Comments by "jeppen" (@jesan733) on "Джон Миршаймер: Израиль-Палестина, Россия-Украина, Китай, НАТО и война | Лекс Фридман Подкаст #401" video.

  1. I strongly suspect Mearsheimer is a Kremlin asset. On the Ukraine war, he just aligns perfectly with Kremlin propaganda. 1. Russian acting for it's survival: a) Russia had the most artillery and the most nukes in the world, so why would survival be threatened by NATO in Ukraine? b) He claims Ukraine could've safeguarded itself from Russia by retaining its nukes, so why would Russia be worried considering it has thousands of nukes? c) Russia acted on Western weakness, not on Western strength, e.g. it had Germany by its balls through energy exports. d) Russia has basically left its flanks to NATO empty, which means he isn't worried about NATO invasion. e) The Baltics were already NATO members on Russia's doorstep. Why would Ukraine add a threat to Russia's survival? f) Neither NATO nor EU membership could be realized within 20 years at least. Ukraine was not close to being ready. 2. Putin being a straight-shooter and honest: a) Russia lies ALL the time, Putin lies all the time. How come JM doesn't see this and instead think he can take Putin's word for anything? b) If Russia didn't want this war, why did it make unreasonable demands, essentially asking NATO to roll back itself? c) There's no indication that Putin meant Minsk more seriously than the others considering he has refused doing his parts in a stepwise implementation, and also they did not admit it was deception. This is Russian propaganda narratives, they just noted that Minsk in fact did give Ukraine some time, not that this was the purpose. Furthermore, there's no audio of the supposed Merkel interview to be found. The question why he was so "foolish" to trust them is a ridiculous Kremlin softball, as are the other suggestions. d) Zelensky was elected on a peace-program but Putin wouldn't engage because he had long ago decided on this war. e) There's no strong evidence that the US and the UK asked Ukraine to walk away in Istanbul, but it's a very common Kremlin propaganda narrative. 3. Various other errors perfectly or broadly in line with Kremlin propaganda: a) Everything we know from Russian preparations and military instructions indicate that Russia really thought it could take Ukraine. It didn't rely on a huge occupying force, it thought it had bribed sufficent numbers of people and that sufficient number of people would welcome them, and that Ukraine's defenses would collapse under chock and awe + corruption. Mearsheimer must know this. b) Russia hasn't taken 4 oblasts since Feb 2022, it doesn't control any of them fully. It has almost all of Luhansk. c) It'd be exceedingly hard for Ukraine to be meaningfully neutral. Either they truly lean westward, or they'll be heavily corrupted and influenced by Russian energy, Russian oligarchy, Russian propaganda, Russian assassinations and more. d) Of course Russia wanted to negotiate after it had failed to rapidly capture Ukraine and then became hopelessly bogged down. e) Many more civilians have died by Russian hands in Ukraine than in the Israel-Hamas conflict. However, they're not yet counted, e.g. in Melitopol. Also, many tens of thousands of civilians in Donbass have been more or less forcefully mobilized and wasted in meat wave attacks. Of course they were not civilians when killed, but still. f. A Putin successor would not have the bandwidth to pursue the war, he would need to consolidate power by blaming the war on Putin, withdraw and focus inwards.
    4