Featured Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault

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.

Read More At: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141769/john-j-mearsheimer/why-the-ukraine-crisis-is-the-wests-fault

 

Mearsheimer gives a way out of this mess:

There is a solution to the crisis in Ukraine, however — although it would require the West to think about the country in a fundamentally new way. The United States and its allies should abandon their plan to westernize Ukraine and instead aim to make it a neutral buffer between NATO and Russia, akin to Austria’s position during the Cold War. Western leaders should acknowledge that Ukraine matters so much to Putin that they cannot support an anti-Russian regime there. This would not mean that a future Ukrainian government would have to be pro-Russian or anti-NATO. On the contrary, the goal should be a sovereign Ukraine that falls in neither the Russian nor the Western camp.

***

The United States and its European allies now face a choice on Ukraine. They can continue their current policy, which will exacerbate hostilities with Russia and devastate Ukraine in the process — a scenario in which everyone would come out a loser. Or they can switch gears and work to create a prosperous but neutral Ukraine, one that does not threaten Russia and allows the West to repair its relations with Moscow. With that approach, all sides would win.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/08/council-foreign-relations-ukraine-crisis-wests-putins-fault.html

 

Still haven't found that evidence eh?

Even the CFR has turned against you and Obama. You know it's bad when even the globalists start telling the truth.

 

:laugh:

Good one Hermann.

Come on back when ya got some evidence, ya hear? :smilewinkgrin:

 

Smell that folks? There be desperation in the air tonight. :smilewinkgrin:

Got proof? That's right you do. Buckwheat and rice? Hit the button! Hit the button!

 

Your latest claim. Besides buckwheat and rice I mean.

 

Is it me or does this story seem familiar?

Russian artillery?

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=2131611&postcount=2 Where's the evidence?

I found no evidence in this latest "invasion" article either Hermann. Nato said this, the Pentagon said that, the Ukrainians said "It's an invasion but we're only gonna trash talk em until they get us really really riled", and of course they included the un named "western intelligence said". But no actual evidence.

Samo samo. I did however enjoy this twist in the story.

As if the western backing and support of a violent coup isn't “a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

She must have just forgotten that little detail.

Yeah, she just forgot about it.

But hey, just because there is virtually no evidence that he (Putin) was bent on taking Crimea, much less any other territory in Ukraine, before that date doesn't mean you and your friends have to stop claiming there is but never actually providing any of it. Over and over and over . . .

It really helps to boost your Baptist Board credibility rating. :1_grouphug:

Nice images BTW when does TND want them back?

 

Maybe Mickey has the evidence you can't find to back your claims, did you ask him if he had it?

It looks like all your good buddies abandoned you CMG.

Rather than admit they've been repeating allegations they can't back up with evidence they acted all disappointed in me and called me names then disappeared. But you stayed behind. Why?

To keep reminding everyone that you don't have any evidence to back your claims or just to post pictures of your favorite celebrities?

You left out Hillary. :smilewinkgrin:

 

I found no mention of weapons being fired by Russians in this article. Perhaps you could point it out.

I did find more allegations and posturing by Washington, Germany and Ukrainian "officials" but no actual evidence to back any of their allegations. Besides trucks that allegedly carried buckwheat and rice.

Again, where's the evidence?

Don't you find it the least bit hypocritical that the same people who are on record backing a violent coup in Ukraine that overthrew an elected government keep alleging that Russia is "violating Ukraine's sovereignty"?

The NY Times credibility as does anyone's rests on their ability to back up their claims with evidence. Let me go ahead and define that word "evidence" so we're all clear on what the word "evidence" actually means . . .

Ev´i`dence

n. 1. That which makes evident or manifest; that which furnishes, or tends to furnish, proof; any mode of proof; the ground of belief or judgement; as, the evidence of our senses; evidence of the truth or falsehood of a statement. http://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/evidence

Evidence.

In a sentence: "I have asked CMG and other's to provide evidence to support their allegations, thus far they have not done so."

In a question: "Why haven't they provided evidence to back their allegations?"

Is this the new version of the same old allegation you and your paisans have been making right along but have yet to prove? It sure looks like it.

 

This is where CMG's close relationship with the Clinton's started. :1_grouphug:

Most liberals, on the other hand, favored enlargement, including many key members of the Clinton administration. They believed that the end of the Cold War had fundamentally transformed international politics and that a new, postnational order had replaced the realist logic that used to govern Europe. The United States was not only the “indispensable nation,” as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright put it; it was also a benign hegemon and thus unlikely to be viewed as a threat in Moscow. The aim, in essence, was to make the entire continent look like western Europe.

And so the United States and its allies sought to promote democracy in the countries of eastern Europe, increase economic interdependence among them, and embed them in international institutions.* Having won the debate in the United States, liberals had little difficulty convincing their European allies to support NATO enlargement. After all, given the EU’s past achievements, Europeans were even more wedded than Americans to the idea that geopolitics no longer mattered and that an all-inclusive liberal order could maintain peace in Europe.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141769/john-j-mearsheimer/why-the-ukraine-crisis-is-the-wests-fault

* Or . . .

 

I've read the reports posted by you, ITL and the Rev that have alleged the Russians did this and accused the Russians of that but I never found any evidence to back those allegations up in those reports. Or any of your arguments.

All I've seen so far from you and your buddies are more allegations and some really amateurish attempts to associate me with the "bad guys", aka the Hermann Goering argument for not falling in line and believing the same manipulative fear mongering media propaganda reports you and your friends have fallen for over and over and over again.



It's very simple. If you got proof then show it.