I watched the entire video and was impressed with the standard of the discussion, particularly your contribution professor. The only negative element of any kind was a comment made by the French lady. She descended at one point into her conditioning regarding Vladimir Putin, bowing to the notion that he was guilty of crimes for which he has never been tried due to the complete lack of evidence against him. Otherwise an excellent, level-headed discussion where all sides of the issue could be discussed without the customary ban on anything approaching a positive slant on Putin or Russia. Thank you for your always insightful overview Mr Mearsheimer. I hope you know how refreshing that is in this era of war mode proscribing of anything that might assist "the enemy".
He has not been convicted of anything. He is charged with a crime and an arrest warrant issued. He has not been tried because he has not been arrested; not lack of evidence. Some people do not think moving Ukrainian children to Russia should be a crime and I'm very sympathetic to that view but the law is pretty clear and I can understand why Ukrainians are upset. See Part 2, Article 6, Paragraph (e).
One man above all others living now creates a polarizing effect in a world fast splitting into two; the Collective West and the Global Majority. What is this all about and who is this incredible man?
Mention the name Putin to anyone of senior (or even junior) rank within the western world, or more accurately the collective west including the Baltic nations, Australia and New Zealand and you are likely to see a face distorted into a mask of anger with writhing lips of utter disdain a major feature. What comes out of the mouth of such a creature then will likely be a torrent of abuse calling the subject of your query any number of dreadful terms amounting to an identification with the worst human demons of living history.
Make the same query of almost anyone outside of this sphere of hatred encountered in the West and the reaction is most likely to be the polar opposite of the above. A little smile is likely to play on those quite relaxed lips. A look in the eye of delight that the subject mentioned graces his or her day. The words then spoken will talk of great admiration, respect and delight that such a man exists in his or her time.
What to make of these two wholly different reactions?
Putin divides the world into two distinct camps as regards the leadership of nations within the western orbit and those belonging to the global majority. On one side he deserves hauling to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. On the other there is only a wish that the leadership of their countries could only emulate the great man.
Jail or gratefully-given awards of the highest merit? Despised and loathed as a reincarnated Hitler? Or worthy of the highest degree of respect possible to any human at any time? Each one of us will have their own view. If you live within the catchment of the West then you will have been exposed to almost non-stop criticism of Putin. You will have heard him called a murderer, a terrorist, a thief, a dictator and all round rogue of the worst possible kind, a thoroughly bad character who is a danger to the entire world. Hearing all this may have had its effect on you. Then again it may not.
On the other hand, those who judge Putin not by hearsay or headlines but by close observation of the man and who take some time to listen to what he says and investigate the genesis of the problem areas he is often criticised for, those people more often than not are impressed and can no longer be touched by the wall-to-wall lambasting of the man within the western world.
Women tend to find him very attractive, men admire his manliness and calm demeanour under pressure, his ability to answer questions in depth and his qualities as a strategist. Of course I should hastily add that women will also be inclined to admire the qualities just mentioned also. As far as other world leaders are concerned, why not check out Putin’s relationship with Modi of India or Xi of China and a bevy of others. Check out the smiles, the handshakes, the hugs, the embraces and the friendly smiles. There can be no doubt that Putin is greatly admired and respected… just not inside the western orbit. Why might this be so?
The western powers find themselves in long term decline. Their powers are waning. The ability to dominate the world and dictate to it is fast ceasing to be. Their grip on power is now seen as a highly unwelcome anachronism that has aggrandised them at the expense of others. Their threats and regular violence are now seen as barriers to peace and freedom rather than agents to bring such virtues about in the world. Rather than being dominated, regulated, manipulated and sometimes regime changed nations now see the opportunity to join in beneficial harmony and stability with others no matter what their systems of governance may be. The USA, UK and their proxies bring only discord and war to bring everyone in line with what they deem appropriate. Nations wish to have the freedom now to decide such things for themselves.
Putin has provided the support and inspiration for this to happen, for the world to come together at last in that long held dream of community, able to trade, make cultural exchanges and evolve greater understandings outside of the restricting and destructive demands of the USA and others that they conform to some standard and value system set by them. Putin is creating the foundation, the stepping stones to a new world where war can finally be banished because we are no longer attempting to mould all nations to one set image.
This is why Putin is SO admired within the nations that constitute the global majority and so hated by a western political elite that is steadily losing the power to terrify others into obeying them. That’s about it. That, in short is why we see these two quite distinct views on the man. Thankfully love is defeating hatred day by day now and through a great many diverse means.
