Encroaching Liberal Order vs Realist Autocracies | Stephen Walt vs Michael McFaul

The Munk Debate - The Russia Ukraine War, Toronto, 12.05.2022
For education purposes.

Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer v Michael McFaul, Radosław Sikorski
By any measure, the Russian invasion of Ukraine represents a profound security risk for the world. It raises fundamental issues about the basic principles that underwrite the current international order and it threatens the specter of an entrenched, high-risk Great Power conflict. How is this fast-evolving crisis best addressed? Does it demand a resolute and relentless push by the West to punish, isolate and degrade Putin’s Russia economically, politically, and militarily? Or is a solution to be found in acknowledging Russia’s security needs and finding ways to mutually de-escalate the war, sooner not later? Which of these different strategies stands the best chance of success? And how ultimately is this conflict best resolved?

Michael Anthony McFaul is an American academic and diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014.

International Relations scholar and offensive realist John Mearsheimer has blamed the United States (US) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) for the current crisis in Ukraine. Mearsheimer, who has been critical of US foreign policy since the Cold War, said in an interview with The New Yorker that NATO’s eastward expansion and its establishment of “close ties” with Ukraine have increased the chances of war between the US and Russia.
He said that the roots of the current crisis have their origins in 2008 when NATO agreed to admit Georgia and Ukraine. “The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand,” Mearsheimer notes. During the same year, Russia invaded Georgia and occupied the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Mearsheimer also notes that the European Union’s (EU) efforts to integrate Ukraine into its fold have unsettled Russia, which views the prospect of a “pro-American liberal democracy” at its doorstep as a grave security threat. According to him, the three core concerns of Russia are EU expansion, NATO expansion, and turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy.

Keeping this in mind, Mearsheimer posits that Ukraine joining the EU, and NATO, and becoming a democracy would be seen by Moscow as “categorically unacceptable.” A better way of approaching this situation, he says, is if Ukraine just became a democracy and had friendly ties with the US, rather than joining the EU and NATO. Ukraine “could probably get away with that,” Mearsheimer argues.

When you’re a country like Ukraine and you live next door to a great power like Russia, you have to pay careful attention to what the Russians think because if you take a stick and poke them in the eye, they’re going to retaliate,” he emphasized. Regarding Ukraine, Russia has taken a leaf out of the US playbook, Mearsheimer said, referring to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which that the US will not tolerate a foreign power bringing military forces into the region.

#johnmearsheimer
#Ukraine
#foreignpolicy
#internationalrelations

[MariaMaltseva]

First guy is absolutely right. Russia had a legitimate concern. Absolutely.

Second guy is a historical revisionist & forgets US involvement in the coup.

[dbirru]

A simple question to the 2nd speaker: do you accept, even not Cuba, but Mexico or Canada get equipped with nuclear?

[etxeberre]

We really have become self-centered twats and this is might be our demise. The balance of power is changing, after 30 years there will be real competition.

[When_did_they_add_handles]

Why does second guy think Russia trusts America in the slightest?

[rageburst]

Any fool can tell you that we were asking for trouble moving NATO eastward on countries with grievances with Soviets.

[MohammadAmine]

"I'm more polite" Damn that was hard

[davedeputyZX]

McFaul obviously never heard of the Burns Memo. Current CIA director William Burns spent alot of time in Russia in 2008 talking to russian leaders and elites and intellectuals and so on, and he wrote a memo (which was published by wikileaks). He made it clear that every single person he talked to saw NATO expansion as a threat.

[fjordhellas]

Professor Walt, Professor Mearsheimer, you are one of the best professors and thinkers in the world! Just the opposite from the cowboys we have in Washington! Who don’t give hoots about our citizens and their well being, just the opposite from Norway ( where my parents are from). Thank you

[federicoseguicano]

¿Why does NATO whant to be on the Russia border?

[eleonoraformatoneeszczepan]

0:59 min ... "expand" ... "not one inch eastward" ?

... what if 'east' meant:
a communist country and those countries are no longer communist; or,
at dawn, rise, as a country or state is initially forming; or,
the orient (East Asia), or Ural Mountains rather than Carpathian Mountains, Balkan Peninsula or Northern European plain that goes up to Russia; or,
to align, pitch, directly east or as if like what is perceived to be the east; or,
without first being asked; or,
not in a church, and or where an altar or high altar is?, and or,
e.t.c. ... ?

... an inch?
one mile on the ground; or
a twelfth of a foot or something; or
a concession; or
a small area of highland; and or,
e.t.c. ... ?

... ward?
an administrative division of a city or borough; or
grounds of a castle; or,

... eastward?
direction of the east; and or
e.t.c. ... ?

... one?
the same; or,
In agreement; and or
e.t.c. ... ?

... expand?
recede from; or
develop; and or,
e.t.c. ... ?

... not?
nought; or,
zero or one (binary); and or
e.t.c. ... ?

Is it an agreement or a promise? rather than subjectively think what was said and done,
objectively, what was said and done?


Also what was written somewhere, in some notes or memoranda or accord something ? ... which river? Oder, Ural, Emba, Elbe?

One could go to town on that, hey.

0:59 min ... "NATO" ... "would not expand beyond the reunification of Germany"?  ... hang on ... how far did they think the reunification was going to go? .... oh dear ...

"Why is Russia Angry, post cold world | Stephen Walt Explains" (International Relations & Politics)


0:34 min ... "the United States foisted the decision to include Ukraine and Georgia on the Europeans, especially the Germans and the French so we were deeply committed in 2008 ... "

0:29 min ... "we were going eastward, "we" means the United States."

"John Mearsheimer analysis on Ukraine Western Lies" (International Relations & Politics)


1:34 min .... "almost".

How come they can't all sit down and say, things have got out of control, let's start again, let's start from here, in theory, put aside agreements which aren't actually working, and say, yes "we" had agreements and things aren't working, times have changed, so rather than waste time trying to force things to stick and stay stuck, what do "we", as in all sides, need to do for where the world is now, what agreement do "we" need to make, now?

It looks like Ukraine could have a leading role in world events, if Ukraine in part exists or in the alternative, it seems like a whole might end up a hole, Ukraine might become Ukraine in name only, and not really run by Ukraine. If China is an issue for the US, on a different continent, with an ocean in between, then, it sure as something looks like it would be an issue for those on the same land mass. If it's an issue for EU or Russia then, it will be an issue for Ukraine, regardless of the land area.

(I'm curious, I have no idea the sentiment in the area: would Lviv, if given a choice, want to stay as part of Ukraine or become part of Poland? If Poland presented, by Lviv, with the option, would Poland want Lviv to be a city in Poland or not?)

Also, if, for arguments sake, a requirement to join NATO, is an administration which is elected and NATO won't expand into an area where elections are held, an administrative division of a city or borough, then, by holding elections, it looks like Russia has given those parts of Ukraine an option to choose, or not, at a later date, to join NATO, rather than in the now, be subsumed?

... and ... for that matter ... how come those areas of the Donbas, are not or won't be recognised as separate? Where does it say that they have to belong to Ukraine or Russia or even be a country or a state? Donbas couldn't be recognised as a territory or a district or a reserve, not unlike D.C or an Indian tribal reserve?

"What were our Options? John Mearsheimer, A Realist Take" (International Relations & Politics)