That doesn't make sense.
Why not say the same thing about countries near US, near China or India ?
India has shown no interest in getting into conflict with any neighboring country other than Pakistan. India's nuclear arsenal is pointed at Pakistan only. Ari Lanka has never expressed fear of an Indian invasion and India has never built the military capability to pull off such an operation.
Around China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea have all tied their fortunes to the US and tucked under the US nuclear umbrella. There are rumors that Japan have built the parts to a number of nuclear weapons and they keep them disassembled, but capable of being made ready in a few weeks if things with China get too heated.
The US has had a communist country on its doorstep for 65 years, it tried to invade that country once, but that was over 60 years ago. The US has had sanctions on Cuba, but Cuba has not had to worry about a US invasion for a long time. The rest of the New World complies with the US post-WW II doctrine and nobody attacks anyone else which leaves the New World at peace. The only exception was the Argentinean invasion of the Falklands in the 1980s and the US stood by and let the UK deal with getting their territory back.
Did you watch ? I guess not.
His contention is that Putin is afraid of NATO and eastward expansion of NATO precipitated the war. In other words if NATO didn’t try to expand eastward (as promised) there would be no war.
Small countries always get crushed and suffer terribly when big powers play their chess games. Ukraine is no different. Afghanistan in the 80s or Vietnam in the 60s.
Underlying this assumption is that NATO expansion was the idea of the US or other western European allies. It wasn't. When former Warsaw Pact countries came to NATO and asked to join, they were initially rebuffed. Then Poland laid down an ultimatum that either they join NATO or they would start their own nuclear program. Rather than have Poland as an independent nuclear power, NATO expanded to include Poland and a number of other Eastern European countries.
This is where people like Mearshimer don't give agency to other countries and only sees world politics through the lens of great powers playing power games with each other. That's the root of the fatal flaw in this arguments.
The countries of Eastern Europe experienced the hell of the Soviet Union invading them within living memory. They do not want to experience anything like that again. Being part of an alliance that is much larger than they are protects them.
In the post WW II order, the US has enforced a new paradigm that wars of conquest are out. The US has participated in wars that looked a bit like wars of conquest, but the US's stated goal was never to add that country to the US empire. The goal was always to put in someone the US could work with and get out. That has proven to be a fool's errand in a lot of cases. The South Vietnamese government fell apart shortly after the US pulled out of Vietnam, the Iraqi government is still there, but it pretty feckless, and the government the US left in Afghanistan didn't even last long enough for the US to finish getting out.
But if you listen to the US talk about these wars at the time, there was never talk of making Vietnam or Iraq the 51st state. At the start of the 2022 invasion Putin was talking about absorbing Ukraine back into Russia. He still talks sometimes about Ukraine being a part of Russia and that Ukraine really doesn't exist.
Russia is the only country in the world today who is still playing the 19th century Great Game that was played between European powers before WW I and was completely wiped out when the US established a new paradigm after WW II. The US based order post WW II is that the borders of the world are set along late 1940s lines unless a country voluntarily breaks up. Countries that don't abide by those rules get thumped by the rest of the world.
The US was weak in thumping Russia for taking part of Moldova which they dressed up as a "peace keeping" operation. Russia is not trying to make any part of Syria their own, but they did get a naval port from Syria as part of their deal to help the current government. The US did thump the USSR when they tried to take Afghanistan in the 1980s. The US was very poor in responding to the 2008 invasion of Georgia and poor in responding to the 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Those two weaknesses made Putin think he might get away with taking all of Ukraine.
Because real politick is always different from ethical matters. But ethics is always used as a cover for big power wars.
Otherwise - let us first start talking about Native American genocide, colonization, Iraq war etc.
Talking about anything that happened pre-WWII is talking about an era when the US was not setting the standards for international behavior. It was a collection of European power then with the British Empire and to some extent France setting the standard in the period between WW I and WW II. During the time of the North American genocide the Europeans and descendants of Europeans thought it was just fine to do whatever they wanted with non-white people. From our modern perspective, it was wrong, and I agree it was wrong. But it is history now and it is not the way things are done in the world now.
I also think all optional wars are wrong. That includes the US invasion of Iraq. The goal was to get rid of the dictator and replace him with a democracy, which I thought was wrong in 2003 and I still think was wrong now. One of the legacies of that invasion is it hurt US credibility on the world stage when they condemn wars of conquest like Russia is trying to do now.
But the core goals of the two wars are different. Russia is conducting a war of conquest and the US was attempting regime change. Like I said, I don't think regime change wars are right either, but the goals are different.
You are all confused.
Nobody has the right to harm others - US or Putin or Hamas or Israel.
But that is not what we are talking about. For a historian - the question is - why did Russia invade Ukraine. One reason given (mostly in US media) is that Putin is an expansionist and wants to recreate USSR. But the alternative view is Putin just wanted to prevent expansion of NATO. Full Stop. Its not about ethics of war - all aggressive wars are unethical ! Nobody is arguing they are - not him, nor I.
Oh what gives US the right to murder a million people in Iraq and call them "collateral damage" or call genocidal invaders "pilgrims" ?
I don't consume US media about the war in Ukraine. Most of my sources are European with quite a few coming out of Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe knows the Russian mind set, they were subject to it for over 40 years before they broke free when the USSR started unraveling. One of the few US sources I trust is Timothy Snyder who is one of the top historians on Eastern Europe in the US. His views on the whys of this war are congruent with the Eastern European sources.
I get push back whenever I say this because it does look ridiculous when you look at a map, but sources like Timothy Snyder all agree, fundamentally Moscow feels insecure. Before Moscova began to grow in strength and expand their territory they lived in a perpetually dangerous environment where their kingdom might be overrun by the Mongol hoard at any time. It drove them to conquer all of Northern Asia as well as push into Eastern Europe. Moscow was paranoid then about being invaded and they are paranoid now.
The Russian on the street is unaware of this, but on a sub-conscious level it permeates the culture of the ethnic Russians. As an added benefit milking this vast empire dry is the only way the ethnic Russians can live like a developed country. Moscow is a modern capital and St Petersburg is kept nice too, but at the expense of the rest of the country which exists as little more than third world slums.
Russia's government both want the economic benefits of adding to the empire, plus they are also paranoid about 1941 happening again in the same way that someone who was abused as a child might remain hyper reactive as an adult.
