against the native people of the land it has stolen.”

Wrong on all counts. What you call Palestine is not a “country”, never has been or considered historically, culturally or politically. To say that Israel “occupies” it in any sense is nonsense. Even in Gaza. Israel completely left Gaza in 2005 after a brief period of military occupation and administration because of the ‘Palestinians’ then recent terroristic provocations in prior years. You have no proof for the statement that has a “stated goal” to “exterminate” them, though there are clear statements from Hamas’ ‘government’ (it’s in its own political charter) to exterminate both the nation of Israel and Jews in general. None of ‘its’ land is “stolen”. The Jews were present there before the Philistines (from which the word Palestinian derives) moved in. There were very few ‘native’ Palestinians in the lead up to 1947-48 events, as the folks who call themselves Palestinians now, were then, Jordanians, Lebanese, Syrians, and near surround itinerant Arabs. And you should ask yourself why so many of those itinerant Arabs in 1948 welcomed in the Arab armies to the newly minted nation of Israel to destroy it; and then consider why any of those Arabs should be ceded back any of that ancestral land. Many of the British nationals who welcomed King George’s military occupation of the colonies in colonial America lost “property” in the wake of the revolutionary war. We don’t now call them “dispossessed “, do we? Neither are those Arabs who welcomed in the Arab armies in 1948 before their defeat by the nascent Israel armed forces. Starting wars have serious consequences for the people who start them and catastrophic consequences for those who start and LOSE them. Much less 4-6 of them depending on how one accounts for them as “wars.” Mearsheimer is excellent on the history of NATO and Ukraine. His footing in the ME and Israel is far less sure.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

I would love someone like you to explain to me how a military colonial ruler can subject the native people of the land it has taken by force, to a sadistic, savage and bestial rule for nearly 80 years and be surprised when they resist.

Yes, sure, I know Israelis think Palestinians are subhuman, some sort of weird cockroach animal, but that is deranged. The Palestinians are human beings who have suffered the longest holocaust in modern history and one of the most murderous and cruel military colonial occupations in all of history. They have no rights, no vote, no hope so why would they not fight the Israelis to the death, theirs or their oppressors?

Any understanding of history and human nature makes it clear that unless Israel exterminated 16 million Palestinians on planet earth, the resistance will never end, it will just become more determined, more violent, until Palestine and its people are free.

I mean, think about it, the French and Polish Resistance did that despite German atrocities in reprisal so why would not the Palestinians?

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

To correct more lies.

Israel DID NOT leave Gaza in 2005. It removed illegal Jewish settlers and planted them still illegally in other parts of Occupied Palestine. It removed illegal military bases and then surrounded Gaza with warships on the sea side and an electric fence on the land side and proceeded to shoot any man, woman, child, dog which came near the fence. IT IS A PRISON.

And as Amira Hass, Haaretz corrected the same lies from israelis recently, ISRAEL DID NOT LEAVE GAZA. It is the Israeli colonial rulers who issue ID cards to every single Palestinian including those in Gaza. They are handed to the stooge PA to distribute but every single Palestinian is recorded and ID's by their military colonial rulers, ISRAEL.

And if Israel did not control Gaza how could it, as it stated and did, cut off all power, water, food, medicine, internet, phones etc., in the Gaza concentration camp? I await your explanation with keen interst.

Israel was, is and always will be an illegal colonial enterprise in Palestine,.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

https://countercurrents.org/2024/08/israel-kills-100-people-performing-the-dawn-prayers/

More than 100 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured, Saturday morning, after Israeli occupation forces bombed the “Al-Tabi’een” school, which houses displaced people in the Al-Daraj neighbourhood east of Gaza City.Local sources reported that the occupation warplanes bombed the school while Palestinians were performing the dawn prayer, and they were specifically targeted after the Takbeer of the dawn prayer. Eyewitness reports say limbs – arms, hands, feet and heads of those performing prayers were scattered around the school’s prayer hall in what is described as one of the worst massacres committed by the Israeli army yet.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

For your education. Amira Hass, Haaretz, correcting Israelis repeating the same disinformation you have done.

Feb 12, 2024 5:37 pm IST

S., who lives in a Gaza border community, asked me several questions that I've heard from others, too. With his knowledge, I'm publishing an initial reply here to his letter. He wrote:

"I'm a regular reader of Haaretz and of your articles. As a resident of a Gaza border community, I'm trying to understand your take on what has happened in the Gaza Strip since the disengagement. Why, in your opinion, did the strongest resistance emerge from the place where Israel canceled the occupation?

PLEASE NOTE. The Israeli occupation was not canceled. Israel continued its highhanded control of the lives of the Gaza Strip's residents and Gaza's development options.

"For years, people have been shouting that all the major problems stem from the occupation. And here a small experiment to cancel the occupation was conducted. The Palestinians could have built themselves a model mini-state there. Instead, they preferred to invest the money in a war against Israel. Do you have an explanation for that?"

Shalom Reader S.,

PLEASE NOTE. First of all, the Israeli occupation was not canceled. Israel continued its highhanded control of the lives of the Gaza Strip's residents and Gaza's development options, well after Israel dismantled the settlements and army bases located there. Second, as per the Oslo Accords, to which Israel is a signatory, the Gaza Strip is not a separate entity but an integral part of the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967.

According to the Palestinians, and according to international opinion, this territory was supposed to become the Palestinian state. The facts that Israel severed the Gazan population from the West Bank's and that Israelis have continued to treat an isolated Gaza, which is 365 square kilometers in size and lacks resources, as a separate entity, are in themselves evidence of Israeli control over it – and of Israeli chutzpah to boot.

I can't quote what I've written in hundreds and perhaps thousands of articles. So I'll be brief: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon neither consulted with the leadership of the Palestinian Authority about the disengagement, nor did he coordinate its implementation with that limited self-rule government, which in 2005 was not split yet between Fatah and Hamas. Sharon followed a gradual track that Israel outlined from the early 1990s, while doing a good job of concealing its severity and significance during the Oslo process: creating a regime of prohibitions and restrictions on the Palestinians' freedom of movement, while creating Palestinian enclaves. On January 15, 1991 Israel began this comprehensive policy, and its immediate result, which worsened over the years, was cutting off the population of Gaza from the West Bank and from the world.

Sharon continued his predecessors' work. The draconian siege imposed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Gaza in 2007 was a quantitative change, but not a change in essence. This consistent policy indicates the forethought behind the action: not an experiment to cancel the occupation, but one of the ways to prevent the establishment of the Palestinian state based on the plan that the Palestine Liberation Organization and the international community saw before their eyes.

PLEASE NOTE. The continued Israeli domination over the Gaza Strip, up until October 7, was manifested in several ways.

The first is its total control of the Palestinian population registry, which includes Gaza's residents. It is Israel that decides who is permitted to carry the ID card of a resident of Gaza or the West Bank. Every detail – including place of residence – registered in the ID card, which the PA technically issues, requires Israeli approval. Even natives of Gaza, whose residency status Israel revoked before 1994, cannot renew it without Israel's approval.

The severance from the West Bank (and from Israel) critically damaged the capabilities for economic development in the Gaza Strip. In any case, Gaza has been in a state of economic deterioration or stagnation since 1967 due to deliberate steps that Israel adopted. Israel controls not only the border crossings but also Gaza's aerial and maritime space, which means it doesn't permit Gazans to exercise their right to freedom of movement via the sea and air.

Israel also uses this control to restrict the Palestinian fishing industry, prevent Palestinians from using the gas reserves discovered in Gazan waters and control the wireless frequencies necessary for technological development. By controlling imports and exports, it restricts the ability and feasibility of domestic production. Israel continues to control income from customs payments. Egypt – whether for fear that the Gazans will settle there, political opposition to severing Gaza from the West Bank or obedience to Israeli dictates – hasn't opened the Rafah border to free movement of Palestinians and foreigners.

Whether deliberately or inadvertently, Sharon's unilateral move weakened the PA, which adhered to the negotiations route. Thus, he awarded a prize to the Hamas movement, which claimed that only the "armed struggle" that it practiced during the Second Intifada, while improving its military capabilities – could force the Israeli army to withdraw, not negotiations and a signed agreement.

That's what many Palestinians thought and still think. It's no wonder that several months after the disengagement, in January 2006, Hamas won a majority of the seats in the election for the Palestinian parliament (but not a majority of the votes of the electorate).

First we have to answer the question as to why Israel did everything possible to thwart the establishment of the small Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Then we can move on to trying to explain why the residents of the besieged and cut-off "mini-state" that it shaped in Gaza felt like lifetime prisoners, at a time when their brothers in the West Bank live under the violent rule of the expanding settlement enterprise. And afterwards, at the first opportunity, we'll talk about the illusion or about the delusion or about the armed struggle project.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

God the ignorance and lies are so depressing.

The first mention we have of the country of Palestine and the people who were Palestinians comes from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs more than 5000 years old. Palestine was ancient when Judaism was invented.

We then have thousands of years of records, reports, drawings, paintings, then photos of Palestine, the country and its people.

This deranged claim Palestine never existed is so childish it can only be ignored.

Name of the country which exported Jaffa oranges to the world in the 19th century. PALESTINE.

Name of the country Zionists and Jews invaded in 1947 in a genocidal slaughter. PALESTINE.

Name of the country the UN recommended with no legal validity, be partitioned in 1947. PALESTINE.

Name of the country where major battles were fought in WWI and WWII. PALESTINE.

Name of the country Zionists were advertising for Jewish colonists in 1890's. PALESTINE.

Name of the country Jews were planning to set up a colony in 1830. PALESTINE.

Name of the 6 million native people crushed under Israeli military colonial rule and denied all human and civil rights. PALESTINIANS.

I could you on but it is just too idiotic.

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unwarranted

Aug 10

Equating Vladimir Putin with Benyamin Netanyahu is evidence that you are either a troll or profoundly void of information.

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martin

Aug 16

there is no equivalence between russia's actions in ukraine and israel's actions in gaza.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 16

says who? i am sure netanyahu didn't criticize putin's invasion because he knew he was doing the same thing to the palestinians, constantly stealing their land, slowly but surely. putin did it very quickly and suddenly and now netanyahu is also doing it at a much quicker pace. but of course you can just claim there is no equivalence. the meershimers here are quite primed to agree with you

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Otto

Aug 12

Those two conflicts are equivalent in death dealing? Is that your point as your expressed narrative is not clear to me.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 12

not clear that his question is addressed to me. but if it is, yes putin and netanyahu are equivalent in their death dealing. they want the land of the other people. and they don't care how they get it.

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Daniel Ashworth

Aug 12

Team Biden's blend of unwarranted aggression in Ukraine, and undue deference in Palestine, are united by thousands of preventable casualties. In both instances the policies were at best delusional, if not patently dishonest, and cruel. That is the objectively real and moral consistency driving Prof. M's critiques of US policy in both instances.

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OverFlowError

Aug 10

Mearsheimer is wrong on so-called Israeli genocide, but correct on the causes and reactions of Russia in Ukraine and the West’s (NATO’s) role in fomenting Russia’s reaction to its effort to bring Ukraine into NATO. Ukraine is quite different from some of the Baltic states coming into NATO. Different strategically, politically, culturally and economically. Ukraine is Russia’s Cuba. It’s that simple.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 11

Mearsheimer and any sane human is right in saying Israel is committing colonial genocide, one of the most foul and barbaric in history.

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Mel Isaac

Aug 19

Why should people resign themselves to echo chambers?

I enjoy disagreement.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 6

Anyone who deals in facts so on that count you are correct because Putin deals in facts and so does Mearsheimer.

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Londoner

Aug 6

I used to think Prof Mearsheimer unimpeachable. Unfortunately, his assessment of the China question, which is likely the most consequential issue in my lifetime, is anything but. But please judge for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc9hKg7bqBY

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Andrew Surman

Andrew’s Substack

Aug 6

Yeah I believe he’s wrong he’s China. From a realist perspective, I don’t believe China poses a long term threat to America given that Chinas population will drop to 800 million by 2100 - many of whom being old. Furthermore , china is geographically soo far from America soo will have no desire to fight america in the western hemisphere.

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Londoner

Aug 7

Thanks for your comment. My response to your comment is the same as that to Kouros below.

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Thomas Graves

How the KGB Zombified the CIA a…

Aug 6

You have a typo in your first sentence.

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Andrew Surman

Andrew’s Substack

Aug 6

Sadly this app doesn’t allow you to edit comments for some reason

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noochness

noochness

Aug 7

Yes, it does-- click on those three dots underneath your comment, to the right. An option to edit will be shown. Indispensable!

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Thomas Graves

How the KGB Zombified the CIA a…

Aug 6

I edit mine all the time.

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Joscelin Trouwborst

Aug 12

Mearsheimer is an Offensive Realist, opposed to a Defense Realist

In general, to my knowledge, the Realist paradigm has the axioma that the other can never be trusted. I think that we should work around that, as we have done with weapons treaties and their mutual checks; growing mutual confidence and trust can be done.

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Londoner

Aug 12

Sure, that might explain Mearsheimer's stance. But both schools have their points, e.g. treaties can be worthless (to wit Minsk I/II).

What I don't understand, given JM is wise, is why seek confrontation when winning is practically impossible? IMHO key determinants are resolve (e.g. vs Vietnam to Afghanistan etc.), industrial strength (e.g. vs Russia in Ukraine, Allies vs Axis in WW2) and spiritual vitality (Kennan vs USSR). China overwhelms US in all 3 re Taiwan. Sun Tzu wisely wrote, the victorious seek to win before fighting (and the epitome is not to win every battle, but to win without fighting), meanwhile those destined for defeat fight to seek victory.

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Joscelin Trouwborst

Aug 12

I agree with your reasoning and the citations of wisdom. Win-win is definitely better than zero sum. Fighting Russia and China is pointless indeed, we can only loose. Those governing us appear to be pathetic.

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Londoner

Aug 13

It is not a popular thing to say, but it seems one person one vote is destined to deliver pathetic leaders - leaders chosen based on their talent to be popular, rather than talent (AND proven track record) to deliver "for the people".

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 22

yes, better to have self-appointed leaders like in russia. absolutely the much better system. thank you for making your opinion on this so explicit

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Londoner

Aug 22

Putin was picked by Yeltsin - might well be an unreliable process. But that doesn't excuse your comment's false dichotomy.

Have you noticed the world's most enduring institution survives without democracy despite peddling virgin birth and rise from the dead? More importantly, how come one man one vote creates leaders out of talk show host, professional clown, and failed journalist, etc.?

If you can be open-minded I suggest you watch Eric Li's TED talk A tale of two political systems on youtube.

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Joscelin Trouwborst

Aug 13

It appears that in some countries 'leader' is a title and ruling is by Deep State.

It seems to me that it doesn't matter much which system there is, it is a fight for power position with massive opinion manipulation of the masses.

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Kouros

Aug 7

Deep down, he still thinks that the US should be the strongest out there. Even if that requires unfair competition.

