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My problem with Mearsheimer and the other realists is they have a very poor explanation why the status quo changes. Yes great power competition explains why ten

by bbatha 5y ago

My problem with Mearsheimer and the other realists is they have a very poor explanation why the status quo changes. Yes great power competition explains why tensions are high but does little explain why and when they spill over to war. Notably absent from this article is any discussion of "why now?". Commenters in the thread are saying that his 2015 article on the subject could be written last week. That's precisely the issue. Why did Russia raise the stakes in December? Sure, NATO's eastward push has demonstrably increased tensions but the eastward push has been frozen since about 2014 since countries can't join NATO if they have territorial conflicts. If anything tensions should have been easing with a new, slightly more Russia friendly, German Chancellor, the nearing completion of NordStream2 and President Zelsynsky ran on a platform of improved relations with Moscow. If you just look at the independent variables you inevitably are going to make conclusions from ideology rather than testing hypothesis. This type of article is the international relations equivalent off economists have predicted 5 of the last 3 recessions. You can also see this weakness play out in Mearshimer's answers to journalists questions about the agency of Ukrainians in this article. He dodges the question and points to a speech from George W Bush in 2008, which was 15 years and 3 presidents ago, and prior to the current Ukrainian regime. In contrast he can't explain why the Baltics entering NATO did not trigger the same reaction. If we're going to look at history we can't ignore that these Eastern European Countries have endogenous reasons for joining NATO including the USSR and then Russia's long history of invading those countries.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> since countries can't join NATO if they have territorial conflicts This rule... isn't. Heck, countries have been admitted to NATO with ongoing territorial disputes with NATO countries.
- empressplay 5y ago
  Right, so NATO could have decided to admit Ukraine at any time and then immediately attempt to force Russia out of Crimea, a scenario which I expect kept Putin awake at night.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Right, so NATO could have decided to admit Ukraine at any time and then immediately attempt to force Russia out of Crimea Just like when they admitted Spain, they immediately tried to force Britain out of Gibraltar. (Yes, that's an actual, ongoing, territorial dispute, that also involves a meta-dispute over who gets to be involved on discussion about resolving the primary dispute.) The Washington Treaty does not have a prohibition against resolving territorial disputes without immediate resort to armed force.
- mcguire 5y ago
  How about we just say that Germany and France are not going to let Ukraine join while it has territorial conflicts?
ceilingcorner 5y ago
Baltics are easily neutralized with taking the Suwalki gap. The Russians were also not happy with them joining NATO, but couldn’t do much about it. And Ukraine (Kievan Rus) is the center of eastern Slavic civilization and therefore much more important to Putin than a largely unrelated culture in Latvia, Lithuania, etc. Otherwise yes I do think Mearsheimer is a little too mechanical in his theories and doesn’t factor in ideologies, especially in the modern Information Age.
- warner_of_doom 5y ago
  Once Russia has Ukraine, they will have met most of their core geostrategic security objectives. If they go any farther, then it will be WW3 as it should be.
- redisman 5y ago
  Baltic’s will be greatly reinforced by Finland and Sweden joining NATO within 6 months to 2 years. 100% because of this act of war.
empressplay 5y ago
The answer to 'why now' is COVID. People in the west are already worn-out by the pandemic and are in no mood to engage in a new conflict. Putin has simply picked an advantageous moment to make his move. Also China. Even Biden recognizes China is a problem and is making moves to attempt to manage them (renewed alliance with Australia, domestic manufacturing). China has likely made some guarantees to Russia with regards to its economic security, in exchange for seeing how the West puts up with its annexation of more of Ukrainian territory. And there's the recent Ukrainian rumblings about wanting to take Crimea back, which certainly did not help matters. Speaking of which, Russians in Crimea have been expensive to supply, and I would point back to how we're all taxed because of COVID. There are certainly other variables, but the timing is not random. Putin certainly has not suddenly 'gone crazy'.
- bbatha 5y ago
  > Putin certainly has not suddenly 'gone crazy'. I didn't mean to imply that. In fact I would say that if a theory relies on someone "going crazy" to explain the war its probably bunk. Putin has decades of proving himself to be an intelligent player. The Covid and China pivot is an interesting theory and it would make Mearshimer's argument a lot more compelling if he used current events to explain his theory.
- postingawayonhn 5y ago
  > The answer to 'why now' is COVID. People in the west are already worn-out by the pandemic and are in no mood to engage in a new conflict. That may have been what Putin thought but it seems like a terrible misunderstanding of western resolve on his part.
warner_of_doom 5y ago
- avasylev 5y ago
  - dang 5y ago
    Would you please omit swipes like "Not sure why I even bother replying" and "What are you talking about?" from your posts to HN? You've been breaking the site guidelines frequently in your recent comments. I realize emotions are naturally very intense for everyone right now, but this is not ok. Indeed, it's a reason to follow the site guidelines more carefully. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
