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Comment by hericium | Hacker News Reader

> Everybody agrees that by starting this pointless war Putin has painted himself into a corner.

Not everybody. The "NATO pushed Putin into corner by inviting Ukraine" theorem is still alive. In any way, cornered Putin is angry Putin and angry Putin is dangerous and may be unpredictable.

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The idea that NATO's expansion east is what pushed Russia to invade Ukraine is frankly ridiculous. I can see how it's problematic for them, and they did bring it up before the invasion, but that was mainly more lies, the war had already been planned and decided months ago.

Putin has said that Ukraine is a historical mistake, and laments the dissolution of the Soviet union. This war is because he want's to create a larger Russian empire, not a preemptive strike for self defense.

It's also catastrophically self-fulfilling: it's not like the eastern NATO members joined on a whim, they worked hard to make the case for it because they knew what living next to Russia meant and didn't want to be next. The war of conquest in Ukraine has done more to encourage continued NATO expansion than everything the older members have done in decades combined.

Exactly. The only reason NATO isn't in Ukraine and kicking the invaders out right now is because Ukraine isn't a NATO member. Meanwhile, NATO has been very clear about defending every inch of their member's territory. That's a very convincing argument for Russia's neighboring countries. I live in one of them, and I've been against a NATO membership until now, because I ruled out the possibility of war in Europe in my lifetime. I was wrong.

You had plenty of company in that mistaken assumption, sadly, and I'm afraid to ask how many other people will pay the price before it's over.

I'm no fan of the invasion, but "the war had already been planned and decided months ago" is not an argument you might think it is -- NATO stuff was going on pretty much since USSR dissolution, and 2014 stuff with Crimea was first act in the same war, in response to regime change on Ukraine and some progress in shelf oil development there that threatened Russia's hold on EU markets.

I've heard that claim as well, but I don't know enough to judge it.

Do you of a good source that covers the topic?

A 2015 talk by John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago discusses the "NATO pushed Putin into corner by inviting Ukraine" angle. Mearsheimer calls himself a "realist."

https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4

Mearsheimer completely ignores the agency of small European countries and makes the classic IR mistake of assuming that what might be 'rational' behaviour for a state in a Realist sense is also correct behaviour.

You can use Realism to predict that Russia would eventually try to regain the power it lost over Eastern Europe and the Baltics with the dissolution of the USSR. In fact that very understanding and fear is precisely why countries in Eastern Europe and the Baltics pushed so hard to join NATO and the EU, because they predicted that would happen.

But that doesn't make Russia's actions the right move, either legally or morally. They have agency too and could always have made the choice to not to try to act like an empire with violent hegemony over their neighbours.

1. I did not hear him equate realist with moral in that talk. Most people would consider the realist school to be amoral. (I advocate neither)

2. "NATO pushed..." does not imply Russia is right. Russia is wrong, legally and morally, but it can be simultaneously true that NATO pushed Russia.

1. He has in other talks, and he has used it as a way to explain away Russia's actions. As though they're an actor with no agency that can only react.

2. "NATO pushed" is deceptive framing. The countries that joined NATO after 1991 had to lobby hard over many years to get NATO members to agree to expand. Even then the process took forever with MAPs and other interim steps each designed to slow the process down.

These people believe that only the USA makes real decisions out of free will and everything else is only a consequence of those decisions or others uncontrollable reactions to those decisions. Apparently being an expert in geopolitics is mainly just about having a story and sticking to it through thick and thin.

First 25 mins of https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbj1AR_aAcE is a good start

NATO was much more focused on China as a potential future enemy though. Until Putin put himself back on the map as an agressor most EU countries were spending as little on defense as they could get away with. I feel this is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

No wonder China is gleefully standing by. They're just biding their time. When 2 dogs fight over a bone...

Russia has a long history of "fast succession", if some military guy finds Putin behavior hurting to its business, Putin will suddenly catch covid and die.

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