This is ultimately what it is all about regarding our most esteemed president, Vladimir Putin, the greatest statesman of our age.
I have nothing against Putin the man; just certain policies. I don't agree with those who say it was about NATO; it was in my opinion, his rufusal to allow Ukraine to turn toward Europe and away from Russia economically. He was closely integrated with Europe and could have gone further but he chose not to and as a result Russia is led by a Tsar/Dictator or whatever you want to call him; I don't care. He was dealt a difficult hand and made some big mistakes as all humans will do and the West made mistakes too.
I understand your point of view. However, even the head of NATO, Stoltenberg has admitted that Putin's reaction was primarily about NATO. As did William Burns, current head of the CIA back in 2008 saying that Ukraine joining NATO was "the reddest of red lines" for Russia. Putin keeps his cards close to his chest most of the time but when he does state his views they, in my opinion, reflect his true thoughts. Putin did inquire whether it might be possible for Russia to join both NATO and the EU in the hope of establishing a "common European home". I feel the welfare of the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass, the significant cult following of Nazi ideologies plus, most significantly Ukraine fast becoming a de facto NATO nation were indeed the main factors. Zelensky talking of regaining nuclear status for Ukraine was another.
The only item of fresh interest to me was around the 7min mark, where, shock of shocks, it is revealed that the International Criminal Court has found no evidence of Russia/Putin having 'abducted' 200,000 children and had reduced the figure to 20,000. So Putin has been convicted of a crime against humanity based on fabricated evidence. I am absolutely unsurprised by this, as I suspect I will be when the figure is revised down again to 2,000 and then 200 and then 20 and 2.
I don't remember it being a crime against humanity when city kids got sent to Welsh farms in WW2. Removing children (and mothers, grandparents) from a war zone seems entirely appropriate to me.
I didn't get the sense either of the Quincy Institute panellists were overburdened with insight into the Ukraine SMO. Saying that Russia's demand for the four oblasts is unacceptable is to ignore the fact that you can either let him have the four or he's going to make it five, six, seven, eight, nine...
They struck me as academics who sit around chatting to other academics and any Russians they know in London or Paris are going to be wealthy dissidents with little feeling for grassroots Russia.
There was no discussion of the bigger picture, which is the drift towards a multipolar world. The Ukraine SMO is small beer really, in the grand scheme of things, sad as the loss of so many lives is.
Anne Kraatz seemed to be suggesting that the EU must steal Russia's €200bn held at Euroclear, which shows a stunning lack of awareness on the potentially disastrous effect that will have on the European financial services industry and European governmental finance. If you don't believe me, try tracking down the opinions of the head of Euroclear herself , heads of European central banks...
It could be argued that stealing another country's sovereign assets is an act of war. I'd argue it is. Then it's simply a case of identifying the decision centre, which will be Brussels, under US stress.
Quincy Institute advertises itself as advocating realism and restraint, yet I didn't see any evidence of this from its two panellists whose perspectives seemed very much west-centric 'plain vanilla'.
If you're realist, you acknowledge Russia has its own security interests for the safety of its peoples. If you're interested in restraint: if Ukraine are losing 2,000 men a day, as is supposedly the case, then perhaps start focussing on solutions that save the lives of those 2,000 men rather than complaining that what Russia is doing is "so unfair" (in the voice of Harry Enfield's teenager).
The biggest war crime was the US and UK refusing to allow Ukraine to negotiate way back in 2022. Among his other crimes against humanity, including his own countrymen during the covid period, we can add getting hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians killed to Boris Johnson's rap sheet.
Not that he could care less. I've no doubt he would consider it something to laugh about in the pub.
Perhaps the other war crime we could mention is the tacit admission by the NATO side that Zelensky's gangs may have kidnapped up to 200,000 Ukrainian children for trafficking, or to be cut up into body parts for organ harvesting.
(In the words of one grizzled Russian soldier, upon discovery of an isolated Ukrainian farmhouse: "The upstairs rooms where they took the children...they were like an abbatoir.")
Always, always, accuse your enemies of what you yourself are doing. Those biolabs don't fund themselves, ya know.
