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I know it's beating a dead horse at this point, but this whole Prigozhin situation made one fact crystal clear: American dissident right (and "anti-nato left" by extension) is extremely solipsistic, much more than other factions in American culture war. Just take a look at some of those takes which are prevalent among this crowd
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Essentially, their model of the world looks like: here we are, honest god-abiding Americans, and then there are "elites" — Biden, Hillary, DNC, Podesta, Bill Gates, World Economic Forum. How then do you view something that lies outside your usual experience and ideology? If you are dumb, you deny it altogether:
"Ukraine War is fake, all of it is CGI, Zelensky and Hunter Biden siphon gajillions dollars from American taxpayers to buy mansions in Bahamas"
For those people Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Finns, Prigozhin, Zaluzhny, Macron, Scholz, ... do not exist.
If you are smarter, you align yourself with perceived enemies of the elites: Putin, Xi, Orban, .... You say things like:
totally oblivious of cases like this
https://zona.media/online/2023/06/22/sko
being a regular occurrence in Russia, when a girl is sent to prison for putting anti-war slogans on price tags in a shopping mall. Of course they'll have prepared a long list of grievances with "elites" that are intended to persuade you that whatever happens in the US is much worse than repressions in Russia or China. And, sure enough, all of it "glownigger propaganda" anyway.
You might say: "Well, I don't care about anti-Putin Russians, unfortunate pro-Putin Russians who became victims of the regime, neutral Russians, Ukrainians, Uighurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese, ... all I care is that my children don't get castrated and turned into trannies". Fair enough. But then please don't take a high moral ground. You are just as evil as "elites".
Whatever patience I had with American "anti-establishment" right-wingers, it ended. I guess Hanania is the only one I keep reading/listening at this point.
What is so wrong about caring about one's own interests, as opposed to the interests of others? The 'elites' are the ones going out and randomly, incompetently wrecking various countries or behaving incredibly recklessly. Standing aside while others fight is sound policy. We should not get involved in other people's problems. Firstly, it's expensive and makes enemies. Secondly, we don't necessarily understand what's going on and can't necessarily fix it. Thirdly, it benefits special interests and socializes losses. Everyone is poorer due to energy shortages or debt incurred by these wars - the benefits go to military contractors, bureaucracies, favoured NGOs and PMCs.
Just consider the last 20 years of military adventurism. What did we get? A pro-Iranian (wrecked) Iraq, wrecked Libya, wrecked Syria, wrecked Afghanistan. All this came with a huge price tag and a long list of new enemies. The military establishment is not very smart, nor are they good at winning. They are very good at wrecking and lying.
This is what happens when we listen to the 'moral high ground, think of the civil society' camp. We get wrecked countries and 12-figure bills. Why should Ukraine be any different? Long, expensive conflict which doesn't improve our position at all. The realist school has warned and warned that getting involved in Ukraine was a bad idea, that it would make the Russians very angry, that they'd rather wreck the country than let it fall into our hands. They've been totally vindicated. Russia is wrecking Ukraine, missile by missile and refugee by refugee.
How hard would it be to... do nothing? If we had done nothing for the last 20 years we'd be richer, safer and stronger.
People will go on and on about how we have to stand up and support the 'international rules based order' - the biggest crock of shit. What are the rules (is there any clear law anywhere)? Who wrote them? Who agreed to them? Apparently it's OK when we invade or bomb countries, yet it's illegal for Russia to invade its neighbours? This is arbitrary nonsense.
Let's support our interests, which are not present in Ukraine. There's nothing we need in Ukraine, there's no need to get hysterical about it. Ukraine is a core Russian interest and a peripheral interest for the West as a whole. Foreign policy should distinguish between core and peripheral interests.
No, it hasn't been. A lot of people demolished arguments of Mearsheimer. An example of critique:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=XXmwyyKcBLk
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wjU-ve4Pn4k
I won't be repeating them, as it's just exhausting.
