The video above was linked to in comments by a frequent commenter. It’s a lengthy talk by John Mearsheimer and I materially agree with a substantial part of what Dr. Mearsheimer has to say. It’s a lengthy talk, more than an hour long so listening to it requires a significant commitment of time.
I don’t agree with everything he says. For example, I don’t think that Germany considers the U. S. a “benign hegemon”. Either Dr. Mearsheimer hasn’t spent much time in Germany, he doesn’t speak German, or he does speak German and the Germans discreetly refrain from speaking frankly when he’s around. I believe the Germans think we’re dopes. When I was working in Germany I kept the extent of my knowledge of the German language secret, avoiding speaking German to the greatest degree possible. It’s amazing what people will say in front of you when they don’t know you can understand them.
Key quote:
The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and Ukraine is going to get wrecked.
He advocates our encouraging Ukraine to maintain neutrality while it builds itself up economically.
Is Dr. Mearsheimer still right that the Russians don’t intend to reconstitute a Greater Russia and that their strategy is to wreck Ukraine to prevent it from allying with the West? I have no idea.
I would like to hear Mearsheimer talk about Putin’s plans after he read his declaration of war against Ukraine this week. Putin clearly believes Ukraine has no right to exist independently from under Russian suzerainty. Any trade relations or foreign policy unacceptable from the view of whomever controls Russia is permitted only by sufferance.
Ukraine is a relatively poor country that saw how the economies of other former Eastern block countries expanded through the EU and negotiated an EU association agreement hoping to build itself up economically. The arrangement was vetoed by Putin because it was not in Russia’s interests. So as I see it, Mearsheimer is probably being callous by saying that Ukraine should just improve economically when they are shackled to a country whose economy (oil/gas and large government sector) is unlikely to permit it to do so.
Just to put this in context, GDP per capita in the Baltics ranges from $18,000 in Latvia to $23,000 for Estonia. Ukraine is about $4000 and Russia about $10,000 (World Bank). In 1995 Russia and the Baltics were about the same. Also of note to the current situation, Russia peaked at $16,000 in 2015. In 2020 (last year for World Bank) they are down to $10,000. (Didnt watch M yet but will do later. )
Steve
PD Shaw,
Part of the problem is that Russia and the EU have considered Ukraine a pawn and were only interested in exclusive economic agreements that exclude the other. So the competing “deals” offered to Ukraine (EU-Ukraine Association Agreement or the Eurasian Economic Union) were a zero-sum choice with tremendous political and geostrategic implications. It’s a bit of a prisoner’s dilemma.
The problem I have (and have long had) with this western and US policy is that it would inevitably lead to where we are today. It should have been obvious 20 years ago that Ukraine isn’t Poland.
That was torture but listened to whole thing. (Almost never watch YouTube as reading is much faster.) I agree, as i have in the past, that we dont want Ukraine in NATO. The 2008 statement that Ukraine should join NATO was a mistake. We get nothing out of it. All it does for the US is add risk. Bur once you get past NATO then I think the economic links, like with the EU gets more difficult. Mearsheimer’s claims only really work then if you assume that Ukraine has no sovereignty and is under the control of Russia. Ukraine should give up its desires to see the kind of growth seen by the Baltics and employ the economic model of an economy based upon extraction, without having the stuff to extract.
So when M says that we wouldn’t tolerate troops in Mexico and Canada that is not the right analogy. AFAICT NATO is really off the table. 14 years after the 2008 declaration I see no serious or even half hearted attempt to have Ukraine NATO. On the economic front however, China is the number 2 trading partner for both Mexico and Canada. Are we threatening to invade our neighbors because they economic ties to China? Hardly.
NATO as a defense entity against Russia was essentially defunct until Russia invaded. No one had much of a military other than us. There were no security issues for Russia. (There were and are economic issues with Russia having taken such large hits recently.) Maybe now western Europe beefs up their militaries?
Which leads to a pet peeve. Americans really need to give up on the myth of the Russian superman. They lost the Cold War. I am not seeing brilliance here by Putin. He wasn’t facing a security threat. He may face one after this invasion. If he stays and tries to occupy Ukraine he risks another Afghanistan. If he leaves then war devastated Ukraine likely looks even more enviously at those Baltic states. What he is achieving it seems to me, Mearsheimer sort of alludes to this, is making his nationalistic base happy.
Steve
Agree completely.
What was inevitable was the Russian control of Ukraine. What is clear is that Russia wont allow any act of independence by Ukraine. Remove NATO from the picture and you end up the same place. Either Ukraine accepted Russian control or the Russians do it by force. What you are saying Dave is that Ukraine needs to permanently accept poverty. If the path to prosperity for Ukraine was through Russia it surely has not shown up since the 1940s. The Baltics figured it out but Russia is not letting Ukraine go.
Steve
You’re putting words in my mouth. What I have actually said is that the U. S. should have taken NATO membership off the table and encouraged Ukrainian economic growth through mutual trade rather than the exclusive relationship the EU offered.
The EU Association Agreement was not an exclusive trade deal, but it is complicated. This is from the EU explanation of myths about the Agreement:
“From both economic and legal point of views, there is nothing in the Association Agreement which will affect other trade partners of Ukraine, including Russia.
“All countries which have signed Free Trade Agreements with the EU are free to sign further Free Trade Agreements with whatever trading partners they choose to. Free trade agreements can easily exist side by side as each participant remains free to continue implementing their independent trade policy. The EU itself, as most other countries in the world, has a wide network of free trade agreements with its partners.
“In addition, it is currently negotiating trade agreements with the US, Japan, India, etc. In fact the EU encourages Ukraine to maintain and develop its trade partnership with Russia and the Customs Union, as these economic links are important for Ukraine and do not hurt EU-Ukraine trade relations.
“On the other hand all members of a customs union agree to apply the same external import tariff when importing goods from outside the customs union. For instance, this is the case of the member states of the EU, who are not free to change their external tariff as this is managed at EU level.
“If Ukraine were to join the Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, it would be forced to revise the entire structure of its external tariff, currently significant more open than that of the CU. The existing free trade areas would need to be nullified, and so would the terms under which Ukraine joined the WTO. Moreover, Ukraine would need to grant compensation to other WTO members negatively affected by the changes, as they would face higher tariffs when exporting to Ukraine.”
https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/html/152074.htm
Putin complained that this Agreement would impose major economic harms on Russia, and threatened sanctions against Ukraine if it was signed. There is a bit of rosy scenario in the EU description, and if Russian goods are inferior in cost/quality to those that Ukraine could access through association with the EU, then Russia would lose trade. If this is too anti-Russian, than Ukraine can never build itself up economically through the means used by other Eastern European countries.
Thank you, PD. That’s very helpful and informative.
Thanks PD, beat me to it. Also if you look at the trade numbers there has been some trade initiated with he EU. In response Russia stopped a lot of its trade with Ukraine hurting Ukraine’s economy. Unable to have Ukraine as a client state devoted to Russia, Putin first tried to hurt Ukraine economically and has now resorted to invasion. I think this is much more about economics and influence in Ukraine than it is about security claims.
Look at eh actual claims made by Putin. They are going to de-nazify Ukraine. Jewish leader Zelensky chief among them. They are going to stop the genocide in East Ukraine. The genocide no one can find in the war that Russia has been financing and supporting.
Steve