Hacker News Reader

Comment by alexvoda | Hacker News Reader

Quit repeating this crap. There was no agreement for NATO to not expand eastward and even Gorbachev stated there was no such agreement. You are just repeating the bullshit spread by Pozner and Mearsheimer. It is still bullshit propaganda no matter how many people repeat it.

I fell for it too, at the start of the war, and then I tried to combat it each time I came across it.

View on HN

Mearsheimer is way more of an authority on the subject than you are, so if you're going to dismiss his claim as bullshit while claiming you're trying to combat the claim you could at least provide a link. Also even if Mearsheimer is wrong in that claim it doesn't make it propaganda.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-...

>the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.

More regarding Mearsheimer in case anyone is interested.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer

https://political-science.uchicago.edu/directory/john-mearsh...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-...

There is a distinction between an explanation and a justification. There are many ways to explain why some thing happened or might happen. They can not be used to justify said action. I believe Mearsheimer and Pozner, for reasons, confound one for the other. Saying that Russia could not help not to attack, that it is the rational choice for Russia, is like saying that advertisers can not help themselves tracking users, it is the rational choice to track users. Again, explanation is not justification. Explanations are not excuses. That is why I call it bullshit propaganda: He is justifying the war. War is not just. War is never just. War is death and tragedy, even if you can write entire books explaining how it happened and why every party had legitimate interest.

RealPolitik, the realist school of thought, evolutionary psychology, etc. only ever provide explanations. And often they may be good explanations. They are useful when trying to understand events or people or groups of people and when trying to predict behavior or create models.

But to derive justification from those explanations means that you ascribe to the belief that determinism (lack of free will) absolves you of responsibility. It does not. Whether you have free will or not you still have to make choices and still bear the responsibility of those choices. If you believe you have free will you are directly responsible and must assume responsibility for any consequence coming your way. If you believe you do not have free will, than any consequence is simply the system correcting itself. There is no escape from making choices.

But what do I known? So since you are claiming he has more authority I will counter with someone of equal or greater authority, Alexander Stubb, past Prime Minister, Minister Of Finance and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland and Director and Professor of the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlB-pRqdyBg

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner [0]

[0] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com