That doesn't demolish anyone, they just repeat tired old myths like the 'security guarantees' that Ukraine was given in exchange for transferring nukes they didn't control (what is a permissive action link?) to Russia. People don't even bother looking at what the agreement says, they don't bother reading the wikipedia page, they just lie! Ukraine was not given any security guarantee:
Seeking security council action is meaningless if it's against a veto-power.
You get your arguments from youtubers like 'Spaghetti Kozak Media & Heavy Industries LLC', I get mine from published authors (who predicted this whole affair years in advance). These people don't understand Mearsheimer, I doubt they've read any of his work. They grossly mischaracterize what he's saying: 'Europe is a poker chip'. At no point did he say this, it doesn't even have any meaning! Is Kraut talking about France, Germany, the EU? Who knows! At no point do they even repeat Mearsheimer's thesis from directly relevant books like 'The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities'.
It's also deeply ironic for these people to cast themselves in the moral high ground over the cold realists when the idiotic, reflexive interventionism they support has gotten an enormous number of people killed.
Argument from Authority. I thought academics can be trusted, see where they lead us with lockdowns!
But Spaghetti Kozak Media demonstrated much closer knowledge of Ukrainian affairs than Mearsheimer did — as someone who comes from this part of the world I can attest to this. I watched Mearsheimer's debate with Sykorsky — the dude is just ignorant. He did not predict anything — in fact, he said Putin won't attack, because he would be too stupid otherwise.
I don't remember when the US intervened into the war directly? They follow the spirit and the letter of the Memorandum by "providing assistance to Ukraine", and Russia broke the memorandum.
In Russian and Ukrainian versions of the documents, it is not "assurances", but "guarantees":
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/United_Nations_Treaty_Collection._Volume_3007._I-52241.pdf
page 7: Меморандум о гарантиях. Signed by American and British representatives as well. So please, study the matter a bit more, before opining. And do not trust some academics, they spew garbage, be it Fauci or Mearsheimer.
There's a reason people publish books (with footnotes and references) and don't just hold debates. Books and articles let people develop nuanced ideas over text, thinking things through carefully. Mearsheimer's record on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria is impressive. Furthermore, he says that it would be hard for Russia to conquer Ukraine:
https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf
Mearsheimer predicted exactly what happened, he said that Russia lacked the power to conquer Ukraine. He said that, if the current Western policy continued, Ukraine would be devastated, Russia-West relations would be more hostile (which clearly implies some kind of invasion or use of force). 100% correct and he was writing in 2014. And you say he's ignorant?
You first. Ukraine was not given a security guarantee. There's no debate about this, it's black and white. Read the very link you posted. Read it carefully, unlike the youtuber you cited who thought there was a security guarantee.
There was no security guarantee. And it has equal validity in all languages, linguistics are irrelevant.
Yep, page 7: Меморандум о гарантиях
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/гарантия
Now, in the articles it is not said that the US will intervene on behalf of Ukraine if it is attacked. It’s says about assistance. Which the US provided so far.
While Mearsheimer talks about NATO being a threat to Russia, I can't take him seriously. Here, read this, maybe you are unfamiliar with this concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction
He correctly predicted that Russia is a threat to Ukraine, but he incorrectly identified the reason for why it is, and thus his arguments do not hold. They are a threat because Putin, and a large part of Russian political class, views Russians and Ukrainians one people that should be reunited, Anschluss-style. NATO has no place in this picture, aside from being a potential deterrent.
No, he said "Putin is too smart to try that".
There's a distinction between a security guarantee and security assistance. You are saying assistance, assistance, assistance... I am saying that there was no guarantee, contra your youtuber. These are critical distinctions! These are the reasons we have books, papers, written by people who know a thing or two about what they're talking about as opposed to just regurgitating talking points. Mearsheimer knows things that youtubers do not - hence why he was right about Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and Ukraine.
