Europe is the least important region to the United States post-2000.
How wrong can you be?
Well, you know you’re on the wrong side of history when Switzerland takes a stand against you.
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Newer vid from the 15th Feb:
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Thanks for posting this. It’s amazing how few realists there are in IR who are being listened to these days.
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one man’s realist is another man’s crackpot 
corroboration is good, if many different thinkers have the same opinion that strengthens the credibility.
Realism is an actual name of a particular school of thought within international relations with a specific set of principles.
They were ascendant during the George Herbert Walker Bush administration.
apologies, didn’t realize you were using it in an academic sense
shit is getting real in russia
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no worries
He’s definitely right about the nuclear warheads. I don’t agree with his other points though. A friendlier Russia sounds like a good idea in theory, but there is no way Eastern European countries would accept that. The memory of USSR’s oppression was new and fresh. Eastern European countries definitely all wanted to align with the West fresh out of communism and “trying to keep Russia happy” was not a justifiable reason to reject them.
I don’t think he’s a smart man at all. Within a few days he managed to change the course of history for his country in the worst possible way.
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Germany completely flipped and now antagonises Russia. Russia spent more than a decade to build up Germany’s nuclear scepticism and reliance on Russian gas. The manipulation was so successful that Germany was literally Russia’s lapdog until last week. Now Germany will triple its military spending, Scholz is publicly calling Russia an enemy state in speeches, and Germany plans to restart nuclear plants and will never buy Russian gas again. This move also means that now that the EU is finally taking their defence seriously, the US can focus more on the REAL problem called China. It also shows that if China keeps pushing it, Japan would abandon pacifism fast and ramp up their defence like Germany did.
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Sweden and Finland will join NATO. The latest poll shows that the majority of Finnish population want to join NATO now, according to the last poll it was barely 20%. Sweden has a pact with Finland so if Finland joins, Sweden joins. Congratulations, not only did Putin fail to stop NATO from gaining more corrupt and poor af EE member states, NATO will gladly welcome two rich and capable new members, with one of whom Russia shares one of its longest borders in Europe.
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Switzerland of all countries decided to ditch their centuries-old tradition and sanction Russia. Most of Russian oligarchs’ assets are in this country. Including Putin’s.
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Russia is on its way to become the Venezuela of the north.
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UVL called Ukraine “one of us” and “welcomes” Ukraine into the EU. Before this war the prospect of Ukraine, the poorest country in Europe, would join the EU was unthinkable. Zelensky literally just applied.
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He made a hero out of the Ukrainian president and the Ukrainian people.
Even if god forbid Ukraine loses the war, Putin is entering the loser hall of fame. If this is not an epic fail I don’t know what is.
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Interesting point, intended as a joke, at 23:45… “In fact if you really want to wreck Russia, what you should do is encourage it to conquer Ukraine. Putin is much too smart to do that”
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and yet here we are…
Trump’s genius friend Putin is really hitting it out of park successful great stuff.
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They let them withdraw chunk of it first. As much as I have worked with Swiss people and their institutions I think they made it happen. EU was buying a lot of Russians gas last few days too. War is extension of diplomacy, and trade between nations never fully stop.
I like your comment. Only comment, not you!
That’s true, and there are parts of his argument that I agree with. I think my main issue with these more old fashioned Realists is that they refuse to accept that any tenants of liberal or constructivist theory have value. That Putin is, in Mearsheimer’s words, a “19th Century man”, is accurate. Ukraine membership of NATO would clearly cross their red line.
But western Ukrainian identity has clearly been influenced by years of democracy. It isn’t just American agents provoking unrest. Millions of Ukrainians want NATO and EU membership. Mearsheimer applies the rules of Realism to his arguments but, for obvious reasons, completely ignores those of Constructivism regarding national identity development.
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Wonder if this means Switzerland will be less wealthy in the future. Corrupt people won’t consider it a safe haven. On to Cayman Islands.
You do realize he was being sarcastic, right?
I’m not a Trump fan, but I call BS when I see it and this has been making the rounds for a while now. It helps to listen to what he said in its entirety.
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You do realize he was being honest, right?
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This looks like an economic disaster for Putin. The way he escalated into an all out war into the capital is not sitting well with the world. Even china is like nah brah, we don’t want to join in in any way and get shit on.
Russian markets have closed all trading. They’ve upped interest rates to 20% and to stop the ruble from getting killed (it’s not going to work for long) and their firms listed abroad are all getting slaughtered, particularly in banking with one bank losing nearly 80% at the end of todays trading.
I think the best chance to avoid a world war is for the Russian people to stop Putin themselves. This is all going to hurt Russians from poor to rich.
Putin made the wrong decision here. You’d think he’d be familiar with Machiavelli who basically said you can kill someone family and be fine but they will never forgive you if you mess with their money.
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I can imagine an exchange like this five, ten, or maybe even twenty years from now: