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.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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Installing a puppet is still definitely imperialist behavior, focusing on this distinction wouldn't really help his main point.
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.
)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.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.
Really? I'd say that's precisely what people have in mind. American imperialism is not exactly new idea.
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And the possible extent increases now. Freezing soil means that the mud season is more or less over and that slowly units can become more mobile again.
Alright, perhaps I'm being too narrow.
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"Urge" them? They either issue the contracts or they don't.
Indeed. Its a business at the end of the day.
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.
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.
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.
Russians burning their own dead troops?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/21/russians-accused-of-burning-bodies-at-kherson-landfill
Who knows but I doubt Putin wants aircrafts full of body bags and grieving parents arriving in Moscow?
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At 5:09 the commentator says "if we follow your logic, why strike Poland?"
What is he talking about?
Some backtracking going on. Dmitry Peskov, Putin's press secretary, says that the goal isn't regime change but to help Russian speakers in Donbas.
I'm sure the invasion and massacre of civilians really helped.
Russian morale has to be bottom of the barrel by now. Not just in the army, but among those feckless political pundits and war mongerers as well. Its been setback after setback and considering they are sending these poor feckers down there in rubber boots and no winter clothing i cant imagine they will last very long if the cold really sets in
NATO assembly just voted to declare Russia a terrorist state as well so economic sanctions will become even more suffocating.
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I think he's basically saying that if we follow the logic of the chief dickhead, they might as well go full strategic nukes and call WW3 because that's what their constitution says to do.
Watching these clips recently it seems that there is far more open dissent on these programmes. A few have now openly said that it's a war and not a special operation and that main bellend who just casually calls for nukes to be dropped every day is getting more and more push back from a range of people. Considering nothing is allowed to be said without express approval, it's relatively interesting to see Putin's moderators at work to massage messages to the population. Unless these blokes have gone off script, but a couple have been on multiple times so I doubt it.
"Handful of outliers in both parties" is a somewhat misleading way of putting it. When the House voted in March for the $40 billion package, 0 Democrats and 57 Republicans voted against. In the Senate there were 0 Democrats and 11 Republicans. I'm sure the pattern will continue to repeat.
I was meaning, have they already struck Poland then? Was what happened on the border Russia after all as Zelensky was adamantly suggesting initially?
Oh right, nah I read it as "why stop at striking Poland, we might as well strike Washington". Ignoring the business of the Polish incident with the s-300 missile... don't think he's referring to that.
Unless I've totally misunderstood - to be honest, these chats they have happen way too frequently so they must talk total bollocks with everything being theoretical. And that's just the clips, feck knows what the rest of the shows must consist of - bet it's proper shit.
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I’m certain that in a previous conversation he has promoted using nuclear weapons, and said something like “not just at Ukraine but at NATO forces in Poland”. And so the guy is saying ‘if you’re that hell bent on using weapons then why not hit Washington not Poland’