John J. Mearsheimer, a Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, has consistently taken a view different from the current Beltway types about America’s role in Ukraine. In a July 30 interview with Aaron Mate of Push Back, Mearsheimer says that questioning the U.S. support of the Ukraine War is to risk being canceled in today’s political climate.
A proponent of the theory of great powers such as the United States, Russia, and China, and the author of a 2001 book, “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics,” Mearsheimer said as long ago as 2015 that the West’s response so far to the (Ukraine) crisis” was only aiding in “making a bad situation worse.” He was referring to American involvement in Kyiv that had successfully ousted the then Moscow-friendly Ukrainian leader, President Viktor Yanukovich, and returned a Western-friendly leader, Petro Poroshenko, to the presidency.
In the Mate interview, Mearsheimer reviews the current war and offers a pathway to peace. The claim that the Biden administration always makes – that Russia’s actions in Ukraine were unprovoked – comes apart with Mearsheimer’s insight.
NATO Expansion to Russia’s borders was a significant cause. Mearsheimer points out that the original thinking in Washington was not to expand NATO. “Back in the 1990s, when the subject of NATO expansion was being debated, there were a large number of very prominent members of the foreign policy establishment who said that NATO expansion would end up in disaster. This included people like George Kennan (and) William Perry, who was the Secretary of Defense at the time. By the way, there was widespread opposition to NATO expansion inside the Pentagon then.”
But NATO expanded eastward under President Clinton anyway, inching ever closer to Russian borders. In 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland gained NATO membership. On March 29, 2004, under the urging of President Bush 43 in the wake of the global war on terror, NATO expanded by seven new states on a single day – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Each was a Soviet colony during the cold war.
Even Europe was once opposed to Ukraine’s NATO membership. Mearsheimer recalls the opposition from many quarters in 2008 when the NATO Bucharest Summit announced that Ukraine and Georgia would join the defense alliance. “When the decision was made, in April 2008, at the Bucharest Summit to bring Ukraine into NATO, Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy, who was then the French leader, both of them were adamantly opposed to bringing Ukraine into NATO. This is when the trouble started…Angela Merkel was bitterly opposed, and she subsequently said that the reason that she was opposed was that she understood that Putin would interpret it as a declaration of war.” He continues: “Moscow repeatedly stated that Ukraine entering the Western alliance would be seen as an existential threat (to Russia).”
But, despite the opposition, Washington doubled down and kept Kyiv’s hopes of joining NATO alive through the years. Mearsheimer blames “three key elements” in the West’s strategy – the expansion of NATO, the expansion of the EU, and the promotion of democracy globally – as sowing the seeds of the conflict. He says, “For its part, Ukraine did not learn from Georgia’s foolhardy attempts to stand up to Moscow in the vain hopes that NATO would step in when necessary.”
Ukraine’s NATO membership is not imminent. Mearsheimer points out that sadly for Ukraine, the coveted U.S.-backed defense alliance membership remains out of Ukraine’s reach. Forced to issue a statement by President Zelenskyy at the Vilnius Summit, NATO acknowledged that Ukraine will be granted membership into the alliance once “conditions are met.” What those conditions are was not explicitly mentioned. It is safe to assume that Kyiv will not officially join the NATO fold as long as the war rages.
Mearsheimer says that the prospect of a future NATO membership for Ukraine only incentivizes Russia to continue the conflict to stall that eventuality. Further, it hinders the possibility of any real cease-fire talks or truce negotiations – a fact acknowledged by many American and European officials. Moscow is also likely to capture more Ukrainian territory, especially those regions with Russian-speaking populations, and establish control of more areas in efforts to create substantial buffer zones between the two countries.
Now that the war has entered its eighteenth month, hopes of a quick resolution are dead. As Mearsheimer warns, “We’re not going to get a meaningful peace agreement between Ukraine and the West on one side and the Russians on the other. The best we can hope for is a ‘cold peace.’ And a ‘cold peace’ – where the Russians are constantly looking for opportunities to improve their position, and the Ukrainians and the West are constantly looking for opportunities to improve their position – means each side is attempting to take advantage of the other. When you get into a cold piece where both sides operate that way, the potential for escalation and returning to a hot war is great.”
Lasting peace is possible if Ukraine becomes neutral. Mearsheimer says that a path to lasting peace would involve returning Ukraine to a neutral state, which would entail building up the country’s economy and making it less dependent on either bloc. Ukraine would act as a buffer between NATO and Russia. But for this scenario to take shape, the current and future U.S. administrations must permanently shelve plans of bringing Ukraine into the defense alliance fold.
One-sided war rhetoric. Mearsheimer cites the one-sided war rhetoric in Western capitals: “That people like me have sort of kept out of the mainstream media is quite remarkable. We have conventional wisdom in Washington, and the mainstream media is committed to policing the marketplace of ideas to ensure that people who disagree with that conventional wisdom are not heard, or if they are heard, their arguments are perverted or countered immediately.”
“It’s a terrible situation. It’s not the way life is supposed to work in a liberal democracy. You have to have some semblance of a marketplace of ideas if you want to have smart policies. Because the fact is that governments often sometimes do stupid things, or they pursue policies that look like they’re correct at the time but prove to be disastrous. And you want to have lots of people who disagree with those policies have an opportunity to voice their opinions before the policy is launched and after the policy is launched. But in this day and age, that’s very difficult to do, and that’s very depressing and distressing.”
As we go to press with this piece, the New York Times just broke a grim story. The war has claimed 500,000 lives, with peace talks nowhere on the horizon: “And while combatants are dying in droves, the civilians caught between the guns have died in the thousands while millions have been displaced.”