    - avasylev 5y ago
      Thanks for pointing, didn't realize that.
bjourne 5y ago
Here is an article about the background to the war: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/implementing-minsk-agreements-would-pose-russian-trojan-horse-ukraine-there-third-way https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/implementing-minsk-ag... Zelsynsky promised better relations with Russia but didn't follow through.
- mcguire 5y ago
  Zelenskyy promised? I can't see that anywhere in the article. In fact, the only mention of that sort of thing is Russian expectations: "In 2019 the Kremlin expected that Volodymyr Zelensky’s victory in the presidential elections would change Ukraine’s agenda, making peace in the Donbas a top priority." Zelenskyy has always been pro-EU, anti-Russian.
  - bjourne 5y ago
    It's not in the article but it is still a well-known fact: https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-election-of-Volodymyr-Zelensky-and-continued-Russian-aggression https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-election-of-Vol... Zelensky ran on a platform that included reconcilation with Moscow and which was neither pro-EU nor anti-Russian.
    - mcguire 5y ago
      There's not much in that article about Zelenskyy and Russian relations, before or after his election. Certainly nothing about "reconciliation" with Russia, just settlements in the Donbas war. "...he leveraged his massive online following into a serious campaign against official corruption. ... [In his post-election speech,] Zelensky vowed that his first goal as president would be to achieve a lasting peace in war-torn eastern Ukraine. ... This confirmation of Zelensky’s mandate allowed him to promote a peace settlement that would see Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed insurgents withdraw from the so-called “contact line” in eastern Ukraine. Zelensky’s opponents characterized the move as a capitulation that would do nothing but legitimize Russian aggression in the Donets Basin and Crimea, but he retained widespread support from a war-weary public."
s1artibartfast 5y ago
>Why did Russia raise the stakes in December? Sure, NATO's eastward push has demonstrably increased tensions but the eastward push has been frozen since about 2014 since countries can't join NATO if they have territorial conflicts. Formal joining was on hold, but everything else was accelerating since 2014. Most notably arms shipments, military funding, and NATO/US troops in Ukraine. At some point, there are simply too many NATO arms in Ukraine to invade. Russian power is waning, and at the same time Ukraine-NATO integration was approaching the point of irreversibility. In 2016, Ukraine was granted a NATO Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP), comprising the advisory mission at the NATO Representation to Ukraine as well as 16 capacity-building programmes and Trust Funds. In 2018, Ukraine was officially given an aspiring member status. In 2021 NATO reaffirmed that “Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP)", which is the most traction on the topic since 2008. From the Russian perspective the window to stop Ukraine was closing. Look at how much trouble they are having now. It would only have been worse with another year of arms shipments and training. Perhaps Russia miscalculated an they already waited too long.
- mcguire 5y ago
  "...NATO/US troops in Ukraine..." Do you have a source for that? Don't forget, "On June 1, 1996, Ukraine became a non-nuclear nation, sending the last of the 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads it had inherited from the Soviet Union to Russia for dismantling. Ukraine had committed to this by signing the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in January 1994." That was certainly a stupid idea.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Do you have a source for that? US and other Western troops (not NATO per se, though I think all were NATO members) were openly present in Ukraine training the Ukraine military up until shortly before the recent Russian escalation of their long-running invasion of Ukraine (they were pulled out to avoid getting caught up in direct combat with Russia in the event of an invasion.) EDIT: if you need a source, here's an article on the US/UK trainers being withdrawn: https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2022/02/12/us-uk-pull-military-trainers-out-of-ukraine-with-russian-attack-possible-any-day-now/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2022/02/12/us-uk-pul...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nsonha 5y ago
> This type of article is the international relations equivalent off economists have predicted 5 of the last 3 recessions. I don't see why being able to predict events is important here because for this particular conflict, the key take away is how the knot became entangled since the late 90s and how we get can back to a more predictable, less paranoid Russia by untying it the same way we tied it. > Notably absent from this article is any discussion of "why now?" "Now" is a relative term in big history time scale, Putin's plan and might have been in action for a while, and now is just the time some strategic factors happen to be in their favour, or so they thought. The "why now?" question doesn't seem to be very important to me comparing to "how to get out of this?". And you don't get out of this simply by addressing some recent trigger. Sounds like what Dr Mearsheimer said is that we should reverse course. > why the Baltics entering NATO did not trigger the same reaction Ukraine is the last straw, well, before Belarus that is, if that ever happens. They have always been calling for NATO to stop expansions for 20 years, > agency of Ukrainians in this article Could you give me the name of a country in the world that doesn't side with a great power? There should be some, but what they did is fundamentally different than what Ukraine is doing.