He still thinks US is liberal and democratic and that if other party would have greater power as the US, would abuse the US the way US abuses everyone else...

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Londoner

Aug 7

I have tried my very best to stand in JM's shoes, and use his extraordinarily valuable teachings to try to understand where his stance on China, which I fundamentally disagree, comes from:

1) As he has often said, in an anarchic arena, the only way to be safe is to be a (regional) hegemon, so, presumably, being the global hegemon is even better.

2) While JM might be the best realist alive, we have got to remember he is also human, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume he is also a patriot first, scholar second. If that is true, we can ask ourselves what would he do / say?

3) China is the only peer competitor on any horizon, Russia is a distant 3rd, so clearly Ukraine and Gaza are deeply unhelpful to the US for retaining its position - hence JM's well-known stance on both.

4) He has clearly stated, like most, and understandably, that time is on China's side.

5) If all the above are true, then the only thing a real committed patriot could do, is to do everything in his power to slow / kneecap China's growth, just to give US better chance and more options to persevere. How? Bringing traditional allies on board by any means necessary, arming Taiwan / Japan / Philippines / etc, and of course as JD Vance / Bridge Colby have loudly opined, abandoning Europe and Middle East and everywhere else, so as to laser focus on "containing" (but to be really honest, destroying) China.

6) Personally, I think such a strategy is about 10 years too late (and it is also immoral but that is largely irrelevant in IR). I also disagree with it because I believe the Middle Kingdom was never, is not, and will not be at all interested in harming the US (except in so far as getting them off China's back like now). It is simply not in China's DNA to be a crusader / conqueror. Consequently, such a Tonya Harding strategy is not only unnecessary, it is also highly unlikely to succeed, and given the subpar quality leaders a liberal democratic system is destined to produce, it might just cause WW3.

I welcome any and all reasoned critique of my opinion above.

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Kouros

Aug 7

Fully agree. But as I said, it is not only about kneecaping China, but by beeing evidently more powerful (never the case), also making China (Russia, etc.) do USs bidding.

As for instance what Russia did during Yieltsin's time... Abject oligarchic expolitation via a submissive comprador elites (economic & politic).

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Alexander Senkoff

Aug 5

Yes! Why is this common sense so disparaged?

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Londoner

Aug 5

Good question, that deserves an answer.

Think the fundamental reason, is we in the West are so heavily sold by us being virtuous while others (Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Cuba, N Korea, Vietnam etc. etc,) are evil, that most now firmly believe geopolitics is good vs evil in us vs them.

Meanwhile of course as JM has pointed out in his geopolitics 101, that one of the 5 basic assumptions/facts is that geopolitics is anarchic - there is no higher authority above states that carries a big stick. Consequently, it is the law of the jungle, and the reality is that might is right. Every single of the numerous wars US waged abroad in the last few decades are proof of this, so are the tens of thousands of murdered Palestinian women and children.

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noochness

noochness

Aug 7·edited Aug 12

Yes, they are not democracies like us, therefore they must be converted to our way of thinking or destroyed.

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Joscelin Trouwborst

Aug 12

Point me to just 1 democracy that is not corrupted.

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Comrade Lenin

Sep 18

"Convert to our way of thinking "- least jingoistic westoid neo-lib.

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Deloy Baker

Aug 9

nooch, surely you jest, we aren’t a democracy, we aren’t a republic. We are a banana republic. We won’t be able to vote our way out of the hell that’s coming our way. 20 million invaders coming to a bankrupt country. When their EBT cards quit working the country burns. “Convert to our way of thinking” lol.lol.lol

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Sol Sön

Wisdom Newsletter

Aug 6·edited Aug 15

They call it antisemitism, and apparently some believe it to be a capitol crime with zionism, Everything which makes sense is now considered antisemitic, everything which doesn’t is not, so basically according to the technocrats, we should abandon logic, accept Genocide as a practice of self defense, shut up, take the jab and stop thinking with our own brain.

The entire system is built on this “science”, for instance to run for president in the land of the free and home of the brave, you must consider criminals all of those which are against Genocide, and give standing ovation to Genocidaires.

I guess you could call it the law of the inverted logic.

It seams complicated but actually it is not.

Here some simple examples on how this works.

You like to send aid to a starved population, then you must send more bombs and weapons to those starving them.

You like to murder someone by drone, you call it self defense.

What else, ho yes, war is peace, suffering is to make you strong, everybody should take experimental injections, force them on their own children and don’t even try to complain for dying or getting sick from it.

Cows farthing causes global warming, and eating bugs saves the planet.

Conspirators sitting in high positions, are to receive diplomatic immunity, and protesters and whistleblowers are to be considered criminals and enemy of the state, while fake stories from mainstream media, accepted as the ultimate truth.

Ho and if you wake up and see a mushroom cloud on the sky, don’t worry, the present will be be saved in the bunker you payed for and life will go on even if yours will not.

Simple

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Tim Webb

Tim’s Substack

Aug 8·edited Aug 8

The jews are not interested in common sense, but revenge, after Putin kicked them out after Yeltsin's capitulation to them.

Exactly the same response from them after Hitler did the same.

Really, the parallels between Hitler's actions, and Putin's, are astonishing if you consider them briefly.

Hitler too invaded a foreign state that was massacring his people.

Both made endless overtures for peace, and were treated with total contempt by the jews.

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Brendan

Aug 13

Because it makes sense.... Can't have reality getting in the way of the carefully crafted BS.

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noochness

noochness

Aug 7

My first thought is that O'Jays song that begins, "Money, money, money, money--- money...."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxW789jHXII

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Gary Champagne

Aug 5

Jeffrey Sachs, Chas Freeman, Ray McGovern, Chris Hedges, John Mearsheimer and a host of others have exposed the facts on the U.S.-led Western allies provocation of the war.

Our Western World’s MSM has done all it can to keep the facts suppressed.

In questioning why these facts are not part of the MSM, one has to simply keep Winston Churchill’s comments in mind: « During times of war, the truth is so fragile, it must be protected by a bodyguard of lies. »

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Christopher Jones

Aug 5

Thank you Professor Mearsheimer for this excellent article. It is a summary of indisputable facts which underscores the fact that the West provoked this war in a frenzy of madness that Joe Biden and NATO could do it better than Napoleon or Hitler. That said, the war has revealed an extraordinary image of a rapacious, greedy West, binging on government debt, and using the old financial system to bully the world into submission ignoring that it no longer had the industrial base to confront Russia who became the "Arsenal of autocracy." The West's lack of proper intelligence about Putin's Russia was of historic proportions. They destroyed what was left of Nixon and Kissinger's diplomatic scheme to separate China from Russia. In all the Biden administration was criminally negligent and plotting warcrimes (remember the Gas pipeline - an act of war against an ally) when possible. But for their machinations they chose the most corrupt country in Europe, that they labeled a "democracy" Well if that is a democracy, I would take autocracy anytime.

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Gary Champagne

Aug 6

Well your wish has come true. The U.S. is an autocracy.

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Tom Patteson

Aug 5

John Mearsheimer is not only a national treasurer he is a national necessity.

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Peter Jones

Peter Jones

Aug 6

Russian appeaser..

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OverFlowError

Aug 6

Nonsense. He correctly pointed out the cracks in the foundation of the neocon house.

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Peter Baehr

Aug 5

Excellent overview

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Ahenobarbus

Aug 5

Excellent restatement of the fundamental causes of this tragic conflict. This essay will certainly serve as a resource in the near future when the butchers bill for NATO's criminal war provocations becomes clearer and their efforts to deflect the blame become more hysterical.

However, at this stage, I'm not sure this was US Imperialism simply overplaying it's hand again and underestimating Russia. At this stage, it seems they want another European war, just like they want the elimination of the Palestinian people in Israel. The ruling class of the west has gone blind to the limits of reality. It is almost totally irrational at this point and it seems only a punch in the face might awaken it. Let's hope their failure in Ukraine will at least serve as a wake up call.

Keep up the good work, John.

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Gary Champagne

Aug 6

Failures in Ukraine, Lybia, Syria, Iraq, Venezuela mean nothing to the U.S. Uniparty. They judge success by the wealth brought in thru their war industry. That it increases the country’s debt means nothing. As long as the profits of war are privatized in the hands of the ruling class, the debt will, as usual, be left to the public to pay.

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Robert Creakwood

Aug 15

Haha, you fail to understand that !debt is profit! Just not for you. For those who get the interest payments ;)) it's called service fee. Keep serving your debts enslaved Americans. Bankers love it that way.

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Adam Frank

Aug 5

Or, Is tying up Russia Ukraine part of the Neo-Cons plan, as they hate Russia on it's own, and Russia supported Syria from being over run by ISIS?

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Ahenobarbus

Aug 5

If they are guided at this point simply by "hate" then they are indeed totally irrational and capable of driving humanity directly into nuclear WW3.

China, a rational nation, would be catastrophically weakened if Russia were to fall. It cannot and will not allow that to happen. So we aren't talking about Russia anymore, it's China/Russia from now on.

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Gary Champagne

Aug 16

It’s more a matter of world being split into two camps; the one is socialism, the other is barbarism

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Kevin Flynn

Kevin’s Substack

Aug 5

John Mearsheimer has been exactly correct about everything he’s weighed in on and he’s exactly correct about what he’s had to say in this article.

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RemovedAug 6

Comment removed

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Kevin Flynn

Kevin’s Substack

Aug 6

It’s interesting. As sure as I am about everything you’ve weighed in on as being exactly spot on is as sure as I am about what I’ve come up with regard to the big picture.

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TeroB

Aug 6

“…NATO a defensive alliance.”

It looked downright offensive in Yugoslavia in 1999. Maybe Putin didn’t forget about that the way everyone else seems to have.

Good to get an essay, professor, thank you.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 6

Albanian's in Serbia have a different view than you.

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Aleksandar Dimitrovski

Aug 11

So do Serbs in Kosovo

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noochness

noochness

Aug 6

Yes, the Russians and Serbs have ties that go way back. In Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina, there's a section devoted to Russia's sending of troops to help the Serbs fight the Turks. The events had the whole nation mobilized.

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Pat Forbes

Pat Forbes

Aug 5

Please explain why Ukraine doesn’t have the right to join whatever organization they want.

Why does Putin get to decide the Ukrainians fate for them.

I don’t understand.

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Bart Caruso

Aug 5

No, you don't. NAT0 is the American Empire's Foreign Legion. Members are required to buy and install advanced weapon systems aimed at Russia

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Peter Jones

Peter Jones

Aug 6

Live in eastern europe and say that..

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 5

Ukraine is not wanted in NATO or Europe it is a corrupt country.

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noochness

noochness

Aug 7

John Derbyshire has called Ukraine and Russia the two most corrupt white nations on earth.

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Haslin

Haslin

Aug 13

What about the US

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Gary Champagne

Aug 6

The U.S. decided Ukraine’s fate. Ukrainians , pre-2014 U.S.-orchestrated coup, clearly wished to be militarily « neutral » state. Do a little research on Victoria Neuland and in her role in the U.S.’s plans to see Ukraine in the hands of a pro-NATO government.

The people of Ukraine didn’t have any a more a say in it than Americans have a say in U.S. military backing of Israel’s Palestinian genocide.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 5

because meersheimer and co. say so. they want to keep the old world going as is. in this world russia gets to have an empire of the size it wants, including ukraine as its colony. why not? but strangely they do not want israel to grab palestine. (which i do not want either). but it does reek a bit of something for meersheimer and co. why can't israel have a greater israel if russia can have its empire?

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 5

Russia does not want Ukraine ....the political system there is enough to give anyone migraine.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 5

exxactly, the system in ukraine still has a lot of semblance to a democracy. too much for putin to handle. cannot throw everybody out of a window.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 6

Oh dear...........semblance to democracy like the USA? Hmmmm

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

i was just putting words to what you were calling giving a migraine by its very existence. so this migraine causing entity is still not throwing ciritics out of windows, i guess throwing people out of windows and shutting up in prisons doesn't give you migraines. congratulations on your strength

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 6

nsakun.

I really think it's time for you to 'grow up' and learn about Ukraine.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

just be careful while standing next to windows when visiting russia if you ever change your mind about putin

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 6

MSM speak............who killed the Boeing whistleblowers? Was it Russia/

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 5

Greater Israel is a demented baby slaughterer.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 5·edited Aug 5

Also, not sure that Putin is actually as demented as the Jewish leaders. They actually pretend that God wants them to pull babies out of incubators. I don't think Putin's calculations are based in Bronze Age Jewish rules of War. The level of delusional thinking in Israel is far, far greater. We all know full well that the Jewish God is pure bullshit fiction.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 5

just like putin, exactly like putin

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 5

Not aware of Russian forces pulling premature babies out of incubators. So, not exactly alike, huh?

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 6

You really have bought the Mainstream Media Pill.

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Donald Obama

Aug 6

Israel has killed more children in 10 months (and this stat is after 6 months) than 5 years of world conflict combined.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

yes, of course that justifies putin's criminal war of aggression. now i understand

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Donald Obama

Aug 6

Well you claim that Israel is exactly like Putin. I am just pointing out the factual inaccuracy of that claim.

If Putin is evil because he kills children, then Israel is more evil. And the U.S is funding Israel, providing it military support, selling weapons to it, and providing diplomatic cover. So the U.S is therefore more evil than Putin.

If the U.S is more evil than Putin, as measured by the amount of innocent children murdered directly or indirectly by its policies, than reducing Putin to a caricature of an evil villain is a bit simplistic.

By the way - I think the common denominator in these conflicts is U.S meddling and insistence of full-spectrum domination.

Anyway - you can tell yourself whatever you want about who is good and evil. I am curious about how you square away the cognitive dissonance.

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OverFlowError

Aug 6

Because Israel is only a regional hegemon and not a great world power. Great world powers influence and to some extant control it’s scope of action. Does that help?

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Bonnie Blodgett

Aug 6

What empire? It gave that up decades ago.

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Joaquin Carral-Cuevas

Aug 6

Just imagine Mexico decides to install Russian nuclear missiles in Northern Mexico. Do you think the US would allow it, even if Mexico so desired?

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OverFlowError

Aug 6

Because Ukraine exists on the doorstep of Russia, a great world power, the same way Mexico and Canada exist on the doorstep of a great world power, the USA. Geography and circumstance can and usually do dictate geopolitical possibilities and necessities. Only a child thinks it can do anything it wants anywhere it wants….until that first smack of discipline wakes the child to the world’s reality. Great powers matter to understanding. Now do you understand? Basically, I’m saying, as an adult, you should grow up.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 6·edited Aug 6

Russia is no longer a great world power and unfortunately that is a fact that Russians have a hard time accepting. Not that it would justify invading Ukraine. Monroe Doctrine is a relic that gets thrown around sometimes but it means next to nothing.

