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2023-06-29 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Mearsheimer: Darkness ahead: where the war in Ukraine is heading. Where are we now Basic

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Posted by badanov 2023-06-29 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top

#1 The conclusion:

To date, it should be obvious that the war in Ukraine is a huge catastrophe that is unlikely to end in the near future, and when this happens, the result will not be lasting peace. A few words should be said about how the West found itself in this terrible situation.

The generally accepted view of the origin of the war is that Putin launched an unprovoked attack on February 24, 2022, which was dictated by his grand plan to create a great Russia. They say that Ukraine was the first country that it intended to conquer and annex, but not the last. As I have repeatedly said, there is no evidence in support of this line of argumentation, and indeed, there is significant evidence that directly contradicts it. Although there is no doubt that Russia has invaded Ukraine, the ultimate cause of the war was the decision of the West – and here we are talking mainly about the United States – to turn Ukraine into a western stronghold on the border with Russia. A key element of this strategy was Ukraine’s entry into NATO, a step that not only Putin, but the entire Russian foreign policy establishment regarded as an existential threat that needed to be eliminated.

It is often forgotten that many American and European politicians and strategists from the very beginning opposed the expansion of NATO, because they understood that the Russians would perceive this as a threat and that such a policy would ultimately lead to a catastrophe. Opponents include George Kennan, Secretary of Defense under President Clinton William Perry and his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, Paul Nitz, Robert Gates, Robert McNamara, Richard Pipes and Jack Matlock, and these are just some of them. At the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008, both French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposed President George W. Bush’s plan for Ukraine’s accession to the North Atlantic Union. Merkel later stated that her opposition was based on her belief that Putin would interpret it as a “ declaration of war ”.

Of course, opponents of NATO expansion were right, but they lost the battle, and NATO moved east, which ultimately provoked the Russians to start a preventive war. If the United States and its allies had not taken steps to join Ukraine in NATO in April 2008, or if they were ready to take into account Moscow’s security interests after, as the Ukrainian crisis erupted in February 2014, probably there would be no war in Ukraine today, and its borders would look like they looked when it gained its independence. independence in 1991. The West made a huge mistake, for which he and many others have not yet finished paying.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2023-06-29 12:01|| 2023-06-29 12:01|| Front Page Top

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