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Comment by jonahbenton | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, have to disagree. His repeated "Putin is a brilliant strategist" is right out of right wing orthodoxy. Putin is a nascissist and a ruthless bully. His will to power is generally worshipped on the right, and mistaken for strategic brilliance, but it is not. For instance the endemic corruption in the regime is virtually absent from Mearsheimer analyses, but is critically important from a realist assessment.

Putin also sees everything in individual people terms, not structures and systems- unlike, for instance, China. This is also misunderstood on the right- the individual will to power takes precedence over structures and systems. Russia- as a system- has been weakening, not strengthening, acting only in asymmetric contexts like a jackal, a guerrilla terrorist. Mearsheimer has missed this.

Cheers.

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"Realist" IR theory in general misses the importance of self-sustaining structures, systems and institutions. The peaceful international order itself is a cooperatively self-sustaining institution, and this handily explains why a huge amount of countries which benefit from a workable international order are reacting so quickly to Russia's actions.

How do you rationalize 'the West just loves peace' (paraphrasing) with our current policy of funneling huge amounts of weapons to back an Ukrainian insurgency, and the resolute opposition to Ukraine surrendering and saving thousands of lives on any terms?

The West has tried working with Russia before the operation. The other side was actively uncooperative (they told everyone they would retreat from the Ukrainian border, but then didn't); it's not surprising at all that mutual trust and communication would break down as a result. Even so it is basically the Ukrainians who are refusing to back down now, not necessarily the West. They hold all the cards.

> The West has tried working with Russia before the operation.

What is your basis for this wild claim? Washington has actively opposed the implementation of the Minsk agreements since 2014, despite Moscow's enthusiasm for them.

Moscow was far from enthusiastic about the Minsk agreements. Their position has always been that they were only acting as a "mediator" not as a party, thus - conveniently enough for them - they could not be blamed if the agreements broke down. More recently, they've stated outright that the Minsk agreements are dead.

You maintain peace by attacking those that break it. Letting invading dictators get away with it only encourages them.

Slippery slope fallacy.

By the way re "Ukrainian insurgency" I thought Ukraine was a sovereign country that Russia have claimed they are not even at war with?

How do you think "rewarding a warmonger for his boldness by handing him what he wants" wouldn't encourage more death later?

Admitting your political enemies are "brilliant strategists", if accurate, is practically a defining characteristic of realism.

Generalizing one of the most esteemed IR scholars of the last century as a "right wing thinker", on the basis that one of his assessments is, allegedly, one held by many on the right, is an incredibly lazy over-simplification to pigeon-hole a situation into the "enlightened leftists vs dumb immoral right-wingers" paradigm that left-wing ideologues frequently promulgate.

One can very reasonably critique Mearsheimer's analyses, but not on the basis of such a simplistic "left vs right" model of the world.

> Sorry, have to disagree. His repeated "Putin is a brilliant strategist" is right out of right wing orthodoxy. Putin is a nascissist and a ruthless bully.

It’s not a right wing versus left wing thing. It’s an idealist versus realist thing. Idealists tend to analyze international affairs in terms of ideology or the personality of individual leaders, rather than concrete facts on the ground, is precisely what has led to so much disaster in US foreign policy. E.g. Saddam, the War on Terror, etc.

Historically, the idealists were mostly on the right—Reagan, Bush, etc. Back during the Iraq War, Mearsheimer’s views would be comfortably on the left. (And outside the US they still are, which is why my Carter-loving Bangladeshi immigrant dad is posting Mearsheimer links on FB which all my aunties are liking.)

There are idealism-heavy views of IR, but the most credited alternative to the narrow "Realist theory" that Mearsheimer falls back on would be "Liberal" theories. These share the basic Realist assumption about the importance of "facts on the ground" in terms of power and basic rationality, but they augment it with an understanding drawn from modern social science of how sustained cooperation among selfish actors can nonetheless arise even in such circumstances.

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