When and in what context? It's quite clear from the text that Mearsheimer writes that Putin might try to invade. Mearsheimer said that Putin lacks the power to conquer all of Ukraine, not that he wouldn't invade.
Again and again Mearsheimer states that Ukraine is a core strategic interest for Russia, that they'll withstand considerable suffering to ensure NATO does not have a presence there. It logically follows that Mearsheimer thinks that Russia would invade Ukraine, as I said above. For example, here's a quote:
If Mearsheimer said something like 'Putin would not invade with a goal to conquer and permanently annex all Ukraine' then that fits with the rest of what he's written and published. If he says 'Putin would not invade Ukraine in any circumstances' then that fits with what you're arguing about Mearsheimer being ignorant.
If this was the case, then Putin would've done something about it earlier and people would've written about it pre-2014. Where are the scholars talking about Putin's desire to conquer Ukraine pre-2008? You don't find it suspicious that the Russo-Georgian war happens immediately after the US says Ukraine and Georgia will join the alliance eventually? How convenient that Putin becomes a Russian pan-nationalist precisely when NATO enlargement gets closest to Russia.
Mearsheimer has demonstrated that he doesn't have expertise on Eastern Europe many times in his speeches and debates, there is no need to read all the corpus of a crank, it is enough just to listen to his speeches.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
Like here he is denying that "Putin is bent on creating a greater Russia" (29 minute slide). Demonstrably false.
33 minute slide: he claims that the west's response "so far" is "doubling down". Now, it was 7 years ago. The US started to provide significant assistance to Ukraine, and sanctioned some Russians only after Malaysia airliner was being shot down by Russians (as confirmed by the International Court). How the West should have reacted? Especially, when Russia denied any involvement?
39 minute slide: he claims that Ukraine should guarantee language rights for minorities. Well, if Mearsheimer knew anything about Ukraine, he would have known about
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/the-truth-behind-ukraine-s-language-policy/
Kivalov-Kolesnichenko language law. Just a bunch of nonsense from an old crank.
No, why do you think that? He tried to pull Belarus and Ukraine into "Union State". It's a well-known fact, maybe not to you, or Mearsheimer.
As suspicious as when a robber tries to rob a bank the day before a new security measures are introduced. The bank security must have provoked him! Russia didn't wait 2008 to try to encroach on Crimea when Ukraine was under pro-Ru president:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Tuzla_Island_conflict
And he did say in his lecture:
So, I guess, a win for the US? As that's exactly what happened, that is true.
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Kraut in his 40 minute video makes a critique of realism but of 20th century variety not school of offensive realism to which Mearsheimer belongs to.
And it is 90 minutes btw
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The general points are the same: ignoring agency of independent minor power (Poland, Ukraine, Baltic States etc.); hypoagency of Russia and hyperagency of the US; ignoring ideologies, political developments and personal attitudes of politicians and populations.
And it is easy demonstrable — Mearsheimer made laughable claims about Putin not being imperialist and not being driven by ideology (despite the latter comparing himself to Peter the Great, claiming that Ukraine is historically Russian, citing Ilyin — a Russian fascist philosopher, writing articles about Ukraine historically being part of Russia). But people still cite him, even after this year and a half. It's baffling.
EU, US and Russia can all end this war, Ukraine can't and it can't fight alone. That's the problem with being a minor power, you are not independent. And of course politicians aren't homo geopoliticus so rational models will not always work in real life.
Putin isn't an imperialist, he isn't based right winger or actually communist shill, he is cleptocrat who wants to stay in power, that's all. His Russian nationalist rhetoric coexist with his speeches about multinational Russian nation and how he is Dagestani, Chechen, Tatar. He talks about evil Lenin who created Ukraine and then praises Soviet Union, he calls maidan a coup but then recognizes supposedly illegitimate government. Putin's words contradict themselves every other week. Look at his actions, his revealed preferences and you will see that he cares about being Peter the Great only when he heeds popularity boost.
