Posted by: Fast-Orange
Why are memories so short?
People point to the Ukraine invasion as the result of NATO provocation.
Why do the supposed big brains never accuse Russia of provoking NATO via constantly invading and abusing its neighbors?
Look at the history of conflicts Russia has been involved in since the 90s. They literally destroyed the entire city of Allepo with artillery but NATO is at fault here? The organization that since being created has overseen the longest stretches of actual peace ever seen in Europe?
It makes me so fucking frustrated that Russian soldiers are literally pulling families out of their homes, tying them to trees and cooking them alive with flame throwers yet these so called "big thinkers" are like yeah but NATO staged weapons near Russia so Russia had no choice"
Too many of us can't see the big picture anymore.
For Mearsheimer, it is the way he thinks. He looks at geopolitics as a world of powerful nations or alliances and every other nation is a pawn. He almost never talks about what the people of Ukraine want because he thinks it is more important that the superpowers appease each other. With this attitude putting weapons near Russia is an act of aggression because he thinks Russia's neighbours are a part of the Russian realm. It never crosses his mind that Ukraine has the right to say "fuck Russia, we want freedom and prosperity" and forge its own path. The expansion of NATO is really the realization by the people of eastern Europe that a better future lies with a strong connection to western Europe.
He was so wrong about Putin before (claiming he was far too smart to attack Ukraine), and now he says that people who claim Putin has ambitions beyond Ukraine don't understand his motivations. That is some serious hubris. I think Mearsheimer would be happy to just force Ukraine to accept a much smaller country and give the rest to Russia in the name of diplomacy.
I could really care less about this guy, but I watch Youtube for a low of news and its algorithm pushes him as an expert and all the Russian apologists love him. He is a like a climate change-denying climatologist.