by bbatha 5y ago

dragonwriter 5y ago

> since countries can't join NATO if they have territorial conflicts This rule... isn't. Heck, countries have been admitted to NATO with ongoing territorial disputes with NATO countries.

empressplay 5y ago
Right, so NATO could have decided to admit Ukraine at any time and then immediately attempt to force Russia out of Crimea, a scenario which I expect kept Putin awake at night.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Right, so NATO could have decided to admit Ukraine at any time and then immediately attempt to force Russia out of Crimea Just like when they admitted Spain, they immediately tried to force Britain out of Gibraltar. (Yes, that's an actual, ongoing, territorial dispute, that also involves a meta-dispute over who gets to be involved on discussion about resolving the primary dispute.) The Washington Treaty does not have a prohibition against resolving territorial disputes without immediate resort to armed force.
mcguire 5y ago
How about we just say that Germany and France are not going to let Ukraine join while it has territorial conflicts?

ceilingcorner 5y ago

Baltics are easily neutralized with taking the Suwalki gap. The Russians were also not happy with them joining NATO, but couldn’t do much about it. And Ukraine (Kievan Rus) is the center of eastern Slavic civilization and therefore much more important to Putin than a largely unrelated culture in Latvia, Lithuania, etc. Otherwise yes I do think Mearsheimer is a little too mechanical in his theories and doesn’t factor in ideologies, especially in the modern Information Age.

warner_of_doom 5y ago
Once Russia has Ukraine, they will have met most of their core geostrategic security objectives. If they go any farther, then it will be WW3 as it should be.
redisman 5y ago
Baltic’s will be greatly reinforced by Finland and Sweden joining NATO within 6 months to 2 years. 100% because of this act of war.

empressplay 5y ago

The answer to 'why now' is COVID. People in the west are already worn-out by the pandemic and are in no mood to engage in a new conflict. Putin has simply picked an advantageous moment to make his move. Also China. Even Biden recognizes China is a problem and is making moves to attempt to manage them (renewed alliance with Australia, domestic manufacturing). China has likely made some guarantees to Russia with regards to its economic security, in exchange for seeing how the West puts up with its annexation of more of Ukrainian territory. And there's the recent Ukrainian rumblings about wanting to take Crimea back, which certainly did not help matters. Speaking of which, Russians in Crimea have been expensive to supply, and I would point back to how we're all taxed because of COVID. There are certainly other variables, but the timing is not random. Putin certainly has not suddenly 'gone crazy'.

bbatha 5y ago
> Putin certainly has not suddenly 'gone crazy'. I didn't mean to imply that. In fact I would say that if a theory relies on someone "going crazy" to explain the war its probably bunk. Putin has decades of proving himself to be an intelligent player. The Covid and China pivot is an interesting theory and it would make Mearshimer's argument a lot more compelling if he used current events to explain his theory.
postingawayonhn 5y ago
> The answer to 'why now' is COVID. People in the west are already worn-out by the pandemic and are in no mood to engage in a new conflict. That may have been what Putin thought but it seems like a terrible misunderstanding of western resolve on his part.

warner_of_doom 5y ago

avasylev 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Would you please omit swipes like "Not sure why I even bother replying" and "What are you talking about?" from your posts to HN? You've been breaking the site guidelines frequently in your recent comments. I realize emotions are naturally very intense for everyone right now, but this is not ok. Indeed, it's a reason to follow the site guidelines more carefully. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
  - avasylev 5y ago
    Thanks for pointing, didn't realize that.

bjourne 5y ago

Here is an article about the background to the war: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/implementing-minsk-agreements-would-pose-russian-trojan-horse-ukraine-there-third-way https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/implementing-minsk-ag... Zelsynsky promised better relations with Russia but didn't follow through.