Real Russian nationalist fascist like Strelkov wouldn't stop at Crimea in 2014, wouldn't arrest all Russian nationalist organizations, wouldn't walk out of Kazakhstan, wouldn't propose the peace deal that was proposed in April. You can read Anatoly Karlin Twitter for more proofs in more details, like the size of military budget, non-committal atlitude to the supposed fight against evil nazi Ukraine and Satanist NATO. In Russia Russian nationalists that support the regime are generally laughed at for all the aforementioned reasons.
They can — just instead of sparsely populated Azov steppe battles will happen in Poltava (pop. 280k), or Zaporizhzhia proper (pop. around 700k). They repelled Russians from Kyiv back when American assistance was meager.
He is a kleptocrat, alright, but calling him non-ideological is just demonstrably false at this point. You could have had doubts back in 2012, not now. Karlin is just as delusional as ever, just instead of "Kiev will fall in 2 days" he swung in the opposite direction.
I lived in Russia for quite some time, I know Russian, so I think I have some understanding of what Russian nationalists really think. Are you Russian?
And Nazi Germany didn't go full war time economy until 1942.
People can be ideologically-driven psychopaths, and ineffective at the same time. And I assure you — if Strelkov came to power, economic efficiency would just drop. Because he would fire Nabiulina, actually competent banker, and would put someone like Glazyev in her stead, who is even less competent than Erdogan when it comes to monetary policy. But hey, at least he hates hohols.
Kremlins shifted their course to freezing the conflict at the approximately current borders after their failed push to Kiev that was meant to facilitate regime change. And without western assistance they would be successful as they were 9 years ago. And American assistance was not meager if you look at it in all years from 2014.
But policies of his government that consists from his cronies aren't ideological nor specifically Russian nationalist. We can look at many aspects: immigration, internal federal policy, cultural and just politics where nationalist parties and organizations were outright banned. Even if he is in some way sincerely ideological it doesn't matter, because it doesn't affect his mishmash rhetoric and policy.
Yes, I am Russian and live in Russia currently. While Russian nationalist that are pro-Putin exist they are unknown to the mostly apolitical wide public and treated with disdain by politically active youth.
People can be ideologically-driven psychopaths, and ineffective at the same time. And I assure you — if Strelkov came to power, economic efficiency would just drop. Because he would fire Nabiulina, actually competent banker, and would put someone like Glazyev in her stead, who is even less competent than Erdogan when it comes to monetary policy. But hey, at least he hates hohols.
There is wide gulf between full war-time economy proposed by Strelkov and current Vietnam level spending. Girkin wants to "liberate" whole Ukraine, with smaller goals kremlins need less commitment but still higher than current one. I am talking about not inefficiency but policies that are going against Russian nationalist or imperialist belief supposedly held by Putin.
Just find an article from Khodaryonok saying back before the invasion that it was absolutely meager. A large-scale war isn't fought with a hundred Javelins or Stingers. Operation Unifier or several hundreds of millions dollars sent to Ukraine over the years weren't the decisive factor either.
They weren't that successful 9 years ago either — not taking Mariupol in 2015 even after Russian MOD sending their units into Ukraine.
I didn't say Putin is a nationalist, I said he was ideologically driven. Thinking that he is a new Ekaterina the Great. Ekaterina wasn't a nationalist, she accepted Muslims and European colonists in her realm. Patrushev, Kiriyenko — those are ideologues too. The rest are lèche-culs. But Göring too was more interested in his personal enrichment and aggrandizement. In regimes like that not everyone is Hitler or Himmler.
Just find articles on Meduza, Verstka or Mediazona on how military factories work right now — in 3 shifts, without possibility of taking vacations. How expenses, especially the closed part of the budget grew. If you don't see something, or if you still can enjoy your morning latte somewhere in café in Moscow — doesn't mean the system doesn't make efforts. People dance in night clubs in Kyiv too, you know.
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