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Comment by YeGoblynQueenne | Hacker News Reader

>> So it's sad to see anyone falling for Putin's lies so easily. (See also Mearshimer.)

Mearsheimer can be a bit too convincing for his own good, surely. What he has argued that is certainly convincing is that Russia was ready to negotiate a peace at the start of the war, when Russians and Ukrainians met in Belarus and then in Istanbul. If Putin wanted to recreate Imperial Russia, or the Soviet Union, then why would he negotiate for peace?

That's Mearsh's argument, which he articulates, e.g. here in Lex Friedman's show (sorry, I couldn't find a better source):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=r4wLXNydzeY&t=2684

Full transcript here:

https://lexfridman.com/john-mearsheimer-transcript/

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> If Putin wanted to recreate Imperial Russia, or the Soviet Union, then why would he negotiate for peace?

To distract western military support.

To distract offensive\defensive ukrainian plans.

To construct a peaceful narrative at home or the war mongering west.

To strengthen or pet allies, who mediate.

To gain intelligence about the willingness of territorial sacrifice.

Would Putin ever publicly admit his grand soviet plan? If no, then how would he behave instead? Consider georgia, chechenia, belarus, etc.

Exactly. Both 1st + 2nd order thinking are needed when evaluating the PR efforts of leaders, particularly when their messages go against their actions.

Can you expand on that a bit more? Sorta get what you're saying but I think I might not have a super coherent sense of what that is

I don't know, maybe? All those sound plausible but then you have to try and justify each of them with some kind of evidence of some sort, otherwise you're just playing the guessing game.

Now, I don't like guessing. When Russia entered negotiations the war was clearly not going its way, so the obvious explanation is that Putin wanted to disentangle from it with the least damage to his image as possible.

The question is why the negotiations failed, if they were really as advanced as suggested in the articles I linked above. Since the name of Boris Johnson has been brought up (in the context of being one of the Western representatives that told Zelenskiy to drop the deal) I tend to believe that a peace deal failed because at least one side in the negotiations was incompetent fools who should have never made it in power. That the other side is probably the same makes no difference.

This is wrong. Completely. Russia never negotiated in good faith. The only goal of these negotiations were an attempt to force very unfavorable terms on Ukraine - taking Ukrainian land and forcing them to destroy all their defence capacity without any warranty of no future invasion. Ukraine was never going to take such deal - no Westerner was needed to tell that. This is what people actually knowledgeable about the negation have revealed.

The problem is that Western media picks too easily up even the most stupid Russian narratives.

If Putin wanted to recreate Imperial Russia, or the Soviet Union, then why would he negotiate for peace?

Because as he keeps saying over and over -- the only "peace" he will accept is one in which his claims to sovereignty on the territories he is currently sitting are recognized by Western powers. This was his core demand during the Istanbul talks, and it's his current demand now (though he's upped it a bit recently to include regime change in Kyiv).

For a serial territorial aggressor like the modern Russian state, "peace" is simply another mechanism for arriving that same the desired end state.

It's also useful as a propaganda tool, to mollify the opposition to what he's doing ("See, Putin just wants peace -- he even says so!"), get people to start talking about how costly the war is, how the West is the real aggresor and so forth. That's where Mearsheimer et al come in.

That's probably because the wars started by "the West" (US and allies) are significantly more than the wars started by Russia or the USSR. See: vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan. Not that Russia is some big supporter of peace, but the US and its allies are the current global bully. And you don't need Mearsheimer to tell you that.

So if Russia wants to get to play the top bully too, for a while -- well, we should just cut them some slack and let them have their way for a while? Because fair is fair, right?

That seems to be the essence of your argument here.

(None of those wars are directly analogous to what Russia is doing to Ukraine right now of course; but never mind that for now).

Who is "we"? I'm not American. Why should I treat American and Russian aggression differently?