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OverFlowError

Aug 7

Russia remains a great power. Not as great as us or China but a great power nonetheless. Its geographic position in Eastern Europe and the Asian Pacific and incredible natural resources make it so. As does its historic culture. You should give it its due regard.

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noochness

noochness

Aug 7·edited Aug 7

Yeah, they were down and out in 1991, but they've clawed themselves back to a great power status, much to the everlasting agony of the U.S. elites, who are forever stuck in the '90s when Gorby and Yeltsin did everything the U.S. told them to do because they were too weak to say no.

Mearsheimer says Russia, China and the U.S. are the world's three great powers of the moment. Some wags say Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country, but one could also say the U.S. is an open-bar-with-crappy-food-and-porn-flicks masquerading as a country.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 7·edited Aug 7

I agree it is as great as France only it still has its empire. The sooner they give up on believing they have a special place in the world, the better as it might allow them to reform and become great again although I think it is largely over for them. Obviously, they believe otherwise and I'm o.k. with that.

I don't think the US is all that special either. It is with its allies that US becomes great. Finally, this is a bulletin board and not a written paper; I can be as wild and free with my opinions as I like.

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OverFlowError

Aug 7

Did you mention it was a “relic” to Fidel C in Cuba in 1962? It’s alive and well today and will remain so for as long as the USA remains a superpower, though some denizens in Cambridge, Mass., Berkeley, Ca. and Madison, Wis. might not think so. Wrongly.

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noochness

noochness

Aug 7

Yes, it's hardly a relic--- let Mexico join BRICS and we'll see clearly how little of a relic it is.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 7

It was just an excuse to do what they wanted to do. The reasons for Monroe doctrine have long seince passed.

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Brant Huddleston

Dance Past Sunset

Aug 6

Do YOU have the right to join any organization you want? For example—If you are under the age of 50, can you join the AARP? My point is that organizations have the right and the responsibility to be selective about who joins them, and NATO was careless in that regard.

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Phisto Sobanii

The Partisan

Aug 6

Big countries get to tell small countries what to do.

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Joaquin Carral-Cuevas

Aug 6

And also because it would take less than ten minutes for a missile fired from Kiev to reach Moscow, eliminating any chance to stop retaliation and Armaggedon

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Nick

Aug 5

Does this policy also apply to Cuba?

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Adam Frank

Aug 5

It's Russia's version of the Monroe Doctrine.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 5

Pat I suggest you read this again?

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Pat Forbes

Pat Forbes

Aug 5

So I read it again and I still feel the assumption is that Putin has a right to dictate what Ukraine does. I understand he doesn’t like it…. Views it as a threat.

How does he feel about the Scandinavian states that have joined NATO…… will he invade them next?

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 6

Excuse me BUT: If another country put Nukes and heavy weapons on the Mexican border......how would YOU feel?

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A Parseeker

A’s Substack

Aug 6

We *know* how Americans felt when the USSR out missiles in Cuba.

Folks the world is spherical. Get your hands on a globe and turn it so that Ukraine is at the centre

of the world and not your country.

Now if you were a nuclear Superpower (Russia) with a slim access to a warm water port and you had a “say” in whether opposing nuclear missiles were parked next door. You might choose to speak up. Much as I’m not a fan of Putin (or Trump or Harris), give Putin credit. He spoke up. And several times before launching his “special operation”. Here Americans and Ukrainians (and NATO sabre rattlers) look like idiots because the outcome was obvious from the start.

If you are a weapons contractor,

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A Parseeker

A’s Substack

Aug 6

Sorry I got cut off.

Weapons contractors are happy. The rest pay with blood and money and the planet suffers.

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Tom High

Aug 5

That’s absurd, based of the histories of Scandinavian states and of Ukraine.

Do we have a right to dictate what Mexico does? Goose/Gander.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 5

Do we have a right to dictate what the Lakota and Diné do?

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Donald Obama

Aug 6

I don't get the analogy - did the Lakota and Dine gets years of weapons and military training from China? Did they get secret Chinese spy bases?

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

Fucking xenophobic bigotry from Donald, here. Seems too familiar.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

Stop being anti-Asian . You're a foul hater.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

Donald is scared of Asians.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

Donald is a bigot when it comes to Asians.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

Please stop bashing Asians you Stoopid Racist bigot.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

Oh the Chinese! Oh the Chinese! Donald Obama is not just incapable of grasping analogies, he also is. Racist towards Chinese people. Donald does Asian bashing because he's a xenophobic loser.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

China? Are you a Trumpito Asian bashing shit head or whut?

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

Just another example of the US illegally controlling populations. Same goose/gander question as the one about Mexico. Point is that the US is a shitty empire that is on the verge of collapse. NATO made Ukraine what it is today.

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Donald Obama

Aug 6

Okay, I think I just misunderstood your comment, and confused it with the one you were responding to. My mistake.

I thought you were equating Ukrainians with Native Americans, and arguing that Russia was acting in a way that is equivalent to the early American empire.

Obviously there are very many problems with that analogy, but the obvious one to me that I think would hopefully resonate with say, a Neo-con, is - if China is a big scary evil force (which I do not believe, but that seems to be the prevailing discourse around the Beltway) - then would you like it if it funded and trained opponents of the United States?

By the way my username is an acknowledgement of the fact that the U.S is run by a war mongering Uniparty.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

No nation in the history of the world arms more conflicts or destroys more innocent lives than the USA. China is not the problem. Hating on China is bigotry, and crazily hypocritical.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6·edited Aug 6

Your comment, as written, is Asian -phobic, and sets a double standard in terms of sovereignty. Whether you're aping the xenophobia of the Beltway or not. I don't like that kind of blatant bigotry, obs.

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Donald Obama

Aug 6

By the way - the secret Chinese bases is in reference to the CIA bases that the U.S setup in Ukraine, as admitted by the NYT.

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Donald Obama

Aug 6

I disagree - first of all - I am talking about China, which is a country. Not about a race. You are the one who interpreted my comment as racist.

Anyway - if we go by government policy - there are Asian countries that are quite antagonistic towards China and are very closely partnered with the U.S despite its crimes: Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

Japan and the Philippines were both brutally forced into "partnering" with the US Empire. The relations of their citizens to China cannot be summed up as "quite antagonistic" unless you're driving a WSJ bigoted narrative of hate towards the Chinese. Nation states are composed of people, btw.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

What exactly is wrong from your perspective with Chinese people exercising their own sovereignty ? If you want to critique arms sales you need to start (and probably stop) with the US. Why are you dissing China if you're so woke about the war mongering uniparty?

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6·edited Aug 6

Your comment expressed clearly the idea that China somehow shouldn't be allowed to make it's own sovereign decisions. That's straight up bigotry. Okay, maybe you're not a Racist, but the xenophobic hypocritical beltway stance against China is clearly driven by Anti-Chinese bigotry. My bad- you're right, it's bigotry, not Racism.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 5

NO.

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Donald Obama

Aug 6

I don't think he will invade them. However, if things descend into nuclear war they will be direct targets. On the other hand, at that point everyone is screwed.

Main problem for those countries is now they will face pressure from NATO and their own military industrial complexes to spend more on their military, thus diverting resources from more socially beneficially initiatives.

Plus as they further militarize, Russia will respond in kind, and a tinderbox will form. War will become steadily more likely and more devastating when it does happen.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

Thanks to Joe Biden, the war mongering genocidal ass-wipe.

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Nick Wilkins

Nick Wilkins

Aug 15

Read his article …

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Donald Obama

Aug 6

NATO is an illegal organization. A military alliance that exists outside of the UN can only be a force of tension and instability.

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Bonnie Blodgett

Aug 6

If you'd actually read JM's detailed article, you wouldn't have asked this question.

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DocHollywood

Aug 5

Thank you, Dr. Mearsheimer, for another excellent analysis backed by strong evidence. Other than a shared belief they all know what Putin thinks, its detractors can offer nothing to refute it. The goal to “destabilize” and “weaken Russia” was articulated by the Western leaders who provoked this war. They were clearly warned Ukraine’s planned accession to NATO was perceived by Russia as an existential threat.

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Jmdan

Aug 5

The US, of course. It's always the US with its insane demagoguery. Always trying to appease what appears to be half its population's lust for warmongering. Ex-military should not be allowed to run for office. You have enough problems with all the lawyers.

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Ed

Aug 5

US in Ukraine, Georgia and so forth are a milestone in Clinton-Talbot, Nuland-Kagan grand plan.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 5·edited Aug 5

It went back way further than that. US never recognized the annexation of Baltic states and certainly GHWB worked for and Yeltsin acquiesed too. Letting the people of Eastern Europe decide if they want to be part of Russian empire was and still is a worthy objective. The question that should be asked is was it worth the cost and on that count, I do not know, but I do know that Russia faced no external threats from NATO. The threats are all internal.

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Tom High

Aug 5

Missiles a stones throw from Moscow? No external threat? Don’t be stupid.

The U.S. lust for hegemony is a constant external threat for Russia, especially since ‘45. The capitalist class, whether in the U.S., Britain, or Germany, cannot abide any threat to its ability to control the world economy.

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Forrest Gimp

Aug 6

lol ok

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 5

Those dang capitalists. Germany could not have done more to support Russia than they did. Russia blew that relationship, but hopefully, for Russia's sake it will come back someday but even that will not be enough to solve internal problems in Russia.

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Tom High

Aug 5

Nordstream. Yeah, that was some support for Russia right there.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 5

It was; Russia blew it.

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Gary Champagne

Aug 6

U.S. blew up Nordstream. And as for Russia’s internal problems, …they pale in comparison you.S.’s internal problems.

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Paul

Aug 10

Ridiculous. They spent millions building it. It would have meant billions to their economy. But they blew it up. Why? Because that's what some Americans say?

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 10

I was referring to how Russia blew a good deal with Germany. I don't think the Russians blew up the pipeline and as soon as I heard it was an external explosion was very confident of that. I think some Ukrainian individuals and perhaps the government did it but that is just speculation on my part.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 6

Really. Link please.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 6

No one in public domain knows for sure although some pretend that they know. I think it was a Ukrainian team but I may be wrong.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 6

I agree but all fingers point to the USA!

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 6

That is what Seymour Hirsch says. I think he is wrong.

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Tom High

Aug 5

Gold, Jeffrey! Gold!

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 5

It was cute the way I implied Russia destroyed the pipeline. They didn't but they blew a mutually beneficial arrangement and are left with few options. Long-term, prices of gas are going to collapse in my opinion and I am not optimistic about Russia even if they make peace, or ultimately win.

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Tom High

Aug 6

Same could be said for the U.S. The hydrocarbon addiction threatens all of us.

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Laurentiu Staicu

Aug 5·edited Aug 6

Thank you, prof. Mearsheimer!

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deletedAug 5

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 5

yes so much more democracy in russia.

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deletedAug 5

Comment deleted

nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 5

too bad for you that russia cannot even simulate democracy for eager supporters like you. and so many of your kind, don't worry you are not alone

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gary clegg

Aug 5

Thank you Professor!

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alex glanz

Aug 5

Our so-called leaders seem to be cheerleaders for any potential polemics. especially when oil or other resources are at stake. Venezuela, anyone? I cannot imagine the burden of being a realist in this current clown show, but you have beautifully documented a synopsis of contemporary history in Ukraine that boggles politician's plans. Of course, rational people agree with you, John, but that seems to be a diminishing minority! Thank you, as always.

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William Pigman

William’s Substack

Aug 5

JM makes no sense in his arguments. It's not common sense. Quick ! When is last time when NATO invaded a country? The issue is not contentious .

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Adam Frank

Aug 5

Libya, and before that NATO bombed Serbia.

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Peter Jones

Peter Jones

Aug 6

Right mate.

😆

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Blimbax

Aug 5

Does Serbia count?

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William Pigman

William’s Substack

Aug 5

Neither Serbia nor Berlin air lift , which you may mention next, for no NATO troops invaded . In fact, NATO was publicly limited by that strong reluctance to invade . Keep looking for examples. Question for you: Does Crimea count? I refer to Crimea 2014, not 1858. Does Bucha count?. Finally , Does the treaty of Budapest. 1994 count?

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Tom High

Aug 5

Yeah, you keep thinking boots on the ground is the defining nature of invasion if you wish. I don’t. The thought that NATO is a defensive alliance is a joke.

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William Pigman

William’s Substack

Aug 5

The American then NATO strategy has been 'containment' of Russia's long history of forcing themselves on their neighbors since 1947 . A defensive alliance, anchored in Article 5 of the NATO Charter is what has been ratified by its 30 members. It's not a joke .

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Tom High

Aug 5

It is a joke. It‘s nothing more than a conduit for the weapons industries to have a captive market for arms sales/profit. Should have been disbanded after the Soviet Union collapsed.

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Andrew

Andrew

Aug 5

NATO found the new way to invade which is simply to expand into vacated spaces, utterly violating its original mandate. NATO should have dissolved in the 90s.

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Bart Caruso

Aug 5

How about Libya , 2011? When they brought Slave Markets back to Africa.

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Galina Lewan

Aug 6

Just in 21 c. NATO invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and bombed Libya and Serbia. All illegal wars of choice. American foreign policy is based on “regime change idea” - if we don’t like the foreign governments we will install the one we like. US tried 88 times in 20&21 centuries. Wake up! The US & NATO are the biggest threat to world peace and stability.

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Gnuneo

Gnuneo

Aug 5

When is the last time a NATO member country invaded another country?

Hmmm. Quite a different picture emerges rather quickly than your pathetic attempt at misdirection.

"Pigman" - good choice of name for your troll persona.

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Gary Champagne

Aug 6

Lybia

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Pietro Wislon

Pietro’s Substack

Aug 5

Well Latvia is sort of "occupied" by Canadian NATO forces....Latvians seem to be accustomed to being "occupied" ...................Soviets-

Nazi Germany-

Soviets and now NATO!

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Ukraine Peace Initiative

Ukraine Peace Initiative Substa…

Aug 6·edited Aug 6

May we engage in civilized debate here? Although I agree with the general message Mearsheimer has been advocating, I feel compelled to correct a few points or distortion of facts and may cause a false overall idea of the conflict. I get it, Mearsheimer needs to prove again and again that he is not a "Kremlin puppet" or whatever similar labels NATO media and officials use to describe him and anyone not falling in the official line and promoting NATO narrative or propaganda, so he always uses disclaimers of sorts, such as using the usual NATO talking points such as that Russia invaded and started the war. I am no Russian neither I have any association with Russia but I would like to contest that with facts and evidence.

