How the United States was transformed from guardian to spoiler of the postwar international order. An excellent summary from Harper's magazine.

Quote:

---

Why Are We in Ukraine?
On the dangers of American hubris
by Benjamin Schwarz, Christopher Layne

From the early Nineties, when Washington first raised the idea of NATO expansion, until 2008, when the U.S. delegation at the NATO summit in Bucharest advocated alliance membership for Ukraine and Georgia, U.S.-Russian exchanges were monotonous. While Russians protested Washington's NATO expansion plans, American officials shrugged off those protests--or pointed to them as evidence to justify still-further expansion. Washington's message to Moscow could not have been clearer or more disquieting: Normal diplomacy among great powers, distinguished by the recognition and accommodation of clashing interests--the approach that had defined the U.S.-Soviet rivalry during even the most intense stretches of the Cold War--was obsolete. Russia was expected to acquiesce to a new world order created and dominated by the United States.

The radical expansion of NATO's writ reflected the overweening aims that the end of the Cold War enabled Washington to pursue. Historically, great powers tend to focus pragmatically on reducing conflict among themselves. By frankly recognizing the realities of power and acknowledging each other's interests, they can usually relate to one another on a businesslike basis. This international give-and-take is bolstered by and helps engender a rough, contextual understanding of what's reasonable and legitimate--not in an abstract or absolute sense but in a way that permits fierce business rivals to moderate and accede to demands and to reach deals. By embracing what came to be called its "unipolar moment," Washington demonstrated--to Paris, Berlin, London, New Delhi, and Beijing, no less than to Moscow--that it would no longer be bound by the norms implicit in great power politics, norms that constrain the aims pursued as much as the means employed. Those who determine U.S. foreign policy hold that, as President George W. Bush declared in his second inaugural address, "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." They maintain, as President Bill Clinton averred in 1993, that the security of the United States demands a "focus on relations within nations, on a nation's form of governance, on its economic structure."

Whatever one thinks of this doctrine, which prompted Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to dub America "the indispensable nation"--and which Gorbachev said defined America's "dangerous winner's mentality"--it lavishly expanded previously established conceptions of security and national interest. In its crusading universalism, it could be regarded by other states, with ample supporting evidence, as at best recklessly meddlesome and at worst messianically interventionist. Convinced that its national security depended on the domestic political and economic arrangements of ostensibly sovereign states--and therefore defining as a legitimate goal the alteration or eradication of those arrangements if they were not in accord with its professed ideals and values--the post-Cold War United States became a revolutionary force in world politics.

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/

---

To sell arms to one of the most corrupt counties in the world.

To give the Russians a noogie.

Because Joe & Hunter have some tabs to pay.

Thee University said:

---

To sell arms to one of the most corrupt counties in the world.

To give the Russians a noogie.

Because Joe & Hunter have some tabs to pay.

---

You forgot launder money and cover up whatever crimes we have been doing over there the past decade which is probably making illegal germs in bio weapons labs.

Cliff Notes:
[1) NATO has expanded ever eastward since the Soviet bloc broke up. We pledged not to. This provokes Russia. Additionally there are now NATO countries on Russia's borders.
2) For people who have said the US has not provoked Russia or given it any reasons to be concerned about their security- NATO under W tried to put nuclear capable missile systems in Poland capable of carrying nuclear loads.
3) 2014 Obama and SOROS NGO'S funded disruptors to overthrow Ukraine's government and then sent in officials to hand pick replacements that were pro-America.
4) At this time Biden is VP and in charge of Ukraine policy. This is when Burisma who had ties to old Russian leadership decided to get in bed with Biden so they could get in with the Biden hand picked government.
5) Trump wanted this investigated and this is one of the big reasons why he was impeached. The Dems did not want him uncovering the shady **** going on there or screwing with their new money laundering playground.
6) before this started, Harris and the current administration joked about getting Ukraine to join NATO. Putin made it clear this was a hard line and America pursued it anyway.
7) Ukraine initially wanted to negotiate with Russia as the America/soros led coup in 2014 had alienated a large eastern region (the Donbas region) of ethnic Russians. This region was unstable and wants to join Russia. Putin wanted Ukraine to give this region up and pledge to not join NATO. Ukraine was okay with this until Biden and the West got involved.]

muddybrazos said:

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Thee University said:

---

To sell arms to one of the most corrupt counties in the world.

To give the Russians a noogie.

Because Joe & Hunter have some tabs to pay.

---

You forgot launder money and cover up whatever crimes we have been doing over there the past decade which is probably making illegal germs in bio weapons labs.

---

It's no coincidence that policy decisions consistently favorable to countries like Ukraine and China have been the norm over the past 2 plus years.

Military Industrial Complex.
Biden Crime Family.

Harrison Bergeron said:

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Military Industrial Complex.
Biden Crime Family.

---

just a dumb, uneducated response .

J.R. said:

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Harrison Bergeron said:

---

Military Industrial Complex.
Biden Crime Family.

---

just a dumb, uneducated response .

---

But accurate nonetheless.

J.R. said:

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Harrison Bergeron said:

---

Military Industrial Complex.
Biden Crime Family.

