This Ukraine / Russia conflict could have been avoided. NATO could have respected Russia’s views towards expanding to the east.
USA has been warned time and time again this would cause a conflict at this point. Even USA state officials [0] warned against it. Yet NATO decided to ignore all warnings and keep expanding eastward until it became too close for comfort to the Russians.
In a way quite similar to the Cuban missile crisis.
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[0]: https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-follows-decades-of-w...
Besides, say Ukraine joined NATO, how is the effect different from Russia taking over Ukraine. We’ll end up with a shared land border.
Obviously it’d be preferred by Russia that they occupy the place, but the war was a non-starter from the beginning. The end result is exactly the opposite from what I expect Russia was hoping to achieve (unless Putin’s aim was to make Russia a second North Korea). Ukraine has never been closer to NATO, and Russia never more reviled.
If Russia cared about this so much they could have either formalised there views and asked for an international agreement.
Or joined NATO itself, they did neither.
His arguments are easy to read if you're at all interested in different views: https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-t...
Here's a very good article that criticizes his views:
https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2023/09/tragedy-john-mear...
> Stephen Kotkin, the preeminent historian of the Soviet Union, and Michael McFaul, the US ambassador to Russia between 2012 and 2014, acknowledged that Mearsheimer was “a giant of a scholar” and “one the clearest, most logical realist theorists out there”, but he was wrong to blame the US for Putin’s invasion.
Some of his statements in this article:
"International politics is a tragedy – it always has been, it is today, and it always will be. Those who believe that you can escape the iron cage, and transcend this Hobbesian world, are delusional. My argument disturbs liberals greatly.”
“The tragedy ... is that you could have two states who are content with the status quo and have no interest in fighting or competing for power. Nevertheless, because they cannot know each other’s intentions, and because they operate in an anarchic system, they have to assume the worst about each other and have to compete for power."
Even if you disagree with some of his arguments, I would think anyone with a rationale view of the subject will agree that there's at least some truth to it, and that the Russian government is not completely mad for thinking in those terms, as the West seems to so strongly believe in general (notice how governments always paint a picture of the "enemy" as being a mad, senseless thug - this is nothing new).
I think the moment you say this you kind of lose the ability to say that you have a balanced view of the conflict.
The west is often to blame (e.g. Iraq, Iran, Syria, Israel), but this is one of the few instances in which the west didn’t instigate anything.
Pre-war Russia was a hair away (one different president) from being accepted by the international community.