Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

"the realists" fail to realise that people like putin don't think like "realists"
 
Beans said:
Strikes me as a traitor. His answers are garbage.

"The realist political scientist explains why Russia’s move to annex four Ukrainian provinces isn’t imperialism."

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/john-mearsheimer-on-putins-ambitions-after-nine-months-of-war
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I read a bit and he's blatantly lying in parts. 'Russia never intended to conquor all of Ukraine and that's why they aren't now'. Except they tried to capture Kiev failed and got pushed back. It obviously had nothing to do with intent. The interviewer is garbage for giving no push back.
 
M16Red said:
Is it? Why?
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Not sure if this is a serious question, but if it is. There's a thread on here dedicated to the British Empire. I don't want to be the cause of an off topic discussion in this thread. So let's stay on topic.
 
stevoc said:
Not sure if this is a serious question, but if it is. There's a thread on here dedicated to the British Empire. I don't want to be the cause of an off topic discussion in this thread. So let's stay on topic.
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Yet you were the one who posted the comment about the empire in this very thread :lol:
 
stevoc said:
Not sure if this is a serious question, but if it is. There's a thread on here dedicated to the British Empire. I don't want to be the cause of an off topic discussion in this thread. So let's stay on topic.
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It was a serious question, because didn't agree and wanted to understand your view.

But you are right, isn't the place
 
NotThatSoph said:
It was pretty accepted at the start of this war that Russia's goal was to storm Kyiv, depose the current government and install a puppet regime, no?
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I'm guessing he would say installing a puppet is different from conquering the land. But he's clearly being deceptive to me.
 
There’s no evidence that he was interested in conquering those four oblasts. The war started on February 24th. On February 21st, he gave a famous speech—this is three days before the war started—where he recognized the two oblasts in the Donbas. This is Donetsk and Lugansk. He recognized them as independent republics. So he was not interested in conquering that territory.
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This seems extremely weak.

Well, first of all, there’s no evidence that he had imperial ambitions before the war. He would have had to say that it was desirable. There would have to be evidence that he had said that it was desirable to conquer Ukraine and incorporate it into Russia. There would have to be evidence that he had said it was feasible. And there would have to be evidence that he had said that that was what he was doing. And there is no evidence to support any of those.
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Also this.

Yes. It may be that thirty years from now we unlock the archives and discover that there is massive evidence that he was an imperialist at heart. That is possible, but we do not have any evidence of that sort at this point in time. We have a huge amount of evidence that it was NATO expansion and the more general policy of making Ukraine a western bulwark on Russia’s border that motivated him to attack on February 24th.
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And this.

The end is hilarious. The interviewer is trying to get him to talk about his meeting with Orban, and he clearly doesn't want to. Obviously he knows it looks bad for him that Orban is tweeting about meeting him (how the #liberals are wrong).

He's not to be taken seriously any more, that's clear.
 
nimic said:
This seems extremely weak.



Also this.



And this.

The end is hilarious. The interviewer is trying to get him to talk about his meeting with Orban, and he clearly doesn't want to. Obviously he knows it looks bad for him that Orban is tweeting about meeting him (how the #liberals are wrong).

He's not to be taken seriously any more, that's clear.
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It would be interesting to compare with what Putin said before the 08 invasion of Georgia. South Ossetia and Abkhazia are recognised by Russia as independent states, but at least with South Ossetia the goal is to integrate it into Russia, so there's no necessary contradiction between recognising independence and having territorial ambitions. I have no idea what the pre-war rhetoric was like, though.
 
ThierryFabregas said:
I read a bit and he's blatantly lying in parts. 'Russia never intended to conquor all of Ukraine and that's why they aren't now'. Except they tried to capture Kiev failed and got pushed back. It obviously had nothing to do with intent. The interviewer is garbage for giving no push back.
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Yeah, was pretty obvious from the amount of troops and going for Kyiv that Russia initially wanted to occupy the whole country. Whether it would annex it or install a pro Russian government I don’t know. Then there was clearly a shift, can’t remember how long into the war, when the Russians changed strategy and spoke about just ‘liberating’ a few areas.
 
nimic said:
This seems extremely weak.



