Scholar

Once this kind of norm breaking occurs the future is unpredictable. Russia would not stand a chance against NATO in a conventional confronation. At that point Russia might use tactical nuclear warheads, and NATO might not respond with full nuclear escalation because they would know once they did, it would be the end. This is the thing about these kinds of norms, they work well until they are actually tested. They are kind of designed so that there is a big inhibition so that they are never tested, and so that it is never revealed that they are just an illusion. It's like we have two people with dead man's switches, and they both say "If you punch me we both die". Well, sure that's a threat, but if you do punch them, will they actually do it? And once you realize that they will not, what is going to happen then?

I disagree with that, I think he is not very open-minded to the possibility that Putin's character is a causal factor for this conflict. He dismissed that possibility because he views it as a "low consciousness and lazy" way of looking at things. That is in a certain sense fair, but someone can come to that conclusion for other reasons than laziness and low consciousness. He doesn't actually engage in that, and he is not even interested in hearing perspectives of others. He is creating his own narrative imo, and then he dismisses others based on that narrative. In a way I think you are far too charitable to Leo, my interactions with him give me a very different sense and perception of what he is doing. Whenever I engage with him he doesn't really engage with my ideas, explore my perspective or explain his perspective. Rather he just finds ways to dismiss it and leave the conversation.

Also notice how Leo will never just state his position, he will always include some invalidation of other perspectives.

I am also deeply disappointed how you engage with challenges to your view. You simply reassert what you say instead of making any effort to justify it, and you focus on making it look like you hold the truth rather than truly giving insight into your perspective and how it emerged. That to me is a very unconscious way of engaging with these topics. You seem to justify alot of your perspective by making assumptions and judgements of others. So when I ask you to justify things, you will not actually respond and give me an indepth reason for your perspective (which I now think does not even exist), but rather you will find ways to undermine someone else, without even engaging with their ideas. That to me is lazy. When I see you engage on this forum I see someone who is fighting for truth, who is fighting to be right, rather than clarifying your perspective and attempting to understand the perspectives of others. You already assume that your position is superior, and then you argue that yours is right because clearly it is superior. I think you don't like to frame things that you believe as perspective because it undermines your perceived monopoly to truth. That is why you focus on judging others rather than exploring their perspectives and clarifying yours. You dismiss others, rather than actually engaging with them and their perspectives. Another indicator for this is that you cannot walk away and agree to disagree with someone. You don't accept that someone else might have a perspective that is valid even though it is not your own. You insist that they are wrong and then tell them the reasons for why they are wrong which are assumptions you make about, even if you can't really justify your own position. For example you will say "What you are saying is wrong because you are biased", instead of actually explaining to them why you disagree with it. Notice the language you use. You never say "I disagree with this because of the following reasons, that is my perspective". You say: "This is stupid, and here is why you are too stupid and biased to see that this is the case." This is a very inflammatory way of going about this imo, and it shows me that you are more interested in establishing your own perspective as truth rather than simply giving us your perspective and exploring others. You want to brute force your perspective on others, by means of dismissal, character attacks and establishing your superiority.

Well, Putin just accelerated that process because he showed the world Russia is unreliable, and it is a mistake to be dependent on them. What you call soon is relative aswell, we are talking about centuries here. I am not sure if we will be using nearly as much oil in a hundred years. Consider that the more expensive oil gets, the more likely we will be to use other sources of energy. That will only accelerate the transition.

