foosballnick wrote:It is coming across that you are trying very hard to assign singular blame on the US for Russia invading Ukraine. My point is that there is no singular root cause leading up to these events and it is simplistic to say that if the US did not do X....then Y would not have happened. Rather the confluence of events over time leading up to this is a complicated web. While the US obviously tries to exert its influence in international affairs - that is not the root cause. If Putin decides to pull the trigger, deploy hundreds of thousands of troops and start a ground invasion at the expense of his fragile economy and leading to the deaths of perhaps a half a million people between Russia and Ukraine - that is really on him and him alone. To deflect in any way on this point or to say Ukraine should have just let Russia completely annex Ukraine and integrate their own government is oblivious to recognition of the nuance and geo-politics within Euro-Asia.

+100000

gradyandrew wrote:

foosballnick wrote:

gradyandrew wrote:The two guys I mainly follow are Jeff Sachs and John Mearscheimer.

Sachs and Mearsheimer appear to have the same relative views on blaming the US expansionistic policies towards NATO starting in the 1990s caused this curren conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Note that Sachs is also pretty much anti US Industrial-Military complex. You might want to consider seeking diverse and alternate views on this as well for perspective prior to coming to your own personal conclusions. I don't follow anyone in particular but finding views on this via the NET is pretty easy these days given its prominence.

Any links you can forward are always appreciated and read. p

Here's a few on the 2014 Revolution of Dignity - both pro and anti positioning towards the US. Filtering through, while it was apparent that the US has strategic interest in its relationship with Ukraine since the fall of the USSR and became involved in support of regime change in 2014 - we were not the significant driver of that change nor the internal rebellion/conflict. It also is apparent to me that Putin is over-portraying US involvement in 2014 in order to try and deflect and try to justify his invasion with both the Russian people and his allies.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-ukraine-hypocrisy
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/19/facebook-posts/united-states-spent-5-billion-ukraine-anti-governm/
https://www.npr.org/2014/02/23/281543256/a-coup-or-a-revolution-the-u-s-ambassador-to-ukraine-explains
https://www.vox.com/2014/9/3/18088560/ukraine-everything-you-need-to-know
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/22/russias-putin-accuses-us-of-orchestrating-2014-coup-in-ukraine
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/02/16/what-did-ukraines-revolution-in-2014-achieve
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/11/12/us-relationship-with-ukraine-runs-deep-heres-why/

foosballnick wrote:

gradyandrew wrote:https://marktanliano.net/ukraine-crisis-transcript-of-leaked-nuland-pyatt-call-fk-the-eu/

Here's a transcript of the phone call. It seems their conversation goes beyond musing to trying to push specific opposition leaders to form a new government ie (Pyatt)
e:

I think we’re in play. The Klitschko [Vitaly Klitschko, one of three main opposition leaders] piece is obviously the complicated electron here. Especially the announcement of him as deputy prime minister and you’ve seen some of my notes on the troubles in the marriage right now so we’re trying to get a read really fast on where he is on this stuff. But I think your argument to him, which you’ll need to make, I think that’s the next phone call you want to set up, is exactly the one you made to Yats [Arseniy Yatseniuk, another opposition leader]. And I’m glad you sort of put him on the spot on where he fits in this scenario. And I’m very glad that he said what he said in response.

Nuland also famously was passing cookies out to the Maidan protesters.l

Yes - I get it, the US Meddled based on their own potential strategic interests - as do other super-power Governments including Russia and China. One would be naive to think otherwise. However the point being that the US was being opportunistic after the upheaval began, and not the root cause.

It is coming across that you are trying very hard to assign singular blame on the US for Russia invading Ukraine. My point is that there is no singular root cause leading up to these events and it is simplistic to say that if the US did not do X....then Y would not have happened. Rather the confluence of events over time leading up to this is a complicated web. While the US obviously tries to exert its influence in international affairs - that is not the root cause. If Putin decides to pull the trigger, deploy hundreds of thousands of troops and start a ground invasion at the expense of his fragile economy and leading to the deaths of perhaps a half a million people between Russia and Ukraine - that is really on him and him alone. To deflect in any way on this point or to say Ukraine should have just let Russia completely annex Ukraine and integrate their own government is oblivious to recognition of the nuance and geo-politics within Euro-Asia.

No doubt, I'm not victim blaming here and of course the real tragedy are those affected by the war. I don't think US strategic interests in the Ukraine were ever well defined. One great point you made which I hadn't realized was the lack of any progress on Ukraine's ascension into NATO. The politifact article makes the point that in?some ways this was the worst of both worlds. Without a definite yes or no, Ukraine was stuck?in an ambiguous situation which helped contribute to the crisis.

gradyandrew wrote:I get your point. My feeling is that the US recognizing Russia's special interests in the Crimea could have gone a long way to avoiding the war. Ditto for the Donbass and Luhansk, though my guess is Putin's support for the separatist movement there was more about securing an eventual land bridge to Crimea.

This notion of "special interests" when it comes to neighboring sovereign counties and their lands is precisely the type of imperialist and colonialist thinking that most civilized counties are trying to move away from these days. Russia is especially vocal in its opposition to neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism. But apparently, its words and actions are worlds apart.

By the way, "zone of special interests" was also the term used in the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement, when Nazi Germany and the USSR decided to carve up Central Europe among themselves. Poland was Germany's zone of special interests, USSR's zone were the Baltics and the Eastern parts of Poland. When the USSR moved for Moldova against Romania, it stepped into Germany's zone of special interest, which is when Hitler knew he had to go to war with the USSR. Not a pretty historical analogy for Putin.

gradyandrew wrote:My problem with the Munich Conference analogy is that as far as I can see, following a resolution to Russia's possession and access to Crimea, I don't really see where else it spreads. No way to prove this hypothetical.

Russia annexed Crimea, started a revolt in Donbass, then annexed Donbass, then annexed the parts of Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine which it has occupied militarily, now staging another offensive against Kharkov - and you don't really see where else it spreads?