[Rich]

I also wonder what would realists like Walt and Mearsheimer have to say about what Russia has been doing under Putin. One would think, if anything, it also has a security interest in joining the EU. Whatever happened to IR realism here? How can they explain Russia not joining the EU and then NATO?

While I'm very much in sympathy with your overall thrust on the irealism of realists, I dont't think the EU point is really fair. One of Meersheimers specific points is that the EU deal with the Ukraine completely cut Russia out. But more broadly I can assure you that there are plenty of people in Britain who have been committed to the destruction of the EU with far more passion than Putin. I personally supported Remain, but after Brexit what ever the "rationale" economic arguments, I think its hardly extremist of Putin not to want not become an EU vassal state.

And lets not forget who the real enemy was back in 2003. The enemy was France not Chirac's Russian side kick.

[Rugoz]

One of Meersheimers specific points is that the EU deal with the Ukraine completely cut Russia out.

Again, that bullshit about Russia having a right to dictate bilateral treaties between Ukraine and EU.

Russia has only itself to blame for being an economic backwater.

[Rancid]

The more I think about this, the more I think this Mearsheimers is probably a Putin agent. He can suck a dick.

[wat0n]

While I'm very much in sympathy with your overall thrust on the irealism of realists, I dont't think the EU point is really fair. One of Meersheimers specific points is that the EU deal with the Ukraine completely cut Russia out. But more broadly I can assure you that there are plenty of people in Britain who have been committed to the destruction of the EU with far more passion than Putin. I personally supported Remain, but after Brexit what ever the "rationale" economic arguments, I think its hardly extremist of Putin not to want not become an EU vassal state.

And lets not forget who the real enemy was back in 2003. The enemy was France not Chirac's Russian side kick.

Russia wouldn't be cut out if it were in the EU, though.

[Unthinking Majority]

His main argument is that NATO has an open-door policy that permits countries to apply for membership and that "liberals are at fault for this". But it is not just NATO that has an open-door policy, Russia's own security organization the CSTO also has an open-door policy as does the UN, the World Bank, the WTO and the EU.

He goes further, he blamed the 2008 NATO Summit and the statement produced at the time that "Ukraine and Georgia will not become members today but they might at some point in the future" as the reason why Putin has gone mad and attacked Georgia & Ukraine.

From the wikipedia page on this conflict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukr ... ry_buildup

In September 2021, Ukraine conducted military exercises with NATO forces. The Kremlin warned that NATO expanding military infrastructure in Ukraine would cross "red lines" for President Putin.[338] Also in September, up to 200,000 Russian troops were taking part in Zapad 2021, a large joint Russia-Belarussian military exercise, centered on what the Russian General Staff terms the Western strategic direction.[339][340]

On 13 November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Russia has again amassed 100,000 troops in the border area,[341] higher than the U.S. assessment of about 70,000.[342] In early November, reports of Russian military buildups prompted U.S. officials to warn the EU that Russia could be planning a potential invasion of Ukraine.[343][344] Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied allegations that Russia is preparing for a possible invasion of Ukraine.[345] He accused Ukraine of "planning aggressive actions against Donbass."[346] Peskov urged NATO to stop "concentrating a military fist" near Russia's borders and to stop arming Ukraine with modern weapons.[347]

On 30 November 2021, President Putin stated that an expansion of NATO's presence in Ukraine, especially the deployment of any long-range missiles capable of striking Moscow or missile defence systems similar to those in Romania and Poland, would be a "red line" issue for the Kremlin. He said that these missile-defense systems may be converted into launchers of offensive Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles.[348][349][350] NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated: "It's only Ukraine and 30 NATO allies that decide when Ukraine is ready to join NATO. Russia has no veto, Russia has no say, and Russia has no right to establish a sphere of influence to try to control their neighbors."

[noemon]

Training your troops for a war that's happened is borne out of real necessity. And as such is fair game.

Turkey openly threatens Hellenic sovereignty for militarising its islands but again it is borne out of the cassus belli of Turkey, when Turkey was friendly these islands were demilitarized and they will be again when Turkey becomes a normal neighbour and not an aggressor openly threatening and literally invading(it happened in waters in 2019 rather than on land and she lost the naval brawl) like Russia.

