Interesting article. I think "The tragedy of great power politics" by Mearsheimer is a great book. It certainly seems to explain the last few hundred years of international relations pretty well. I don’t like it, but as you say, that’s just not the point.
You think the US loves freedom and democracy? US policy towards Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, the Saudi war against Yemen says no not really. The US loves balance of power politics. Freedom and democracy are buzzwords to keep the voters happy.
If you were Russian you might be as concerned about Ukraine joining NATO as the US was about nuclear weapons in Cuba in the 1960s. Imagine the US reaction if Mexico joined a China freedom and friendship pact and the Chinese troops started pouring in. Do you think the US would say, well, that’s democracy! I don’t. I think they would start with pressure, then threats and if they didn’t work create a pretext for invasion.
It’s the tragedy of great power politics. It isn’t right, but as Mearsheimer points out, let’s face up to reality.
You make a solid point however the issue with Cuba or the imagined Mexico-China pact is, those AREN'T democracy. strongman led countries don't have the reliability and stability of current Western democracies.
YouTube has been suggesting the same video to me for several months now, "Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer." Today I finally watched it, and it was a surprise. Though the lecture is from 2015, his remarks seem extraordinarily prescient.
And no, autocorrect, it is spelled "Mearsheimer," not "Meat shrimp."
3 days before the invasion, Mearsheimer said Putin wouldn’t invade because he was in such a good position, having sown discord in the west so well. Then Putin invaded, bringing the west together as it has never been in my lifetime. So, wrong on both counts.
Putin has openly dreamed aloud about the reconstruction of what was the Russian empire before it became the USSR. Just a few months before he invaded, he “coincidentally” closed down the Soldiers’ Mothers of St. Petersburg , a group keeping track of conscripts’ rights, just before throwing those conscripts into a war he didn’t tell them about.
Now, he’s shelling Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. That I’m-so-afraid-of-NATO excuse is not holding up very well; the “realistic” school doesn’t sound very realistic anymore. Jesse Singal’s approach—looking at Mearsheimer’s approach through the lens of agency—actually seems a lot more realistic, not to mention moral, but he doesn’t fit into your liberals vs. realists paradigm. Neither does Anne Applebaum, whom you mentioned. She’s center-right, and sounds a lot more “realistic” than Mearsheimer.
Putin's invasion of Ukraine might be easier to square with a pessimistic/realist model of rational (and unitary) state actors, but there's a case for a liberal/idealist/ideological explanation of Putin's behavior.
It doesn't sound like most Russians, even Russian analysts, seriously expected an invasion (https://twitter.com/antontroian/status/1496823707515379720), which is a bit strange if Putin's behavior was rationally calculated. If Putin's behavior was driven by incentives obvious to Russians, why didn't they seem to anticipate it? And Putin's position seemed pretty secure (https://policytensor.substack.com/p/who-has-the-highest-survival-probability). Where was the potential upside for him in pissing off basically everyone with interstate war?
"Putin sees Russia as besieged. He can’t comprehend that American troops in Estonia are there to protect Estonia; all he sees are American tanks 500 miles from Moscow.
...
I think Putin’s view of Russia’s security situation is completely wrong, but nonetheless: It’s his view."
Is it? Given that this view is so unreasonable, I'm not convinced that we should take his public statements as honest expressions of his beliefs. This view serves an important role as a framing for the Russian/global public and could provide cover for the more selfish reasons he may secretly hold. Getting this wrong may be fatal, as we can't negotiate with a man whose motivations we misjudge.
Can anyone here make a strong case for taking him literally?
This is a fair point. Putin has basically offered two public explanations for doing what he's doing: 1) He views NATO as aggressive and threatening to Russia, and 2) He believes Ukraine is historically part of Russia. I agree that we shouldn't take #1 at face value -- if #2 was the reason, you might offer up #1 as a rationalization. But I've read many other places that many people (not just Putin) in Russia's security apparatus see NATO's expansion as aggressive. For people stuck in the us-versus-them zero-sum mindset that I write about in this article, that seems plausible to me. So, I take your point that we have to take Putin's public statements with a grain of salt; perhaps if NATO had never expanded, he would be ginning up some other rationalization for invading Ukraine. But I think it's fairly clear that NATO expansion was processed in Russia in a very different way than many in the West expected, and one of the main points I'm trying to get at in this article is that we were probably somewhat blind to that.
