Monday, February 9, 2015

Leading American Political Scientist John J. Mearsheimer: Arming Ukraine Solves Nothing (NYT OpEd)

Unsurprisingly, a growing chorus of voices in the United States is calling for arming Ukraine. A recent report from three leading American think tanks endorses sending Kiev advanced weaponry, and the White House’s nominee for secretary of defense, Ashton B. Carter, said last week to the Senate armed services committee, “I very much incline in that direction.” 
They are wrong. Going down that road would be a huge mistake for the United States, NATO and Ukraine itself. Sending weapons to Ukraine will not rescue its army and will instead lead to an escalation in the fighting. Such a step is especially dangerous because Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons and is seeking to defend a vital strategic interest.…
To save Ukraine and eventually restore a working relationship with Moscow, the West should seek to make Ukraine a neutral buffer state between Russia and NATO. It should look like Austria during the Cold War. Toward that end, the West should explicitly take European Union and NATO expansion off the table, and emphasize that its goal is a nonaligned Ukraine that does not threaten Russia. The United States and its allies should also work with Mr. Putin to rescue Ukraine’s economy, a goal that is clearly in everyone’s interest.…

Crimea, a casualty of the West’s attempt to march NATO and the European Union up to Russia’s doorstep, is surely lost for good. It is time to end that imprudent policy before more damage is done — to Ukraine and to relations between Russia and the West.
What is the logic of tiptoeing with North Korea, which has limited to nuclear weapons and delivery systems and risking war "to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons," as flirting with Russia, which along with China, is the only country that not only has nuclear weapons and advanced delivery systems, but also has deployed sophisticated anti-missile defense? There is no logic there. It is irrational, driven by ideology that is almost sure to backfire not only the the US but also the world. The US is trying to create the impression that Russia is a rogue state, but many see the US in the light already owing to its reckless military adventurism, and arming Ukraine (and providing advisors, since advanced weapons require special training) would just add some big logs to the fire. It's nutty, so to mention upping the ante where it is Ukrainians on both sides that are the chips.

Russia Insider
Leading American Political Scientist: Arming Ukraine Solves Nothing
John J. Mearsheimer | Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago

2 comments:

mike norman said...

Do any of these intellectuals really think that Russia will resort to nukes, because they often make note of that in their "brilliant" analysis. Russia will never respond to a conventional war with nukes. EVER. They're already timid as it is in conventionally defending their ethnic populations in E. Ukraine.

Tom Hickey said...

We had better hope.