---

just a dumb, uneducated response .

---

Not knowing the meaning of "dumb" is the paragon of stupid and uneducated.

Osodecentx said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

How the United States was transformed from guardian to spoiler of the postwar international order. An excellent summary from Harper's magazine.

Quote:

---

Why Are We in Ukraine?
On the dangers of American hubris
by Benjamin Schwarz, Christopher Layne

From the early Nineties, when Washington first raised the idea of NATO expansion, until 2008, when the U.S. delegation at the NATO summit in Bucharest advocated alliance membership for Ukraine and Georgia, U.S.-Russian exchanges were monotonous. While Russians protested Washington's NATO expansion plans, American officials shrugged off those protests--or pointed to them as evidence to justify still-further expansion. Washington's message to Moscow could not have been clearer or more disquieting: Normal diplomacy among great powers, distinguished by the recognition and accommodation of clashing interests--the approach that had defined the U.S.-Soviet rivalry during even the most intense stretches of the Cold War--was obsolete. Russia was expected to acquiesce to a new world order created and dominated by the United States.

The radical expansion of NATO's writ reflected the overweening aims that the end of the Cold War enabled Washington to pursue. Historically, great powers tend to focus pragmatically on reducing conflict among themselves. By frankly recognizing the realities of power and acknowledging each other's interests, they can usually relate to one another on a businesslike basis. This international give-and-take is bolstered by and helps engender a rough, contextual understanding of what's reasonable and legitimate--not in an abstract or absolute sense but in a way that permits fierce business rivals to moderate and accede to demands and to reach deals. By embracing what came to be called its "unipolar moment," Washington demonstrated--to Paris, Berlin, London, New Delhi, and Beijing, no less than to Moscow--that it would no longer be bound by the norms implicit in great power politics, norms that constrain the aims pursued as much as the means employed. Those who determine U.S. foreign policy hold that, as President George W. Bush declared in his second inaugural address, "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." They maintain, as President Bill Clinton averred in 1993, that the security of the United States demands a "focus on relations within nations, on a nation's form of governance, on its economic structure."

Whatever one thinks of this doctrine, which prompted Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to dub America "the indispensable nation"--and which Gorbachev said defined America's "dangerous winner's mentality"--it lavishly expanded previously established conceptions of security and national interest. In its crusading universalism, it could be regarded by other states, with ample supporting evidence, as at best recklessly meddlesome and at worst messianically interventionist. Convinced that its national security depended on the domestic political and economic arrangements of ostensibly sovereign states--and therefore defining as a legitimate goal the alteration or eradication of those arrangements if they were not in accord with its professed ideals and values--the post-Cold War United States became a revolutionary force in world politics.

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/

---

---

Good article, difficult questions. I don't know the answer

---

Again, we see the isolationist argument that we caused a war in which we had no interest. Both are patently false premises. Russia would have NEVER invaded or usurped Ukraine if Nato hadn't been meddling? Pfft. If NATO hadn't expanded eastward, Russia would have expanded westward. The issue at hand is merely about where the razor wire will be strung. NATO was slow, deliberate, and cautious in its move eastward, out of deference to Russia. And it is instructive that EVERYONE (except Belarus) wants to be on the west side of the wire.

Other strawmen: offering "alliance membership" is not the same as offering "membership." Sweden and Finland had alliance membership throughout most of the Cold War. Russia didn't nuke or invade anyone over those questions, did they? The Russian invasion of Ukraine was so alarming to those two notorious hegemonist imperialist powers that public opinion flipped on a dime and they requested full NATO membership. To suggest that alliance membership of Georgia or Ukraine was more threatening to Moscow than alliance membership of Sweden and FInland is.....well, war opponents, having a very weak case to make and do tend to exaggerate, but boy, is this one a whopper.

We did not presume to be a unipolar power. We WERE a unipolar power. And no nation similarly positioned ever acted more cautiously, deliberately, conservatively, responsibly. We did not bring a single new acre of territory under our jurisdiction. Yes, we responded when attacked or threatened, to real attacks and real threats, and we did so responsibly, not indiscriminately. Our errors were not on the conduct or aims of the wars, but rather the execution of the peace, leaving behind a stable, responsible government. And then we withdrew. And we did not leave behind armies or churches or corporate headquarters to extend our influence, did we? No. We did not.

Over and over we see reflexive recto-cranial inversion from the opponents of the Russo/Ukraine. Poor Russia....so mistreated, why, we FORCED them to invade Ukraine! It's not unusual to see the left making such arguments....that society is responsible for causing crime, not criminals. But in THIS war, we see conservatives making such patently stupid arguments. Literally conjuring up an America as a greater threat to world peace than the country which actually invaded a neighbor for the explicit purposes of carving up parts of it, installing a puppet regime to run the rest of it, and moving military bases hundreds of miles westward to project national power against a NATO which had gone out of its way over decades to NOT move bases hundreds of miles eastward to project power against Russia.

It's perfectly reasonable to talk about costs and benefits of a particular plank of foreign policy, but when we see such disingenuous prefacing to the argument at hand, it's really hard to be productive.

whiterock said:

---

Osodecentx said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

How the United States was transformed from guardian to spoiler of the postwar international order. An excellent summary from Harper's magazine.

