Comment by grafmax | Hacker News Reader

Comment by grafmax | Hacker News Reader

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First off, what I stated is a view held by reputable scholars such as Noam Chomsky, Jeffrey Sachs, and John Mearsheimer, not just a view you (also) can find in Russian propaganda.

Second my point is understanding the Russian POV, regardless of the correctness of that POV.

Third, your comment is off base historically. The timeline is:

2007 Putin’s Munich speech warning against NATO expansion to Eastern Europe.

Feb 2008 US ambassador warning that NATO expansion to Ukraine was a red line for Russia.

April 2008 Bucharest summit Ukraine and Georgia were not given MAPs due to France and Germany objections but were promised NATO accession over their objections.

August 2008 invasion of Georgia.

Nov 2013-Feb 2014 Euromaidan protests overthrowing Russia-sympathetic Yanukovych

2014 invasion of Crimea

Feb 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

Besides this Putin has argued for the invasion of Ukraine as restoration of historical Russia as part of his nationalist ideology. And other examples of NATO expansion such as Baltics, Poland and Finland have not led to Russian attacks.

Overall the concerns many European leaders have about Russia need to be tempered by a better understanding of Russia’s actual perspective (as I said not the same as advocating for that perspective).

  > First off, what I stated is a view held by reputable scholars such as Noam Chomsky, Jeffrey Sachs, and John Mearsheimer, not just a view you (also) can find in Russian propaganda.

They are Russian propaganda, Mearsheimer most notably. His books are financed by the Russian government. If these people are your primary sources, you will end up believing that the Holocaust is a lie, the Americans never landed on the Moon, 5G is for mind control, and vaccines cause autism.

  > Overall the concerns many European leaders have about Russia need to be tempered by a better understanding of Russia’s actual perspective

Who do you think has a better understanding of Russia: those who had the misfortune of being born and raised in the USSR and saw Russian imperialism from the inside (this generation currently fills the top leadership positions in Eastern Europe), or "reputable scholars" from the other side of the world who cannot speak or read a word of Russian and know nothing about the country beyond what their handlers showed them during a conference visit? Do you think that Kaja Kallas, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, whose mother was deported as a six-month-old baby to Siberian labor camp after the Soviet invasion of Estonia, and whose father later became one of the four architects of the Estonian independence movement, needs to be lectured by Mearsheimers and Chomskys?

If anything, the Anglo-American world has lived for too long in a fantasy land constructed by reputable and disreputable scholars from afar, instead of listening to those with lived experience and knowledge accumulated over a lifetime.

> They are Russian propaganda, Mearsheimer most notably. His books are financed by the Russian government.

The closest thing I could find about this was that in one of his books he acknowledges partial financing of this one book from a small prize from a Russian internet forum. That’s all I could find. Chomsky and Sachs supposedly fall under this umbrella too, according to you. Presumably criticizing American foreign policy is equivalent to Russian propaganda in your view.

Nor are any of the conspiracy theories you attribute to them something I could find evidence of.

My point there in my comment about these three holding these views was that this isn’t simply Russian fake news. It’s held by some reputable scholars as well. Your response is to claim these scholars too are Russian propagandists, bolstering your case with outright fabrications.

The US leadership openly refers to Ukraine as a proxy war. I do think it’s worth listening to critics of US foreign policy in that context, and not limiting our information diet to European politicians.

  > ... from a small prize from a Russian internet forum.

The Valdai forum[1] is not "a small internet forum" but the most prominent event run by the Russian government to bring Western politicians, scholars and other notable figures to Russia, treat them like royalty, surround them with agents of influence, and manipulate them into adopting Russian propaganda narratives, which they then repeat in their essays and articles once they return home.

No meaningful discussion takes place there. You can assume that all organizers and domestic attendees are acting under FSB instructions. It is solely an operation by the security services to manipulate Western visitors and turn them into useful idiots. Thus, at least in Eastern Europe, where these tricks are well understood, anyone attending such events is automatically considered suspicious: they must be either utterly clueless or working for Russia. Mearsheimer, somehow, has fallen even deeper and started accepting money.

And it shows. You can look up on YouTube his attempt to debate the Polish foreign minister, completely misrepresenting certain diplomatic events, unaware that Sikorski had been there in person, leading an official delegation. How anyone can take such a buffoon seriously remains a mystery to me. To Russians, he has been one of their best investments. Tens of millions of people have been exposed, through him, to the ideas instilled in him at places like Valdai, believing them to be high-quality expertise from a reputable scholar, when in reality they are nothing more than laundered propaganda.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdai_Discussion_Club

I didn’t say it’s a small forum but a small financial contribution - to one book. This is the totality of actual evidence you have of Mearsheimer, Chomsky, and Sachs being Russian propagandists. Your argument is paper-thin.

Criticizing American foreign policy doesn’t make someone a Russian propagandist.

> First off, what I stated is a view held by reputable scholars such as Noam Chomsky, Jeffrey Sachs, and John Mearsheimer

You have named 3 people out of 8 billion alive, so 0.00000004%. That doesn't sound like a consensus, or even a majority. It sounds like 3 dudes saying a thing.

> The timeline is: 2007 Putin’s Munich speech warning against NATO expansion to Eastern Europe...

So as far back as 2007, we have recordings of putin threatening other countries against exercising their sovereign rights, in violation of international law. Not great for russia.

Unfortunately for the world, the timeline starts far before that, with russian invasions and annexations of their neighbors. If we look further back, we see russian genocide of Ukrainians during the holodomor. If we look even further back, we see russian ethnic cleansing of Ukrainian Tatars.

Based on this history, and the admissions of russian officials, we can conclude that russia just wants what Ukraine has, and hates Ukrainians for saying no.

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