The same goes for Russia. When Russia learns to live with it's neighbors in peace, they will no longer have the need to train to face you down.

[Unthinking Majority]

I think the case of Ukraine has turned into a tug of war between the West and Russia/Putin. NATO/EU wants Ukraine to join, Russia doesn't want that so they try anything they can to prevent that. Putin will essentially use any tactics available to achieve his ends, including funding pro-Russian rebel groups, annexing Crimea, and supporting pro-Russian Ukraine leaders. Areas with ethnic and historical ties with Russia gives greater motivation and support for these moves.

Poland has joined NATO. NATO has stationed missile defense systems in Poland. Putin doesn't want that in Ukraine on its borders. We can assume the same in Georgia.

Obama didn't risk arming Ukraine so as to agitate Russia. Trump sent anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and helped in training their military, as has the UK. Biden has done the same. Election in 2019 of very pro-EU/NATO Zelensky creates more pressure for Putin. Given Putin sees Biden as less assertive on foreign policy than Trump, Putin sees an opening.

Again i would compare this to China getting friendly with Mexico and stationing weapons and training troops inside their borders. The US would make military moves against Mexico just as they threatened in Cuba. The US has the Monroe Doctrine which outright says no overseas country can militarize any country in the Western Hemisphere.

[wat0n]

Again i would compare this to China getting friendly with Mexico and stationing weapons and training troops inside their borders. The US would make military moves against Mexico just as they threatened in Cuba. The US has the Monroe Doctrine which outright says no overseas country can militarize any country in the Western Hemisphere.

The Russians already do that in Cuba. While I would not mind to see the US liberating the island, the fact is that it has not really prompted the US to do anything.

You could then point out the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, but the difference is in the term itself: 1) the US objective was to get rid of those missiles, 2) to do so the US had a big tantrum and provoked a crisis, it did not attempt to invade Cuba like the Russians are doing in Ukraine. For Russia, it would have made far more sense, then, to stage a crisis with NATO if that's the issue.

[Pants-of-dog]

Russia is not stationing weapons or training troops in Cuba.

[noemon]

And nor was anybody else in Ukraine until Russia started 2 wars in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, Russia is and has always been Cuba's military supplier.

[noemon]

Moscow’s irrationalism and the West’s tolerance

A Ukrainian serviceman takes a selfie standing on a destroyed Russian tank after Ukrainian forces overran a Russian position outside Kyiv, on March 31, just over a month after Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded the neighboring country. [AP]

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has, naturally, sparked widespread debate on the causes that drove it. One highly respected political scientist who addressed the issue some time ago is John Mearsheimer, an academic who shaped the field of international relations as we know it today.

In the fall of 2014, after Russia invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea and took control of part of the Donbas region, Mearsheimer published an essay in Foreign Affairs magazine holding the West and its strategic expansion of NATO responsible for the crisis. He also stressed that European Union expansion and Western support for democratic movements in Ukraine were instrumental in Russia’s military intervention. He went on to indicate that the 2014 overthrow of then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was tantamount to a coup, thus justifying the seizure of Crimea so it would not become a NATO naval base. For Mearsheimer, it was the West’s liberal delusions that provoked a reaction from Russian President Vladimir Putin, rendering it inevitable.

Like all the great theoretical approaches in international relations, realpolitik – of which the writers are proponents – is invaluable in explaining many things but also labors under contradictions. The argument explaining Russia’s stance, therefore, is based on a supposition that fails to stand up analytically and historically, ergo that the only thing Moscow wanted in the aftermath of the Cold War was a deal with NATO and it had no desire to regroup and expand its spheres of influence. This supposition, however, flies in the face of the fundamental tenet of “offensive realism,” which holds that in order to survive, great powers evolve into aggressive and violent power-maximizers who will not work with others when this means more power for their rivals. Nevertheless, Moscow started exerting hegemonic pressure on its immediate vicinity shortly after the Cold War ended. And under fear of this pressure, the majority of post-Soviet states turned to the West for synergies that would help them sever ties with Moscow and secure their independence. They knew that as soon as Russia got back on its feet, it would try to trample them. After all, in March 1992, when Russia carved up Moldova to establish Transnistria as a de facto state or when Russian forces invaded Abkhazia at around the same time, NATO expansion was not even under discussion.