First of all, Russia did not invade Ukraine just as it did not invade Crimea in 2014 when not even a single shot was fired, Crimean people overwhelmingly voted to rejoin Russia and Russian military was legitimately stationed there since 1783 and by approval of Ukrainian government that was pocketing enormous amounts of money and oil price reductions for leasing Crimean territories to Russian military. Also the legit president of Ukraine Yanukovych, who was violently ousted together with PM and his party (most popular party at that time for some time), signed a request asking Russia to intervene military to defend Ukraine from NATO-puppets who seized power by force. This is very different from the other events described as "invasion" like Americans invading Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. where legit presidents opposed it and local people as well, which is why no referendum was held to approve American intervention! So, you cannot use the same term "invasion" to describe what Americans did and what Russians did. They are totally two different military operation types. If what Americans did in many countries is termed as "invasion", then we need another term (SMO) to describe what Russians did, which is very different. Apart from Crimea, the local authorities in four other Ukrainian regions REQUESTED Russia to intervene and the local people VOTED in a democratic referendum to secede from the Kyiv anti-Russian regime that came to power by force and stayed in power only because they unlawfully eliminated all pro-Russian parties and parliamentarians. So, all regions termed as "occupied" by Russia are the regions where the vast majority of people invited Russia to liberate them from years-long oppression and repression by Kyiv regime - how is that an invasion? The people living in “occupied” territories call it “liberation” not invasion, so who are we to term it otherwise?! And to be fair, why are Ukrainian attacks on Russian territories (Belgorod, Bryansk, Rostov...) not termed as "invasion" but Russians doing it in Ukraine is termed as such? More on this topic is here: https://peaceinitiative.substack.com/p/not-an-invasion

Another point I'd like to contest or kindly debate is that Russia started the war. Superficial and ignorant people come to that conclusion because this narrative has been parroted left and right taking into account the mere fact that Putin sent his troops into Ukraine but disregarding all the other facts. Russia didn't start the war but a special military operation to drive Ukraine to a negotiation table to end the Donbas war and NATO intrusion, so when Ukraine (unlike Georgia in 2008) rejected a peace deal in April of 2022, it was de facto Ukraine that started the war as a proxy for US-led NATO. Read all about it here: https://peaceinitiative.substack.com/p/why-russia-attacked-ukraine

Also, anyone using brains know by now that this is in fact a NATO proxy war against Russia in which Ukrainians are used as cannon fodder and pawns in NATO's geopolitical chess game in which NATO rulers, supremacists, and globalists seek to weaken and contain Russia (drain its military resources) to preserve and expand Western hegemony, world domination, and white supremacy. Russia did not attack NATO but NATO attacked Russians in Ukraine since April 2014, so Russia did not start the war but NATO did, especially when in early April 2022 UK PM BoJo came to Kyiv to sabotage the peace deal that was already achieved between Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Istanbul, which was very favorable to Ukraine as Russia agreed to withdraw all its troops and preserve Ukrainian territorial integrity"

Read all about it here: https://peaceinitiative.substack.com/p/nato-proxy-war

I also contest the claim that the principal cause of the conflict is the NATO decision to bring Ukraine into the alliance. NATO did that already in 2008 but Russians did not start a war there then - why? Because this is NOT the principal cause of the conflict or war. This was the principal cause of the Russian diplomatic efforts but not of war. Also, at the same time, in 2008, NATO decided to also bring Georgia into the alliance, so why has Georgia not suffered the same fate as Ukraine, if this is alleged as the principal cause of the conflict? Think about it. The principal cause of the conflict and war is the fact that Ukraine violated all treaties with Russia and not just by revoking its pledge to stay neutral but also by violating human rights of Russian (and other) ethnic minorities by new education and language laws restricting the use of their native Russian language, but mainly by killing and terrorizing thousands of civilians (ethnic Russians) and displacing (ethnic cleansing) couple of millions of them between 2014-2021.

There are some other points which Mearsheimer made that are not accurate but I don't want to make this message too long.

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Sue

Sue’s Substack

Aug 6

Why are you not being listened to, or your perspective at least being represented, by the news sources I always thought I could trust: the NYT, WaPo and NPR? Why has Heather Cox-Richardson not paid attention to history as you lay it out? I’m very much on the Left politically, but I use my own common sense to see the logic in your views. My friends on the left have completely bought the Biden administration line, and I have even been accused online of being a Russian troll!

I have followed this conflict deeply, beyond what my news sources tell me to think, because it’s very personal for me. I live on the American side of the Bering Straits, and my life was fundamentally changed when the ice curtain between our countries thawed. I was part of the overwhelmingly enthralled community of people on both sides who built a Bridge of Friendship we thought would bring peace between our countries, and unite the long divided Beringia Region. There were even weekly scheduled flights from Nome to Provideniya, USSR for a few years, and exchanges between the cub scouts and the young pioneers, Rotary, artists, athletes, and most significantly the indigenous people whose families had been severed by the Cold War. Taxis and restaurants in Nome were accepting rubles!

So when my trusted, educated Russian friends said things like, Ukraine was asking for it, or referred to de-nazification, I felt compelled to research how they could think this way, when at first it seemed like crazy nonsense. And that is when I found Mearsheimer and Walt, and even very clear historic references in Wikipedia. And then the original NSA records being made public by a FOIA by Georgetown University. And my digging went on.

But why, John, is the left leaning media not engaging with you??? This baffles me and concerns me. Americans need to understand both perspectives on the Ukraine war before we can seriously push for some sort of resolution to the destruction of Ukraine which we are funding.

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Brant Huddleston

Dance Past Sunset

Aug 9

Hi Sue:

I have a theory that might answer your question: "Why is the left leaning media not engaging?" The ideology for the most radical of Progressives (aka "Woke") is primarily driven by a desire to protect the vulnerable. We see this in their acclaim for the oppressed (victim) and their corresponding disdain for the oppressor (bully.) All other Progressive tenents are secondary to this primary one. This explains why Progressives appear inconsistent in their positions, when, in fact, they are being entirely consistent.

Why for example, do the Woke hate Elon Musk, who, through his electric car and solar roofing company, is doing so much to address climate change, an issue the Left cares deeply about? Because Musk is an alpha male bully. Why does the Left align with Hamas, who oppose woman's and LGBTQIA+ rights? Because Netanyahu is an alpha male bully. Why do Progressives despise Trump so? Because no one is more of an alpha male bully than he, with the exception of Putin, hence Progressive support for Ukraine.

In the final analysis, the consistency in Woke ideology is not measured by WHAT they are for, but rather WHO they are against, and they will always stand against a bully, no matter what he stands for.

It's all part of the greater misandrous feminization of the Democratic Party, and why J.D. Vance's "Crazy Cat Lady" comment hit a nerve.

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Bonnie Blodgett

Aug 6

This overview has been helpful in explaining my extremely unpopular support for Russia in this war. It leafes out what I regard as the most compelling reason Russia fears NATO: neoliberal globalization, the trend that enables U.S. multinationals to take over the resources of other nations under the guise of a "rules-based order" designed and enforced by the unipolar hegemon. This is why Cargill, for instance, never pulled out of Russia. It said the reason was that food should not be used as a weapon The real reason was/is that it seeks to control the richest farmland in he world, as our own breadbasket is now horribly polluted and drought-stricken and Siberia is the "next breadbasket." Yes, this is a quote from one of its executives. Regime change in Ukraine was thge first step, and ths war gives us the excuse to claim Russia next. The plan was that the Russian people, enraged by Putin's war, would oust him. Obviously, our intelligence badly misjudged not only Russia's military competence but its people's respect for and trust in their leader. Remember, Putin was the guy who clawed back the people's resources after they were stolen by the West (and Western-sponsored Russian oligarchs) during the Yeltsin era.

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noochness

noochness

Aug 6

Yes, we must fight to the death to defend the rules-based order b/c.... um.... we wrote the rules, and the rules favor us.

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David Charles

David Charles’ Substack

Aug 6

Neoliberal globalization.

I do NOT support Russia. I do think the bear is still roaming Eastern Europe to see what it can gobble up.

HowEVER, you 100% correct with your thoughts on neoliberal politics. Leftism is the reason for a great many Western problems. Not to mention how friggon contagious it is.

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Benjamin Holm

Aug 5

These people who want to say Putin is expansionist are often known to engage in projection, unwittingly. So I believe that when they say Putin is expansionist in reality it's true for them. They are engaged in empire building through NATO.

The other thing I sometimes think about is why are we being so stupid with regards to Russia? On a strategic level it makes no sense, because China is the true threat, so why wouldn't we want to make a peace with Russia and redirect them against China? This makes me wonder how much our elites might be co-opted by China.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 5

What China threat?

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Gogs

Gogs’s Substack

Aug 5

Thank you for being a guiding light during this insanity. Perhaps someone could examine not only the United States' warlike tendencies, usually disastrous of course, and how much filthy lucre is wrapped up in them.

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Monica

Aug 5

Excellent, thank you so much

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 5

Would welcome Dr. Mearsheimer's view of "Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate."

Ultimately, there really isn't any question that Russia is at fault. It is a deeply dysfunctional state. The real question is whether the fight is worth the cost. Ukraine said that Russia would ultimately violate all agreements at the time and they were right.

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Gogs

Gogs’s Substack

Aug 5

As if the USA isn't deeply dysfunctional. It was Biden who scuppered the peace deal in early 2022. Now it's around half a million Ukrainian lives, a ruined country and democracy, with actual fascists running the shit show, later.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 5

Ukraine is not a puppet state. Eastern Europe was beating down the doors to join NATO as they quite rightfully feared Russia. As for dysfunction; sure, US has its problems but to compare Russia to US is laughable. Typically when US/Germany sent aid to Russia following breakup of USSR, it would wind up in Cyprus; something like that would not happen in US. Putin partnered with the oligarchs and yes, their sweet deal is threatened by Ukraine reforming as Russian people might demand reform as Ukraine wants. Ukraine obviously had similar problems to Russia but they appear to want to reform and are fighting for it. It is not the US decision to make.

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Kouros

Aug 7

Not true. I know for a fact that Romania, for instance, was denied EU entry unless first joins NATO... And was the same with other former socialist countries. Maybe not Poland and the Baltic states, but those have a loose screw.

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Adam Frank

Aug 5

Whatever happened to detente?

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 5

Russia botched the transition from Communism. I think because of corruption. It was never going to be easy and odds of failure high. Putin did an ok job of making the best of a bad situation. It might have even been brilliant.

First invasion was a "piece of cake" and I think he thought this one would be too.

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Londoner

Aug 5

In case JM doesn't answer you question, you could just look up https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early

To answer your "real question" as to "whether the fight is worth the cost", it has resulted in an implicit alliance between the World's most resourceful nation and the World's sole industrial superpower - so you tell me whether it is worth the cost (to the West). If it is not a 24 carat own goal, I don't know what is.

But then I guess in comparison to enabling and supporting the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children for the whole world to see, it probably would only qualify as a 23 carat own goal...

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 5

Yes; I get it. US is evil and the source of all the world's problems.

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Londoner

Aug 5

Your comment shows you have difficulties debating logically and with facts, and your reference to evil suggests you might not appreciate the basis of realism/realpolitik, and could benefit from watching some of JM's geopolitics 101 lectures, at e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlIgtL4bp5E

The war in Ukraine is a classic case of realpolitik in the face of security dilemma. Good and evil has relatively little to do with it, a bit like the Cuban missile crisis (in reverse). Most in the West are so saturated by own Kool-aid re us good others evil, so are now suffering cognitive dissonance. Fact is geopolitics has always been a jungle where might is right (ask Saddam, Gadaffi, dead Palestinians, or their ghosts etc.).

The tragedy of the Ukrainians, is that most of them also drank the Kool-aid, believed they were good and righteous, and therefore will prevail.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 5

US is not perfect and can be ruthless. As for prevailing, it does have a pretty good track record. Perhaps too good, as your point about Ukraine trusting the US and West in general has much validity.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 5

Good morning! Glad you're waking up. More specifically the US Judeo-Christians and US Capitalism are literally the greatest forces for evil in world history, based on the simple metric of number of innocent lives destroyed. Nobody kills more children than Judeo-Christian Capitalists. Let's do facts!

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Gary Champagne

Aug 6

You’re starting to catch on.

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deletedAug 5

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 5

I do not know how the Ukrainian people would have responded had Russia succeeded in taking Kyiv as they obviously wanted to do at the start of the war so I can't really respond. There are certainly significant elements of a proxy war but there are too many unknowns.

One thing I know I disagree with is that the US has the power to stop the war. If a negotiated solution was reached tomorrow sure the fighting would stop at least temporarily but there would be problems in the decades to come as I think Russia will face serious problems in the future due to a large number of factors that I do not know how they will respond to. Ukraine will face problems too.

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deletedAug 5

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 5·edited Aug 5

Yes I do believe that the goal was to decapitate the government. If it was a diversion, they sure gave up a lot of important troops and equipment.

I don't even think Bellarussian government supports the invasion but they have to cooperate with Russia at least to an extent. Will be interesting to see what happens there when Lukashenko passes from the scene as he definitely will at some point in time in the not to distant future.

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Kouros

Aug 7

It is a sin to believe something without any factual evidence. You have to provide factual arguments to JM point to support your beliefs. Simple statements do not suffice.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 7

Simple statements work when no one knows with certainty. Even when archives are opened the story can be complex with multiple points of view. Professor Mearsheimer's article said withdrawal was part of agreement to begin negotiations (or something to that effect). While I'm sure it was part of agreement if he says so, I view it as a throwaway concession because they had already lost and needed to get out in my opinion. There's another simple statement but they failed to grab the airport (key issue) and the convoy was stuck.

I also think they faced limitations in Bellarussia. Once again, a simple statement with no real support other than I know how Eastern European nations felt about USSR prior to fall and belief that Lukeshanko might have to deal with armed resistance if he pushed his people too far. No one writes about Bellarussia aside from opposition from citizens so that is my own opinion based on mere logic. I think I'm pretty smart too and have been in room when difficult issues are dealt with. You come out and act like everything is known as you can't come out and act like the answer wasn't obvious when the reality is far different..

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Kouros

Aug 7

Snakes have less capability of contorting that you exhibit with your "arguments". But your contortions are like AI generate clips, even for a snake it would look un-natural.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 7

okidoke.

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deletedAug 5

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 5·edited Aug 5

Kyiv was not the only target. It was one of many and Russia succeeded in the south. In the Donbas, not so much but not an abject failure. When they failed in Kyiv, they pivoted as Bellarussian support was limited. At least that is my opinion and no one talks about Bellarussia so ultimately, I do not know that I'm right but I know that Lukashenko faces limitations due to internal opposition which is written about.

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AC

Aug 8

Another reason not to believe the Western narrative: it is almost entirely propaganda. No one talks about the NYT piece that came out months ago about how the CIA has been steadily building up an intelligence network and bases all over Ukraine since 2014.

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Blissex

Aug 13

«how the CIA has been steadily building up an intelligence network and bases all over Ukraine since 2014.»

