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Did you miss the data i provided? The point here is trying to understand the motives behind the current Russia/Ukraine war without trying to justify it (i.e. "

Did you miss the data i provided? The point here is trying to understand the motives behind the current Russia/Ukraine war without trying to justify it (i.e. "don't shoot the messenger"). A geopolitical game was played between NATO and Russia with Ukraine as the sacrificial pawn. See also https://www.dawn.com/news/1677138/ukraine-crisis https://www.dawn.com/news/1677138/ukraine-crisis for some more data. The relevant research by the professor referenced in that article can be found at https://www.jrishifrinson.com/ https://www.jrishifrinson.com/. There is more; In one of his papers (George H.W.Bush: Conservative Realist as President) i read this: Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger observed in an accompanying memorandum, “It is in our interest to see the peaceful end of the Soviet Union as we have known it since 1917—a strong, totalitarian central government able to mobilize the vast human and material resources at its control. . . . The sine qua non for eliminating this threat is substantial devolution of economic and political power [emphasis added].” Even more direct was Secretary of the Treasury Nicholas Brady, who argued in a June 1991 meeting of senior policymakers that “A real reform program would turn [the Soviet Union] into a third-rate [military] power, which is what we want;” judging from their comments at this meeting, Baker, Scowcroft, and others seemed to accept this point of view. Put simply, the spread of freedom, liberty, and U.S. values into the Soviet space was normatively attractive, but it also carried starkly advantageous geopolitical consequences for the United States. It is well known that ever since Putin came to power, he has been on a mission to restore the "Russian Empire" by any means possible. One doesn't have to agree with it but it is what it is. You should now be able to connect the dots between NATO's actions/Putin's response and the resulting vicious cycle which has lead to this point; There is enough blame to go around.

jacquesm 5y ago
You can spend the rest of your life analyzing this, but the simple fact is that Russia was already on the skids and that Putin stays in power only because he is seen as strong and decisive. Being in a war pretty much guarantees that he gets to cling to power for the duration, and if successful for a long time after that. For the duration because nobody else wants to own the mess, and if not successful then he gets to exit stage left with a bullet in his head or to rot in jail in the Hague for the rest of his trial, and the rest can wash their hands of it by throwing him under the bus. All that conditional on him not trying to take the rest of the world with him because we've been witness to his fall from grace, something this personality type has a hard time dealing with, see 'Jim Jones'. Any motivation that I've seen so far is pretexts or historical stuff that has very little bearing on the situation between Ukraine and Russia since 2014, when it all materially changed. Clinging to the past isn't going to help you to understand the present, things can and do change and not everything can be justified by pointing to events from relatively long ago as inevitably leading to the present, there were many choices made along the way by various parties that had a tremendous effect on the outcome, and not all of those choices were large enough to make it into the history books. For instance: the operational readiness of the Russian army was substantially higher a decade ago than it is today, a consequence of replacing one Russian officer.
- rramadass 5y ago
  You have missed the point. History is exactly what you need to be aware of when dealing with Putin; he is bent on "righting" the "Wrongs" as he perceives it, whatever be the cost. Here is a relevant para from the Kissinger article; Putin should come to realize that, whatever his grievances, a policy of military impositions would produce another Cold War. For its part, the United States needs to avoid treating Russia as an aberrant to be patiently taught rules of conduct established by Washington. Putin is a serious strategist – on the premises of Russian history. Understanding U.S. values and psychology are not his strong suits. Nor has understanding Russian history and psychology been a strong point of U.S. policymakers. As i have argued, the US/EU are equally to blame for this mess; Putin is the Naked Aggressor while the US/EU roles have been more insidious. Ukrainians should take them to task for egging them on, promising support/help (since 2014) and delivering on none of them.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Ok, so let's just assume that this is 100% the fault of the EU so we can move past that. What do you propose to do? Stand by and watch while the world burns because we can all pretend it isn't us? Let Putin annex Ukraine, the Baltics next and Poland after that? Or do you think that it will stop with just Ukraine and that that's the price to pay for fuckups?
  - cmurf 5y ago
    This article has flaws. Just in the above portion alone: The rules of conduct were established by the Soviet Union too. They were a founding member of the United Nations, and a member of the League of Nations before that. As a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, Russia knows full well that this is a violation of the U.N. Charter - that no attempt at a peaceful resolution to the dispute was made because the dispute is entirely fabricated by Putin. He is a transparently unserious and untrustworthy person, and a revanchist pining away for the glory days of the USSR, while heading a kleptocracy to steal from anyone and everyone until his last breath. As bad as that is, in some sense I find it rather ordinary. What I find disappointing is the West's fixation on profit encouraged it to play footsie with a mob boss, as if it wouldn't one day have consequences. There have been dress rehearsals and speeches all along, by Putin, that draw a line directly to what we're witnessing today.
cmurf 5y ago
The only motive is Putin's vanity and greed. He's a revanchist, pining for the days of the USSR. He hates democracy because he's scared of it. He was in Dresden as a KGB officer when East Germany imploded, and attached himself to the idea of enriching himself at the expense of the Russian people, while being one of The Great Tsars of Russia. It has jack shit to do with feeling nervous about NATO. His own actions now prove that NATO expansion was exactly the right thing to do. Hindsight being 20/20 he is completely untrustworthy in all things, it was only wishful thinking and a dose of greed that the West coddled Putin as long as it has. And point in fact, probably would coddle him yet again if he pulled out of Ukraine before flattening it.