We could, of course, understand Russian concerns about NATO expansion in the context of Cold War rivalries and the USSR’s ideological and, more importantly, strategic defeat. Perhaps, through this prism, the current leadership in Moscow views an expansion of the Alliance as a threat and an effort to surround Russia, given that its strategic mind-set is based on the assumption that Russia is vulnerable to invasion from the East and West because of its massive natural borders. This argument, however, is basically little more than a pretext, when the fact is that no one has threatened Russia; quite the opposite, the West tried to incorporate it into the post-Cold War world’s security architecture. If there were real cause to point to, it would probably be the tolerance shown by the West for Russia’s interventions in its immediate vicinity, in combination with China’s rise and the West’s relative decline, rather than NATO expansion.

There are various reasons and facts supporting this argument.

First, it made perfect political – if not moral – sense to allow the victorious Soviet Union to create spheres of influence in the aftermath of World War II; not so in 1990. Given the balance of power and geopolitical situation in 1990, it was no surprise that the countries of Eastern Europe would choose to side with the winners of the Cold War.

Second, Ukraine’s prospects of being included in NATO basically vanished in 2008, despite Kyiv’s efforts to revive them. And third, Russia had already invaded and split Ukraine in 2014 and had seized military control of areas it annexed, like Crimea, or declared independent, like a large chunk of Donbas, where Ukrainian authorities had no control whatsoever. After all, the onus of flouting the Minsk agreement weighed equally on both sides. Most importantly, though, Russia was not facing any actual threats. Even from the 1990s, the West had bolstered Russia both economically – with programs worth tens of billions of dollars and direct foreign investments – and strategically. Russia’s inclusion in the World Trade Organization, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Council of Europe and the G8 (without having the economic clout to justify it), along with the 1997 NATO-Russia cooperation and security agreement and the establishment of the NATO-Russia Council in 2002, with Putin’s signature, formed a very fundamental framework of cooperation and consultation. Washington and the Europeans did enough – though not everything – to include Russia in the post-Cold War architecture. If Russia’s exclusion and conflict had been the plan all along, Europe would never have allowed its energy security to be so reliant on Russia, and certainly not from 2005 onward, when the first Moscow-Kyiv energy crisis broke out and caused Europe to freeze.

Given its nuclear arsenal, Russia faces no immediate security threats. And this means that Moscow’s actions are driven by a desire to exert influence and control over the immediate vicinity

Fourth, it is true that the interventions in Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011, Kosovo’s independence in 2008 and the “color revolutions” aimed at establishing pro-American regimes in Georgia and Ukraine in 2003 and 2004, cultivated Putin’s belief that the West was taking advantage of Moscow’s weaknesses. He concluded that he could not trust the intentions of the Westerners and also that he had to do everything in his power to divide them. On the other hand, the West barely bothered Moscow when it was razing Chechnya or carving up Moldova and Georgia. Even over Crimea in 2014, the West’s reaction could be described as one of appeasement.

Fifth, Russia is still the world’s biggest nuclear power in terms of sheer quantity. It has more than 6,000 nuclear warheads, advanced ballistics technology, second- and even third-strike capabilities, and a relatively modern nuclear triad. The United States offered several deals that would exclude the Baltic countries from the deployment of ballistic missiles. The sure thing is that given its nuclear arsenal, Russia faces no immediate security threats. And this means that Moscow’s actions are driven by a desire to exert influence and control over the immediate vicinity.

In a recent interview, Mearsheimer argued that Putin “understands that he cannot conquer Ukraine and integrate it into a greater Russia.” This, however, is contradicted by the Russian president’s statement on February 21, three days before the invasion, according to which Ukraine has no right to regard itself as a sovereign and independent country.

