Comments by "andrew worth" (@andrewworth7574) on "UnHerd" channel.

Mearsheimer has been wrong many times.
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If you believe that countries should be run by their people under democratic systems rather than by authoritarian regimes, and that countries have the right to decide their own foreign policy, without the threat of violence by other countries, you won't be in agreement with Mearsheimer.
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The pro-Russian party in parliament that was banned had condemned the Russian invasion. I think Putin did more to destroy them that Zelenskyy ever could.
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@giannislainas5187 in the real world we do have a rules based system. For over 70 years countries that challenge that rules based system - by attempting to conquer other countries, or enforce policy through violence in breach of those rules, have usually been defeated. Very few nations have found that expanding their territory or power through aggression has been profitable.
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@giannislainas5187 so you've had to resort to Israel conquering territory that it already controls? Can't find too many other wars of expansion? Are you going to resort to Russia's wars of reoccupation against some of its small neighbors, which, in reality demonstrate just how difficult wars of conquest are in the modern era? Obviously
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@giannislainas5187 you are aware that over the last 70 years about a hundred countries have become independent? That several larger states have ceased to exist, being replaced by multiple smaller nations? You're aware that with the end of the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact countries regained their independence?
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@giannislainas5187 the Warsaw Pact countries were one hundred percent subservient to the Soviet Union, which Russia is the main successor nation of. That subservience is the reason why those countries were so quick to align themselves with western nations, including joining Nato when they had the opportunity. The end of European imperialism was a product of there no longer being any advantage to the European powers in maintaining their empires. Probably hard for you to grasp, but freely trading with other countries is more profitable than enforcing colonialism. Israel maintains its occupation through force, which is subsidized by the US. Inevitably, that strategy, peace through oppression, will fail. In past centuries subjugation of conquered lands could be as violent as necessary to enforce that subjugation long term. Over the last couple of centuries such violence has become steadily less acceptable. A century ago Russia could have murdered, or threatened to murder, as many millions of Ukrainians as was required to destroy resistance, today such campaigns of violent subjugation are rare because they're not acceptable to the population of countries around the world. If you think you've seen bloody conflict in the last 70 years, we'll, you have no idea of what occurred in past centuries.
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@giannislainas5187 the Warsaw Pact countries were entirely under the thumb of Moscow, and twice during the Cold War the Soviet Union used force to put down revolts against Moscow's rule.
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@giannislainas5187 when the opportunity arose for freedom from Soviet rule, the European Warsaw Pact countries took it and positioned themselves to prevent it recurring.
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@giannislainas5187 there remain disputes, peace through oppression still exists, but it's at 1% of the level it was a century ago. The rules based system is the norm today. The existence of crimes in every society doesn't mean peace and order aren't the norm. Fewer countries are subservient to more powerful countries today than in past centuries.
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@giannislainas5187 the European powers relinquished their colonies because it was cheaper than retaining them. Similarly many Russian's think that the West wants to destroy Russia to get their hands on Russia's natural resources. Reality is the cheapest way for the West to get those resources on through peaceful trade.
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@giannislainas5187 the imperialist "spheres of influence" Mearsheimer likes to refer to are history, today it is economics and trade, not military might, that are the main determinants of international relations.
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@giannislainas5187 in democratic countries, with freedom of information, people will question the justification of governments sending their sons and husband's off to foreign lands on military adventures. With the development of the information age, successive US governments, as the obvious example, are finding the politically acceptable cost, in terms of American military lives, for each adventure is decreasing.
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@ralphvandereb66 he said Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine literally a couple of days before Russia invaded Ukraine.
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@theViomax Mearsheimer believes that there's no substantive difference between countries that are top-down dictatorships, and countries that are bottom-up democracies. Democracies haven't, for over a hundred years, waged wars of conquest. They don't use force to dictate to their neighbors.
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