I cannot even begin to comprehend what has happened to europeans in the two decades since I last spent time there. European thinking appears positively antediluvian vis a vis the Russian Federation. Apparently euro academics who now imagine that 'Putin' aka the elected President of that nation is some type of micromanaging tyrant rather than who he actually is, the elected President of a nation who works with the machinery of government to ensure that his country will never again find itself in the parlous position which amerika plus the 'rest of the west' deliberately subjected it to in the 1990's. That was achieved via the usual suspects - privatisation of monopoly industries, asset stripping, massive debt, plus the vagaries of a system of finance designed to impoverish the borrower.
The french professor made an unconsciously telling remark when she related that there appeared among ordinary French to be a vast dissonance between their thinking (as related by her cab drivers) and that of Macron, van der Leyen and others of that ilk.
IOW she was admitting that she had no real clue about how the 99% who do not belong to the governing elite felt about anything much, other than it didn't seem they agreed with that elite.
She confirmed what we had suspected. That is, by way of the EU that has become the vehicle of control in europe, there was a chasm between what euro governments did and what the masses wanted them to do, that europe had indeed caught the amerikan virus.
Ridding the body politic of this virus in amerika is nigh on impossible because of the complexity of amerikan society which is compounded by geography. However europe, notionally a collection of far more homogeneous societies still enclosed to a large extent by individual nation states fortunately lacks that complexity and is therefore much more likely to successfully expel the disease.
Although Europeans will attack the obvious lack of a participatory democracy in a plethora of ways, effecting a cure or rather a range of cures will succeed whilst amerikans' frustration at having to live in a gerontocracy remains.
The selection of EU leadership positions rarely featured on the radar of europeans until tyrants such as van der Leyen and Borrell were appointed. The French lady may well be correct that vdL will win a second term. If she does so it will only be at the expense of the european project in the longer term, as there are already serious objections to her re-appointment from the new coalitions forming on the right of the euro parliament. People are going to have the fact that the EU lacks any form of democracy at senior levels thrust in their faces for the first time . That is a lesson they are not likely to forget.
I was able to respect the conversation up until Kratz's last comment. May I translate her position into the common language the professor so wisely demurs to use?
"Now, after 16 years of brutal disregard and disrespect for the world's most heavily armed nuclear state, after 10 years of perfidy regarding the Minsk agreements, which Russia negotiated in good faith while the ever-righteous West sniggered behind its hands, after rejecting and derailing peace and neutrality proposals at every step of the way, after stealing Russia's sovereign funds, after going on the public record as seeing Ukraine as a means toward the end of destabilizing and disintegrating Russia, after weaponizing the West's hegemonic stranglehold on global finance in a straightforward effort to destroy the Russian state-- now, now that all the above policies have resulted in the destruction of the Ukraine, and in the massive re-arming and mobilization of a revived and renewed Russia, now that the Bear stands growling at the bank of the Dnieper and the moron parade in the West is utterly at a stand: Now negotiations must give <some>thing to our brave pawns in the neo-nazi junta we installed in 2014, something, oh, I don't know, something like the Minsk agreement we threw back in Putin's face after wiping our collective ass with it. Oh, and did we mention certain western interests are highly excited about the mineral resources underlying Ukrainian soil?"
It is difficult to believe this degree of idiocy can imbue an entire foreign policy establishment, absent a deliberate plan to make it so, but here we are.
You just get wrangled by these Edward Bernays 3.0 cretins. Why not at least put the term "peace" in quations? It was a war summit, and a mastubatory thing at that.
It is the century of the Jew. Zeleknsky, Bibi, Zyklon BLinken, the entire retinue of Wailing Wall White House advisors and assassins.
So, countless discussions on this lie or lies? To what avail? Get with the program: Five Eyes and then Nine EYes, and now 14 Eyes, they have all the cards.
You can talk abojut Xi or Putin, but it's all talk.
"a disproportionate number of Zionists" Translation: the majority of the Bolshevists, almost 90%, were Jews. The majority of immorality, strife and wars in this world is caused by Talmudic Jews. They hate everyone, especially White European people as they are their only threat. It's all about race to the Jews who use their "Holocaust" propaganda to emotionally manipulate everyone and make laws to punish anyone who notices their bad behavior and speaks out against them.
Professor Mearsheimer, This was posted on Russian Ministry website:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
24 June 2024 12:27
Press release on the Foreign Ministry summoning US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy
1185-24-06-2024
On June 24, US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, where she was presented with a demarche in connection with a new bloody crime committed by the Kiev regime, patronised and armed by Washington, which launched a well-targeted missile attack on civilians in Sevastopol that led to numerous casualties, including among children.