This is certainly true and we may have had a blindspot there. But I think that a true realist should be concerned with understanding the guy who pulls the strings. And on that note, we should perhaps consider a third explanation: That even without the historical ties between Ukraine and Russia, Putin needs a conflict to present his strength and to make himself look indispensable to the Russian electorate.
I understand that this doesn't challenge the core of your article, but I think it's worth highlighting that the "NATO is threatening to Russia"-crowd may get too much credit among the realists.
Most Ukrainians would say that, from a historical standpoint, Russia is part of Ukraine. It was called the Kievan-Rus-the state expanded from Ukraine, not the other way around-the Ukrainians are the original Slavic people, while the Russians were getting raped by Vikings as part of the mix…..
I can't really agree with you there. To the average Russian, this may make sense. To Putin, who must be aware of his role as an agressor in Georgia, Crimea, etc., it must be clear that eastern European countries want to join NATO out of fear of Russia. The easiest way to avoid an expansion of NATO to the east is to leave eastern European countries alone, wouldn't you agree? And if yes, do you think that Putin is unaware of this?
I'm aware of that and I do believe that his attitude is influenced to some degree by his perception of history. But the examples I'm thinking of (Crimea, etc.) are cases where he was the leader of the invading country. When it comes to recent history, he is not like the average Russian who has to construct an explanation for why things happened. He is the guy in the driver seat. He knows exactly how things went down. Do you think that he believes that there is no reason to be afraid of him after he annexed a neighbour country's territory? This would be fairly delusional, don't you think?
Bit late to come back this after nearly six days or so - sorry.
Your belief, from the given examples, is that Putin knows he is the aggressor, and it would be delusional for him to believe otherwise.
From Putin's point of view, he isn't the aggressor at all. He's a fine, upstanding defender of Mother Russia and her peoples, and therefore not delusional at all.
The US has a key Trump card-no pun intended-that it could have played, but chose not to, thanks to D woke environmental panic. The US, under Brandon, went from being an energy exporter to an energy importer, through voluntary impediments on pipelines, federal drilling leases, etc. The only way to affect Putin is to hit him in the petroleum/natural gas sector-and Brandon, Kerry, etc-refuse to do that. So as a first generation American of Ukrainian descent on one side of my family-thanks a lot a Dems!!
The source, Erickson, doesn't strike me as super reliable (https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1067478038558969856) but that aside, the EU's growth in wind and solar generation over the last decade has roughly matched its cuts to fossil-fuel generation — and those fossil-fuel cuts came from phasing out coal much more than gas or oil. And generation from wind and solar didn't blink going into winter; in July they produced 42 TWh and in December they produced 47 TWh. See the charts at https://ember-climate.org/project/european-electricity-review-2022/.
I don't read the LP blog as saying the same thing; dropping the environmentalist-blaming turns the implied conclusion on its head. If the issue isn't environmentalists forcing a switch-over to allegedly flaky wind and solar, but is instead that Europe just relies too much on Russian gas, then the problem seems to be too little switching to non-fossil energy, not too much switching!
My thought is that your statement is 100% correct. Germany knows they are freezing w/out Putin’s natural gas-and never took any steps to encourage the USA as an alternate supplier.
Interesting article. I think "The tragedy of great power politics" by Mearsheimer is a great book. It certainly seems to explain the last few hundred years of international relations pretty well. I don’t like it, but as you say, that’s just not the point.
You think the US loves freedom and democracy? US policy towards Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, the Saudi war against Yemen says no not really. The US loves balance of power politics. Freedom and democracy are buzzwords to keep the voters happy.
