Professor Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago presents a theory of the conflict and war in Ukraine. “The U.S. is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis” because “The US has pushed forward policies toward Ukraine that Putin and his colleagues see as an existential threat to their country”. The gaping hole in this theory, the part of the equation that Mearsheimer seems completely oblivious to is the existential threat Russia has posed and continues to pose to Russia’s neighboring societies. Several of them have indeed had their existence terminated by Russia at various points in time.
I moved to Poland from Ohio in the 1990’s when Poland was preparing to join NATO. Was this necessary, I wondered, at a time when Gorbachev and Yeltsin were making changes? But no, I was wrong. There was not a soul in Poland in any of the various parties who didn’t want to join NATO. Past and recent history has been a chronicle of Russia’s repeating episodes of aggression and abuse. And no one is convinced that Poland need not be prepared for the next time.
Throughout the 19th century, when Poland had been wiped off the map, Russia occupied much of Poland and tried to extirpate Polish culture and identity by such absurd methods as forbidding the Polish language to be spoken wherever they could, even in schools. Existential threat?
On March 3, 1918, the Russians surrendered to Germany. But after the allies defeated Germany, the map of Europe was redrawn and Poland was reborn. But Russia and Poland went to war over the border lands – Poland to re-establish the country taken over
during the partitions and Russia, now the Soviet Union, to regain the territory of the Russian Empire lost by the Versailles treaty. Pilsudski’s army defeated the red army at the gates of Warsaw and the battle was dubbed the “Miracle on the Vistula.” The event is commemorated yearly in Poland as is the battle of Bunker Hill in the US. Existential threat?
In August 1939 Hitler attacked Poland, but not before making a secret agreement with Stalin to divide Poland down the middle.. Russian tanks rolled over the eastern border on September 17, 1940, and established a murderous occupation of Poland. They disappeared the professors at Poland’s leading University at Krakow, disassembled factories and sent them back to Russia, and deported hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens to Russia, including 50,000 children, one survivor of whom I met in Poland in 1998.
But the most memorable to Poles is Katyn. Outside this obscure town ,16,000 Polish military officers and another 6000 intellectuals were lined up and machine gunned into pits. Today virtually every cemetery in Poland has a memorial to the Katyn victims. The soviets refused to admit or apologize for the atrocity, claiming it was the work of the Nazis. Not until 40 years later, did Gorbachev admit what every Pole knew – that it was a Russian act, ordered by Stalin and carried out by Russian soldiers. Poland, like the other Warsaw Pact countries became puppet states after the war, and the last Russian military deployment left Poland only in 1993. Existential threat?
The existential threat from its enormous neighbor has been ingrained in Poland’s collective soul and psyche. In the last 200 years there has never been a generation of Poles without the living memory of Russian aggression. The entrance into NATO was nothing less than a national deliverance. Poland became a member not because of American pressure, but because of a very justified and deserved desire for national security. Poles demanded and begged for membership in NATO
Of course Poland was far from the only state to suffer from Russian aggression. In 1940 the soviets gave an ultimatum to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland: We need to occupy your country so we can better fend off the Nazis. Sign here or else. The 3 Baltic states signed and the red army occupied them. And as a Latvian recently expressed, ”They forgot to leave.” Finland refused to sign the ultimatum and Russia attacked. But with the help of their geography, bravely held off the red army in the winter war. But the Baltic states were unwillingly incorporated into the Soviet Union, gaining their freedom only in 1991 after 51 years of occupation. Existential threat?
All of this history understandably inclines the people of the region to be wary of Russian aggression. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. And it would be very irresponsible not to work to reduce the risk and to be prepared for it.
But Mearsheimer says all this Russian aggression and hegemony in the satellite countries proves the opposite. It proves Russia would never want to take over another country: “Surely Putin and other Russian leaders understood from the cold war that occupying countries in the age of nationalism IS A RECIPE FOR NEVER ENDING conflict.” [caps mine] If I may be self-indulgent for a moment, this reminds me of a time I was
head teacher at an elementary school annex. I told a teacher she could not take home the school ledger to work on at home. It must stay here in the school. She said, no, no,
I wouldn’t lose it. It is too important to lose. I edified her that ‘very important’ was a reason to NOT take the ledger home. Russia’s historic behavior is NOT a reason to dismiss Russia’s future aggression.
