"Mearsheimer is a proponent of great-power politics—a school of realist international relations that assumes that, in a self-interested attempt to preserve national security, states will preëmptively act in anticipation of adversaries. For years, Mearsheimer has argued that the U.S., in pushing to expand nato eastward and establishing friendly relations with Ukraine, has increased the likelihood of war between nuclear-armed powers and laid the groundwork for Vladimir Putin’s aggressive position toward Ukraine. Indeed, in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, Mearsheimer wrote that “the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for this crisis.”
Are these thoughts valid or invalid, and why?
https://old.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/1drhxxh/john_mearsheimers_take_on_the_russoukrainian_war/
4 Comments
He’s not wrong in that Russia is acting as it is because of NATO expansion.
That’s a fact.
Russia however is solely responsible for choosing to use the brute force tactic of invasion, AKA why its former puppets and territories want to join NATO.
Does Mearsheimer hazard an analysis on *why* the West thought this expansion was necessary? According to his own theory, *something* must have caused it.
Could it possibly be something to do with the fact that Russia is not, in fact, a rational actor while it has Putin at the helm? Perhaps the whole Causcus mess? Dreams of old empire are not exactly rational.
Mearsheimer usually argues that China is the biggest threat and the highest priority and that it is better to let Ukraine fall back into Russia’s sphere of influence, and then use more or less loyal Russia to crush China, than to push Russia and China into a joint alliance and thus massively strengthen China against the rather insignificant gains in the form of Ukraine.
The kind of gaslit someone has to be to think that extending what’s practically a security guarantee could provoke someone to cause a war, unless that someone was planning or wanting the option to attack it at a later time.
Someone needs to ask him, if Putin publicly announces he wants to annex the entirety of Ukraine, should NATO directly respond to that, or lie down and pretend to enjoy for “peace”.