That is just "realpolitik" and the Russian Federation lost that competition. The DOD started having "partnerships" with the ukrainian state in 1993. The ukrainian oligarchs also know "realpolitik" and have always been eager to "cooperate" with the highest bidder, and it has always been clear which one that was.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA404259.pdf

Frank Morgese Senior Fellow Atlantic Council of the United States'

"U.S.-Ukraine Security Cooperation 1993-2001 - A Case History"

"Short of formal alliances, which would provoke Russia and perhaps cross a Russian red line, Ukraine has woven an intricate system of security "partnerships" with its principal neighbors -- Russia and Poland - as well as with the NATO alliance and the United States. Indeed, one of the pillars of Ukraine's foreign policy has been to pursue security cooperation with NATO and the United States to off-set the influence of Russia without actually going so far as to provoke Russian military or economic retaliation. Ukraine, by its own statements and actions, appears to have strategically set its sights on European and Trans-Atlantic integration, but it also appears willing to make tactical decisions from time to time to accommodate Russia. One such instance may have been the sacking of Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk who supposedly courted NATO too closely while giving short shrift to relations with Moscow [...] Ukraine, however, has hosted annual exercises with the United States since 1995. [...] For a relatively small investment, the robust program of military cooperation has accomplished much in seven years. Short of a formal alliance, this program of engagement has integrated Ukraine, even if incrementally, into Western security structures. [...] The United States Department of Defense (DoD) and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (MoD) signed a Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation on Defense and Military relations on July 27, 1993. This agreement established a program of defense cooperation at the Department-Ministry-level. The first substantive activities between these offices began in July 1994."

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AC

Aug 29·edited Aug 29

I know the reality is much more complicated in terms of Ukraine's goals, but I guess what I am saying is that the Western narrative overly simplifies the conflict as caused by Russia's "unprovoked" aggression. Language is powerful in situations like these. I take issue with the idea that only "formal alliances" would provoke Russia, when the reality is that like a child constantly being pinched by his sibling under the table, Russia reached a breaking point. And when these intelligence forces are well aware that Russians who live on so-called Ukrainian soil are being persecuted (another issue Westerners refuse to accept) and not only allow but back it, well, I believe the red line is rightfully shifted.

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Per Frisk

Aug 7

Putin can’t be such a bad guy. Regarding how Russia should treat Ukraine, he wrote “with respect ”. I think that settles any argument.

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noochness

noochness

Aug 7·edited Aug 10

When Russia was down and out in 1991, as Mearsheimer has said, "we did our best to flush them down the toilet". Ukraine was given historically Russian lands b/c Russia was too weak to resist. Now that Russia has rebuilt its strength, it's inevitable that it would grab back some of the historically Russian lands, and the West has made it easy to justify by anti-Russian machinations in Ukraine.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 7

Money was sent but it kept getting stolen. Not just small cuts either; wholesale gone. There was no good solution. Putin did co-opt those conducting the theft which was probably the best that could be hoped for.

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Arild

Arild

Aug 6

John Mearsheimer, you know very well that Russia signed the Paris treaty which allowed every country to choose its alliance. The NATO expansion was accepted by the Russian government then. The facts are clear. Why do you keep denying the facts? Adolf Putin and the Russian nazi regime might disagree on it.

In this context we fully recognize the freedom of States to choose their own security arrangements in the Paris treaty and Russia signed the treaty.

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Arild

Arild

Aug 6

Putin caused the war in Ukraine. Nobody else to be blamed for invading Ukraine. https://youtu.be/eqejeJ-_iqo?si=3AhwFyZm6mPvi-cf

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David Tavadian

Aug 6

Many thanks for your courage, intellectual integrity, hard work and professionalism. I’ve learnt a lot from you over the years. Most of your forecasts have proven to be correct. Most respectfully. David.

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Debsisdead

Aug 6·edited Aug 6

In my view this rather slanted history of how this conflict occured is too amerika-centric, a better history of how this happened is contained in Kit Klarenburg's substack at https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/civil-war-in-donbass-10-years-on?publication_id=552010 called "Civil War in Donbass 10 Years On".

There is no attempt to let amerika, the EU and england off the hook by laying some of the blame on Russia who strove for more than 10 years to avoid the conflict in Klarenburg's article.

At the time Russia launched the CMO, they had no other choice as the Ukies equipped by amerika, england and the EU, had amassed more than 100,000 troops on the border of Donbass, a total breach of Minsk 2.0.

If Russia hadn't moved to pre-emptively defend Donbass & Luhansk it wouldn't have been a 'mere' 14,000 innocent civilians slaughtered, there would have been hundreds of thousands Russian speaking ukies slaughtered by those nazis & assorted other fascist militias.

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Gnuneo

Gnuneo

Aug 5

Just to add, "Once that goal was achieved, the Russians would move to create an empire in eastern Europe, much like the Soviet Union did after World War II."

There are also other problems with this. Notably, it entirely avoids the historical realities of WW2.

I seem to recall it was the Wstern-armed Germany that invaded Russia, and not the other way around.

Think of the mentality behind those who would omit that rather vital observation.

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Patrick Mazza

The Raven

Aug 5

I wonder what Brzezinski would say if he saw how carrying out an extreme version of his position not to let Ukraine go back to Russia by drawing it completely into the western orbit, instead of maintaining its neutrality, contributed to his worst nightmare, a Eurasia-dominating alignment of Russia, China and Iran. A great irony. In addition, he thought a Russia without Ukraine would be primarily an Asiatic power. In 1997, when he wrote “Grand Chessboard,” he could not have conceived the rise of China since, and the relative decline of Europe. Being primarily an Asiatic power doesn’t look so bad now.

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Bart Caruso

Aug 5

There is a Misprint in Fourth Reason : 17 Dec. 2021 , NOT 2023.

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Bart Caruso

Aug 5

There is a Misprint of a Date in Fourth reason! 17 Dec., 2021, NOT 2023. Might confuse some Newbees.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 5

Thank you Mr Mearsheimer always helpful and succinct.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 5

exactly. once a colony of russia then always a colony of russia. if you think otherwise you are disturbing the world order that meeersheimer prescribes. and putin of course.

and just by the way putin did think he could take over all of ukraine with 190,000 because he overestimated how much collaboration he would get from ukrainians. to his great great disappointment (and meersheimers) ukrainians did not want to continue to be a russian colony. not even the russian speaking ones, or at least not most of them.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 5

Link please.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 5

if putin had no intention of grabbing all of ukraine he would not have sent his invaders on the road to kyiv. or was that just a friendly visit from a neighbor?

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Tom High

Aug 5

Tactical mistake. And Putin realized it rather quickly.

Putin never wanted all of Ukraine. He understood what a quagmire it would have been.

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Gnuneo

Gnuneo

Aug 5·edited Aug 5

Bit like talking to the trolls here, if you take my meaning. ;)

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

if one doesn't justify putin one is a troll. of course. of course, do you take my meaning

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Gnuneo

Gnuneo

Aug 6

Even for a troll, you are incompetent.

Obvious you're Western.

Incompetence flows from the top down. Next you'll be practicing word-salads like K'mala, Biden and Trump.

Fortunately, you won't notice.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 5

i think if you were honest you would have to say he was made to realize it. but you want to give him credit for realizing his mistake. how nice for putin to have such a strong support system. that's why he keeps destroying and killing. congratulations to you for you part in this slaughter

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Tom High

Aug 6

The complicity I have for this slaughter pales in comparison to the empire simps like you who cheer it on.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

are you aware that it is putin that is committing the slaughter? it seems you are not

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Tom High

Aug 6

We are pushing the slaughter. Ukraine cannot win, and will not regain lost territory. We are throwing the Ukrainian people into the meat grinder for no other reason than to try to bleed Russia.

It seems you are clueless to this fact.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

and of course ukraine's sovereignty is insignificant. so should rapists get to rape as much as they want bec clearly the victim will always be weaker? it would be nice if you had your own personal history with such a thing to see if you would say, ok, the rapist is stronger, so no complaint

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Tom High

Aug 6

The west has zero credibility when it attempts to make an argument based on sovereignty. Or law. Or order.

Try again.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

no i am quite aware that ukraine cannot win without help from the west. i think it would be cute if iran and n. korea said to putin it seems you cannot win so we will not supply you with military aid.

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Tom High

Aug 6

Ukraine cannot win with help from the west, either.

Head, meet brick wall.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 6

well exactly the meershimer doctirne, might makes right.

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Maximilian Ruspeckhofer

Aug 5

What I missed: A reference to Zbignew Brzezinskis famous book "the grand chessboard". With all the conclusions and suggestions, which may be quite surprising for someone who has not read this book. I also missed a reference to Immanuel Kant, whose 300th birthday we are celebrating. When the US stated, that membership of Ukraine was none of Russian's business, they violated the principle, that personal freedom (and also security demands) end where the freedom of another person (or the security demand of another state) begins.

But otherwise: Excellent summary. As always. I love to listen to Prof. Mearsheimer. And it is good to have his statements in writing.

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Gpcus

Aug 5

Excellent, thank you so much. Not that I hope anybody here in vassal Europe will take heed of it, but it is nice to have such a comprehensive helping text I can smash on my acquaintances faces!

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Peter

Aug 13

Professor Mearsheimer fails to mention that the Donbas region and the Crimea are both populated by over 90% ethnically Russian people. Also that the main base of Russian Black Sea fleet is in Sevastopol. I suppose the Russians were to merely hand this over to NATO.

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Blissex

Aug 13·edited Aug 15

«the Donbas region and the Crimea are both populated by over 90% ethnically Russian people.»

The same for most of Ukraine except for the ruthenian western regions, where the local fascists look down on the rest of the ukrainians and in general russians for being impure mixed-race slavs having a significant minority of mongolian and tatar ancestry.

But history as Putin has said is just background, what matters is whether the local population wants to be allied with or part of the Russian Federation. For example the austrians are germans but they do not want to be part of the German Federal Republic and they are neutral and not allied with it either.

As to that the claim by the USA government and the ruthenian fascists is that the will of the locals does not matter as the Donbas and Crimea do not belong to the people living in Donbas and Crimea because they are illegal immigrants who have been living in those areas only for a few hundred years, and that the Donbas and Crimea belong to the pure-bred slav people of Kiev and Lvov because of ancient historical rights.

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JennyStokes

Jennifer’s Substack

Aug 12

SO sick and tired of hearing about the POOR Jews/Zionists I really am.

Many countries have gone through pograms just the same as the Jews but they are not reported.

Look up the Tamils in Sri Lanka!

No person has given then a 'homeland!' Why are the Jews different?

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Late Learner

Aug 12

I hope you have a security team, because I would not put it past the Mossad to target you. You are a saint for having the courage to question these foolish wars that endanger us all.

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Daniel Ashworth

Aug 12

Thank you again Professor Mearsheimer for your honest clarity.

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Alex Mandl

Aug 8

As an Australian, what baffles me is the rapidity with which the Australian government dived into the fray, committing now over $AUD 1 Bn to Ukraine, mainly in the form of military equipment, deployment of "advisors" and training personnel for the Ukrainian military forces. Most Australians STILL would not be able to locate Ukraine on a map. The cost to the economy of Australia is significant with the global disruption of trade resulting from the conflict.

The importance of Ukraine to Australia is minimal, as evidenced by our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade summary which states:

"Australia's trade relationship with Ukraine is modest, with two-way trade totalling $166 million in 2022-2023. Goods and services exports from Australia were valued at $97.2 million in 2023. In the same period, Australia imported $68.5 million worth of products from Ukraine, mainly vegetable oils and fats."

So, it seems our support for Ukraine is one of two things - a deep seated fear of Russia, which seems ludicrous given our geographic separation, or a deep seated wish to ingratiate Australia with the USA (most likely) or the UK (increasingly insignificant) or Europe (which has notably harmed itself far more than protected itself).

I know some Ukrainians and Russians personally and find it difficult to comprehend how this has occurred. Ukraine, in particular, had not yet recovered from WW2 (just have a look at the demographics of the country) and now it has been effectively wrecked for generations to come. An enormous proportion of the population has left the country, it's agriculture and industry are in ruins, and for what?

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 8·edited Aug 8

"for what" - Ability to integrate with Europe for one and being free of Russian domination second. Doubt that they are fighting for other reasons but hopefully it will benefit the world as well by making naked agression a little less likely to occur; that is also what Australia gets out of it.

Is Australia vulnerable? Not really but I would have told you it wasn't vulnerable to Japan before WW2. US is even less vulnerable. Meeting long-term threats while they are still far away is generally the best strategy in my opinion although I expect most American't agree with your position.

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Goldhoarder

Aug 8·edited Aug 8

The US launched a coup in Ukraine and overthrew the elected government. That was the last governmnet that was voted in by the entire country of Ukraine. Russia annexed Crimea as a response. The ensuing civil war ended in the two Minsk agreements which the US and NATO admitted sabotaging to prepare Ukraine for war. The war with Russia started with the violation of the Minsk agreements and heavy Ukrainian shelling of the Donbas. This was after two attempts pleading with the US to negotiate. The US refused with Blinken and Biden screaming to the press the Russians are going to invade. My guess is Russia told the US if they don't negotiate they will enter the conflict. That is why they knew beforehand Russia was going to invade. Even after the war started Russia tried to get Ukraine to a peace deal in Istanbul which again the West sabotaged. Western leaders are evil. They lie and use mass propaganda to control narratives and enforce false beliefs in their populations.

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Bob Eisen

Aug 8

While Putin may not have “wanted to conquer Ukraine and incorporate it into Russia”, and yes understandable Putin would not be pleased with a NATO Ukraine, an under riding issue to me is Putin’s innate fear of a free and prosperous Ukraine as a neighbor , to me this seems to threaten his very livelihood, as, face it, an autocratic leader. But what do I know, it’s all very complicated, amid all the death, suffering and destruction.

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Blissex

Aug 13

«Putin’s innate fear of a free and prosperous Ukraine as a neighbor»

Why would he fear that? Ukraine has been a gangster-oligarch and fascist-faction run failed state for a long time, together with Moldova one of the few ex-soviet states with lower living standards (and extremely higher inequality) than in 1991.

Ever tighter integration with the EU and NATO has not changed that, also because the EU and NATO governments consider the gangster oligarchs and the fascist factions "our bastards" and support them regardless of their looting, while pretending to complain about it.

As a result several million ukrainians have emigrated to the Russian Federation, or have fought 10 years of war to be part of the Russian Federation, because in the Russian Federation they are paid a lot better and live far more safely, and when the EU opened its borders to them, another almost as large number escaped to the EU to work as lowly paid servants there, preferring that to continuing to live in a country run by a grossly corrupt and brutally repressive political system.

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Spencer

Aug 8

What kind of title is that? Who is responsible for invading Ukraine? The people who invaded Ukraine duh

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the long warred

the long warred’s Substack

Aug 7

We did provoke it, and it will follow us home

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Kouros

Aug 7

Historically, Russia is mostly a reactive state while opportunistically at times, when circumstances rose that land grabbing came at very little price. Examples abound.