In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia, claiming that Tbilisi had tried to recapture South Ossetia by force. Its invasion of Ukraine was not a reaction to any specific event, but the execution of a strategic plan. In his speech on February 21, Putin heralded the upcoming offensive. He made the – groundless – claim that Russian-speaking populations in the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Luhansk needed defending from the threat of “genocide” in order to justify their secession and recognition as independent. He also portrayed the invasion as an act of collective defense. The claim that Russian security was jeopardized by Ukraine’s potential NATO membership (which was refuted), was just a thinly veiled excuse. The February 24 invasion resembles an expansionist war. Moscow is carrying out war crimes against civilians as it aims to annex the Russian-speaking territories at the detriment of Ukraine’s sovereignty. It is fully responsible for the blatant violation of international law and it cancels out efforts by international institutions to maintain international peace.

For Mearsheimer – and this is yet another controversial point in his argument – Russia is more important than Europe. It is Russia, not Europe, that can help the US deal with the rise of China. However, his understanding disregards the structure of power. Europe, by any standard and in every aspect, has greater power than Moscow. Sure, a close relationship between China and Russia could create problems for the US, but only if a confrontation between Washington and Beijing is, again, seen as inevitable. In any case, as a junior partner of China, Russia will only have a small impact on this momentum. As far as the Indo-Pacific is concerned, India is infinitely more important for the US than Russia is.

However, even from a purely realist perspective, the invasion of Ukraine will not leave Moscow better off. Its security will not have been bolstered at the end of this. Moscow should expect to gain no tangible geopolitical benefit. The day after will find Russia weaker and the West more united and more determined to ramp up its security on the basis of a new dogma for the containment of Moscow. Unlike the time of the Cold War, when the West and the USSR were locked in a relative equilibrium, the balance of power is now overwhelmingly in the West’s favor.

According to all theoretical branches of political realism, the irrational player here is not the West but Putin. Lawrence Freedman has said that no matter the level of force it resorts to, Russia has launched an unwinnable war. Inside Russia, no credible analyst expected Putin to go to war given that he already controlled Crimea and Donbas. The reason was not that they did not comprehend the logic of a military campaign; in fact, it was exactly the opposite. There was absolutely no reason for this risk and the uncertainty of war. And they know that at least since the time of World War I, no war ended in a good way for the side that started the war (with the exception of liberation and anti-colonial uprisings). This is why, while believing that war cannot be eradicated from international politics, realist scholars believe that states are capable of collective learning. The Russian leadership tried to elevate a regional superpower into a global one; and it failed miserably. Now it will have to pay the price, in an environment that is even more volatile.

----------

Alexandros Diakopoulos is a retired vice admiral of the Hellenic Navy, a former national security adviser and a special consultant at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP); Professor Petros Liakouras teaches international law and heads the International and European Studies postgraduate program at the University of Piraeus; Kostas Ifantis is a professor of international relations at Panteion University and head of the Institute of International Relations (IDIS); and Constantinos Filis is the director of the Institute of Global Affairs (IGA) and an associate professor of international relations at the American College of Greece.

[ThirdTerm]

You could then point out the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, but the difference is in the term itself: 1) the US objective was to get rid of those missiles, 2) to do so the US had a big tantrum and provoked a crisis, it did not attempt to invade Cuba like the Russians are doing in Ukraine. For Russia, it would have made far more sense, then, to stage a crisis with NATO if that's the issue.

We used to pay careful attention to what the Russians think during the Cold War, because if you take a stick and you poke them in the eye, they’re going to retaliate. It all started in 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where NATO said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO. Ukraine is Russia's Cuba and turning Ukraine a pro-American liberal democracy is unacceptable for Moscow, let alone making it a NATO member, armed with nuclear missiles provided by the United States. To avert the current crisis in Ukraine, Biden should have backed down and ruled Ukraine's NATO membership out, which is similar to the Soviet removal of missiles from Cuba. To end the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev issued a public statement that Soviet missiles would be dismantled and removed from Cuba in 1962. Under the Monroe Doctrine, America will not allow countries in the Western hemisphere to decide what kind of foreign policy they have.

[wat0n]

We used to pay careful attention to what the Russians think during the Cold War, because if you take a stick and you poke them in the eye, they’re going to retaliate. It all started in 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where NATO said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO.

