John Mearsheimer on Ukraine in 2014
If you are looking to find out more about how we got to where we are today regarding Ukraine, this talk from John Mearsheimer in 2014 is excellent and full of detail.
He gets opinionated at points in the talk and he’s coming at it in terms of long-term American foreign policy. But he’s clearly knowledgeable. The history of Ukraine is considered, and as close to impartial and objective as you could hope for.
Some takeaways:
We should not forget that Ukraine has been in a civil war for a while now
Nationalism, particularly on the Ukrainian and Russian sides, is an important factor. Less so in Western Europe and in the US
Putin has a focused long-term strategy, and may even believe he’s acting to prevent an existential threat to Russia
Western Europe and the USA have not pursued a coherent strategy in Eastern Europe since around early 2000s
NATO expansion has been a concern of Putin’s for as long as he’s been president. As if the cold war never ended
Mearsheimer made one claim which hasn’t aged well, he said that China could spark conflict with the US or Japan in 2015-2016. His words were carefully hedged though
The talk didn’t affect my view or prediction on how the current (2022) Ukrainian crisis is likely to play out.
I expect Putin will get what he wants purely because he is more interested in Ukraine than the US or Europe. A peaceful diplomatic carving up of Ukraine is in his grasp, and if he doesn’t get it, it will likely be because he pushed too far or miscalculated.