Quote:

---

Why Are We in Ukraine?
On the dangers of American hubris
by Benjamin Schwarz, Christopher Layne

From the early Nineties, when Washington first raised the idea of NATO expansion, until 2008, when the U.S. delegation at the NATO summit in Bucharest advocated alliance membership for Ukraine and Georgia, U.S.-Russian exchanges were monotonous. While Russians protested Washington's NATO expansion plans, American officials shrugged off those protests--or pointed to them as evidence to justify still-further expansion. Washington's message to Moscow could not have been clearer or more disquieting: Normal diplomacy among great powers, distinguished by the recognition and accommodation of clashing interests--the approach that had defined the U.S.-Soviet rivalry during even the most intense stretches of the Cold War--was obsolete. Russia was expected to acquiesce to a new world order created and dominated by the United States.

The radical expansion of NATO's writ reflected the overweening aims that the end of the Cold War enabled Washington to pursue. Historically, great powers tend to focus pragmatically on reducing conflict among themselves. By frankly recognizing the realities of power and acknowledging each other's interests, they can usually relate to one another on a businesslike basis. This international give-and-take is bolstered by and helps engender a rough, contextual understanding of what's reasonable and legitimate--not in an abstract or absolute sense but in a way that permits fierce business rivals to moderate and accede to demands and to reach deals. By embracing what came to be called its "unipolar moment," Washington demonstrated--to Paris, Berlin, London, New Delhi, and Beijing, no less than to Moscow--that it would no longer be bound by the norms implicit in great power politics, norms that constrain the aims pursued as much as the means employed. Those who determine U.S. foreign policy hold that, as President George W. Bush declared in his second inaugural address, "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." They maintain, as President Bill Clinton averred in 1993, that the security of the United States demands a "focus on relations within nations, on a nation's form of governance, on its economic structure."

Whatever one thinks of this doctrine, which prompted Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to dub America "the indispensable nation"--and which Gorbachev said defined America's "dangerous winner's mentality"--it lavishly expanded previously established conceptions of security and national interest. In its crusading universalism, it could be regarded by other states, with ample supporting evidence, as at best recklessly meddlesome and at worst messianically interventionist. Convinced that its national security depended on the domestic political and economic arrangements of ostensibly sovereign states--and therefore defining as a legitimate goal the alteration or eradication of those arrangements if they were not in accord with its professed ideals and values--the post-Cold War United States became a revolutionary force in world politics.

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/

---

---

Good article, difficult questions. I don't know the answer

---

Again, we see the isolationist argument that we caused a war in which we had no interest. Both are patently false premises. Russia would have NEVER invaded or usurped Ukraine if Nato hadn't been meddling? Pfft. If NATO hadn't expanded eastward, Russia would have expanded westward. The issue at hand is merely about where the razor wire will be strung. NATO was slow, deliberate, and cautious in its move eastward, out of deference to Russia. And it is instructive that EVERYONE (except Belarus) wants to be on the west side of the wire.

---

You continue to use the propagandist term of "isolationist"....and of course non-intervention and not engaging in war mongering adventurism is of course not the same as isolationism.

We are the major economic power on earth and have a two ocean navy along with bases in 80+ countries and territories around the world. No one has even said we should dismantle those fleets or bases.

What people have said is that we should not get involved in bloody conflicts that we have no vital interest in or that do not involved a ally of the USA. Ukraine is not a NATO ally.

And your argument that Russia (with a poverty level and per captia GDP like Mexico) is going to expand Westward is laughable...and then you contradict yourself by saying correctly that no one wants join them.....so then how can they expand Westward? Talk about grasping for reasons to get into a conflict with a nuclear power...fantasies of "imminent expansion into the West" lol

I cringe when Biden states the USA will support Ukraine for as long as it takes. I am a proponent of balancing the USA Budget and we are spending a lot of money supporting Ukraine. I do not think support should be a blank check. USA needs to be careful of the advanced technology we share with Ukraine too.

Most of you haven't gotten over how we got involved with stopping Hitler. Same cowards, different generation.

ron.reagan said:

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Most of you haven't gotten over how we got involved with stopping Hitler. Same cowards, different generation.

---

We got involved with that war because on thursday 11 December 1941 Germany declared war on the United States.

Has some nation declared war on the United States?

Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Osodecentx said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

How the United States was transformed from guardian to spoiler of the postwar international order. An excellent summary from Harper's magazine.

Quote:

---

Why Are We in Ukraine?
On the dangers of American hubris
by Benjamin Schwarz, Christopher Layne

From the early Nineties, when Washington first raised the idea of NATO expansion, until 2008, when the U.S. delegation at the NATO summit in Bucharest advocated alliance membership for Ukraine and Georgia, U.S.-Russian exchanges were monotonous. While Russians protested Washington's NATO expansion plans, American officials shrugged off those protests--or pointed to them as evidence to justify still-further expansion. Washington's message to Moscow could not have been clearer or more disquieting: Normal diplomacy among great powers, distinguished by the recognition and accommodation of clashing interests--the approach that had defined the U.S.-Soviet rivalry during even the most intense stretches of the Cold War--was obsolete. Russia was expected to acquiesce to a new world order created and dominated by the United States.