And yes, the wars were not directly analogous but the stark reality of the matter is that the US and RUssia are two of the world bullies that are capable of invading anyone they like, and nobody can do anything about it. Again: why should I like one more than the other? Why should anyone, who is not their citizen?

Why should I treat American and Russian aggression differently?

One shouldn't, and both should be condemned of course.

And not apologized for, like you are doing here.

Just to be clear, I did not "apologize" for anyone. I think you mean that I'm an apologist for someone or other? I should also clarify that, no, I am not. I am a peacenick and a anti-nationalist and I dislike all nations equally, especially the ones that go to war over perceived threats to their territorial integrity or their national interests etc. None of those things are more valuable than human lives.

To be even more clear: those nations include Russia, the US, China, and basically every other national entity with an army that you might want to propose.

For the record, I also dislike, strongly, people on the internet who cannot hold a conversation without insulting their interlocutor, or accusing them of some perceived mind crime.

I meant in terms of apologetics, in the sense of "vigorous defenses". Which seemed to apply to the first two comments of yours that I responded to.

If that's not what they were, then I misread them. In regard to the peace negotiations -- it does seem (from some of the sibling threads) like you're very quick to grant the Russian side a pass, and to assign an unduly high a likelihood to the possibility that the Ukrainian/Western side simply botched their end of it (because Boris, etc). An assessment that just doesn't hold up in view of how the Russians conducted themselves during those negotiations, as the person responding to you pointed out:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40663892

You should treat then differently because they are altogether different. When is the last time USA annexed parts of another country?

ongoing: current American occupation of Syria

Check also: Germany, South Korea and Japan have more American militiamen stationed there than the active duty personnel of the majority of the countries in the world.

Do you believe the USA is attempting to make parts of Syria new American states? If not, then this is not an ongoing annexation attempt.

>ongoing: current American occupation of Syria

You seem to be implying equivalence between a thousand soldier operation and a full scale war comprising of half a million soldiers on both sides.

Who do you think started Korea? Free clue: It wasn't the US.

Afghanistan? You seem to forget that Russia also invaded them.

You also seem to forget Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Georgia, and Ukraine.

So, no, the wars started by "the West" are not significantly more than the wars started by Russia or the USSR.

Fine, I stand corrected: I forgot about Czechoslovakia (I don't think you're right about Korea though).

In any case that still leaves Russia aggression on par with US aggression. My point in this thread is that I don't see the reason to prefer the US and "the West" to Russia. Or China. I would certainly not want to be a citizen of any of those three.

> I don't think you're right about Korea though.

Fine. Don't take my word for it. Go look.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War:

"The Korean War was fought between North Korea and South Korea; it began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea and ceased after an armistice on 27 July 1953. North Korea was supported by the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union while South Korea was supported by the United Nations Command (UNC) led by the US."

the wars started by "the West" (US and allies)

How many wars post-WWII can you name that were started by US allies? Other than Israel, and excluding domestic terrorism issues (Italy, Germany, UK), I'm drawing a blank here.

> That's probably because the wars started by "the West" (US and allies) are significantly more than the wars started by Russia or the USSR. See: vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan.

Korea was started by a USSR ally (North Korea invading South Korea), the UN Command (led by the US) was a defensive response.

Vietnam is...well, the whole post-WW2 situation in the region is complicated, but it's reasonable to view it as started by Western allies of the US, particularly France.

Iraq 1990- was started by Iraq. Iraq 2003 was started by the US.

Afghanistan 1980 was started by the USSR Afghanistan 2001 was started by the al-Qaeda, a force intimately connected to and defended by the Taliban and based in Taliban-held territory, attacking the US.

Your list of examples doesn't really make a strong case for your thesis.

"... territories on which he is currently sitting ..."

Because those negotiations werent about peace, but about the surrender of the Ukrainian armed forces and the legal transfer of territory to the agressors.

Maersheimer and Chomsky are useful idiots of the Kremlin

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