Mearsheimer’s logic, to the neighbors of Russia, is like saying Charlie Brown is never going to try to kick the football while Lucy holds it again. He’s learned his lesson. If Russia had learned its lesson and “surely understood” about the problems caused by the takeover in 1953 in Germany, why did they invade Hungary in 1956? If they “understood” about Hungary in 1956why did they invade Czecholsovaia in 1968? And so on. And why did they continue to occupy and control the Warsaw Pact countries until 1989? And why were Russian military installations in Poland only decommissioned in in 1993?
Then of course, every reason Poland had for joining NATO proved completely valid with the invasion of Ukraine by Putin. And professor Meirsheim’s contension that Russia will not invade because if there was anyone who thought the danger of Russian aggression was a thing of the past, the Russian invasion of 2022 proved him a fool.
Meisheimer said the NATO expansion was driven by imperialistic goals – They..”wanted to make all countries in Eastern Europe look like western countries.” But what does his mean in the 21st century? We are no longer peasant societies, nor do we want to go back. Although every country has its own sacred culture of traditions and norms, the people of eastern Europe are becoming IT engineers, lazer surgeons, and anthropologists , and want to take advantage of educational opportunities all over the world. They certainly want to “look like western countries” if the alternative is to look like Russia. Russia had the second lowest per capital gross domestic income in the region before the war, and likely the lowest now. Shocking to find out, 20% of Russia’s population of 140 million live in a home without running water, flush toilets or sewage system. Today! We don’t want to look like eastern countries. When the soviet union fell apart it lost half its population and Putin said it was the “biggest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century” But for all those countries who were soviet republics only because they were occupied by soviet tanks, it was a long awaited salvation. In the window of opportunity afforded by the thaw of the 1990’s, they got away while the getting was good.
After the war started, Mearsheimer said Russia was not not intending to take over whole country.. How is that any comfort to Ukrainins who have seen thousands of their schools, hospitals, churches and apartment buildings destroyed, many local officials and mayors murdered, children kidnapped taken back to Russian, millions of dollars of John Deere farm equipment absconded back to Russia, and thousand of citizens killed.
Don’t want to anger Putin. But emperor Putin has no clothes. lost half his work force, has a lower GNI than almost every country in the region, his military depends of weapons from Iran and North Korea, his generals made giants blunders and miscalculations and besides the aging Lukasienko in Belarus, has no allies. How can we respect a Russian sphere of influence of such a country?
There has never been a moment from 2000 til Feb 24 2022, when Putin could not have stabiliuzed, normalized, and made cordial Russia’s relations with its neighbor’s. But this seems to have been prevented by 2 things. First his calculus that this would not be the best for maintaining his own unchallenged personal power. And second, soviet dogma fossilized in Putin’s brain – our system can never give a standard of living that the west can so we will curry nationalism for support of our regime and the best way to do that is a continuation of the culture of fear and hatred of the existential threat that lurks beyond their borders.
END OF MIERSHIEM STORY
There has never been a time when Putin couldn’t have normalized relations. threatening flyovers/ couldnt throw of the soviet mode of operations – the sovirt system can never deliver, so the only way of support is nationalism and best nationalism is promoting the fear of the
borders – political xenophobia.
Mearsh not intending to take over whole country.. How is that any comfort toUkrainins who have seen thousands of their schools, hospitals, churches and apartmentbuildings destroyed, many local officials and mays such as ,, murdered, children kidnapped taken back to Russian, millions of dollars of John Deere farm equipment absconded back to Russia, over a hundred thousand citizens killed.
I will start out with 2 quotes from pros Mearsheimer
”And then Russia attacked Ukraine, seeing an existential threat”
what about the existential threat to… more real because Russia had previously e nded the exixtence of many of them
”They wanted to turn the baltic countries into west europe”
people in east dont want to look like russia 6000 nukes, but 21 % no toilets
don’t want to look like west, not russia because they want democracy.
