Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer

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Recommends labrador · 2022-01 · on “Russia says Ukraine talks hit 'dead end', Poland warns of risk of war”

I fully support the sovereignty of Ukraine, but I understand the Russian position from watching Prof. John Mearsheimer lectures, particularly this one: Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? [this video] John Mearsheimer John Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and international relations scholar, who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He has been described as the most influential realist of his generation. [LINK]

Recommends ivan_gammel · 2022-01 · on “U.S. weighs sending 5k troops to Eastern Europe to counter Russia”

Here’s a good explanation: [this video] In short, Russia has no intention to conquer Ukraine, but Russia has vital strategic interest there. With its actions it pursues to block eastwards expansion of NATO by wrecking the candidate states. At the same time, NATO policy is quite contradictory: Ukraine is not a vital strategic interest for USA, and thus NATO was not ready to fight for it in Donbass. At the same time they are happy to offer Article 5, which will oblige them to engage in the future conflicts in this area. Policy of open doors that NATO declares does not make much sense: by design it supposed to be a defensive alliance, not an empire, so why inviting countries which won’t really contr

Recommends Svettie · 2022-02 · on “Twitter based map of Russian troop movements”

I'm not "enlightened", and you can draw your own conclusions. But they don't have to annex Ukraine, they can just mess it up and cripple its military. At the least, Putin's stated aim is "demilitarization" of Ukraine. As for the comparison with the Baltic states, I would note that this entire situation evolved over decades. Perhaps Russia would have more strongly opposed NATO membership for the Baltics had it been in a more powerful position when that was happening. Perhaps they thought that NATO-expansion would stop there. A lot has happened in the past 3 decades and some patterns are much more clear now than they were back then. One that Putin has repeatedly pointed to is that the USA is c

Recommends bsd44 · 2022-02 · on “Cutting Russia off from SWIFT a “matter of days” – euro zone central banker”

If you want a short summary of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, I suggest this presentation/speech by John Mearsheimer - [this video] - he explains it really well.

Recommends ceilingcorner · 2022-02 · on “Ask HN: What do you read for a more objective view on the Russia-Ukraine war?”

I write all of this to help others understand the issue from multiple perspectives, not to justify or defend anyone. Here’s what I’ve learned in the last week or so. There is a good lecture on YouTube called Why Ukraine is the West’s Fault. [this video] Mearsheimer, a foreign policy expert of 50+ years, belongs to the “realist” school. I find his viewpoint helpful as it’s very much Machiavellian and not focused on demonizing the Other. I’m not sure how accurate his analysis is, but it seems worth looking at. [LINK] The gist is essentially this: - NATO, a Soviet-era military alliance, has continued to expand closer to Russia’s borders. Russia feels threatened by this. - Russia tried to join NATO i

Recommends rjzzleep · 2022-03 · on “Russia Cannot Win The War”

John Mearscheimer said the same in 2016[1]. Stephen Cohen apparently said the same. They don't need to "take" Ukraine. They just want it as a buffer zone. The Q/A at the end of John Mearscheimers talk is actually quite interesting. Ukraine is not of vital interested to the West. If it had been they would have integrated it into NATO already. They tried the same with Georgia and right away Russia attacked Georgia. More importantly he said that the west actually needs Russia against China, because once China becomes an actual threat it will become incomparable to any previous threat. Throwing Russia into China's arms over something that is not of vital interest to the US is insane. [1] [this video]

Recommends Barrera · 2022-03 · on “CISA: Shields Up”

> While there are no specific or credible cyber threats to the U.S. homeland at this time, Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, which has involved cyber-attacks on Ukrainian government and critical infrastructure organizations, may impact organizations both within and beyond the region. ... That word "unprovoked" is... loaded. Here's a definition: > (of an attack, or a display of aggression or emotion) not caused by anything done or said. Stepping out of the current climate, one might characterize NATO's relentless, creeping eastward expansion right up to Russia's border as something that might provoke a response. The Monroe Doctrine defines two entire continents as the US sphere of influe

Recommends wuschel · 2022-03 · on “Ukraine accepted to NATO cyber defence centre”

Thank you for your interesting line of thought. I do not know why you are downvoted - you have my upvote. I also think it is crucial to see the whole picture, and to take counter positions into account e.g. this [1] interesting talk by John Mearsheimer. It is not only Russia that lost its position in the world, the West has been playing contradictionary set of games in the last two decades as well: The events in Iraq and Afghanistan, the approach that outsourcing of production and technology for short term capital gains that was sold as an act that will bring the world together and not carry any risk in the form of a shift of industrial and military dominance. How did you come up with your p