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At the end of the day most people still have some sense of justice and morality (misguided or not.) In the interview, he could have acknowledged that these valu

At the end of the day most people still have some sense of justice and morality (misguided or not.) In the interview, he could have acknowledged that these values still exist and influence the decisions of individuals and countries, without at all compromising his (many good) points about the politics of the region. The people of Ukraine have overturned a fraudulent election, overthrown a president who betrayed his commitment to his people, and are now fighting tooth and nail to defend their country. But it's all 'just' power politics?

331c8c71 5y ago
> The people of Ukraine have ... overthrown a president ... It's more accurate to say that some ukranian people have ousted the president and let US decide whom to put in place The country was split nearly 50/50 between pro-us and pro-russian. Surely enough the second half was cancelled after the coup (change in language laws for instance).
- ManuelKiessling 5y ago
  If this is true, and 50% of the Ukrainian people see this operation as a liberation – why, then, are people fleeing west, not east?
  - 331c8c71 5y ago
    Of course russia is the aggressor now, and people are generally fleeing west. My estimate for maidan times is based on preceding elections where "pro-russian" yanukovich won by a small margin.
  - publicola1990 5y ago
    There is a good number of people fleeing east to Russia as well, even as per a report in the BBC yesterday.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  It was 50/50 before Russia annexed Crimea and started war in Donbass.
cpleppert 5y ago
>> The people of Ukraine have overturned a fraudulent election, overthrown a president who betrayed his commitment to his people, and are now fighting tooth and nail to defend their country. But it's all 'just' power politics? I'm not a fan of Mearsheimer here (he was wrong on whether Russia would go to war for one thing; for another, he extrapolates way too far in ascribing motives to Putin/Russia that he doesn't have evidence for) and I think states are generally security maximizing and not power maximizing. But Mearsheimer's book title of "The Tragedy of Great Power politics" is apt. Because the tragedy is that states have different interests than the well being of the people that live in them. I don't think pointing that out is immoral, quite the opposite; hard truths are still truths.

331c8c71 5y ago

> The people of Ukraine have ... overthrown a president ... It's more accurate to say that some ukranian people have ousted the president and let US decide whom to put in place The country was split nearly 50/50 between pro-us and pro-russian. Surely enough the second half was cancelled after the coup (change in language laws for instance).

ManuelKiessling 5y ago
If this is true, and 50% of the Ukrainian people see this operation as a liberation – why, then, are people fleeing west, not east?
- 331c8c71 5y ago
  Of course russia is the aggressor now, and people are generally fleeing west. My estimate for maidan times is based on preceding elections where "pro-russian" yanukovich won by a small margin.
- publicola1990 5y ago
  There is a good number of people fleeing east to Russia as well, even as per a report in the BBC yesterday.
KptMarchewa 5y ago
It was 50/50 before Russia annexed Crimea and started war in Donbass.

cpleppert 5y ago

>> The people of Ukraine have overturned a fraudulent election, overthrown a president who betrayed his commitment to his people, and are now fighting tooth and nail to defend their country. But it's all 'just' power politics? I'm not a fan of Mearsheimer here (he was wrong on whether Russia would go to war for one thing; for another, he extrapolates way too far in ascribing motives to Putin/Russia that he doesn't have evidence for) and I think states are generally security maximizing and not power maximizing. But Mearsheimer's book title of "The Tragedy of Great Power politics" is apt. Because the tragedy is that states have different interests than the well being of the people that live in them. I don't think pointing that out is immoral, quite the opposite; hard truths are still truths.