That's quite an emotional response. I think you pick and choose when you tend to apply a lense of Love and Harmony. Evolution doesn't work in a linear way, because it tends to create biases that seek to uphold themselves. Purely physically speaking, we could probably progress mankind more in 5 years than we did in the last 50 years if only the motivation was there to do so. The reason why we do not do so is because systems tend to seek comfort within norms. Usually it requires a dramatic event to cause dramatic changes. Like if you get cancer, you might suddeny get the motivation to change your entire life, meditate for 4 hours a day, adopt healthy habits and take joy in every moment of your life. If you had never gotten cancer, you might have lived your life in stagnation, comfort and essentially misery. This is true for evolution too. Dinosaurs existed for hundreds of millions of years and they barely changed, life was stagnating. And yes, what wiped out the dinosaurs was a terrible tragedy, for the dinosaurs. However, it shook life to it's core, enabling it to take completely new pathways that were not possible to take previously because systems had stabilized to such a degree that new changes simply would not have occured. My hope would be that a world war would eventually lead to greater harmony. From what I know current projections actually show that most humans would survive a nuclear holocaust, in a kind of worst case scenario. And it might very well be that it would actually reduce suffering in the world for that period, as it would put an end to most factory farms. It's a very human centric perspective to call a nuclear holocaust a bad thing. For others it would mean freedom and new opportunities. And for life as a whole it might mean greater expression of harmony, complexity and love. Our current societies have a legacy that very much limited our future trajectory, and shaking it up would give us the ability to create a new foundation, made from a higher level of consciousness. So, interestingly you have done to me what you have accused others of when talking about Putin. You have assumed your relative perspective to be absolute, and dismissed mine because it undermined your survival. We can see this on a smaller scale playing out in the EU. The EU was in comfort, but it was not necessarily acting in it's best interest. Sometimes to act in your best interest requires some event that forces you to do so, an event that makes remaining in the status quo more uncomfortable than actually going through the resistance and effort to change. In a similar manner, the events Putin initiated might let to great suffering in Russia, which in turn might lead to a revolution that will weed out much of the corruption currently present in the system. Corruption that under other circumstances would have continued to exist for a long time. I would accuse you of being myopic in this regard Leo.

From what I heard China has a far more important relationship with the West economically speading, and historically speaking China prioritizes it's economic interests over other things. I also think the shift to renewable energy will also cause significant issues for Russia. Well imo, it could have survived for a long time, but now it won't, because it was not able to compromise and adapt. There is a reason why ex-soviet countries were desperate to escape Russia's influence and why they wanted to be integrated into the western economy. Russia is so bad at mutual, respectful relationships that the only way they can maintain influence is through coercion. If you look at the countries that voted with Russia in the UN resolutions, you wil find an interesting pattern. It's not an accident that it's the most corrupt countries that align with Russia. In terms of evolution, Russia is lagging behind, and the rest of the world is responding accordingly.

This is also how it would look from the perspective of a high consciousness Russian leader, he would realize this and act accordingly. But Putin's consciousness is limited, so much so that he is undermining he interests of his own nation and people, in the same way Hitler did. At this moment, a catastrophic failure of Russia in the interest of all people, Russia must have a revolution and transcend it's current limitations. I don't think WW3 is likely to occur, but of course an autocrat would frame it in this way so he could forever continue with his corruption. In the end, progress always involves certain risks, and sometimes catastrophy. WW2 has a tremendous effect on the progress of mankind, so did the extinction of the dinosaurs. And if WW3 happens, maybe in a few hundred years we will look back at it and be glad, because it changed the trajectory of mankind and this planet forever. Starting war with Hiter was catastrophic, but what would have been more catastrophic is to allow for the old ways to conitnue.

I agree Russia wants a significant role in the world order, but that's a pipedream, it will not happen. Russia basically wants to go back to the 20th century, however, the world has moved on. Right now what we are seeing is an Empire struggling to let go of power, and the world is reacting accordingly. I don't think this conflict could have been avoided, or even that attempting to avoid it would have resulted in better outcomes. Russia will be meaningless in the future, and Putin cannot accept that. Russia will fall like every other empire until they understand that they are so insignificant, nobody will even care about them as a threat anymore. It will be just another France or Germany, or UK. A similar thing might happen to the US, atlhough I think the US is better positioned in terms of geopolitics to atleast somewhat cling to power. Either way, what we are seeing is not some response to bad actions of NATO, imo it's simply an empire not wanting to let go of control, because it will cost it. And by doing so, as history loves to repeat itself, the empire is giving itself the finishing blow, instead of walking off the world stage with dignity. How this could have realistically have been avoided is if Putin had died of COVID. Though, the lessons we will learn will probably serve to stabilize the future and allow for harmony to prosper even more, as we have a good reminder of what happens when a Nation decides to delude itself that it can simply brute force it's interests into reality.

