expansion as well, and it includes turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy, and, from a Russian perspective, this is an existential threat. NATO expansion is the heart of the strategy, but it includes E.U. Of course, this includes more than just NATO expansion. Nevertheless, what has happened with the passage of time is that we have moved forward to include Ukraine in the West to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand. I think all the trouble in this case really started in April, 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO. Looking at the situation now with Russia and Ukraine, how do you think the world got here? During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed whether the current war could have been prevented, whether it makes sense to think of Russia as an imperial power, and Putin’s ultimate plans for Ukraine. I recently spoke with Mearsheimer by phone. Although many critics of Putin have argued that he would pursue an aggressive foreign policy in former Soviet Republics regardless of Western involvement, Mearsheimer maintains his position that the U.S. The current invasion of Ukraine has renewed several long-standing debates about the relationship between the U.S. Indeed, in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, Mearsheimer wrote that “the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for this crisis.” For years, Mearsheimer has argued that the U.S., in pushing to expand NATO eastward and establishing friendly relations with Ukraine, has increased the likelihood of war between nuclear-armed powers and laid the groundwork for Vladimir Putin’s aggressive position toward Ukraine. Foreign Policy,” Mearsheimer is a proponent of great-power politics-a school of realist international relations that assumes that, in a self-interested attempt to preserve national security, states will preëmptively act in anticipation of adversaries. Perhaps best known for the book he wrote with Stephen Walt, “ The Israel Lobby and U.S. The political scientist John Mearsheimer has been one of the most famous critics of American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.
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