As such, accusing Russia of wanting to re-establish a lost empire flyies in the face of evidence. The prima facie example is the 2008 war against Georgia, which was started by Georgia, which attacked the separatist areas protected by Russian peace forces. Georgians got a thorough beating, which given recent events in Georgia, the government definitely remembers, and the Russian forces retreated after 2 weeks. As RFL reported, an EU commission on the facts found only that Russians mistreated prisoners, but nothing else to accuse Russians with.

However, the US has learned from that event and in the case of Ukraine, the provocation that was created was easily covered up by the Western MSM.

Professor Mearsheimer contents that Russia is guilty of attacking Ukraine, but fails to provide the full context for it, and the facts on the ground matter:

1. In March 2021, Ukraine passed legislation that demanded the UKR government recovers control over all UKR recognized territory, by any means necessary (that meant not only Donbas & Lugansk Republics but Crimea as well).

2. Follow that UKR ammased troops in Donbas, to which russians immediately mobilized 90,000 troops at UKR border. US panicks and then some discussions take place in Geneva.

3. UKR has not in fact remove troops from the borders with Donbas & Lugansk.

4. After the rejection of RUS strategic negociation package by the West, UKR starts in early February 2022 to massively shell Donbas, as reported by OSCE observers.

5. Children and women and elderly are moved with hundreds of busses from the proximity of the border.

6. Donbas & Lugansk ask RUS for support.

7. On February 22, RUS recognizes the independence of the two republics, using Kosovo as a legal precedent, signs treaties of alliance.

8. The West immediately sanctions Russia and excludes it from SWIFT banking messaging system.

9. Russia invoques article 51 of UN Charter in support of Donbas and Lugansk and on February 24 attacks UKR.

The legality of Russian actions is really unassailable in any unbiased international court. The fact that immediately wanted to start talks and negotiations with UKR proves that all it wanted was peace and security of its borders.

But as mentioned by Prof Mearsheimer, Russia cannot and will not tolerate an anti-Russia Ukraine, which is how Ukraine has beein slowly defining itself after 1991, and faster and faster after 2014, reaching all aspects of life. That is what Russia means by de-nazification of UKR. Because in the Russian experience, the Third Reich had the same message (see Generalplan Ost), KILL the Russians.

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Kouros

Aug 7

Forgot to mention that by starting bombing Donbas in early February 2022, Ukraine (and its backers) threw a match in the garbage bi where they disposed of the Minsk Accords, which where sanctioned by the UNSC Rezolution 2022: https://press.un.org/en/2015/sc11785.doc.htm

Also, let us not forget what a former CIA Director said immediately after the start of the military operation:

“The choice that we faced in Ukraine — and I'm using the past tense there intentionally — was whether Russia exercised a veto over NATO involvement in Ukraine on the negotiating table or on the battlefield,” said George Beebe, a former director of Russia analysis at the CIA and special adviser on Russia to former Vice President Dick Cheney. “And we elected to make sure that the veto was exercised on the battlefield, hoping that either Putin would stay his hand or that the military operation would fail.”

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/russia-s-ukraine-invasion-may-have-been-preventable-n1290831

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 7·edited Aug 7

Perhaps his analysis was too infuenced by focus on Russia. I don't see how he could not consider that it shows a willingness to stand up to military expansionism or bullying provided the country's citizens back such efforts. Better to fight and potentially lose the war sometimes. Reduces the odds of invasion of Taiwan, provides warning to Iran and just generally builds confidence in assurances which both the UK, US and Russia had made to Ukraine.

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Kouros

Aug 7

This willingness to stand up to from the part of USUK is at the expense of Ukrainian blood, or Taiwanese blood, or Phillipinos blood, or Japanese, or Korean blood. The time has gone when US can throw its beople in a meatgrinder. And the technology genie is out of the bottle.

Russian guarantee to Ukraine with the Budapest Memorandum was in place as long as Ukraine's constitution and orientation was not completely anti-Russian. WHen that went off the window, same went Russian guarantee.

As for USUK, they only desire to prolong the conflict and keep Ukraine on life support. They don't have the means for more nor the public support for more. On the other side, Russians are still volunteering while Ukrainians are dragged uncoscious to the military.

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Jeff Boyd

Aug 7

There is a good argument for tossing enough money into Ukraine so that soldiers, including the young, would volunteer as they do in Russia.

The technology genie is an interesting point. It is a good argument for pushing Iran and Russia as hard as is practical as a world where non-state actors have access to such weapons is very dangerous. If an accomodation that would last was possible, that would be better than fighting but I do not think it is possible.

Wish I had the confidence in my positions that you have. I'm awash in a world of unknowns.

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Kouros

Aug 8

I personally don't see an end to all this strife any time soon, because the networked Oligarchy in the West/US always bets on corrupting leadership and kicking the can down the road until stars align. And they have the fall of Soviet Union to remind them that this might be a workable strategy.

Nevertheless, the situation has changed. See the link below with the latest essay from Aurelien on how things are different now compared to the end of World War II: https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/the-sense-of-an-ending

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MS

Aug 6

Thank you for this cogent article, Dr. Mearsheimer. For those subscribers who are interested, here is another article which dovetails nicely with the points made by the professor:

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-russia-nato/

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Thomas Graves

How the KGB Zombified the CIA a…

Aug 6

Vladimir Putin cherishes John Mearsheimer.

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nicky karunarathna

Aug 6

One does not want to go far or further, like Socrates taking the lamp in daylight to find answers to this simple question, looking for honest man/woman - every aspect of the dreadful war should be laid down at the feet of insane, cocaine-addicted psychopath Biden. For the last four years, what he did was - wars, never-ending wars, the mother of all genocides in Palestine, the beloved, historical motherland of Palestinian people, forcibly occupied by heinous, barbaric, naked European savages aka Jews cult lethal terrorist outfits (sidekick of Ethiopian slaves found Christianity), targeted killings, bombing, sending shiploads of lethal armaments to all four corners of the globe on American taxpayer's expense. Now what? His so-called economic or weird economic policies are coming to roost like a chicken coming home to roost. The American economy is in shatters and nearing a collapse - very soon ending with a terrible recession and the country is indebted to the tune of 35 trillion dollars, 40% of population is below the poverty level, soup queues and bread queues getting longer and longer and half of the American population do not have roofs over their heads. What did this mass murderer, child killer (in Palestine alone he killed over 20,000 children and kissed his butcher's asshole, both sides of the cheeks, and invited him to address congress, too - shamelessness should also have limits). Then his peace talks? Every time he sends his Secretary of State - this psychopath sends shiploads of lethal armaments, too. His so-called democracy and rule of law and no one is above the law scenario? All are tatters and sent into smithereens by - impose sanctions on ICC judges who did or carried out the law to the letter! So democracy, and no one is above the law, became a laughable matter or serious low kind of a joke!

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eg

Aug 6

It was Diogenes who searched in broad daylight with a lamp.

/pedantry

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Joaquin Carral-Cuevas

Aug 6

As much as I now consider Russia's stance on Venezuelan elections abhorrent, and has made me rethink my pro Russian position, Mearsheimer's analysis is obviously antagonistic to the military-industrial complex, both in the US and the EU, which is bringing us close to total anhilation.

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J. M

Aug 6

Thank you for putting this together Professor. It was a quicker read for some of my friends without the patience for some of the interviews and talks.

For those who want to see predicting the future, here is Professor Mearsheimer’s talk from 8 years ago predicting what would happen to Ukraine if policy did not shift….

https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4?si=3BMBDG57DbtUyWQz

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Joel Winter

Joel’s Substack

Aug 5

Some very good arguments here. But I don't understand why Ukraine's possible enrolment into NATO is a special threat to Russia. Russia is already surrounded by NATO countries on its western European border. What does it matter if one more country on its border joins NATO? Perhaps there are other reasons: Maybe Russia is possessive and arrogant towards Ukraine since traditionally it was part of their historic empire and they don't want to see it joining a western alliance.

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Donald Obama

Aug 6

Perhaps it's like someone saying - you are already surrounded by walls and metal bars on all these other sides, who cares if we build another wall around you? And don't mind the missiles pointed at you.

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eg

Aug 6

I’m fairly certain that Ukraine has been the invasion route into Russia every time a European power has attempted it, going all the way back to the Swedes in the 17th Century (followed more notoriously by the French under Napoleon and the Germans under Hitler).

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founding

Joseph Woolslayer

Aug 5

thank you, sir for the important details.

👍

I will share with everyone I know.

May I please ask why are we not hearing from Dr. Walt along with you on these most critical subjects ? he seems to be on the "down low."

joe w.

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author

John J. Mearsheimer

Aug 5Author

Glad you liked the piece. Please do share as widely as possible!

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Blimbax

Aug 5

But is this date correct? I thought it was in December 2021, not 2023: “On 17 December 2023, Putin sent a letter to both President Joe Biden and NATO chief Stoltenberg proposing a solution to the crisis based on a written guarantee that: 1) Ukraine would not join NATO, 2) no offensive weapons would be stationed near Russia’s borders, and 3) NATO troops and equipment moved into eastern Europe since 1997 would be moved back to western Europe.”

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Krisgronquist

Krisgronquist’s Newsletter

Aug 6

Yes, that should read "On 17 December 2021" not 2023. I noticed that as well.

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founding

Joseph Woolslayer

Aug 6

Sir, is it possible that American foreign policy decision makers are scared of or intimidated by Israel?

I ask given Israel's extreme genocidal viciousness... Israeli's know that they're being filmed and reported on all over the globe! . Yes the most aggressive in your face viciousness.

and so the most powerful state on the face of the Earth, the United States takes no action to stop this human catastrophe.

I just find it hard to wrap my head around that our state department has not laid down the law with Israel for cease-fire and reparations for Palestinians.

Thank you

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Randy Silvers

An economist and a --- walk int…

Sep 10

Mearsheimer states that he is a realist, but regarding Ukraine and Russia, he has been naïve and does not exhibit an understanding of game theory and reputation. These errors on the origins and compelling causes of Putin's (catastrophic) decision to invade, lead Mearsheimer to a faulty conclusion that Putin and Russia will be satisfied with a promise of Ukrainian neutrality and most of the land it has already captured.

Please read more and feel free to comment:

https://randysilvers.substack.com/p/in-response-to-mearsheimer-who-caused?r=5mxv2

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Randy Silvers

An economist and a --- walk int…

Sep 10

In the first part above and here, I show how much the world has changed in two centuries.

https://randysilvers.substack.com/p/in-response-to-mearsheimer-who-caused?r=5mxv2

Part II: real and perceived threats.

https://randysilvers.substack.com/p/in-response-to-mearsheimer-who-caused-068?r=5mxv2

Part III: Putin needs to delegitimize Ukraine.

https://randysilvers.substack.com/p/in-response-to-mearsheimer-who-caused-635?r=5mxv2

Part IV: merits and ramifications, of a peace agreement.

https://randysilvers.substack.com/p/in-response-to-mearsheimer-who-caused-a3e?r=5mxv2

Part V: what ends this War of Attrition

https://randysilvers.substack.com/p/in-response-to-mearsheimer-who-caused-5bf?r=5mxv2

Part VI concludes.

https://randysilvers.substack.com/p/in-response-to-mearsheimer-who-caused-706?r=5mxv2

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Ismail Hatago

Ismail Hatago

Sep 10

Possibly worth noting: it was John Bolton who added "greatest" to "geopolitical". The official Kremlin translation:

"Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself."

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/06/john-bolton/did-vladimir-putin-call-breakup-ussr-greatest-geop/

And this was in a speech focused on Russia's problems.

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Bruce H

Aug 20

The US government and the CIA

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John The 1st

Aug 19

If Mexico signed a defence pact with China and proposed to base Chinese troops , ships and tanks and jets in Mexico the USA would launch a massive invasion

No doubt about it

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Tricia Kirkland

Aug 17

I think the Biden administration?

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 16

The Kursk Offensive: A Foolish Move

John J. Mearsheimer

Aug 15

READ IN APP

Responsible Statecraft has just published a symposium dealing with the question: “What does Ukraine’s into Russia really mean?

Here is my contribution:

Ukraine’s invasion (of Kursk) was a major strategic blunder, which will accelerate its defeat. The key determinant of success in a war of attrition is the casualty-exchange ratio, not capturing territory, which Western commentators obsess over. The casualty-exchange ratio in the Kursk offensive decisively favors Russia for two reasons. First, it has caused relatively few Russian casualties because Ukraine’s army effectively overran undefended territory. Second, once alerted to the attack, Moscow quickly brought massive airpower to bear against the advancing Ukrainian troops, who were in the open and easy to strike. Unsurprisingly, the attacking forces lost many soldiers and a huge proportion of their equipment.

To make matters worse, Kyiv removed top-notch combat units from the front lines in eastern Ukraine — where they are desperately needed — and made them part of the Kursk strike force. This move is tilting the already lopsided casualty-exchange ratio on that critically important front further in Russia’s favor. It is no wonder — given what a foolish idea the Kursk incursion is — that the Russians were caught by surprise.

Here is the entire symposium:

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-kursk-incursion/

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martin

Aug 16

it would also be helpful to scrutinize psychology, words and deeds and strategic interests of the actual agressor empire.

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Clinton Alden

Clinton Alden's Substack

Aug 15

That would be the US that is at the root of the Ukraine-Russia war.

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Dr. Gerard Janco

Aug 15

Why do you continue to give excuses for Putin? How can you justify his invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and beyond. It is simply unforgivable. Why don't you look at the Shanghai Treaty Organization and see how they are planning to dominate East over West.

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David Gottfried

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Aug 15

A novel idea on the cause of this and so many wars

https://davidgottfried.substack.com/p/the-ogre-of-an-issue-neglected-in

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John Mensing

Aug 14

One wonders who benefits from the War in the Ukraine; who has benefited, who is likely to benefit in the future, and who could reasonably be expected to anticipate benefits should a conflict develop. China comes up smelling like roses on all counts. Historically, it has been the strategy of past dynasties to manage the area beyond their boundaries by, "getting the barbarian to fight the barbarian." If we look at the conflict as one between Russia and NATO, those are 2 barbarians the current Chinese dynasty would like to see fighting each other.

Now, there are indigenous reasons why America/NATO would want to provoke a war with Russia, and you rehearse those well. China's interests in goading what it terms "the Western Powers" into this action, and the degree to which China Joe was a subject of elite capture (like Mahinda Rajapaksa) aside, what I wanted to do here was introduce the concept that, at least from the Chinese perspective, both Russia and America were being played. Israel's role in the conflict has also been underappreciated.

Trump's tariffs hit China's economy, which was based on every-expanding growth margins in its export sector, hard. While those tariffs were long overdue from the standpoints of the U.S. manufacturing sector, human rights, and environmental and health standards, China's response -- both in terms of its influence on domestic US politics and societal health, and international matters -- has been very robust.