The defense raising of NATO is a response to Russia's acts of aggresion, like the Invasion of other countries and the annexation of entire landmasses that do not belong to it, and the undermining of the sovereignty of nations aswell as the blackmailing of nations. Russia is gaslighting the West. Of course the West will increase it's defenses, that's the only rational thing to do in response to the actions the Kremlin has been taking in the last 3 decades. Nobody will because autocratic systems are so corrupt they are unable to sustain themselves, one of the reasons why the Soviets failed, why China will fail and why Russia is failing. How you do you just completely forget about Spiral Dynamics when talking about this issue?

You are missing the point. Nobody will start a war with a nation with nuclear weapons, because it will at best assure mutual destruction. Therefore, there is no military security risk to a nation that has a sufficent capability in that regard, which Russia does have.

Wait, what do you think is Destiny's critique of Mearsheimer then? Nobody is an actual security risk to Russia because Russia has nuclear weapons. Once you do, your national security in terms of war is secured. Russia has issues maintaining it's economic security, and that's in my view the best lense you can understand this conflict from, in the context of certain biases that Putin holds. We don't live in the 20th century anymore.

What do you think are their critiques and how would you counter them? Are you able to verify and substantiate the claims Mearsheimer is making?

Have you read some of the Papers disagreeing with Mearsheimer? Mearsheimer seems to be unable to substantiate many of his claims, I find his analysis to be severely flawed.

You listen to BadEmpanada?

Ironically it is a purely defensive move in response to the misinformation floating around and the false claims made by the Kremlin-Gremlin. If you don't trust them, verify the claims yourself.

In the end I think Putin would have done anything in his power to grab as much land as possible. To say a country joins NATO once it is attacked pretty much just makes it part of NATO, because that is the entire idea of NATO, it is a defensive alliance. The reason why Putin didn't want Ukraine to join NATO is because he wanted to grab it, and he knew he wouldn't ever be able to grab it once it was part of NATO. I don't think this could have been prevented, Putin created the conflict, in the end that is outside of the influence of NATO.

Destiny having a pretty solid take on this:

Excellent analysis, just found it and am surprised at how much this correlated with what I came to conclude from my research. The entire narrative of "Russia is acting this way because NATO was starting to threaten it!", is very naive and even contradictory to me. I am not sure why people fall for this kind of propaganda, as we have even Putin himself speak about his intentions when he makes claims about how he wants to reintegrate the Ukraine into Russia. This conflict is not primarily geopolitical, I think that is a really important thing to keep in mind here, which is why attempts to explain this through a geopolitical lense leads to clear contradictions.

The idea that Russia is being threatened by NATO expansion, which happened in response to Russia's invasion of Georgia and annexation of Crimea, is laughable. Not only did he provoke the expansion by giving any rational european country a reason to join it and increase it's defensive capabilities, but he then proceeded to call it aggression even though it was a defensive action. It is the case that Ukraine never even was likely to join NATO, for many reasons including that countries with ongoing border-disputes cannot join NATO. But outside of that, any sovereign nation has the right to join a defensive pact, especially after seeing how Russia has been acting in the past two decades. Putin is trying to gaslight the West and hope his misinformation campaign sticks, and sadly it is working very well. It's like he is an abusive partner who then beats his wife for buying pepper spray. Putin's action have proven that Ukraine should have never given up it's nuclear arsenal, and that NATO is more relevant than it ever was before. The only reason he is invading Ukraine is because he wants to reestablish the old empire, and he knew that if he would not do soon, that opportunity might slip away forever. Sure, the West is biased here, but the West comes not even close to the level of corruption and deceit that Russia is currently displaying.

Decisions made aren't "geopolitical", decisions made are happening within a geopolitical context. You could also say that Hitlers vision of a Third Reich was "geopolitical", in the same manner Putin's desire bring Russia back to it's Soviet glory is geopolitical. But in reality, it has more to do with the personal ideology of the world leader than anything else. It's not that Russia is acting this way because it is in it's best interest within the geopolitical framework, rather Putin has certain desires and goals existing within a geopolitical context that he wants to achieve, motivated by dogma and ego.

Cancel-culture is the last thing he needs to worry about. He deep-dived his country towards economic catastrophy, but in his eyes it's all worth it as long as he can claim Ukraine.

Ironically the big Nazi Batallion that they always refer to, the Azov Battalion, constitutes of 2.500 members in a militay with 250.000 personell. People are falling for blatant propaganda. We have been seeing this with chinese propaganda for a long time and it seems like the russians are even better at it.