It was stressed that the United States was conducting a hybrid war against Russia and supplying the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the most advanced weapons, including ATACMS missiles with cluster warheads used against Sevastopol residents, which actually made the US a party to the conflict. Moreover, the targeting and flight data entry is performed by US military crews and therefore the United States shares equal responsibility with the Kiev regime for this outrage.
The ambassador was told that Washington’s actions of this sort, including its permission to fire at targets in the Russian hinterland, actions that were aimed at encouraging the pro-Nazi authorities in Ukraine to continue hostilities “until the last Ukrainian,” would not be left unpunished. Retaliatory measures are certain to follow.
I really don’t care what anyone thinks of me anymore when it comes to doing the right thing and so let me say this…. John Mearsheimer has been exactly correct about everything he’s weighed in on. So guess what? What might be a good question boys and girls? If he’s been exactly correct on everything he’s weighed in on in the past, why don’t we listen to him and take his advice now? - It’s called being stupid! Being stupid isn’t smart.
More and more, I'm getting the feeling that some time, within three years, after the shooting stops, Ukraine and Russia will end up being, if not friendly, at least cooperative with each other. Ukrainians and Russians are not the same people, but they have more in common with each other than they do with anyone in the West. I don't think the Ukrainians will respect the West after they have a little time to think about what's happened. If there is any relationship with the West at all, it will be Ukraine wheedling and strong-arming Europe to give up more "aid," and diddling the opportunistic vultures that are trying to get advantage now.
Here again, for the millionth time, John Mearsheimer has been proven exactly correct and it’s as though he’s looking at a crystal ball. Why we in the west haven’t listened to his unbelievably good advice is beyond comprehension. As I’ve said previously, the fact that we haven’t listened to and followed his advice would be just another academic exercise in some type of an obscure debate and maybe even somewhat amusing if it weren’t for the fact that by not following his advice has lead to thousands of deaths, thousands of those who’ve been permanently maimed, thousands of lives ruined, and entire countries that’ve been ruined. Ignoring John’s good advice should be viewed as a cardinal sin. By not following his good advice we’re hurtling towards world war 3 and nuclear holocaust in both Eastern Europe and in the Middle East. This is not to mention the fact that, as he’s said repeatedly, because of the fact that we’ve made all of these foolish miscalculations we’ve taken our eye off the ball in trying to contain the China. It’s my opinion, along with that of people like Jeffrey Sachs, that it’s possible to develop better relations with China, in addition to maintaining a realist stance towards them. After all, it’s not in anyone’s interest for the US to get into a conflict with China, and that’s especially true for China itself.
If one zooms out and looks back at earth from a few thousand miles away, it’s relatively easy to see what we as a species need to be trying to do in order to save ourselves from ourselves and save ourselves from artificial intelligence. Some of what we have to do is relatively easy and some of it will be more difficult. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you’re making a complete botch job of the relatively easy “old school” problems, the “new school” problems will be that much harder to manage and overcome. In my opinion the old school problems are almost all relatively easy to manage if we had the right leadership. The first of the two most troubling or problematic problems associated with the new school problems is how to change the incentives of the worldwide capitalistic system so that it is more equitable and much more sustainable. It’s clear that this could be achieved. The second and more difficult problem is the question as to how to make sure that artificial intelligence’s long term interests are aligned with those of humans and the human race as a species.
I actually think I might have figured this out. The way I did this is using the technique employed by John Mearsheimer which is to use a relatively simple theory to explain a complicated world or situation. The difference is that, unlike offensive realism which only addresses the set of phenomenon that are associated with international relations, trying to solve all the problems at once, the metacrisis, (which includes an entire host of problems, including internations), requires the utilization of what I call a “course”. This “course” has several theories and a multitude of concepts, lessons and wisdom embedded into it.
I think that in the same way as if we were to have followed John Mearsheimer’s advice with regard to IR we would be much further ahead, if we were to heed my advice with regards to the bigger constellation of problems we’re facing we’d be much further ahead and we’d be giving ourselves a much better chance at long term survival in the most beneficial way possible.
This is getting slightly off-topic, but it’s relevant. If you think about it, there could be a reason why we have not heard from any other intelligent forms of life from anywhere else in the universe. This could be due to the fact that once a species develops a certain level of technological competency, that level of technological competency causes the species to self-destruct.
It’s my thought that if one were to extrapolate the kind of wisdom that John Mearsheimer has applied to international relations to the metacrisis we would at least be able to give ourselves a chance at writing our own history in the best way possible.