The radical expansion of NATO's writ reflected the overweening aims that the end of the Cold War enabled Washington to pursue. Historically, great powers tend to focus pragmatically on reducing conflict among themselves. By frankly recognizing the realities of power and acknowledging each other's interests, they can usually relate to one another on a businesslike basis. This international give-and-take is bolstered by and helps engender a rough, contextual understanding of what's reasonable and legitimate--not in an abstract or absolute sense but in a way that permits fierce business rivals to moderate and accede to demands and to reach deals. By embracing what came to be called its "unipolar moment," Washington demonstrated--to Paris, Berlin, London, New Delhi, and Beijing, no less than to Moscow--that it would no longer be bound by the norms implicit in great power politics, norms that constrain the aims pursued as much as the means employed. Those who determine U.S. foreign policy hold that, as President George W. Bush declared in his second inaugural address, "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." They maintain, as President Bill Clinton averred in 1993, that the security of the United States demands a "focus on relations within nations, on a nation's form of governance, on its economic structure."

Whatever one thinks of this doctrine, which prompted Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to dub America "the indispensable nation"--and which Gorbachev said defined America's "dangerous winner's mentality"--it lavishly expanded previously established conceptions of security and national interest. In its crusading universalism, it could be regarded by other states, with ample supporting evidence, as at best recklessly meddlesome and at worst messianically interventionist. Convinced that its national security depended on the domestic political and economic arrangements of ostensibly sovereign states--and therefore defining as a legitimate goal the alteration or eradication of those arrangements if they were not in accord with its professed ideals and values--the post-Cold War United States became a revolutionary force in world politics.

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/

---

---

Good article, difficult questions. I don't know the answer

---

Again, we see the isolationist argument that we caused a war in which we had no interest. Both are patently false premises. Russia would have NEVER invaded or usurped Ukraine if Nato hadn't been meddling? Pfft. If NATO hadn't expanded eastward, Russia would have expanded westward. The issue at hand is merely about where the razor wire will be strung. NATO was slow, deliberate, and cautious in its move eastward, out of deference to Russia. And it is instructive that EVERYONE (except Belarus) wants to be on the west side of the wire.

---

You continue to use the propagandist term of "isolationist"....and of course non-intervention and not engaging in war mongering adventurism is of course not the same as isolationism.

We are the major economic power on earth and have a two ocean navy along with bases in 80+ countries and territories around the world. No one has even said we should dismantle those fleets or bases.

What people have said is that we should not get involved in bloody conflicts that we have no vital interest in or that do not involved a ally of the USA. Ukraine is not a NATO ally.

And your argument that Russia (with a poverty level and per captia GDP like Mexico) is going to expand Westward is laughable...and then you contradict yourself by saying correctly that no one wants join them.....so then how can they expand Westward? Talk about grasping for reasons to get into a conflict with a nuclear power...fantasies of "imminent expansion into the West" lol

---

Ok, we could quibble over terms, but let's use your "non-interventionist" definition = we are not intervening in Ukraine. RUSSIA IS INTERVENING IN UKRAINE!! Selling arms and providing funding to a nation at war, is not intervening. INVADING neighbor is intervening.

I have never said we should dismantle fleets/bases. In fact, I have stated clearly that we should defend the fleets/bases/armies we have in NATO by helping Ukraine remain sovereign, neutral, and more importantly INTACT. Supporting Ukraine is a strategic need for NATO. (which is why NATO is responding as it is.)

Russia THOUGHT it could roll over Ukraine. It couldn't. It's going to lose the war. BUT LOOK AT THE COST TO EVERYONE ELSE!! Insufficient deterrence causes wars. Winning a war is almost as costly as losing. So you have to make sure the bully on the block afraid to act, because the cost of kicking his ass might involve broken knuckles, black eyes, a knife slash or three, or a gunshot wound somewhere. EX: We had a national sales meeting last Dec in Austin. The hotel was on 6th Street and the group walked a few blocks one evening to visit a piano bar. After an hour or so, one of our VPs (female) decided to return to the hotel. I was ready to pack it in and caught up with her at the front door to escort. She said "there's no need, I'm a black belt in karate. I can handle it." I pointed to one of the homeless guys sitting on the street looking at us and said "yeah, but HE doesn't know that." That she probably could have kicked his ass wasn't the point. The point was to not have to kick his ass to save your life. You win 100% of the fights you avoid. And the best way to avoid Russia rattling around on the Polish and Romanian borders, meddling with opposition leaders in Poland and Romania and Hungary and Slovakia....is to keep Russian armies out of Ukraine, to have Ukraine as a friendly neutral state, preferably with NATO partner status. The cost of winning a war is frightful, and it all the more painful to pay the cost when it's against an opponent who had no chance of winning but didn't know any better & started one anyway. Sure, you'll win. But no solace to the lady whose house and husband are lying shattered in a bomb crater.