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TIPP Takes
Geopolitics And Geoeconomics
1. Russia’s Lavrov Says West Needs Continual Reminder Of Risks Of Nuclear War – Al Jazeera
“The possession of nuclear arms is today the only possible response to some of the significant external threats to the security of our country,” Lavrov said in an interview.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s comments are the latest reference by Russian officials to their country’s nuclear weapons arsenal, a rhetoric of military escalation by Moscow that has gained tempo and frequency since Russian forces invaded Ukraine last year.
2. Vladimir Putin Meets Top Generals In Charge Of Russia’s War Efforts In Ukraine – Reuters
The Kremlin said Putin listened to reports from Valery Gerasimov, the General Staff of the Army chief in charge of Moscow’s operations in Ukraine, and other top military commanders and officers.
The meeting came after Ukraine, whose counteroffensive to recapture land taken by Russia in the first months of the war, has been slower than expected.
3. Turkey’s Foreign Minister To Visit Kyiv As Ukraine Pushes For A New Grain Corridor – Middle East Eye
According to informed sources, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is scheduled to visit Ukraine next week to explore options for revitalizing the grain deal suspended by Russia.
The move comes as Kyiv proposes an alternative route for transporting agricultural products that would circumvent international waters.
4. China Military Drills Send ‘Stern Warning’ To Taiwan After U.S. Visit – Al Jazeera
China has launched air and sea military exercises around Taiwan to send a “stern warning” to separatist forces on the island following a recent visit by Taiwan’s VP William Lai to the United States.
Taiwan responded, saying the drills highlighted Beijing’s “militaristic mentality” and that combat aircraft, naval ships, and land-based missile systems had been tasked with monitoring Chinese forces.
5. Hundreds Of Chinese Satellites Keep Watch Over U.S.-Australia Military Exercises – WION
Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that China deployed a swarm of surveillance satellites to oversee two significant military training operations involving the United States and Australia.
During the recently concluded Exercise Talisman Sabre, China is said to have deployed hundreds of its satellites over Australia to gather intelligence. Satellites like Shijian-17 and Shijian-23 were observed moving eastward to cover various zones where the military exercises occurred.
6. Emerging Economies Push To End Dollar-Dominance, Raising Doubts About The Alternative – A.P.
Across the developing world, many countries are fed up with America’s dominance of the global financial system — especially the power of the dollar.
They will air their grievances next week as the BRICS bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa meet with other emerging market countries in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Despite repeated talk of the BRICS countries rolling out their currency, no concrete proposals have emerged in the run-up to the summit starting Tuesday.
7. Amid Space Race With China And Russia, A Warning From U.S. Intelligence – Bloomberg
The U.S. intelligence community is warning the domestic space industry of the growing risk of espionage and satellite attacks from China, Russia, and other adversaries.
U.S. space-related companies are at risk of “cyberattacks, strategic investment (including joint ventures and acquisitions), the targeting of key supply chain nodes and other techniques to gain access to the space industry,” says a bulletin issued jointly by the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, the FBI and the U.S. Air Force.
8. EU Gas Reserves Reach 90% Ahead Of November Deadline – D.W.
The natural gas reserves in the European Union are filled to 90% of their capacity well before the target date of November 1, the European Commission announced.
The European Commission estimates that the bloc now has enough gas to cover a third of its winter needs.
Although Russia’s gas is not subject to EU sanctions, its supplies to the EU have fallen below 10% as Moscow has turned off the taps.
9. Israel Says U.S. Okays ‘Landmark’ Missile Defense Deal With Germany – AFP
Israel said the United States approved the “landmark” sale of the Arrow 3 hypersonic missile defense system to Germany in the country’s biggest military deal, worth $3.5 billion.
Israel and the United States jointly developed and produced the Arrow 3 system, designed to shoot down ballistic missiles above the Earth’s atmosphere.
10. Japan, U.S., South Korea Agree To Consult Swiftly In Facing “Threats” – Kyodo News
The leaders of Japan, the United States, and South Korea agreed to collaborate swiftly to coordinate their responses to “provocations” and “threats.”
Their joint statement, the Spirit of Camp David, also touched on China’s “dangerous and aggressive behavior” in regional waters. However, officials involved in the drafting process had said earlier that South Korea expressed reservations about explicitly criticizing Beijing.
11. North Korea’s ICBM Launch Success Likely Due To Russia Help: U.S. Expert – Kyodo News
North Korea’s successful launch of a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile in July was likely the result of technical cooperation sourced to Russia, a U.S. national security policy expert said.
Theodore Postol, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, analyzed the reported physical dimensions and flight trajectory data of North Korea’s Hwasong-18 and found them to be “nearly identical” to that of the Russian ICBM Topol-M.
12. ‘D-Day’ Of Possible Military Intervention In Niger Has Been Decided: ECOWAS – Reuters
West Africa’s leading regional bloc ECOWAS has agreed to a “D-day” for a possible military intervention to restore democracy in Niger if diplomatic efforts fail, a senior official said.
The official did nit disclose when that is. The comments came at the end of a two-day meeting of West African army chiefs in Accra, where they have been hashing out the logistics and strategy for a possible use of force in Niger that ECOWAS has said would be a last resort.
13. Norway Makes More Strides On Offshore Storage Of Greenhouse Gas CO2 – UPI
The Norwegian government said three energy companies were awarded acreage in the North Sea to store carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas.
Norway is ahead of the game in carbon storage. The nation’s energy regulator believes the North Sea has the potential to store more than 80 billion tons of CO2, which is the equivalent of 1,000 years worth of Norwegian emissions.
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Republished with permission from TIPP Insights