And so, just as he’s figured out how the IR system works by way of the theory of offensive realism and the logic and wisdom that can be extrapolated from it, I’ve figured out how to try to tackle the metacrisis by way of a “course” which has logic as it’s basis and wisdom as its outcome.
As a result of that, what I’ve come up with makes for a very good basis for a political platform, it has non-religious spiritual elements associated with it, it serves as a masterclass in world leadership and diplomacy AND most importantly it itself serves as the best basis for an operating system for AI so that it’s long term interests are aligned with ours.
To summarize, by not following John Mearsheimer’s good advice we’ve got what we’ve got. By not following my good advice we’re going to get what we’re most likely to get. And what we’re most likely going to end up with isn’t going to be good unless we take the necessary steps to tackle the problems and manage them properly. And the best way to do that is by way of my “course”.
If anyone is interested in hearing what I have to say please let me know.
Anatoly lost it if we compare his valuable comments on the war two years ago and the lady who’s been invited for some reason is a psychiatric case. Mearsheimer saved the day one le more but should probably consider his attending such poor events.
of course it was a failure. anything but giving putin the land that he has invaded and a little bit more, or actually a lot more, that would be a failure. and of course a promise not to try to get membership in nato. and also EU. and surprise surprise, Lieven agreed. so nice for putin to have such good friends in the west.
Vladimir Putin never wanted this conflict and in fact did everything humanly possible to avoid it. This includes of course the near decade he spent fruitlessly seeking a diplomatic solution to the situation via the Minsk Accords, the efforts to embrace the needs of the western powers AND Russia in the development of a new security architecture for Europe and finally seeking an extremely early end to the conflict in Istanbul in the first months of Russia's campaign, thwarted (once again) by the western powers.
dear arnur, you are probably aware of the most recent russian propaganda but not of the centuries of russian empire history. you are probably not aware that russia stretches over 11 time zones. how does a country get to stretch over 11 time zones you might ask yourself. it is not by seeking diplomatic solutions but by military conquest. newsflash to most americans on the left and to wherever you are located. but one thing that you got is that ukraine has no right to sovereignty. it is either a colony of russia or a pawn, a proxy of the west. and so you are on the side of making ukraine a russian colony, why not.
You are talking of historical Russia, not one in the current era. Your use of the word propaganda is typical of the patronizing way those who take the western state narratives as gospel truth so often speak. If you watched the video with the prof above you will perhaps recognize how a discussion works where mutual respect is a vital component. The fact of Vladimir Putin seeking a diplomatic path to peace and reconciliation regarding the situation in Ukraine post 2014 is indisputable. That he sought an early end to hostilities through the peace negotiations held in Belarus and then in Turkey cannot be disputed either. Nor that he desired to come to an arrangement with NATO and the current U.S. administration on agreeing a new security architecture for Europe.
it's really hard to have respect for people who have seen the devastation that putin has caused in ukraine and still justify him. their basis is that putin has a right to feel safe and ukraine has to give up its sovereignty if putin says he doesn't feel safe with a sovereign ukraine. ukraine had no intention of invading russia but justifiably had every reason to be afraid of russia and thus was finally seeking to join nato. negotiations with russia are of course very important for you. it's a nice stance to take. but russia was supposed to protect ukraine's sovereignty according to the budapest accord and instead russia invaded. small little difference as far as you are concerned. definitely a reliable negotiation partner from your perspective. much respect
I hope you have observed the situation in Ukraine from the beginning of this conflict. I began to take an interest in the winter of 2013-14 when the Maidan demonstrations were going on. I followed intently for the next four years. I saw how the most radical elements in western Ukraine got involved in shelling the civilian population of the Donbass day after day and night after night. The sentiments expressed by the utranationalists could not have been clearer. They wanted to ethnically cleanse eastern Ukraine of its Russian-speaking majority by initiating a reign of terror against them. This is why Putin began talking of a genocide. I saw the bodies, babies, children, women, the elderly. If you had seen any of this (if western mainstream news had shown it) I don't believe you would talk as you do. Most who talk as you do tend to be rude and even hateful. It is inappropriate. You have been primed to be that way. Anyway, just keep your ears open, many more are looking into the genesis of what is going on and are speaking out. Simply listen.
i think what you may have followed intently is putin's fakes. who is being invaded? who is being genocided? who is being killed and raped? and you are blaming the people who could have done terrible things bec putin calls them nazis. if you had any intention of being objective you would see that putin has fascist plans for russia. but you might defend him anyway. because finally i am not sure who you are, you very well might be one of the putin trolls that are running around all over the place. so you may not be victimized by putin/s fake stories but sending them out.