Ergo, the premise that Russia is no threat because it is too small & weak & incompetent to invade and defeat NATO is....well....it is childish. Russia will probably not reform and build a professional army, because it doesn't think it needs to. It thinks it is tougher and more resilient than soft western countries, that it can pick a muddy bloody fight and outlast anyone...lose all the battles but win the war. They don't need technologically advanced fighters....oh no. They'll just make a gazillion simple ones that require no supply chain, can be fixed with pliers and duct tape, and can take off from city streets. Has that ever worked out well for them? No, not really. But that's the way they think. They're the team with a QB that can't throw, a RB that can't run, and a kicker that can't kick, and they kinda know it, so plan on turning on the sprinklers to make us play the game in the mud and glorify a game of 3-yards and a cloud of mud. We give them Ukraine, they'll have Moldavia in their pocket in 24 months. Then they'll start leaning on the Hungarians, who are already sympathetic. I would also expect them to stoke the Balkan slavs to start killing Balkan muslims, to get NATO tied down, distracted. Then, they'll start working harder to destabilize the Baltic States. We will see pro-Russia parties spring to life in Poland and Romania. The closer their armies are, the more effective all that will be.

Russia doesn't have to invade and defeat NATO, as your analysis presumes. Russia will try to undermine it from within, facilitated by gunboat diplomacy on NATO borders to make all players in the frontline states be more cautious in their pro-Nato/anti-=Russia policies. Then. One election. One coup. And we will have the prospect of Russia and Nato poised on opposite borders of a Nato state preparing to come to the rescue of a new government calling for help. THAT is something to lose sleep over, friend. And the only way to prevent it is to keep Russian armies IN RUSSIA.

The idea that we have no stake in the outcome of the Russo/Ukraine war is stupefyingly short-sighted, completely oblivious to the lessons of history.

Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ron.reagan said:

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Most of you haven't gotten over how we got involved with stopping Hitler. Same cowards, different generation.

---

We got involved with that war because on thursday 11 December 1941 Germany declared war on the United States.

Has some nation declared war on the United States?

---

We're at the opposition to Lend Lease phase now. Quite a bit of ground to cross and events to occur before we're at the December 11, 1941 phase.

---

So you admit we are on the path to war

---

No. But to Ron.Reagan's point, you admit and use the same points used to oppose lend lease.

ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

---

ATL Bear said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

ron.reagan said:

---

Most of you haven't gotten over how we got involved with stopping Hitler. Same cowards, different generation.

---

We got involved with that war because on thursday 11 December 1941 Germany declared war on the United States.

Has some nation declared war on the United States?

---

We're at the opposition to Lend Lease phase now. Quite a bit of ground to cross and events to occur before we're at the December 11, 1941 phase.

---

So you admit we are on the path to war

---

No. But to Ron.Reagan's point, you admit and use the same points used to oppose lend lease.

---

Luckily every single geo-political situation is not World War II and Nazism…no matter how much liberals would love to replay the only war they love that America has fought.

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Osodecentx said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

How the United States was transformed from guardian to spoiler of the postwar international order. An excellent summary from Harper's magazine.

Quote:

---

Why Are We in Ukraine?
On the dangers of American hubris
by Benjamin Schwarz, Christopher Layne

From the early Nineties, when Washington first raised the idea of NATO expansion, until 2008, when the U.S. delegation at the NATO summit in Bucharest advocated alliance membership for Ukraine and Georgia, U.S.-Russian exchanges were monotonous. While Russians protested Washington's NATO expansion plans, American officials shrugged off those protests--or pointed to them as evidence to justify still-further expansion. Washington's message to Moscow could not have been clearer or more disquieting: Normal diplomacy among great powers, distinguished by the recognition and accommodation of clashing interests--the approach that had defined the U.S.-Soviet rivalry during even the most intense stretches of the Cold War--was obsolete. Russia was expected to acquiesce to a new world order created and dominated by the United States.

The radical expansion of NATO's writ reflected the overweening aims that the end of the Cold War enabled Washington to pursue. Historically, great powers tend to focus pragmatically on reducing conflict among themselves. By frankly recognizing the realities of power and acknowledging each other's interests, they can usually relate to one another on a businesslike basis. This international give-and-take is bolstered by and helps engender a rough, contextual understanding of what's reasonable and legitimate--not in an abstract or absolute sense but in a way that permits fierce business rivals to moderate and accede to demands and to reach deals. By embracing what came to be called its "unipolar moment," Washington demonstrated--to Paris, Berlin, London, New Delhi, and Beijing, no less than to Moscow--that it would no longer be bound by the norms implicit in great power politics, norms that constrain the aims pursued as much as the means employed. Those who determine U.S. foreign policy hold that, as President George W. Bush declared in his second inaugural address, "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." They maintain, as President Bill Clinton averred in 1993, that the security of the United States demands a "focus on relations within nations, on a nation's form of governance, on its economic structure."

Whatever one thinks of this doctrine, which prompted Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to dub America "the indispensable nation"--and which Gorbachev said defined America's "dangerous winner's mentality"--it lavishly expanded previously established conceptions of security and national interest. In its crusading universalism, it could be regarded by other states, with ample supporting evidence, as at best recklessly meddlesome and at worst messianically interventionist. Convinced that its national security depended on the domestic political and economic arrangements of ostensibly sovereign states--and therefore defining as a legitimate goal the alteration or eradication of those arrangements if they were not in accord with its professed ideals and values--the post-Cold War United States became a revolutionary force in world politics.