If you were Russian you might be as concerned about Ukraine joining NATO as the US was about nuclear weapons in Cuba in the 1960s. Imagine the US reaction if Mexico joined a China freedom and friendship pact and the Chinese troops started pouring in. Do you think the US would say, well, that’s democracy! I don’t. I think they would start with pressure, then threats and if they didn’t work create a pretext for invasion.
It’s the tragedy of great power politics. It isn’t right, but as Mearsheimer points out, let’s face up to reality.
You make a solid point however the issue with Cuba or the imagined Mexico-China pact is, those AREN'T democracy. strongman led countries don't have the reliability and stability of current Western democracies.
YouTube has been suggesting the same video to me for several months now, "Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer." Today I finally watched it, and it was a surprise. Though the lecture is from 2015, his remarks seem extraordinarily prescient.
And no, autocorrect, it is spelled "Mearsheimer," not "Meat shrimp."
Nearly sure you and I were in Mearshimer's class together.
3 days before the invasion, Mearsheimer said Putin wouldn’t invade because he was in such a good position, having sown discord in the west so well. Then Putin invaded, bringing the west together as it has never been in my lifetime. So, wrong on both counts.
Putin has openly dreamed aloud about the reconstruction of what was the Russian empire before it became the USSR. Just a few months before he invaded, he “coincidentally” closed down the Soldiers’ Mothers of St. Petersburg , a group keeping track of conscripts’ rights, just before throwing those conscripts into a war he didn’t tell them about.
Now, he’s shelling Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. That I’m-so-afraid-of-NATO excuse is not holding up very well; the “realistic” school doesn’t sound very realistic anymore. Jesse Singal’s approach—looking at Mearsheimer’s approach through the lens of agency—actually seems a lot more realistic, not to mention moral, but he doesn’t fit into your liberals vs. realists paradigm. Neither does Anne Applebaum, whom you mentioned. She’s center-right, and sounds a lot more “realistic” than Mearsheimer.
Never mind Belgium, aren't we overdue for Switzerland's once-a-decade invasion of Liechtenstein? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein%E2%80%93Switzerland_relations#Incidents_involving_the_Swiss_military)
Putin's invasion of Ukraine might be easier to square with a pessimistic/realist model of rational (and unitary) state actors, but there's a case for a liberal/idealist/ideological explanation of Putin's behavior.
It doesn't sound like most Russians, even Russian analysts, seriously expected an invasion (https://twitter.com/antontroian/status/1496823707515379720), which is a bit strange if Putin's behavior was rationally calculated. If Putin's behavior was driven by incentives obvious to Russians, why didn't they seem to anticipate it? And Putin's position seemed pretty secure (https://policytensor.substack.com/p/who-has-the-highest-survival-probability). Where was the potential upside for him in pissing off basically everyone with interstate war?
"Putin sees Russia as besieged. He can’t comprehend that American troops in Estonia are there to protect Estonia; all he sees are American tanks 500 miles from Moscow.
...
I think Putin’s view of Russia’s security situation is completely wrong, but nonetheless: It’s his view."
Is it? Given that this view is so unreasonable, I'm not convinced that we should take his public statements as honest expressions of his beliefs. This view serves an important role as a framing for the Russian/global public and could provide cover for the more selfish reasons he may secretly hold. Getting this wrong may be fatal, as we can't negotiate with a man whose motivations we misjudge.
Can anyone here make a strong case for taking him literally?
This is a fair point. Putin has basically offered two public explanations for doing what he's doing: 1) He views NATO as aggressive and threatening to Russia, and 2) He believes Ukraine is historically part of Russia. I agree that we shouldn't take #1 at face value -- if #2 was the reason, you might offer up #1 as a rationalization. But I've read many other places that many people (not just Putin) in Russia's security apparatus see NATO's expansion as aggressive. For people stuck in the us-versus-them zero-sum mindset that I write about in this article, that seems plausible to me. So, I take your point that we have to take Putin's public statements with a grain of salt; perhaps if NATO had never expanded, he would be ginning up some other rationalization for invading Ukraine. But I think it's fairly clear that NATO expansion was processed in Russia in a very different way than many in the West expected, and one of the main points I'm trying to get at in this article is that we were probably somewhat blind to that.