"how does a country get to stretch over 11 time zones you might ask yourself. it is not by seeking diplomatic solutions but by military conquest"
It was both, diplomatic solutions and military conquest, the latter by surprisingly small forces (especially if we are talking about time-zone-heavy expansion to the east). What is your point? One can expand by no more than, let's say, 3 time zones, or you are considered being evil empire or what? :)
Instead of imagining (which is fun of course), you can read. Expansion/conquest of Siberia, for example, was mostly done by relatively small private parties (like Ermak's for example) in the quest for fur. Government joined relatively late. Since they were not really hunting for fur themselves, they needed to deal with local hunters and trade with them. That was not dissimilar from expansion of Hudson's Bay Company into what is called Canada today. The relative ease of expansion was facilitated by (i) relative sparsity of population, and (ii) still heavily lingering "power vacuum" resulted from disintegration of Golden Horde/Mongol Empire.
So you think the US had good intentions when they supported a bunch of neo-Nazis in Ukraine to overthrow a pro-Russian government with no intentions of implementing the Minisk accords which were used as Merkel said to buy time for Ukraine to build up militarily? So, you think Russia was to feel okay with the US, with NATO, at her back door? When Biden returned from his trip to Ukraine he did say what was always intended, Putin has got to go. We used Ukraine to further our own political agenda and don't give a good damn about Ukraine and it's people that we put in harms way and will continue to do so if it serves US. You would think all our middle eastern wars, and all the dead and displaced and the rot that remains and the lies told to implement them might give you a different perspective on whose to blame here.
yes all ukrainians who want to have a sovereign ukraine are neonazis. how do i know this? because putin told me so. i am guessing he is your source for this also, either directly or via the likes of the code pink lady. russians who want to make ukraine a colony of russia are very fine folks. long live empire. we don't like it in africa but we do in ukraine.
I did not say all Ukrainians are Nazis, and I do understand that Ukrainians would want a country of their own, however the price to be paid will be hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians dead, and a country further destroyed. You're being extremely naive if you think the US is genuinely interested in this country, or it's people. It is being totally self serving in its a agenda, and cares little for how many will die in a continuing war with Russia. As Biden said after a visit to Ukraine, "Putin has got to go." This is what it's all about, and they will use Ukraine and the lives of it's young men to do it. Think about our Middle Eastern wars under Bush and Obama and the Middle Eastern countries destroyed with millions dead, and many more displaced. All those wars were based on lies.
I watched the entire video and was impressed with the standard of the discussion, particularly your contribution professor. The only negative element of any kind was a comment made by the French lady. She descended at one point into her conditioning regarding Vladimir Putin, bowing to the notion that he was guilty of crimes for which he has never been tried due to the complete lack of evidence against him. Otherwise an excellent, level-headed discussion where all sides of the issue could be discussed without the customary ban on anything approaching a positive slant on Putin or Russia. Thank you for your always insightful overview Mr Mearsheimer. I hope you know how refreshing that is in this era of war mode proscribing of anything that might assist "the enemy".
He has not been convicted of anything. He is charged with a crime and an arrest warrant issued. He has not been tried because he has not been arrested; not lack of evidence. Some people do not think moving Ukrainian children to Russia should be a crime and I'm very sympathetic to that view but the law is pretty clear and I can understand why Ukrainians are upset. See Part 2, Article 6, Paragraph (e).
https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/2024-05/Rome-Statute-eng.pdf
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin-and
WHAT IS IT ABOUT PUTIN?
One man above all others living now creates a polarizing effect in a world fast splitting into two; the Collective West and the Global Majority. What is this all about and who is this incredible man?
Mention the name Putin to anyone of senior (or even junior) rank within the western world, or more accurately the collective west including the Baltic nations, Australia and New Zealand and you are likely to see a face distorted into a mask of anger with writhing lips of utter disdain a major feature. What comes out of the mouth of such a creature then will likely be a torrent of abuse calling the subject of your query any number of dreadful terms amounting to an identification with the worst human demons of living history.
Make the same query of almost anyone outside of this sphere of hatred encountered in the West and the reaction is most likely to be the polar opposite of the above. A little smile is likely to play on those quite relaxed lips. A look in the eye of delight that the subject mentioned graces his or her day. The words then spoken will talk of great admiration, respect and delight that such a man exists in his or her time.