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/

---

---

Good article, difficult questions. I don't know the answer

---

Again, we see the isolationist argument that we caused a war in which we had no interest. Both are patently false premises. Russia would have NEVER invaded or usurped Ukraine if Nato hadn't been meddling? Pfft. If NATO hadn't expanded eastward, Russia would have expanded westward. The issue at hand is merely about where the razor wire will be strung. NATO was slow, deliberate, and cautious in its move eastward, out of deference to Russia. And it is instructive that EVERYONE (except Belarus) wants to be on the west side of the wire.

---

You continue to use the propagandist term of "isolationist"....and of course non-intervention and not engaging in war mongering adventurism is of course not the same as isolationism.

We are the major economic power on earth and have a two ocean navy along with bases in 80+ countries and territories around the world. No one has even said we should dismantle those fleets or bases.

What people have said is that we should not get involved in bloody conflicts that we have no vital interest in or that do not involved a ally of the USA. Ukraine is not a NATO ally.

And your argument that Russia (with a poverty level and per captia GDP like Mexico) is going to expand Westward is laughable...and then you contradict yourself by saying correctly that no one wants join them.....so then how can they expand Westward? Talk about grasping for reasons to get into a conflict with a nuclear power...fantasies of "imminent expansion into the West" lol

---

Russia doesn't have to invade and defeat NATO, as your analysis presumes. Russia will try to undermine it from within, facilitated by gunboat diplomacy on NATO borders to make all players in the frontline states be more cautious in their pro-Nato/anti-=Russia policies. Then. One election. One coup. And we will have the prospect of Russia and Nato poised on opposite borders of a Nato state preparing to come to the rescue of a new government calling for help. THAT is something to lose sleep over, friend. And the only way to prevent it is to keep Russian armies IN RUSSIA.

---

Russia had a similar predicament in Ukraine. Had we admitted such an unstable country to membership in NATO, and its government decided to take Crimea, Russia would have found itself at war without having lifted a finger.

---

I have spoken often about the risks of admitting politically unstable states to Nato. Nato itself recognizes that risk. That's why it has not admitted Ukraine to membership, and only elevated it to partner status in 2020 (joining several other countries - Sweden, Finland, Australia, Jordan, Georgia). NATO is signaling unwavering support for Ukraine, as link demonstrates:
https://news.yahoo.com/nato-elevate-ukraine-partner-status-212000077.html
Some of that is genuine, and some of that is diplomatic posturing to keep up pressure on Russia....to force them to the table before the entirety of Ukraine slips away.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine unfortunately may well result in a faster-track to Ukraine Nato membership. I would prefer to put that off until after the war is won and we have a chance to observe a couple of election cycles, to ensure Ukraine can demonstrate that it is capable of peaceful transition to power. But Russia's weakness and looming defeat will be a powerful enticement to expand, which in retrospect perhaps should have been done 30 years ago when Russia was too weak to resist it.

Nato is itself engaging in mission creep, from a defense of Western Europe from Soviet attack, to a defense of democracy from attacks by autocracy. The admission of Jordan and Australia would be your clue.

---

"Democracy," i.e. recycled Marxism warmed over by Western NGOs and served to an ungrateful populace.

Russia doesn't need to be dragged into modernity. They've been there already.

Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Osodecentx said:

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Sam Lowry said:

---

How the United States was transformed from guardian to spoiler of the postwar international order. An excellent summary from Harper's magazine.

Quote:

---

Why Are We in Ukraine?
On the dangers of American hubris
by Benjamin Schwarz, Christopher Layne

From the early Nineties, when Washington first raised the idea of NATO expansion, until 2008, when the U.S. delegation at the NATO summit in Bucharest advocated alliance membership for Ukraine and Georgia, U.S.-Russian exchanges were monotonous. While Russians protested Washington's NATO expansion plans, American officials shrugged off those protests--or pointed to them as evidence to justify still-further expansion. Washington's message to Moscow could not have been clearer or more disquieting: Normal diplomacy among great powers, distinguished by the recognition and accommodation of clashing interests--the approach that had defined the U.S.-Soviet rivalry during even the most intense stretches of the Cold War--was obsolete. Russia was expected to acquiesce to a new world order created and dominated by the United States.

The radical expansion of NATO's writ reflected the overweening aims that the end of the Cold War enabled Washington to pursue. Historically, great powers tend to focus pragmatically on reducing conflict among themselves. By frankly recognizing the realities of power and acknowledging each other's interests, they can usually relate to one another on a businesslike basis. This international give-and-take is bolstered by and helps engender a rough, contextual understanding of what's reasonable and legitimate--not in an abstract or absolute sense but in a way that permits fierce business rivals to moderate and accede to demands and to reach deals. By embracing what came to be called its "unipolar moment," Washington demonstrated--to Paris, Berlin, London, New Delhi, and Beijing, no less than to Moscow--that it would no longer be bound by the norms implicit in great power politics, norms that constrain the aims pursued as much as the means employed. Those who determine U.S. foreign policy hold that, as President George W. Bush declared in his second inaugural address, "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." They maintain, as President Bill Clinton averred in 1993, that the security of the United States demands a "focus on relations within nations, on a nation's form of governance, on its economic structure."