jacquesm 5y ago

You can spend the rest of your life analyzing this, but the simple fact is that Russia was already on the skids and that Putin stays in power only because he is seen as strong and decisive. Being in a war pretty much guarantees that he gets to cling to power for the duration, and if successful for a long time after that. For the duration because nobody else wants to own the mess, and if not successful then he gets to exit stage left with a bullet in his head or to rot in jail in the Hague for the rest of his trial, and the rest can wash their hands of it by throwing him under the bus. All that conditional on him not trying to take the rest of the world with him because we've been witness to his fall from grace, something this personality type has a hard time dealing with, see 'Jim Jones'. Any motivation that I've seen so far is pretexts or historical stuff that has very little bearing on the situation between Ukraine and Russia since 2014, when it all materially changed. Clinging to the past isn't going to help you to understand the present, things can and do change and not everything can be justified by pointing to events from relatively long ago as inevitably leading to the present, there were many choices made along the way by various parties that had a tremendous effect on the outcome, and not all of those choices were large enough to make it into the history books. For instance: the operational readiness of the Russian army was substantially higher a decade ago than it is today, a consequence of replacing one Russian officer.

rramadass 5y ago
You have missed the point. History is exactly what you need to be aware of when dealing with Putin; he is bent on "righting" the "Wrongs" as he perceives it, whatever be the cost. Here is a relevant para from the Kissinger article; Putin should come to realize that, whatever his grievances, a policy of military impositions would produce another Cold War. For its part, the United States needs to avoid treating Russia as an aberrant to be patiently taught rules of conduct established by Washington. Putin is a serious strategist – on the premises of Russian history. Understanding U.S. values and psychology are not his strong suits. Nor has understanding Russian history and psychology been a strong point of U.S. policymakers. As i have argued, the US/EU are equally to blame for this mess; Putin is the Naked Aggressor while the US/EU roles have been more insidious. Ukrainians should take them to task for egging them on, promising support/help (since 2014) and delivering on none of them.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Ok, so let's just assume that this is 100% the fault of the EU so we can move past that. What do you propose to do? Stand by and watch while the world burns because we can all pretend it isn't us? Let Putin annex Ukraine, the Baltics next and Poland after that? Or do you think that it will stop with just Ukraine and that that's the price to pay for fuckups?
- cmurf 5y ago
  This article has flaws. Just in the above portion alone: The rules of conduct were established by the Soviet Union too. They were a founding member of the United Nations, and a member of the League of Nations before that. As a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, Russia knows full well that this is a violation of the U.N. Charter - that no attempt at a peaceful resolution to the dispute was made because the dispute is entirely fabricated by Putin. He is a transparently unserious and untrustworthy person, and a revanchist pining away for the glory days of the USSR, while heading a kleptocracy to steal from anyone and everyone until his last breath. As bad as that is, in some sense I find it rather ordinary. What I find disappointing is the West's fixation on profit encouraged it to play footsie with a mob boss, as if it wouldn't one day have consequences. There have been dress rehearsals and speeches all along, by Putin, that draw a line directly to what we're witnessing today.

cmurf 5y ago

The only motive is Putin's vanity and greed. He's a revanchist, pining for the days of the USSR. He hates democracy because he's scared of it. He was in Dresden as a KGB officer when East Germany imploded, and attached himself to the idea of enriching himself at the expense of the Russian people, while being one of The Great Tsars of Russia. It has jack shit to do with feeling nervous about NATO. His own actions now prove that NATO expansion was exactly the right thing to do. Hindsight being 20/20 he is completely untrustworthy in all things, it was only wishful thinking and a dose of greed that the West coddled Putin as long as it has. And point in fact, probably would coddle him yet again if he pulled out of Ukraine before flattening it.