The Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault

Ethereal · Jan 19, 2017

Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault

The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin

John J. Mearsheimer

According to the prevailing wisdom in the West, the Ukraine crisis can be blamed almost entirely on Russian aggression. Russian President Vladimir Putin, the argument goes, annexed Crimea out of a long-standing desire to resuscitate the Soviet empire, and he may eventually go after the rest of Ukraine, as well as other countries in eastern Europe. In this view, the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 merely provided a pretext for Putin’s decision to order Russian forces to seize part of Ukraine.

But this account is wrong: the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis. The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West. At the same time, the EU’s expansion eastward and the West’s backing of the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine -- beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004 -- were critical elements, too. Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president -- which he rightly labeled a “coup” -- was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West.

Putin’s pushback should have come as no surprise. After all, the West had been moving into Russia’s backyard and threatening its core strategic interests, a point Putin made emphatically and repeatedly. Elites in the United States and Europe have been blindsided by events only because they subscribe to a flawed view of international politics. They tend to believe that the logic of realism holds little relevance in the twenty-first century and that Europe can be kept whole and free on the basis of such liberal principles as the rule of law, economic interdependence, and democracy.

But this grand scheme went awry in Ukraine. The crisis there shows that realpolitik remains relevant -- and states that ignore it do so at their own peril. U.S. and European leaders blundered in attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia’s border. Now that the consequences have been laid bare, it would be an even greater mistake to continue this misbegotten policy.

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University of Chicago professor and realist foreign policy analyst, John J. Mearsheimer, explains the origin of the present US-Russian conflict as the result of NATO enlargement towards Russia's borders.

The "liberal" interventionists who provoked the Russians did so by violating the original agreement between the west and the Soviets that ended the cold war, among other things.

In other words, the west lied to the Russians and almost immediately began expanding a hostile military alliance towards Russia's borders.

MIT professor, Noam Chomsky, has spoken about this in several interviews:

[video=youtube;h0qdbsE3Jqo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0qdbsE3Jqo&feature=youtu.be&t=40m30s[/video]

Chomsky explains, in his common sense way, that if the shoe were on the other foot, and a Russian military alliance had expanded into the western hemisphere all the way up to the US borders, Americans would be outraged.

This is how realists view foreign policy in general, by putting themselves in other nation's shoes instead of just belligerently and automatically assuming the supremacy and righteousness of their own nation.

In other words, realists have a rational view of foreign policy. Their neocon and neoliberal opponents do not.

Unfortunately, the neocons and neoliberals have been dominating US foreign policy for many decades. So is it any wonder that US foreign policy can only be described as a series of disasters that costs our country trillions and achieves nothing tangible for Americans?

waltky · Feb 1, 2017

Mebbe the Donald gonna trade Ukraine fer more interest in Syria?...

US Flirts With Softer Stance on Russia's Conduct in Ukraine
February 01, 2017 | WASHINGTON The Trump administration on Wednesday maintained a low-key approach to the latest flare-up of violence in eastern Ukraine, where the government accuses Russian-backed forces of stepping up attacks. The restrained tone may reflect the start of a new U.S. approach to dealing with Russia's cross-border activity, even as top U.S. officials are pledging to support Ukraine's sovereignty.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer had little to say on Wednesday when asked for the administration's position on the renewed fighting that began over the weekend and persisted into early Wednesday. At least 10 people have been killed and dozens wounded. President Donald Trump has been kept aware of developments in Ukraine, Spicer said, and the White House will have further updates as we go on. It was not immediately clear when those updates would come. The new rhetoric comes amid significant concern in Europe about Trump's overtures to Russia. The new president has called NATO obsolete and challenged America's allies to take on greater responsibility for defending themselves, while raising the possibility of a new era of U.S.-Russian cooperation.

A pro-Russia rebel stands guard during preparations for a prisoner exchange in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine

On Tuesday, the State Department responded to the violence in Ukraine but omitted any mention of Russia in a six-sentence statement that called for an immediate cease-fire and full implementation of the agreements meant to outline a political resolution to the crisis. Trump's U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, met with her Ukrainian counterpart to reaffirm the United States' support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, according to a statement. The omission of Russia from the responses contrasted sharply with statements by the Obama administration, which sharply criticized Moscow for supporting and even directing attacks by the separatists, and not fulfilling its obligations under the 2015 truce plan signed in Minsk, Belarus.

The State Department statement reaffirmed U.S. backing for the Minsk plan, but that reference only came about after internal interagency discussions in Washington. According to an American official with knowledge of the discussions, White House officials questioned why the Minsk agreements needed to be mentioned at all even though the U.S. has insisted for almost two years on the deal's full implementation. The official wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.

Change in tone
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See also:

Sources: Trump to Focus US Counter-extremism Program Solely on Islam
February 01, 2017 The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The program, "Countering Violent Extremism," or CVE, would be changed to "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States. Such a change would reflect Trump's election campaign rhetoric and criticism of former President Barack Obama for being weak in the fight against Islamic State and for refusing to use the phrase "radical Islam" in describing it. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks on civilians in several countries.

Aims to deter

The CVE program aims to deter groups or potential lone attackers through community partnerships and educational programs or counter-messaging campaigns in cooperation with companies such as Google and Facebook. Some proponents of the program fear that rebranding it could make it more difficult for the government to work with Muslims already hesitant to trust the new administration, particularly after Trump issued an executive order last Friday temporarily blocking travel to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, right, listens to U.S. President Donald Trump during a meeting with cybersecurity experts in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington

Still, the CVE program, which focuses on U.S. residents and is separate from a military effort to fight extremism online, has been criticized even by some supporters as ineffective. A source who has worked closely with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the program said Trump transition team members first met with a CVE task force in December and floated the idea of changing the name and focus.

In a meeting last Thursday attended by senior staff for DHS Secretary John Kelly, government employees were asked to defend why they chose certain community organizations as recipients of CVE program grants, said the source, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.

Money under review
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SvenO100 · Feb 1, 2017

Ethereal said: ↑

University of Chicago professor and realist foreign policy analyst, John J. Mearsheimer, explains the origin of the present US-Russian conflict as the result of NATO enlargement towards Russia's borders.

The "liberal" interventionists who provoked the Russians did so by violating the original agreement between the west and the Soviets that ended the cold war, among other things.

In other words, the west lied to the Russians and almost immediately began expanding a hostile military alliance towards Russia's borders.

MIT professor, Noam Chomsky, has spoken about this in several interviews:

[video=youtube;h0qdbsE3Jqo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0qdbsE3Jqo&feature=youtu.be&t=40m30s[/video]

Chomsky explains, in his common sense way, that if the shoe were on the other foot, and a Russian military alliance had expanded into the western hemisphere all the way up to the US borders, Americans would be outraged.

This is how realists view foreign policy in general, by putting themselves in other nation's shoes instead of just belligerently and automatically assuming the supremacy and righteousness of their own nation.

In other words, realists have a rational view of foreign policy. Their neocon and neoliberal opponents do not.

Unfortunately, the neocons and neoliberals have been dominating US foreign policy for many decades. So is it any wonder that US foreign policy can only be described as a series of disasters that costs our country trillions and achieves nothing tangible for Americans?
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I have been saying the exact same things for a long time but too many people are simply to ignorant to understand. It is refreshing to see Americans that are well informed and not bashing on Russia just because it's the way it has always been. Not many people know about the agreement the West and The Soviet Union had regarding the expansion of NATO, kudos to you.

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The Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault

Ethereal Well-Known Member

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