Whatever one thinks of this doctrine, which prompted Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to dub America "the indispensable nation"--and which Gorbachev said defined America's "dangerous winner's mentality"--it lavishly expanded previously established conceptions of security and national interest. In its crusading universalism, it could be regarded by other states, with ample supporting evidence, as at best recklessly meddlesome and at worst messianically interventionist. Convinced that its national security depended on the domestic political and economic arrangements of ostensibly sovereign states--and therefore defining as a legitimate goal the alteration or eradication of those arrangements if they were not in accord with its professed ideals and values--the post-Cold War United States became a revolutionary force in world politics.

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/

---

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Good article, difficult questions. I don't know the answer

---

Again, we see the isolationist argument that we caused a war in which we had no interest. Both are patently false premises. Russia would have NEVER invaded or usurped Ukraine if Nato hadn't been meddling? Pfft. If NATO hadn't expanded eastward, Russia would have expanded westward. The issue at hand is merely about where the razor wire will be strung. NATO was slow, deliberate, and cautious in its move eastward, out of deference to Russia. And it is instructive that EVERYONE (except Belarus) wants to be on the west side of the wire.

---

You continue to use the propagandist term of "isolationist"....and of course non-intervention and not engaging in war mongering adventurism is of course not the same as isolationism.

We are the major economic power on earth and have a two ocean navy along with bases in 80+ countries and territories around the world. No one has even said we should dismantle those fleets or bases.

What people have said is that we should not get involved in bloody conflicts that we have no vital interest in or that do not involved a ally of the USA. Ukraine is not a NATO ally.

And your argument that Russia (with a poverty level and per captia GDP like Mexico) is going to expand Westward is laughable...and then you contradict yourself by saying correctly that no one wants join them.....so then how can they expand Westward? Talk about grasping for reasons to get into a conflict with a nuclear power...fantasies of "imminent expansion into the West" lol

---

Russia doesn't have to invade and defeat NATO, as your analysis presumes. Russia will try to undermine it from within, facilitated by gunboat diplomacy on NATO borders to make all players in the frontline states be more cautious in their pro-Nato/anti-=Russia policies. Then. One election. One coup. And we will have the prospect of Russia and Nato poised on opposite borders of a Nato state preparing to come to the rescue of a new government calling for help. THAT is something to lose sleep over, friend. And the only way to prevent it is to keep Russian armies IN RUSSIA.

---

Russia had a similar predicament in Ukraine. Had we admitted such an unstable country to membership in NATO, and its government decided to take Crimea, Russia would have found itself at war without having lifted a finger.

---

I have spoken often about the risks of admitting politically unstable states to Nato. Nato itself recognizes that risk. That's why it has not admitted Ukraine to membership, and only elevated it to partner status in 2020 (joining several other countries - Sweden, Finland, Australia, Jordan, Georgia). NATO is signaling unwavering support for Ukraine, as link demonstrates:
https://news.yahoo.com/nato-elevate-ukraine-partner-status-212000077.html
Some of that is genuine, and some of that is diplomatic posturing to keep up pressure on Russia....to force them to the table before the entirety of Ukraine slips away.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine unfortunately may well result in a faster-track to Ukraine Nato membership. I would prefer to put that off until after the war is won and we have a chance to observe a couple of election cycles, to ensure Ukraine can demonstrate that it is capable of peaceful transition to power. But Russia's weakness and looming defeat will be a powerful enticement to expand, which in retrospect perhaps should have been done 30 years ago when Russia was too weak to resist it.

Nato is itself engaging in mission creep, from a defense of Western Europe from Soviet attack, to a defense of democracy from attacks by autocracy. The admission of Jordan and Australia would be your clue.

---

"Democracy," i.e. recycled Marxism warmed over by Western NGOs and served to an ungrateful populace.

Russia doesn't need to be dragged into modernity. They've been there already.

---

That is not spin. That is detachment from reality.

Are you OK?

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Osodecentx said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

How the United States was transformed from guardian to spoiler of the postwar international order. An excellent summary from Harper's magazine.

Quote:

---

Why Are We in Ukraine?
On the dangers of American hubris
by Benjamin Schwarz, Christopher Layne

From the early Nineties, when Washington first raised the idea of NATO expansion, until 2008, when the U.S. delegation at the NATO summit in Bucharest advocated alliance membership for Ukraine and Georgia, U.S.-Russian exchanges were monotonous. While Russians protested Washington's NATO expansion plans, American officials shrugged off those protests--or pointed to them as evidence to justify still-further expansion. Washington's message to Moscow could not have been clearer or more disquieting: Normal diplomacy among great powers, distinguished by the recognition and accommodation of clashing interests--the approach that had defined the U.S.-Soviet rivalry during even the most intense stretches of the Cold War--was obsolete. Russia was expected to acquiesce to a new world order created and dominated by the United States.