Also this.



And this.

The end is hilarious. The interviewer is trying to get him to talk about his meeting with Orban, and he clearly doesn't want to. Obviously he knows it looks bad for him that Orban is tweeting about meeting him (how the #liberals are wrong).

He's not to be taken seriously any more, that's clear.
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Agreed. He does have a point that Russia may not originally have wanted to conquer Ukraine, but just wanted to be able to control/predict it better by replacing the government by one that favours Russia (as @NotThatSoph said). But beyond that, his answers are generally weak logically, and he becomes evasive as soon as he gets a decent counterargument from the interviewer (who I think does a pretty good job). His comments about nuclear weapons in particular are very poor.

And yes, the ending is hilarious, clearly there's a skeleton in Mearsheimer's Hungary closet that he'd like to stay hidden.
 
AlPistacho said:
Yeah, was pretty obvious from the amount of troops and going for Kyiv that Russia initially wanted to occupy the whole country. Whether it would annex it or install a pro Russian government I don’t know. Then there was clearly a shift, can’t remember how long into the war, when the Russians changed strategy and spoke about just ‘liberating’ a few areas.
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Have to disagree here. 200,000 soldiers is not an occupation force for a country the size of Ukraine, it is an expedition force to achieve clearly defined limited goals (which most likely were ensuring a regime change happens that allows to integrate Ukraine much closer to Russia). The change you mention however has happened and since then Russia is trying to hold by force strategically valuable areas.
 
stefan92 said:
Have to disagree here. 200,000 soldiers is not an occupation force for a country the size of Ukraine, it is an expedition force to achieve clearly defined limited goals (which most likely were ensuring a regime change happens that allows to integrate Ukraine much closer to Russia). The change you mention however has happened and since then Russia is trying to hold by force strategically valuable areas.
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US coalition in 2003 sent 160,000 to occupy Iraq. Iraq's population is similar to Ukraine's population. And the Russians actually expected a warm welcome in many parts of the country, and a lot of friendly Russians in Ukraine that would help them. Russians definitely thought they could occupy Ukraine with 200,000 soldiers, that was their goal. They believed that Zelenskyy and co will flee, there will be no resistance, something like what happened in Crimea, they did not expect a real war.
 
nimic said:
This seems extremely weak.



Also this.



And this.

The end is hilarious. The interviewer is trying to get him to talk about his meeting with Orban, and he clearly doesn't want to. Obviously he knows it looks bad for him that Orban is tweeting about meeting him (how the #liberals are wrong).

He's not to be taken seriously any more, that's clear.
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Very true. He's arguing semantics. Yes perhaps Putin wasn't intending to march troops all the way through to the western border but was seemingly planning to march into Kiev, take over the apparatus of government, install a puppet and then probably retreat whilst providing the necessary support to said puppet. It clearly hasn't gone to plan.

The squirming re the Orban meeting is hilarious too.

Thought the interviewer did well.
 
frostbite said:
US coalition in 2003 sent 160,000 to occupy Iraq. Iraq's population is similar to Ukraine's population. And the Russians actually expected a warm welcome in many parts of the country, and a lot of friendly Russians in Ukraine that would help them. Russians definitely thought they could occupy Ukraine with 200,000 soldiers, that was their goal. They believed that Zelenskyy and co will flee, there will be no resistance, something like what happened in Crimea, they did not expect a real war.
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The US invasion force was just above 100k. It didn’t rise to 160 until the 2008 troop surge. Ukraine had nearly double Iraq’s 2003 population when Russia invaded this year.
 
stefan92 said:
Have to disagree here. 200,000 soldiers is not an occupation force for a country the size of Ukraine, it is an expedition force to achieve clearly defined limited goals (which most likely were ensuring a regime change happens that allows to integrate Ukraine much closer to Russia). The change you mention however has happened and since then Russia is trying to hold by force strategically valuable areas.
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Not disagreeing with you and you’re maybe right. Going mostly by how I remember it being reported at the time, and also that Russia probably expected to win mostly through bombs from air (perhaps). But if they took and held Kyiv it would have been pretty much like taking the whole country even if some other areas stayed under Ukrainian military control.
 