It started far earlier than that, in 1996 when Clinton said he wanted to include some former Warsaw Pact countries in NATO. Despite this, NATO and Russia themselves committed not to veto the actions of each other, and to recognize the right states have to form their alliances as they see fit by committing to respect the Helsinki Act of 1975, in 1997.

Ukraine is Russia's Cuba and turning Ukraine a pro-American liberal democracy is unacceptable for Moscow, let alone making it a NATO member, armed with nuclear missiles provided by the United States. To avert the current crisis in Ukraine, Biden should have backed down and ruled Ukraine's NATO membership out, which is similar to the Soviet removal of missiles from Cuba.

And yet NATO membership was not happening anytime soon. After 2008, NATO issued a declaration that Ukraine and Georgia could become a member "some time in the future", just like Turkey may join the EU "some time in the future" as well

To end the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev issued a public statement that Soviet missiles would be dismantled and removed from Cuba in 1962.

And that's because the US took this directly to the Soviets.

By the way, another thing NATO committed to in 1997 was not to station any nuclear missiles in the territory of new NATO members, which it has respected to the letter.

Under the Monroe Doctrine, America will not allow countries in the Western hemisphere to decide what kind of foreign policy they have.

Not really. The doctrine is about keeping Europeans out of the region, and the last time the US was unable to enforce it France occupied Mexico and Spain fought a war against Chile, Peru and Ecuador.

[Negotiator]

I dont get whats so awful about being a neutral country.

I dont remember Switzerland and Austria ever complaining about it. And why should they ?

And I wouldnt complain at all, rather rejoice, if Germany declared itself neutral as well, either.

In my opinion it would make my country MORE sovereign, instead of being constantly getting remote controlled by the USA.

Like with the current DOUBLING of the budget for the military. What the heck ?

Especially my current government literally consists by vast majority of transatlanticans - people who really work for the USA, not Germany. Thats why its even worse than the last one.

Not to mention its as least as incompetent than the last one, if not even worse.

Our foreign minister constantly gives me the impression she really shouldnt do anything more complex than working as a kindergardener. Thats really all her simple mind can actually handle. And we'll get all the years in school to repair the damage she leaves in children.

Yeesh. The moment Merkel is finally gone, I actually want her back. Because she would still be a big step up.

Of course what I actually want is a new Willy Brandt. Olof Palme. John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

[noemon]

I dont remember Switzerland and Austria ever complaining about it. :?: And why should they ? :?:

Indeed, why couldn't Putin permit Ukraine to be like Switzerland or Austria and let them sign the EU trade association agreement that all these countries including Russia have signed?

[JohnRawls]

John Mearsheimer is a well respected American academic and professor of International Relations who should be familiar to anyone who has studied the field. He’s no lefty and no anti-American, he’s a very logical guy.

His argument back in 2015 in the lecture below, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in early 2014, is that the West has driven Russia to make these military incursions. He argues that Ukraine is of vital strategic importance to Russia given that Ukraine has the largest border shared with Russia of any European country.

Mearsheimer says that NATO’s promises of expansion to add Ukraine and Georgia as NATO members is an existential security threat to Russia that they won’t tolerate. He compares it to Cuba when their turning communist and adding nukes on the island was seen as an existential threat to the USA that led the US to launch coup attemps and economic embargos etc. He compares Ukraine to if China decided to become allies with Canada or Mexico and stationed Chinese troops in the country, the US wouldn’t act kindly.

In early 2008 during a NATO summit, the Bucharest Declaration by NATO promised eventual NATO membership to the Ukraine and Georgia. This was threatening to Russia, and led to Russia’s military incursion of Georgia months later. Putin even names NATO expansion in Ukraine as his main reason for the current military invasion (see video below).

Mearsheimer also states in 2015 that Russia would rather break Ukraine rather than let NATO have it, and his prediction is now coming true. He also states that the optimal solution for the West is to make Ukraine a neutral buffer state, which I agree.