This is certainly true and we may have had a blindspot there. But I think that a true realist should be concerned with understanding the guy who pulls the strings. And on that note, we should perhaps consider a third explanation: That even without the historical ties between Ukraine and Russia, Putin needs a conflict to present his strength and to make himself look indispensable to the Russian electorate.
I understand that this doesn't challenge the core of your article, but I think it's worth highlighting that the "NATO is threatening to Russia"-crowd may get too much credit among the realists.
Most Ukrainians would say that, from a historical standpoint, Russia is part of Ukraine. It was called the Kievan-Rus-the state expanded from Ukraine, not the other way around-the Ukrainians are the original Slavic people, while the Russians were getting raped by Vikings as part of the mix…..
It's not an unreasonable view, if you're Russian.
Bad things happen to Mother Russia, when it gets attacked from it's western borders.
Napoleon, Germany v1.0, Germany v2.0.
And there are sod all geographical barriers in the way.
I can't really agree with you there. To the average Russian, this may make sense. To Putin, who must be aware of his role as an agressor in Georgia, Crimea, etc., it must be clear that eastern European countries want to join NATO out of fear of Russia. The easiest way to avoid an expansion of NATO to the east is to leave eastern European countries alone, wouldn't you agree? And if yes, do you think that Putin is unaware of this?
Putin grew up in the same environment as the average Russian.
So, pick a series of events after, ooh, 1975 say, and for each - how old was Putin?
Iranian Hostage Crisis, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Able Archer, Yeltsin standing on a tank...
He may "know" it - he doesn't necessarily believe it.
Further, where was the Russian Empire developing from the 18th century? They brushed up against the Ottomans a few times.
Putin has made reference to Russian history before now.
I'm aware of that and I do believe that his attitude is influenced to some degree by his perception of history. But the examples I'm thinking of (Crimea, etc.) are cases where he was the leader of the invading country. When it comes to recent history, he is not like the average Russian who has to construct an explanation for why things happened. He is the guy in the driver seat. He knows exactly how things went down. Do you think that he believes that there is no reason to be afraid of him after he annexed a neighbour country's territory? This would be fairly delusional, don't you think?
Bit late to come back this after nearly six days or so - sorry.
Your belief, from the given examples, is that Putin knows he is the aggressor, and it would be delusional for him to believe otherwise.
From Putin's point of view, he isn't the aggressor at all. He's a fine, upstanding defender of Mother Russia and her peoples, and therefore not delusional at all.
The US has a key Trump card-no pun intended-that it could have played, but chose not to, thanks to D woke environmental panic. The US, under Brandon, went from being an energy exporter to an energy importer, through voluntary impediments on pipelines, federal drilling leases, etc. The only way to affect Putin is to hit him in the petroleum/natural gas sector-and Brandon, Kerry, etc-refuse to do that. So as a first generation American of Ukrainian descent on one side of my family-thanks a lot a Dems!!
Wait what? A rush to green energy has created dependence on Russian gas and oil? That sounds counterintuitive.
The source, Erickson, doesn't strike me as super reliable (https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1067478038558969856) but that aside, the EU's growth in wind and solar generation over the last decade has roughly matched its cuts to fossil-fuel generation — and those fossil-fuel cuts came from phasing out coal much more than gas or oil. And generation from wind and solar didn't blink going into winter; in July they produced 42 TWh and in December they produced 47 TWh. See the charts at https://ember-climate.org/project/european-electricity-review-2022/.
I don't read the LP blog as saying the same thing; dropping the environmentalist-blaming turns the implied conclusion on its head. If the issue isn't environmentalists forcing a switch-over to allegedly flaky wind and solar, but is instead that Europe just relies too much on Russian gas, then the problem seems to be too little switching to non-fossil energy, not too much switching!
My thought is that your statement is 100% correct. Germany knows they are freezing w/out Putin’s natural gas-and never took any steps to encourage the USA as an alternate supplier.