Raoul said:
Wouldn't be surprised if he's on the Russian payroll. Just returned from meeting with Orban as well.
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Claiming Russia didn’t want to take Ukraine seems very disingenuous to me. Maybe technically they’d be in charge but that’s hardly gonna help actual Ukrainians.

I thought he was just stuck in Cold War thinking, old dog new tricks, like Einstein rejecting experiments that messed up his theories when he was older.

But that read more like someone on the take watching their BS fall apart, for me.
 
AlPistacho said:
Not disagreeing with you and you’re maybe right. Going mostly by how I remember it being reported at the time, and also that Russia probably expected to win mostly through bombs from air (perhaps). But if they took and held Kyiv it would have been pretty much like taking the whole country even if some other areas stayed under Ukrainian military control.
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As I see it the point was to take Kyiv, chance the regime and essentially take over the Ukrainian security forces instead of fighting a war against them. So yes, taking Kyiv and therefore taking over the government was a key target
 
Beans said:
I'm guessing he would say installing a puppet is different from conquering the land. But he's clearly being deceptive to me.
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Installing a puppet is still definitely imperialist behavior, focusing on this distinction wouldn't really help his main point.
 
Lemoor said:
Installing a puppet is still definitely imperialist behavior, focusing on this distinction wouldn't really help his main point.
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Well, a guy like Mearsheimer would care deeply about the exact definition of words within his profession. I'm no specialist in this myself, but if 'imperialist' for him is defined as a country that wants to literally occupy/annex other countries, then Russia would not have been imperialistic if it 'only' wanted to violently pull Ukraine back into its sphere of influence through the installation of a Russia-focused government. (Whatever non-specialists think of that. :) )
 
Cheimoon said:
Well, a guy like Mearsheimer would care deeply about the exact definition of words within his profession. I'm no specialist in this myself, but if 'imperialist' for him is defined as a country that wants to literally occupy/annex other countries, then Russia would not have been imperialistic if it 'only' wanted to violently pull Ukraine back into its sphere of influence through the installation of a Russia-focused government. (Whatever non-specialists think of that. :) )
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That would probably mean that the US tradition of facilitating coups and regime changes around the world is imperialistic. Which, fine, but I don't think that's what people typically have in mind.
 
nimic said:
Really? I'd say that's precisely what people have in mind. American imperialism is not exactly new idea.
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Isn't the word people like to use for that 'neo-colonialism'? So not the imperialistic kind of colonialsm, but the variant where economic and socio-political pressure and influence create dependencies/satellite states.
 
NotThatSoph said:
That would probably mean that the US tradition of facilitating coups and regime changes around the world is imperialistic. Which, fine, but I don't think that's what people typically have in mind.
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Yes we call that neo-colonialism, is imperialism in my book anyway. US was based on Rome after all, Senators have the power and the president was meant to be weaker, no Executive Orders or line item vetoes.

That being said I think the US cares little for propping up dictators now, its so messy. Now that we have shale, and we're a net exporter of energy, is not worth controlling Afghanistan and Iraq.

I get the impression the US can do about everything it needs with economic pressure, through access to markets and technology. Just that "first island chain" keeping China's ships and subs from reaching deep waters requires force.
 
stefan92 said:
Have to disagree here. 200,000 soldiers is not an occupation force for a country the size of Ukraine, it is an expedition force to achieve clearly defined limited goals (which most likely were ensuring a regime change happens that allows to integrate Ukraine much closer to Russia). The change you mention however has happened and since then Russia is trying to hold by force strategically valuable areas.
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Yes, the idea was to install a puppet dictator. Would they stick around like in Afghanistan? Remember Putin really thought they'd be welcomed as liberators. In his mind an occupation force wasn't necessary.

I think, if they had installed a dictator, the people would have risen up and Russia would have found itself being the occupiers, and I think Putin would have fought, so I think it would have been an attempted occupation.

And after failing to take Kyiv I think Putin wanted to take the whole country, he just can't. Whether he would make it all Russia or run it through a puppet seems insubstantial to me. Either way, Russia is being very, very bad.
 
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