mcguire 5y ago
Zelenskyy promised? I can't see that anywhere in the article. In fact, the only mention of that sort of thing is Russian expectations: "In 2019 the Kremlin expected that Volodymyr Zelensky’s victory in the presidential elections would change Ukraine’s agenda, making peace in the Donbas a top priority." Zelenskyy has always been pro-EU, anti-Russian.
- bjourne 5y ago
  It's not in the article but it is still a well-known fact: https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-election-of-Volodymyr-Zelensky-and-continued-Russian-aggression https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-election-of-Vol... Zelensky ran on a platform that included reconcilation with Moscow and which was neither pro-EU nor anti-Russian.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    There's not much in that article about Zelenskyy and Russian relations, before or after his election. Certainly nothing about "reconciliation" with Russia, just settlements in the Donbas war. "...he leveraged his massive online following into a serious campaign against official corruption. ... [In his post-election speech,] Zelensky vowed that his first goal as president would be to achieve a lasting peace in war-torn eastern Ukraine. ... This confirmation of Zelensky’s mandate allowed him to promote a peace settlement that would see Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed insurgents withdraw from the so-called “contact line” in eastern Ukraine. Zelensky’s opponents characterized the move as a capitulation that would do nothing but legitimize Russian aggression in the Donets Basin and Crimea, but he retained widespread support from a war-weary public."

s1artibartfast 5y ago

>Why did Russia raise the stakes in December? Sure, NATO's eastward push has demonstrably increased tensions but the eastward push has been frozen since about 2014 since countries can't join NATO if they have territorial conflicts. Formal joining was on hold, but everything else was accelerating since 2014. Most notably arms shipments, military funding, and NATO/US troops in Ukraine. At some point, there are simply too many NATO arms in Ukraine to invade. Russian power is waning, and at the same time Ukraine-NATO integration was approaching the point of irreversibility. In 2016, Ukraine was granted a NATO Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP), comprising the advisory mission at the NATO Representation to Ukraine as well as 16 capacity-building programmes and Trust Funds. In 2018, Ukraine was officially given an aspiring member status. In 2021 NATO reaffirmed that “Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP)", which is the most traction on the topic since 2008. From the Russian perspective the window to stop Ukraine was closing. Look at how much trouble they are having now. It would only have been worse with another year of arms shipments and training. Perhaps Russia miscalculated an they already waited too long.

mcguire 5y ago
"...NATO/US troops in Ukraine..." Do you have a source for that? Don't forget, "On June 1, 1996, Ukraine became a non-nuclear nation, sending the last of the 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads it had inherited from the Soviet Union to Russia for dismantling. Ukraine had committed to this by signing the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in January 1994." That was certainly a stupid idea.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Do you have a source for that? US and other Western troops (not NATO per se, though I think all were NATO members) were openly present in Ukraine training the Ukraine military up until shortly before the recent Russian escalation of their long-running invasion of Ukraine (they were pulled out to avoid getting caught up in direct combat with Russia in the event of an invasion.) EDIT: if you need a source, here's an article on the US/UK trainers being withdrawn: https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2022/02/12/us-uk-pull-military-trainers-out-of-ukraine-with-russian-attack-possible-any-day-now/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2022/02/12/us-uk-pul...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

nsonha 5y ago

> This type of article is the international relations equivalent off economists have predicted 5 of the last 3 recessions. I don't see why being able to predict events is important here because for this particular conflict, the key take away is how the knot became entangled since the late 90s and how we get can back to a more predictable, less paranoid Russia by untying it the same way we tied it. > Notably absent from this article is any discussion of "why now?" "Now" is a relative term in big history time scale, Putin's plan and might have been in action for a while, and now is just the time some strategic factors happen to be in their favour, or so they thought. The "why now?" question doesn't seem to be very important to me comparing to "how to get out of this?". And you don't get out of this simply by addressing some recent trigger. Sounds like what Dr Mearsheimer said is that we should reverse course. > why the Baltics entering NATO did not trigger the same reaction Ukraine is the last straw, well, before Belarus that is, if that ever happens. They have always been calling for NATO to stop expansions for 20 years, > agency of Ukrainians in this article Could you give me the name of a country in the world that doesn't side with a great power? There should be some, but what they did is fundamentally different than what Ukraine is doing.