> Either Ukrainians have a right to self-determination, or no one does.
Cuba decided to allow the Soviets to deploy nuclear weapons on their soil. Don't they also have that right?
This "self-determination" argument is both hopelessly naive and inconsistently applied. Somehow it applies to Ukraine joining NATO (despite that being a massive destabilizing influence to the world's largest nuclear power) but doesn't apply to, say, Palestine.
As further evidence of how dangerous this rhetoric was and is, Biden has repeatedly stated that the United States will not put boots on the ground in Ukraine. Why? Because that would put nuclear powers in direct conflict, which is a recipe for disaster. This was always the case and the US and NATO were never going to come to Ukraine's aid so dangling that unrealistic possiblity filled Ukraine with false hope and provoked Russia.
For the interventionist hawks in the US, this invasion is in many ways a "win". The defence industry gets to sell a lot of guns and Russia gets mired in (their) Afghanistan 2.0 that may well end Russia through protracted insurgency.
Too bad a whole bunch of Ukrainians will die in the process and the country will be wrecked. But hey, things are looking up for Lockheed stock.
>Cuba decided to allow the Soviets to deploy nuclear weapons on their soil. Don't they also have that right?
This was before 1997, when NATO and Russia signed the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, stating the "aim of creating in Europe a common space of security and stability, without dividing lines or spheres of influence limiting the sovereignty of any state."
The embargo on Cuba has been a humanitarian and political disaster, and I think a position of respecting Cuban sovereignty is more widespread than you'd expect. The West has tons of dirty laundry, but it doesn't negate Russia waging a war of conquest.
> Cuba decided to allow the Soviets to deploy nuclear weapons on their soil. Don't they also have that right?
Of course they do. They did exercise that right, didn’t they? But the US had the right to be concerned about that too, and the USSR cared more about striking a deal with the US than accommodating Cuba.
> This was always the case and the US and NATO were never going to come to Ukraine's aid so dangling that unrealistic possiblity filled Ukraine with false hope and provoked Russia.
You mentioned right above that Biden was clear that there would be no US force in Ukraine. So where is the false hope? NATO membership would take years to materialize. And Russia was provoked? Give me a break. Russia has been provoking, meddling with other countries, bullying smaller neighbors, annexing Crimea. It’s beyond absurd to say Russia is a victim. Russia consider themselves a superpower and have the right over their neighbors regardless of their desire. Simple as that.
Absolutely correct. The idea that Putin or Russia is somehow 'threatened' by NATO is just wrong. Putin only doesn't want Ukraine in NATO because then he wouldn't be able to take over Ukraine.
I fail to see any credible alternative to "dangling NATO membership". It's the eastern european countries themselves with historical experience with Russia that clamored for NATO membership. In the US there are many influential children of eastern european immigrants that saw it as necessity too.
Even if it was possible to leave these countries in the cold "stfu we must not anger russia" that would do no good either, many of them would likely fail under such "denied future" circumstances.
> I fail to see any credible alternative to "dangling NATO membership".
You mean other than a policy of neutrality, much like Switzerland and Finland (and, to a lesser extent, Ireland) have pursued?
This would mean training a defensive army with the clear message that the cost of invasion would be so high as to dissuade such imperialist endeavours. The Swiss developed this half a century ago [1].
Switzerland is highly mountainous and 2 out of its 3 big neighbors historically could not agree with anything the others proposed, which most likely meant that at least 1 of them would support the Swiss against the other 2 (at most) invaders.
Scaling Swiss neutrality worldwide is unrealistic.
Most countries don't have these kinds of luxuries.
The Swiss and Finnish geographies are uniquely suited to holding out against a much larger force. Ukraine has to try to do that now, but that doesn't make it a good strategy for them to have planned on.
(The other thing that makes Swiss neutrality work is that the bulk of the resources that they have that matter are human, and therefore hard to claim when conquered.)
Don't cherry pick - Yugoslavia initially pursued it, too. And there are similar ethnic/religious tensions all over eastern europe, but they were not acted upon when western integration was available.
> I still believe that reckless foreign policy by the United States in particular, starting with dangling NATO membership to Ukraine in 2008 that has persisted through 4 administrations, is the root cause of this crisis.
Only the mind of one already set on conquering his neighbors could see an invitation to join an exclusively-defensive alliance as an existential threat.
At this point, it's obvious to any country that borders Russia that it's either join NATO or be absorbed in one way or another. If Ukraine falls, it's on to Moldova or Georgia. He already has his pretext provinces ready to go.
This is another myth that needs to die. I'll give three examples:
1. NATO bombing of Kosovo;
2. NATO invasion of Libya; and
3. NATO has strategic nuclear weapons.
Even if you ignore those real examples of aggression, from an adversary's perspective, the only difference between NATO being "defensive" and "aggressive" is a policy change or even just stretching the definition of "defensive" to include preemptive military action in other countries.
I agree with others, blaming the invasion on the expansion of NATO is victim blaming. Russia was and is a credible threat to these nations. Otherwise they would not have felt the need to join NATO and get its protection. Historically Russia has treated these eastern european nations as its property to lord over. This is true now, was true during the Soviet era and was true in the imperial era as well.
This is an old and deep rooted notion of what Russia considers its sphere of influence and vassal states. It goes so far that almost as soon as they came to power the Soviets set about bringing the former vassal states of imperial Russia back under their control. They invaded Poland in 1918. Of course it should go without saying they also joined Nazi Germany in conquering Poland in 1939 and after WW2 quickly moved to bring all of eastern europe fully under their control. Finland managed to remain independent after two costly wars with them.
Many of these nations see NATO membership as essential to their survival. If anything the last week proved them right. If you don't join NATO then Russia will eventually try to conquer you again.
>US interventionist foreign policy, despite its terrible track record, has really put European security and US interests at risk
Isn't it the opposite? It may be too early to tell but NATO is reinvigorated, Europe is once again turned back towards the Atlantic faction, Russia's economy is faltering, Ukraine is out performing what anyone expected militarily and Russia's army looks shambolic.
I have seen that video linked often in past month and it seems like Mearsheimer's biggest miss was how weak Russia truly is and how irrational Putin may act. If we expect Russia to fiercely defend its interest in Ukraine as IR realists then shouldn't we also expect the US to use Ukraine to twist the knife in the current Russian state?
> Europe is once again turned back towards the Atlantic faction
Pardon, but in the last couple of years it was the United States that gave off more than one signal that they felt that NATO was outdated and that it would be each for themselves from now on. The EU response to that was to form a European military alliance.
The United States gave off more than one signal that their NATO allies (particularly Germany) should stop violating the written agreement and spend the required 2% of GDP on defense. Some of our European allies were just freeloaders, taking advantage of US security guarantees without contributing any meaningful capabilities in return.
This sharing of video by Kremlin apologist needs to stop.
Why Westerners have so much taste for Russian state propaganda?
If something is “logical”, doesn’t mean that it is true.
Russia has tried to subdue Ukraine since Putin came to power, courting Ukrainian political parties at least since 2002. When “soft” approach failed miserably in 2014, he went for military interventions.
It doesn’t matter what West was doing at the time, picturing every political development in Ukraine as a result of Western interference is really it’s own way of saying - “Ukrainians are stupid and all their political life is just a proxy for competing foreign powers”