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Citizen Bitcoin

Aug 14

Nyet means nyet. It’s on Wikileaks

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Blissex

Aug 13·edited Aug 15

"Syrskyi, the present commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, recently said in an interview with The Guardian that Russia’s invasion force was only 100,000 strong. [...] Probably the best evidence that Putin was not seen as a serious threat during his first fourteen years in office is that he was an invited guest at the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, which is where the alliance announced that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually become members. [...] Russia’s military was judged to be too weak to stop further NATO enlargement, just as it had been too weak to stop the 1999 and 2004 waves of expansion. The West thought it could once again shove NATO expansion down Russia’s throat."

Here is the main flaw in the arguments by the "realist" tendency of Mearsheimer and others: that judgement (“again shove NATO expansion down Russia’s throat”) was correct.

The Russian Federation is indeed still too weak, and for something that Mearsheimer describes as a vital interest they could only commit 100,000 troops. The USA government turned many eastern European states into USA vassals and constantly fomented conflicts in the "near abroad" of the Russian Federation (the strategy known as "prometheism"), and that "gnat on the butt of an elephant" just sucked it up for decades.

So why does Mearsheimer calls a "disaster" the "realpolitk" strategy of taking advantage of the continuing weakness of the Russian Federation to keep surrounding it, provoking it and destabilizing it, which has worked well so far? The only reason I can imagine is the strategic nuclear forces, but the USA triggered the collapse of the USSR and then started looting it, and nothing happened. So the USA will keep telling the Russian Federation "what can you do about it, suckers?".

Note: I agree that the current situation is a (major and probably terminal) disaster for the ukrainians, but they do not matter to USA "realpolitik"; it is also a (minor) disaster for the russians, but that's precisely the point.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/12/war-of-the-worlds-begins-in-your-neighborhood-because-german-chancellor-merkel-has-just-declared-russia-was-never-pacified.html

Merkel said in Italian, in her interview with Corriere della Sera on December 27. That was: “We all knew that it was a frozen conflict, that the problem was not solved, but this gave Ukraine precious time … the Cold War never really ended because Russia was never pacified.”

That "was never pacified" means "never became a 'pax americana' vassal like the rest of us in Europe". It almost was "pacified" in the 1990s but then a (small) majority of the RF elites decided they were better off as an independent (small) power than as an USA vassal.

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Jamie

Aug 13

One can argue that the expansion of NATO was a major factor. However to then extrapolate that to argue that it caused the war to begin is a big ask. Putin wanted the territory. Don't be an apologist

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Blissex

Aug 13

«Putin wanted the territory»

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/vladimir-putin-turned-down-petro-poroshenko-offer-take-donbass-east-ukraine-1495181

"Poroshenko made the offer during a peace summit in Minsk in February 2015, Putin reportedly told a senior member of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs on 19 March. An anonymous source present at the closed door meeting revealed to Forbes Russian edition that Putin told the summit: "[Poroshenko] told me directly: 'Take the Donbass.' I replied: 'Are you out of your mind? I don't need the Donbass. If you don't need it, declare it independent.'" Poroshenko reportedly asked Putin to take financial responsibility for the region, where the city of Donetsk called itself a 'People's Republic' after the Maidan Revolution last year. Putin replied that the region was Kiev's financial responsibility, as long as it remained part of Ukraine."

https://www.thepostil.com/kharkov-and-mobilization/

"It should be remembered that until now, Vladimir Putin had always rejected the idea of integrating the territories of southern Ukraine into Russia. It should also be remembered that if the West were so committed to Ukraine and its territorial integrity, France and Germany would certainly have fulfilled their obligations under the Minsk Agreements before February 2022. Moreover, they would have let Zelensky proceed with his proposed agreement with Russia in March 2022."

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Blissex

Aug 13·edited Aug 13

Overall I suspect that in "realpolitik" the question "Who Caused the Ukraine War?" is quite pointless. My guess is that the USA new policy of "pivot to the Pacific" meant "containing mainland China" and it just happens that as Ukraine was the biggest buffer state for the Russian Federation, the Russian Federation itself (and secondarily Kazakhstan) is the biggest buffer state for mainland China. That is standard geopolitics.

Up to that point the Russian Federation was just "a gnat on the butt of the [USA] elephant", since then my guess is that the USA government goal is to use Ukraine, Georgia etc. to destabilize the Russian Federation (standard "domino theory" in "realpolitik") until a "color revolution" creates a new government that "invites" the DOD and CIA to build a chain of biolabs and bases near the chinese northern and western borders (as the new ukrainian government did after 2014 near the russian borders) to train and arm battalions of "freedom fighters" inside China to destabilize it. Again, that is standard "domino theory" in "realpolitik".

Everything else seems to me a series of pretexts to cover the very rational and sensible "realpolitik" strategy of the USA.

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Kenny P

Aug 13

3. During the Battle of Kyiv, Russia was 31 kilometers from the city center and about to capture the airport.

Clearly, they didn't have the resources for the 800+ day three day SMO they expected (they still don't and will collapse as a result), but that's clearly due to miscalculation. Otherwise, what was their objective? Particularly if as you claim they weren't planning a puppet government.

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Kenny P

Aug 13

2. What you're saying is there's a lack of a smoking gun regarding Putin grooming a Ukrainian Puppet government. What would constitute proof other than him introducing said puppet leader as "this guy, who I directly control and intend to make leader of Ukraine"

Can you honestly claim that there isn't ample precedent of Putin installing, or attempting to install puppet governments in similar operations (Chechnya, Crimea, Georgia). Would you claim Russia hadn't already tried this within Ukraine with Yanukovych and Yushchenko?

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Blissex

Aug 13

"Putin installing, or attempting to install puppet governments in similar operations (Chechnya"

Chenya is a region of the Russian Federation and the president of the RF can appoint governors of those regions.

"Crimea"

It looks as if Putin installed a puppet in Crimea before even becoming prime minister, never mind president. In 1994 Putin was a civil servant in the St. Petersburg local administration.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26681653

“Mr Meshkov was the first - and so far only - president of Crimea. He was elected in 1994, by a landslide, on a platform of reuniting the Ukrainian peninsula with Russia. Like an eager suitor, he hopped on a plane to Moscow… only to find his overtures to Boris Yeltsin rebuffed. The Russian president was far too concerned with building a relationship with the West to stir up the kind of trouble that annexing Crimea would have brought.”

"Georgia)"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-georgia-russia-opposition/saakashvili-planned-s-ossetia-invasion-ex-minister-idUSLD12378020080914

«PARIS (Reuters) - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had long planned a military strike to seize back the breakaway region of South Ossetia but executed it poorly, making it easy for Russia to retaliate, Saakashvili’s former defence minister said. [...] the United States was partly to blame for the war, having failed to check the ambitions of what he called a man with democratic failings.»

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/georgia/2524550/Russia-invades-Georgia-as-South-Ossetia-descends-towards-war.html

«5:13PM BST 08 Aug 2008

World leaders have appealed for a ceasefire in the conflict, which erupted after Georgia launched a huge offensive aimed at imposing its control over the rebel province with its large Russian population.»

BTW south Ossetia is not even ethnically russian, it is ethnically "iranian".

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Kenny P

Aug 13

1. Certainly, you can't prove Putin was "bent on conquering all of Ukraine", it's one of the countless statements one can either prove nor-disprove. Neither can we prove Hitler wanted to conquer all of Russia. Ultimately, I don't think it matters how much of a sovereign territory one intends to invade. Either way, the outcome is war. I'd argue that there's plenty of evidence that Putin wanted to end Ukraine's identity within his "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" (published before the SMO). Putin doesn't directly claim anything, that's the state media's job and there are plenty of examples of them claiming to conquer Ukraine in a matter of days...

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Benjamin Two N's

Aug 12

Russia. Nobody forced the Ukraine war except Russia

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Blissex

Aug 13

«Nobody forced the Ukraine war except Russia»

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/least-among-us-war-donbas-terrorizing-ukraines-most-vulnerable-citizens/

«The deep anger toward both Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (I was told by one young woman, a native of Donetsk, that “this is Poroshenko’s war”) and an equally deep sense of alienation from the Ukrainian state in Kiev are equally unmistakable. One young mother told us “there is no ‘back’ to Ukraine for Donbas.” If Poroshenko and his cheerleaders in the Obama administration and the US Congress believe that an economic blockade, Kiev’s deployment of snipers, the shelling of Donbas’s civilians and a proposal to send American weapons with which to facilitate the shelling is the recipe for winning eastern Ukrainian “hearts and minds” they couldn’t be more wrong. Yet, tellingly, this is the strategy Poroshenko himself laid out last November in a speech in which he declared: “Our children will go to schools and kindergartens, theirs will be holed up in the basements. Because they are not able to do a thing. This is exactly how we will win this war!” Well, he may have half the job done. The little children we saw are indeed cowering in filthy conditions in underground Soviet-era bomb shelters.»

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Otto

Aug 12

Why has it not been asked of NATO what harm would be caused to the West if Ukraine was not in NATO. Also if NATO is a defensive alliance what is it going to defend against - the only answer is Russia so reasons can be concocted to attack Russia. All this is so obvious that Russia has to be on guard against the warmongering West.

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Otto

Aug 12

Why has it not been asked of NATO what harm would be caused to the West if Ukraine was not in NATO. Also if NATO is a defensive alliance what is it going to defend against - the only answer is Russia so reasons can be concocted to attack Russia. All this is so obvious that Russia has to be on guard against the warmongering West.

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nsakun

nsakun’s Substack

Aug 11

the party line here is that there is no comparison between putin and netanyahu. japan has refused to invite russia, belorussia and israel to its commemoration of the bombing of its two cities. israel is complaining of course, not sure how russia responded. but i think you guys here should complain to japan. how dare they imply that putin and netanyahu are equally war criminals.

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Jess H. Brewer

Jess H. Brewer

Aug 10

While I concur with your assertion that US antipathy for Russia has played a role in causing this conflict, when you said, "FIRST, there is simply no evidence from before 24 February 2022 that Putin wanted to conquer Ukraine and incorporate it into Russia," I stopped reading. What, Crimea wasn't really part of Ukraine, so annexing it by force in 2014 and incorporating it into Russia "doesn't count" as evidence of such intent? Come on, John. Surely even your MAGA buddies must find that hard to swallow.

"Realpolitik" may appear to demand that good people do bad things for good reasons, but I think that if you do bad things you are not a good person, regardless of the reasons. Speaking only for myself, I have done bad things and I accept that this makes me a bad person; but I do not conclude that, as long as I'm already "bad", I might as well go do some more bad things. I use the "wincers" from my past to strengthen my resolve to do better in the future. No matter how bad you've been, you can still always get worse. Putin and Netanyahu and Trump are still getting worse, and they seem to be enjoying it.

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Mike Novakovic

Aug 10

Majority of Western intellectuals and MSM journalists never question US and NATO illegal war against Serbia in 1999 (then Yugoslavia) and subsequent annexation of Serbian Province of Kosovo and Metohija, which US and its NATO henchmen did on behalf of the Albanian armed separatists (branded in 1988 by USG as terrorists). It was later justified by Washington and Brussels that it was done under the pretext of preventing ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Kosovo' Albanian population from the province, ignoring the fact that massive exodus of Kosovo' Albanians into neighboring states started only after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia (including Serbia and Kosovo) commenced. Here we have situation that Russia initially was forced to intervene in 2014, not only to protect own national interests, but to respond to the massive pogroms against Russians in the East (remember a mass murder of Russian speakers and burning down of the Union building in Odessa by Ukrainian Neo-Nazis?) by assisting Russian speakers in Donbass and providing them with necessary logistics and material assistance to resist Ukrainian aggression. But, as Ukrainian ethnic cleansing continued, evolving into a real genocidal operation, and NATO resources started moving closer to the Russian border, Putin had no choice but to invade Ukraine, which he did with obvious hesitation. The fundamental difference here is- NATO attacked and annexed Kosovo on the false pretext, because the real victims and subject to the permanent ethnic cleansing, not only by Albanians but by NATO too, from Kosovo were not Albanians, but Kosovo' Serbs; While in Donbass only and the real victims of NATO proxy war and its Kiev' Nazi henchmen were ethnic Russians in Donbass. Even if it wasn't so as my subjective statement suggests here, in both cases one thing is very obvious, and that is- The Double Western Standards when comes to the universal respect of the internationally recognized borders of sovereign states...

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Blue Tara - Tarableu

Blue Tara

Aug 9

This man is a truly great American, and he has been telling the truth on this subject for many years. When the SMO started 15,000 Russian speakers (UN figs) in what was eastern Ukraine had been murdered by Kiev's Nazi Maidanistas since 2014. Who organised the Maidan? The EU and the CIA between them, of course - it's on the record. Had Clinton won in 2016 Europe would have been at war with Russia six years earlier - who remembers the massive NATO military "exercises" that spanned the border from the Baltic to the Black Sea that year? Our great nations of America and Britain have been betrayed by the treason of the globalist lickspittles we have allowed to take the reins of power. The truth is now emerging and we should all tremble at the chaos that the evil has brought with it. That good will prevail I have no doubt, but that may of us will suffer for that to happen looks inevitable.

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Stefan B.

Aug 9·edited Aug 10

Many people say that the western democracies have a crisis of representation. I'd rather say they have a crisis of representation of reality by the media. As an example, I can confirm that the spread of opinions in German newspapers has substantially narrowed when it comes to foreign policy, with criticism to NATO's and Germany's course limited to comparatively small newspapers and web sites that can be easily tagged as fringe, radical, negligible. Simultaneously in the last decade so called 'fact checkers' have popped up everywhere that are involved in this tagging. (I suppose one day we will know on which activities the billions are spent that NATO and the US devote to PsyOps. At least for some of the fact-checkers the Atlantic connections are plausible, but the picture is evasive. Of course advertising manipulation wouldn't help.) -- The result is that the government policies and their justifications are multiplied by the traditional media and by major internet media, while all other opinions are still out there, but some of them so diluted that ordinary citizens and consumers have a hard time finding them. Dilution is enough to make an argument or an opinion virtually disappear. It works much better than hard censorship. The decision of the EU to stop broadcasting Russia Today and prevent direct internet access, while not making the publications illegal is an example. You can still read and watch RT, but you would have to use a proxy, so you have to be a bit more tech-affine and think it worth while. We can be sure that the audience is effectively much smaller, and this dilution is enough for the purpose. Of course in the spirit this still contradicts the idea of the 'freedom of the press', but not literally. -- What would happen if the millions that swallow the main stream version of the Ukraine war read Mearsheimer? Under reasonable conditions I suppose many would change their minds, but would they still be willing to do this, if they have been 'inoculated' against any diverging view with the convictions that this must be Russia's doing etc.? The technique of 'prebunking' is also in the tool box of modern PsyOps. -- In the end I believe that John Mearsheimer's convincing analysis will be a building block of understanding what happened when it's over for some time. This is a rather sad perspective, but the one I'm left with. Not only philosophy but also political science is "like Minerva's owl that flies at dusk", alas. -- @ John M.: Thanks a lot. I am politically rather on the radical left, but I prefer realism very much to pseudo-left moralism and simplification. When I was in Ukraine shortly after the Orange Revolution, I was more aligned with the official version of events in western media, only to find a lot of evidence that this was not a genuine revolution but rather a first western attempt of a soft coup. The German press at the time loved to portray Yanukovich as a thug and Yushtshenko as a good guy with all the virtues we value. In an Odessa newspaper I read a column by Yushtshenko which very much reminded me of the strong blood-and-soil nationalism widespread in Europe by the end of the 19th century. So this was our guy. That Ukrainians voted again for Yanukovich hinted to the possibility that the election of 2004 hadn't been 'stolen'. Portraying Yanukovich as Russia's puppet also seems wrong given that he continued to negotiate with both sides. The US intention to draw Ukraine entirely to the Western side (i.e. NATO) is consistent with what happened since 2004.

