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Jeffrey Sachs is unfortunately a misinformation machine. His words sound convincing but lack truth. Unrelated to Ukraine, he is also very friendly with Chinese

• resters 2y ago
  I read the letter and it sounded like the "Bush Doctrine" of preemptive aggression. The claim is that Russia is by nature aggressive (based on a very long-term historical trend that does not include its current regime) and so aggressive action against Russia is warranted, regardless of the current government or any existing treaties. The aggressive aspect of NATO is also minimized, which I think is naive. I was in Ukraine in 2016 and saw the US fighter jets flying formations on Russia's doorstep. Calling that "defensive" is absurd. We now know that since the 1990s there has been a US goal to aggressively expand NATO mainly to suppress Russia. The problem with this strategy is that it does not care at all about Ukrainian lives. As someone with family in Ukraine, I do not want my country (the US) wreaking havoc in the region. Thousands of Ukrainians are dying every single day right now, all because the US doesn't want to respect Russia's security zone. Mearshimer calls this the US nostalgia over the "uni-polar moment" when the US was briefly the only superpower. Too much of the modern notions of American exceptionalism rely upon biases from that brief moment in history, to everyone's peril.
  • pj_mukh 2y ago
    Unfortunately this narrative is imperceptibly different from Russian propaganda (eg, leaving out that Russia regularly buzzes American airspace in Alaska). So if you want to make this case, you’ll have to find a narrative that works for Ukrainians (who overwhelmingly support the war[1]) and the Taiwanese. Convince them that an American pullback will be fine for them, and I’ll support America pulling back. Until then, a multi-polar world among authoritarian aristocracies is a pipe-dream. Everyone hates American hegemony until you ask them what other hegemony they would like. So missiles we must make, and make them cheaper we can. [1] https://www.voanews.com/amp/new-poll-reveals-how-ukrainians-feel-about-war-future/7303180.html https://www.voanews.com/amp/new-poll-reveals-how-ukrainians-...
    • resters 2y ago
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      • mopsi 2y ago
        > It's hard not to be sympathetic to Russia's perspective that the US arming Ukraine and promoting NATO expansion violates the spirit of the Budapest memorandum and also the informal assurances that were apparently given to Russia by the US. 1. Nobody was providing military aid to Ukraine before Russia invaded, and even then it was initially of non-lethal nature. 2. NATO expansion was an initiative of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, against heavy skepticism by existing NATO members (including the US) -- and not something that the US "promoted". The initiative was in large part a reaction to the Russian war in Chechnya, and overall Russian hostility towards its European neighbors. Whatever glimmer of hope there was in early 1990s for different kind of relations, seeing Russian atrocities in Chechnya squashed them overnight. 3. If by "apparent" assurances you mean the conspiracy theory that someone promised Russians that NATO would not accept new members in Europe, then this has been refuted by USSR's top leaders - Gorbachev himself, his foreign minister, defense minister, and others. It's total nonsense. > Of course now in 2024 Ukrainians support the war, but if one were to ask them in 1994 if they would want what they now have in 2024 or would it be OK to continue to be neutral, they would undeniably prefer neutrality and peace. "Neutral option" is how they arrived in the present day. Ukraine was too slow to follow other CEE countries in joining EU and NATO, and wasn't covered by mutual defense guarantees by the time Russians invaded. Ukraine remaining out of strong alliances made the invasion less risky for Russians. That was a mistake. Sweden and Finland -- the last two neutral countries near Russia -- immediately learned from that mistake and joined NATO.
        • resters 2y ago
          Chechnya was hugely important to Russia geopolitically and so it should not have been a surprise that it would not want to let Chechnya become independent. Russia already had a mix of rivals both for political Islamist reasons and oil/gas pipeline dominance reasons. Not surprisingly, those groups/nations supported the Chechen cause as tehy stood to benefit handsomely. As usual the US did a lot of finger shaking and humanitarian atrocity shaming. From Russia's perspective, the Chechen wars were significant attacks on its security and economy. Zooming out, an independent Chechnya would have made post-Soviet Russia much, much weaker. So I think it's reasonable to attribute Russia's suppression of the Chechen rebellions to be motivated by the same desire to protect its territory that has motivated its war with US-backed Ukraine. It seems that the only way to say it's unreasonable is to claim that Putin is himself mentally unwell and motivated by mental illness (a common claim in the US, sadly) or that Russia itself does not deserve to establish its own geopolitical "red lines" for when it will act militarily to protect its interests/territory.