Mearsheimer is a fossil in a sense that he uses realpolitik to explain things. Basically he uses Russian thinking of zones of influence and so on, while it is valid to some degree if the situation was different, it is not valid right now since Europe doesn't use this thinking anymore. We are not planning to change our values to be inline with Russia nor are we planning to play the zones of influence and zero sum games. We are in the 22nd century and not in the 19th.

So his analysis about Russia is right to some degree to understand what Russia is thinking. But the problem is that Russia is thinking in that way instead of being a civilized country and not that Europe or US are the cause of the conflict. If Russia was a civilized state (China by the way also) then we wouldn't have this problem in the first place.

If you view state interaction and many other things as a realpolitik then conflict is enivitable and the only way to prevent it is power balance or MAD. Europe had no interest to play this game since we can use the money spent playing that game elsewhere like science, technology, healthcare and so on. But recently we changed our mind not because we want to but because we have to now. This doesn't change the fact though that we still won't use barbarian thinking like zones of influence and zero sum game politics.

[Rancid]

We are in the 22nd century and not in the 19th.

Spot on. Nations like Russia and China are stuck in the 19th century. Their aspirations are that of old school empires.

[JohnRawls]

Spot on. Nations like Russia and China are stuck in the 19th century. Their aspirations are that of old school empires.

Yes basically. Mearsheimer uses 19th century ideas to analyze Russian and Chinese thinking, there is nothing wrong with that. The problem is that he suggests Europe and US to use that thinking for decision making which is not acceptable since the values have changed already so much from the 19th-early 20th century pre ww2 paradigm that using his ideas would require us to go back to a different basic value set for our societies which for obvious reasons nobody is going to accept.

So in a sense he is right that from the Russian and Chinese perspective we are a threat if you use 19th century values but in reality we are not since we don't use the same thinking. We are not interested in zero sum games or zones of influence and the very basis of almost everything right now is turning zero sum game situations in to win-wins. You can't explain for example global warming to a person who thinks of zero sum game ideas since it will all boil down to you are asking me to loose so you can win so why would I do that? Same thing goes for just about anything be it basic contracts between companies and so on. It is really an ideology not fit for our times actually, because most importantly it needs to ignore such a process like Globalisation. Why exactly we build stuff all across the world instead in 1 country in the first place? That would make no sense at all with zero sum game ideas but we do it? So why?

[Fasces]

It's very easy to argue that international politics should be thought about in moral terms when the current international order is one with you at the top. You don't have to back far (even in 2010 the State Department was dominated by realpolitik thinkers) to see US foreign policy think in the same mindset. The real issue is that US foreign policy has, since Obama, become politicized and victim to the same culture war BS that plagues US domestic politics. Hardly enlightenment.

[Wellsy]

It’s my impression that Mearsheimer characterizes the US post cold war as one that is overly optimistic due to its hegemony and unipolaroty and thus naively lost sight of realist geopolitics because it didn’t have to concern itself with the interests of other countries opposing it. The whole end of history euphoria.

But for what limitations there are in realism on international relations, I don’t think it is somehow without merit as if we somehow got beyond the concerns of honor, fear, and interest since Thucydides.

It really seemed to me that people were moralizing about the damage done by the Russians to the Helsinki Accords, which is totally blown out by Russia’s incasion, but little to note of the geopolitical talking points of realists on why Russia would find the expansion of western influence whether through the EU or NATO intolerable along with a historical precedents for great anxiety over lack of geographical buffers. All this is side stepped with the disgust for the wrongs of the Russians in entirely disregarding the norms and rules of the institutions expanding east.

Can’t say I’m as knowledgble as many Europeans here but I did expect a lot more engagement with the long standing contention of many prominent thinkers in the west both in political positions and academic that the US nibbling off the pie crust of the old soviet union was heading for disaster in the post-cold war. I don’t readily see such a point challenged but foreclosed by the wrongs of Russia, which remain regardless but it just makes the west sound dangerously naive in its foreign policy.

The world seemed different and above such motives, until it isn’t of course. The peace was long lasting and real but has it in some sense been also a dream in tje same way one might established hegemony with a firm boot on the neck on ones enemy thus stability in ones interest until it boils over and rears an ugly underbelly.