What to make of these two wholly different reactions?
Putin divides the world into two distinct camps as regards the leadership of nations within the western orbit and those belonging to the global majority. On one side he deserves hauling to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. On the other there is only a wish that the leadership of their countries could only emulate the great man.
Jail or gratefully-given awards of the highest merit? Despised and loathed as a reincarnated Hitler? Or worthy of the highest degree of respect possible to any human at any time? Each one of us will have their own view. If you live within the catchment of the West then you will have been exposed to almost non-stop criticism of Putin. You will have heard him called a murderer, a terrorist, a thief, a dictator and all round rogue of the worst possible kind, a thoroughly bad character who is a danger to the entire world. Hearing all this may have had its effect on you. Then again it may not.
On the other hand, those who judge Putin not by hearsay or headlines but by close observation of the man and who take some time to listen to what he says and investigate the genesis of the problem areas he is often criticised for, those people more often than not are impressed and can no longer be touched by the wall-to-wall lambasting of the man within the western world.
Women tend to find him very attractive, men admire his manliness and calm demeanour under pressure, his ability to answer questions in depth and his qualities as a strategist. Of course I should hastily add that women will also be inclined to admire the qualities just mentioned also. As far as other world leaders are concerned, why not check out Putin’s relationship with Modi of India or Xi of China and a bevy of others. Check out the smiles, the handshakes, the hugs, the embraces and the friendly smiles. There can be no doubt that Putin is greatly admired and respected… just not inside the western orbit. Why might this be so?
The western powers find themselves in long term decline. Their powers are waning. The ability to dominate the world and dictate to it is fast ceasing to be. Their grip on power is now seen as a highly unwelcome anachronism that has aggrandised them at the expense of others. Their threats and regular violence are now seen as barriers to peace and freedom rather than agents to bring such virtues about in the world. Rather than being dominated, regulated, manipulated and sometimes regime changed nations now see the opportunity to join in beneficial harmony and stability with others no matter what their systems of governance may be. The USA, UK and their proxies bring only discord and war to bring everyone in line with what they deem appropriate. Nations wish to have the freedom now to decide such things for themselves.
Putin has provided the support and inspiration for this to happen, for the world to come together at last in that long held dream of community, able to trade, make cultural exchanges and evolve greater understandings outside of the restricting and destructive demands of the USA and others that they conform to some standard and value system set by them. Putin is creating the foundation, the stepping stones to a new world where war can finally be banished because we are no longer attempting to mould all nations to one set image.
This is why Putin is SO admired within the nations that constitute the global majority and so hated by a western political elite that is steadily losing the power to terrify others into obeying them. That’s about it. That, in short is why we see these two quite distinct views on the man. Thankfully love is defeating hatred day by day now and through a great many diverse means.
This is ultimately what it is all about regarding our most esteemed president, Vladimir Putin, the greatest statesman of our age.
I have nothing against Putin the man; just certain policies. I don't agree with those who say it was about NATO; it was in my opinion, his rufusal to allow Ukraine to turn toward Europe and away from Russia economically. He was closely integrated with Europe and could have gone further but he chose not to and as a result Russia is led by a Tsar/Dictator or whatever you want to call him; I don't care. He was dealt a difficult hand and made some big mistakes as all humans will do and the West made mistakes too.
I understand your point of view. However, even the head of NATO, Stoltenberg has admitted that Putin's reaction was primarily about NATO. As did William Burns, current head of the CIA back in 2008 saying that Ukraine joining NATO was "the reddest of red lines" for Russia. Putin keeps his cards close to his chest most of the time but when he does state his views they, in my opinion, reflect his true thoughts. Putin did inquire whether it might be possible for Russia to join both NATO and the EU in the hope of establishing a "common European home". I feel the welfare of the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass, the significant cult following of Nazi ideologies plus, most significantly Ukraine fast becoming a de facto NATO nation were indeed the main factors. Zelensky talking of regaining nuclear status for Ukraine was another.
Professor Mearsheimer:
2:09
9:52
20:22
29:52
35:52
49:08
57:53
The only item of fresh interest to me was around the 7min mark, where, shock of shocks, it is revealed that the International Criminal Court has found no evidence of Russia/Putin having 'abducted' 200,000 children and had reduced the figure to 20,000. So Putin has been convicted of a crime against humanity based on fabricated evidence. I am absolutely unsurprised by this, as I suspect I will be when the figure is revised down again to 2,000 and then 200 and then 20 and 2.