The radical expansion of NATO's writ reflected the overweening aims that the end of the Cold War enabled Washington to pursue. Historically, great powers tend to focus pragmatically on reducing conflict among themselves. By frankly recognizing the realities of power and acknowledging each other's interests, they can usually relate to one another on a businesslike basis. This international give-and-take is bolstered by and helps engender a rough, contextual understanding of what's reasonable and legitimate--not in an abstract or absolute sense but in a way that permits fierce business rivals to moderate and accede to demands and to reach deals. By embracing what came to be called its "unipolar moment," Washington demonstrated--to Paris, Berlin, London, New Delhi, and Beijing, no less than to Moscow--that it would no longer be bound by the norms implicit in great power politics, norms that constrain the aims pursued as much as the means employed. Those who determine U.S. foreign policy hold that, as President George W. Bush declared in his second inaugural address, "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." They maintain, as President Bill Clinton averred in 1993, that the security of the United States demands a "focus on relations within nations, on a nation's form of governance, on its economic structure."

Whatever one thinks of this doctrine, which prompted Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to dub America "the indispensable nation"--and which Gorbachev said defined America's "dangerous winner's mentality"--it lavishly expanded previously established conceptions of security and national interest. In its crusading universalism, it could be regarded by other states, with ample supporting evidence, as at best recklessly meddlesome and at worst messianically interventionist. Convinced that its national security depended on the domestic political and economic arrangements of ostensibly sovereign states--and therefore defining as a legitimate goal the alteration or eradication of those arrangements if they were not in accord with its professed ideals and values--the post-Cold War United States became a revolutionary force in world politics.

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/

---

---

Good article, difficult questions. I don't know the answer

---

Again, we see the isolationist argument that we caused a war in which we had no interest. Both are patently false premises. Russia would have NEVER invaded or usurped Ukraine if Nato hadn't been meddling? Pfft. If NATO hadn't expanded eastward, Russia would have expanded westward. The issue at hand is merely about where the razor wire will be strung. NATO was slow, deliberate, and cautious in its move eastward, out of deference to Russia. And it is instructive that EVERYONE (except Belarus) wants to be on the west side of the wire.

---

You continue to use the propagandist term of "isolationist"....and of course non-intervention and not engaging in war mongering adventurism is of course not the same as isolationism.

We are the major economic power on earth and have a two ocean navy along with bases in 80+ countries and territories around the world. No one has even said we should dismantle those fleets or bases.

What people have said is that we should not get involved in bloody conflicts that we have no vital interest in or that do not involved a ally of the USA. Ukraine is not a NATO ally.

And your argument that Russia (with a poverty level and per captia GDP like Mexico) is going to expand Westward is laughable...and then you contradict yourself by saying correctly that no one wants join them.....so then how can they expand Westward? Talk about grasping for reasons to get into a conflict with a nuclear power...fantasies of "imminent expansion into the West" lol

---

Russia doesn't have to invade and defeat NATO, as your analysis presumes. Russia will try to undermine it from within, facilitated by gunboat diplomacy on NATO borders to make all players in the frontline states be more cautious in their pro-Nato/anti-=Russia policies. Then. One election. One coup. And we will have the prospect of Russia and Nato poised on opposite borders of a Nato state preparing to come to the rescue of a new government calling for help. THAT is something to lose sleep over, friend. And the only way to prevent it is to keep Russian armies IN RUSSIA.

---

Russia had a similar predicament in Ukraine. Had we admitted such an unstable country to membership in NATO, and its government decided to take Crimea, Russia would have found itself at war without having lifted a finger.

---

I have spoken often about the risks of admitting politically unstable states to Nato. Nato itself recognizes that risk. That's why it has not admitted Ukraine to membership, and only elevated it to partner status in 2020 (joining several other countries - Sweden, Finland, Australia, Jordan, Georgia). NATO is signaling unwavering support for Ukraine, as link demonstrates:
https://news.yahoo.com/nato-elevate-ukraine-partner-status-212000077.html
Some of that is genuine, and some of that is diplomatic posturing to keep up pressure on Russia....to force them to the table before the entirety of Ukraine slips away.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine unfortunately may well result in a faster-track to Ukraine Nato membership. I would prefer to put that off until after the war is won and we have a chance to observe a couple of election cycles, to ensure Ukraine can demonstrate that it is capable of peaceful transition to power. But Russia's weakness and looming defeat will be a powerful enticement to expand, which in retrospect perhaps should have been done 30 years ago when Russia was too weak to resist it.

Nato is itself engaging in mission creep, from a defense of Western Europe from Soviet attack, to a defense of democracy from attacks by autocracy. The admission of Jordan and Australia would be your clue.

---

"Democracy," i.e. recycled Marxism warmed over by Western NGOs and served to an ungrateful populace.

Russia doesn't need to be dragged into modernity. They've been there already.

---

That is not spin. That is detachment from reality.

Are you OK?

---

You just told me, apparently without irony, that our foreign policy has something to do with sorting out democracies from autocracies and acting as the selfless champion of the former.

Are you okay?

Becoming obvious this board has only about 8 guys arguing back and forth with maybe another 8 who chime in occaisionally.

Boring .



.