” Putin’s invasion of crimea was not planned” but was an impulsive move in response to the coup that overthrew the Ukrainian pro Russian.
the coup happened before it was too late. In Belarus, had lukasieko been thrown out, Belarus would look more like the west also – democracy, friendly relations, no dictatorship
before 2010 putin no intentions. so what now??? hey ukraine don’t worry p must not want to take over your country. because a he had no intention prior to 2010 and 2 now they only want to take “large swaths of soutrher terrotory” now no worries.
it was a miscalculation of the reapolitics of the situation, 6ooo nukes powerless in face of intn’l condem geopolitical didsaster. King geoge – am rev was a geopolitical disaster. 1/2 of russias workforce and more than half of russia’s educated left the sov iet union- it wasn;t a disaster to these people. MAny in the Baltics expressed it was NOT gaining independence , it was ending the occupation which stifled economy, education, and democracyh for 50 years
Russia invaded Crimea after the coup. Indeed it was a coup. As the parliament had overwhelmingly voted to adopt a plan of cooperation with the EU and a week before signing, puppet anounced he was not signing and was signing an agreement with Russia. The coup, which it was, was a turning point. They overthrew the Lukasienko of Ukraine because they chose not to be client state of poots
M say Putin must not have had intension of taking over all of Ukraine because — well look how much trouble other examples were?????
Russia pulled outof its asatellites because of 1) huge international climate of opinion,
satelits were letting it known they wanted Soviet tanks the hell out of their countries and 2) Russia was broke.
2019 Putin blames Poland for starting WWII. his puppet pm demands an apology, wice, from Poland..
1 russia’s occupation of Poland for the entire 19th century. Tried to eliminate polish culture, forbade the speaking polish many places including polish schools
2 Poland after gaining indepence is attacked by Russia. All Poles today still celebrate the “Miracle on the Vistula” the battle that defeated the Russians on the doorstep of Warsaw
3 the invasion of Poland in 1940. Secret agreement with Nazi’s to devide up Poland.
Arrest of thousands, deported to Russian work camps, Disassembling of hundreds of Polish factories, sent to Russia (as in the current war, Russians stole millions of dollars of John Deer farm equipment and sent it to Russia) Deported 50 thu children to Russia. I met one one the survivors here in Gdansk. Aresseting of Polish professors at cracow university. And worst – KATYN. The Russian lined up over 20,000 Polish professions including 16000 Polish military officers and machine gunned them into pits. This business was denied untill the late 1980’s when Gorbachev recognized and apologized for the incident.
In 2019 Putin blamed Poland for starting the war and his prime minister demanded an apology from Poland for starting the war. for starting the war.
WHAT HAVE I GOT
MEAR SAID WAR US RESPONSIBILITY CAUSE PUTIN VIEWED NATO AS AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT — PUTIN NO INTEND TO TAKE OVER. — US wants to make the eastern countries ”look like the west”
wHAT ABOUT EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO POLAND, THE BALTICS?
1 POLAND – 1800’S / 1920 / 1939/ 1953 / 1956 / 1968 / Existential threat?
In 1998 when Poland became a member of NATO, at first I thought, hmm, maybe not necessary now that Gorbachev and Yeltsin seemed to have changed a thing or two. Wrong. Not one Pole from any part of the political spectrum did not want to be a NATO member. It was a veritable deliverance – from History, from Russia. This history is pervasive in the collective Polish soul, pshche and subconscious.
All the 19th century Poland was gone from the map of Europe. The Russians tried to extirpate Polish society but
want to look like the west or US — they want – IT specialists, lazer surgeons, psychologists, not lose their culture —– not look like RUSSIA – lowest GDI , 212 w/o toilets — where a —- ministry asked a judge to rule they can eliminate the Sacharov center- and all parties do it because they know they will lose job if not. just as ukrain is a con of russian aggression, Prigoshin is a continuation of Politiskaya, Ltinowskki, 1 guy shot, other now in jail. — all the people in turn know the choice is do what Putin wants or lose your job or worse. In the US the national psyche is ‘freedom’