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Sue

Sue’s Substack

Aug 9

(Please forgive me if this is a duplicate post)

Why are you not being listened to, or your perspective at least being represented, by the news sources I always thought I could trust: the NYT, WaPo and NPR? Why has Heather Cox-Richardson not paid attention to history as you lay it out? I’m very much on the Left politically, but I use my own common sense to see the logic in your views. My friends on the left have completely bought the Biden administration line, and I have even been accused online of being a Russian troll!

I have followed this conflict deeply, beyond what my news sources tell me to think, because it’s very personal for me. I live on the American side of the Bering Straits, and my life was fundamentally changed when the ice curtain between our countries thawed. I was part of the overwhelmingly enthralled community of people on both sides who built a Bridge of Friendship we thought would bring peace between our countries, and unite the long divided Beringia Region. There were even weekly scheduled flights from Nome to Provideniya, USSR for a few years, and exchanges between the cub scouts and the young pioneers, Rotary, artists, athletes, and most significantly the indigenous people whose families had been severed by the Cold War. Taxis and restaurants in Nome were accepting rubles!

So when my trusted, educated Russian friends said things like, Ukraine was asking for it, or referred to de-nazification, I felt compelled to research how they could think this way, when at first it seemed like crazy nonsense. And that is when I found Mearsheimer and Walt, and even very clear historic references in Wikipedia. And then the original NSA records being made public by a FOIA by Georgetown University. And my digging went on.

But why, John, is the left leaning media not engaging with you??? This baffles me and concerns me. Americans need to understand both perspectives on the Ukraine war before we can seriously push for some sort of resolution to the destruction of Ukraine which we are funding.

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James R Morrell

UkraineCompromise

Aug 8

It would be hard to improve on this presentation of facts and logic. The only thing one might add is that in its declarations of independence in 1990 and 1991, Ukraine pledged to be neutral and join no military bloc. Four months after the second declaration, voilà! Ukraine got its independence after 338 years of being effectively part of Russia.

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Istvan Prehoffer

Aug 7

Dear Professor Mearsheimer,

Let me share two thoughts in regards this subject.

1. While I agree with your arguments, I do not see any root cause analysis. To be specific: WHY this war was provoked. My theory on this is the following. US is sitting on the biggest state debt ever, 115% of GDP. Any other country would be instantly killed by "markets", credit rating companies, IMF, etc. US is different, being the biggest great power as of today on one hand and having the USD as "world currency" on the other hand. These two things allow literally endless financing capability regardless of state debt size. However, to sustain this capability, US needs to maintain the "world currency" status by ensuring global demand on USD. A strong EU-Russia-China alliance with CNY-EUR-RUB transactions would have seriously underminded such demand, consequently the capability of financing state debt. So a war in the heart of this alliance was a logical step, along with the secondary impact of generating a huge weapon business to US companies. That can also explain why US needs to be in a constant war, all around the world. So, while I fully agree Russia should be listened to when looking for a peace agreement, the financial problem of US should also be discussed to find a sustainable solution without the need for endless wars.

2. In terms of rounding the square in Ukraine, I have a proposal, inspired by the way US gained the territory of Alaska. Russia could offer 10 years (as an example) of crude oil and natural gas supply in exchange of the occupied territories. This could finance the reconstruction of Ukraine on one hand and offer a solution to Putyn that can be sold to his voters without loosing face on the other hand. They have plenty of oil and gas, not a big deal. Of course lot of preconditions had to be mutually met before getting to this deal.

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Hal Freeman

Aug 7

Excellent article. So thorough.

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Hal Freeman

Aug 7

Excellent article. So thorough.

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what'stheanti-matter

Aug 6

Your comment, as written, demonstrates Asian-phobia.

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Milan Syruček

Aug 6

A. Solženicyn napsal v roce 1998 knihu Rossija v obvale (Rusko v troskách) a stal se nejbližším Putinovým rádcem (nikoliv poradce, jichž je vždy více, ale rádcem). Kniha začíná slovy: Bůh žehnej Ukrajině, ale její neodpustitelnou chybou bylo, že chtěla svou nezávislost a samostatnost. Neboť byly vždy tři Ruska - Velká Rus, Bělorus a Malá Rus, což byla Ukrajina... To jsou kořeny ruské agrese, to ostatní jsou přidané hodnoty.

PhDr Milan Syruček

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Milan Syruček

Aug 6

A. Solženicyn napsal v roce 1998 knihu Rossija v obvale (Rusko v troskách) a stal se nejbližším Putinovým rádcem (nikoliv poradce, jichž je vždy více, ale rádcem). Kniha začíná slovy: Bůh žehnej Ukrajině, ale její neodpustitelnou chybou bylo, že chtěla svou nezávislost a samostatnost. Neboť byly vždy tři Ruska - Velká Rus, Bělorus a Malá Rus, což byla Ukrajina... To jsou kořeny ruské agrese, to ostatní jsou přidané hodnoty.

PhDr Milan Syruček

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Laurentiu Staicu

Aug 6

The Real Origins of Realpolitik

by Author(s): John Bew

https://nationalinterest.org/article/the-real-origins-realpolitik-9933?fbclid=IwY2xjawEerq9leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHc71fogPNwEUw6NuOAZQdk-yMdVPlB70-T7Nlfpyi2-X7f1Pu1_nfHBvpg_aem_ijKG62UKXybq_LacAOfNZw

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Swiss D

Aug 6

Dear Mr. Mearsheimer,

Thank you for sharing your insights and analysis.

As to the "why" the West did this, I postulate it was expected to weaken Russia after the invasion, sanctions ruining the economy, leading to Putin's overthrow, the break-up of the Russian Federation and the installation of western-leaning governments. To what end? To ring-fence China by depriving her of access to energy, food, weapons, other minerals, etc. in the expected Western pivot to Asia and potential future conflict and to wesken her economic development.

May I ask you to share your opinion on the above?

Thank you.

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Roslyn Ross

Roslyn’s Substack

Aug 6

Excellent overview. It does not say anything new to the well informed but clarifies it in a clear manner.

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P.S. Sonora

Collective Individual

Aug 6

Pretty convincing, Mr. Mearsheiemer!

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Eric Engle

OSINTBRIEF

Aug 6

I dunno Jacko maybe all that aviation flying over and burning up at Hostomel mighta clued even a geriatric dinosaur into the fact that Russia is engaged in an imperialist war of conquest but then again a trotskyite would never dare admit to being that let alone abusing class analysis so i give up professor who actually invaded whom got it trostky and zelenskiy were riding right into moscow on their secret jew banker hovertanks until the glorious drunk russians stopped them with genius tactics and you pathetic loser i am looking forward to ripping your "ideas" (lies) to shreds. remind the class of your 1990s plan to see a nuclear armed germany against a nuclear armed russia what could possibly have gone wrong with that plan genius

#greedoshotfirst

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H William Fogle Jr

Aug 6

He really got this right. HWF, Mesa AZ

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Sami

Aug 6

Thank you Professor Mearsheimer for your analysis. I tend to agree with your reasoning. There is one important angle to this conflict which I believe is sidelined and would appreciate your comments on it.

Does the supply of Russian gas to Europe and Nord Stream II enter into the root of this conflict?

Let me explain, when the joint project to build Nord Stream II started, the US was worried for whatever reason that this would lead to further European-Russian trade cooperation, bring Europe and Russia closer, and mitigate Europe's fear of Russia. This would reduce the American influence and hegemony over the continent. At first, the US and its allies tried to circumvent and scuttle the Nord Stream II project by proposing a natural gas pipeline from Qatar through Saudi Arabia and Syria to Turkey, thus removing Europe's dependence on Russian energy and keeping Europe's energy needs under American and British control.

Syria, being a close ally of Russia refused to participate in the project probably on advice from Russia. It was during the "Arab Spring", and hence lent itself to an attempt to overthrow the Syrian government and replace it with a government friendly with the West. This could also open the road for an Israel-Syrian peace agreement, a plus for the West.

The overthrow almost succeeded had it not been for the intervention of Russia and Iran. Nord Stream thus continued to be built with Merkel on board. With the fear of Russia replacing Western oil companies as the main supplier of energy to Europe, the US started circulating scare ideas: "Russia will ultimately weaponize the energy supply to Europe and hold it hostage", etc. Ukraine also stood to lose as Nord Stream II bypasses Ukraine and hence the royalties it was collecting.

Hence the stage was set for a war to stop the Nord Stream II project, and with Merkel gone, that was possible with weak leadership in Germany.

Stooping Nord Stream II was accomplished, and the war made Europe much more beholden to the US.

My question to you if you can kindly answer, "Is this a feasible scenario as a precursor to the war between Russia and Ukraine"?

I can also see the same things being done by the West to sabotage China's plan for the "Silk and Trade Road", by proposing an alternate road through Saudi Arabia and Israel.

I follow your interviews closely and enjoy them tremendously.

Thank you.

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TeroB

Aug 6

Jeff, the fact is that, once again, Western powers fomented and exacerbated long simmering tensions in multi-ethnic Yugoslavia to break it apart.

And when Milosevich wouldn’t capitulate to Western banks/power brokers, they used NATO to bomb some sense into them.

Fact.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UsRkqnFn8DA

P.S. Hillary Clinton’s first words to Billy-boy after the Lewinsky thing was to encourage him to bomb Serbia. That alone proves my point.

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Peter Jones

Peter Jones

Aug 6

Rent an appeaser...

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DocHollywood

Aug 6

. . .pretend that’s an argument.

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Peter Jones

Peter Jones

Aug 6

Well.. if the Kgb say Ukraine joining nato is an existential threat then it must be.

Not joining seems to have been an existential issue for Ukraine.

Remind me who lost the cold war..

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Donald Obama

Aug 6

Right, the Soviet Union disbanded, withdrew it's armies, and in response NATO expanded. A solution searching for a problem, and great, it got it the problem it was looking for.

But now they need to juggle sending bombs to butcher Palestinian children, "containing" China, and of course the great war of liberation of Europe from the new Russian empire. Oh I forgot there are some authoritarian regimes that need replacing in the Middle East...again...Oh no, not Saudi Arabia or the UAE - Iran and Syria. The first two or three times didn't work exactly as planned but third (or fourth) time is the charm.

Sorry citizen - paid parental leave is not in the budget this year - we need more nuclear warheads.

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OverFlowError

Aug 6

Revamping some of our nucs is a better use than what you suggest. And cheaper too.

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Donald Obama

Aug 9

The military budget when including the nuclear weapons under the DoE and the CIA black budget is over 1 trillion dollars per year. We have over 800 overseas military bases. And the prevailing sentiment in Congress and I guess amongst the public if you are representative is that is not enough. If we need even more military spending then we will presumably either increase the national debt unsustainably or cut social programs.

I don't know why you think we need more nuclear weapons instead of paid parental leave. But it's probably a good microcosm of the American mindset that it's more important to be able to inflict a nuclear holocaust than ensure a healthy family life.

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Ilkka Tahvanainen

Aug 6

Ecxellent executive summary.

Thanks John to make historical remarks so clear and condenced, easier for future historians to judge blindness of our time avoiding to take responsibility to seek peace and stop war mongering narrative industrialism.

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georeal

Aug 6

Thanks professor, very useful article. I signal two typos :

1) "On 17 December 2023, Putin sent a letter to both President Joe Biden and NATO chief Stoltenberg (...)": it's 2021, not 2023

2) "(...) as well as Putin’s comments on ending the war in his 14 June 2014 address (...)": it's 2024, not 2014, as written above

Best regards

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Kevin Flynn

Kevin’s Substack

Aug 6

This is going to be a little disjointed and a little bit rambling but it’s pertinent to the overall conversation and it relates to getting at the root of the problems we’re facing. - In a recent lecture at Notre Dame College John Mearsheimer mentioned the fact that individuals cannot agree on first principles. He also mentioned the fact that and war or the threat of war will not be taken off the table anytime soon. What’s interesting about these observations is that if you look at all of the people who are on John Mearsgeimer’s side of the fence when it comes to foreign policy among those who he identifies with our Daniel Davis and maybe to a lesser degree Douglas McGregor. What’s interesting is that although I could be wrong I think that Daniel Davis is religious, he also has some conspiratorial type tendencies, and he also likes Donald Trump. So this proves the point that while someone like John Mearsheimer and Daniel Davis can agree on some of the first principles they have they aren’t in agreement with everything across-the-board. And this brings me to my point, which is the fact that there are those people who are enlightened to the point where in my humble opinion what their opinion is is the best way forward. so in other words, even though there are those who would not agree on their first principles they are in fact exactly spot on about all of their observations and their recommendations as to both policy and how we should be conducting ourselves, both as nations and as a species. And this in part why I felt compelled to come up with my “course” because of my humble opinion my course lays out the best way forward. It is a comprehensive blueprint for what we need to do as a species if we are going to save ourselves from ourselves. Without sounding too self congratulatory, I think that what I’ve come up with makes for the basis for a very good political platform. It makes for the basis of a very good non-religious religion, and it also makes for a very good basis for the operating system of artificial intelligence, if artificial intelligence is to be aligned with that which is in the human race as a species best, most beneficial long-term interest. In the words of Daniel Schmachtenberger, the solution to all of the problems is the answer to all of the problems. And unless we’re willing to step back and try to identify the actual roots of all the political problems and the problems associated with the metacrisis, one will be continuously be engaged in an intellectual exercise of wack-a-mole. So the course that I’ve come up with is a one stop shop and it lays out the best way forward. If anyone would like to learn more about my “course” I’d be glad to share more about it.

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David Charles

David Charles’ Substack

Aug 6

Is this supposed to be a spoof?

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David Charles

David Charles’ Substack

Aug 5

The Russian military started there build up on the border in Spring 2021. They were massing troops along Ukraine, Crimean borders.

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David Charles

David Charles’ Substack

Aug 5

THEIR build up, rather.

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Blimbax

Aug 5

And what has NATO been doing, since at least 2014?

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David Charles

David Charles’ Substack

Aug 5

Spending OUR money.

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RemovedAug 6

Comment removed

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David Charles

David Charles’ Substack

Aug 6

Sir: I am not sure if I to contact you through a social media link sent to me.

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