I don't remember it being a crime against humanity when city kids got sent to Welsh farms in WW2. Removing children (and mothers, grandparents) from a war zone seems entirely appropriate to me.
I didn't get the sense either of the Quincy Institute panellists were overburdened with insight into the Ukraine SMO. Saying that Russia's demand for the four oblasts is unacceptable is to ignore the fact that you can either let him have the four or he's going to make it five, six, seven, eight, nine...
They struck me as academics who sit around chatting to other academics and any Russians they know in London or Paris are going to be wealthy dissidents with little feeling for grassroots Russia.
There was no discussion of the bigger picture, which is the drift towards a multipolar world. The Ukraine SMO is small beer really, in the grand scheme of things, sad as the loss of so many lives is.
Anne Kraatz seemed to be suggesting that the EU must steal Russia's €200bn held at Euroclear, which shows a stunning lack of awareness on the potentially disastrous effect that will have on the European financial services industry and European governmental finance. If you don't believe me, try tracking down the opinions of the head of Euroclear herself , heads of European central banks...
It could be argued that stealing another country's sovereign assets is an act of war. I'd argue it is. Then it's simply a case of identifying the decision centre, which will be Brussels, under US stress.
Quincy Institute advertises itself as advocating realism and restraint, yet I didn't see any evidence of this from its two panellists whose perspectives seemed very much west-centric 'plain vanilla'.
If you're realist, you acknowledge Russia has its own security interests for the safety of its peoples. If you're interested in restraint: if Ukraine are losing 2,000 men a day, as is supposedly the case, then perhaps start focussing on solutions that save the lives of those 2,000 men rather than complaining that what Russia is doing is "so unfair" (in the voice of Harry Enfield's teenager).
The biggest war crime was the US and UK refusing to allow Ukraine to negotiate way back in 2022. Among his other crimes against humanity, including his own countrymen during the covid period, we can add getting hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians killed to Boris Johnson's rap sheet.
Not that he could care less. I've no doubt he would consider it something to laugh about in the pub.
Perhaps the other war crime we could mention is the tacit admission by the NATO side that Zelensky's gangs may have kidnapped up to 200,000 Ukrainian children for trafficking, or to be cut up into body parts for organ harvesting.
(In the words of one grizzled Russian soldier, upon discovery of an isolated Ukrainian farmhouse: "The upstairs rooms where they took the children...they were like an abbatoir.")
Always, always, accuse your enemies of what you yourself are doing. Those biolabs don't fund themselves, ya know.
I cannot even begin to comprehend what has happened to europeans in the two decades since I last spent time there. European thinking appears positively antediluvian vis a vis the Russian Federation. Apparently euro academics who now imagine that 'Putin' aka the elected President of that nation is some type of micromanaging tyrant rather than who he actually is, the elected President of a nation who works with the machinery of government to ensure that his country will never again find itself in the parlous position which amerika plus the 'rest of the west' deliberately subjected it to in the 1990's. That was achieved via the usual suspects - privatisation of monopoly industries, asset stripping, massive debt, plus the vagaries of a system of finance designed to impoverish the borrower.
The french professor made an unconsciously telling remark when she related that there appeared among ordinary French to be a vast dissonance between their thinking (as related by her cab drivers) and that of Macron, van der Leyen and others of that ilk.
IOW she was admitting that she had no real clue about how the 99% who do not belong to the governing elite felt about anything much, other than it didn't seem they agreed with that elite.
She confirmed what we had suspected. That is, by way of the EU that has become the vehicle of control in europe, there was a chasm between what euro governments did and what the masses wanted them to do, that europe had indeed caught the amerikan virus.
Ridding the body politic of this virus in amerika is nigh on impossible because of the complexity of amerikan society which is compounded by geography. However europe, notionally a collection of far more homogeneous societies still enclosed to a large extent by individual nation states fortunately lacks that complexity and is therefore much more likely to successfully expel the disease.
Although Europeans will attack the obvious lack of a participatory democracy in a plethora of ways, effecting a cure or rather a range of cures will succeed whilst amerikans' frustration at having to live in a gerontocracy remains.
The selection of EU leadership positions rarely featured on the radar of europeans until tyrants such as van der Leyen and Borrell were appointed. The French lady may well be correct that vdL will win a second term. If she does so it will only be at the expense of the european project in the longer term, as there are already serious objections to her re-appointment from the new coalitions forming on the right of the euro parliament. People are going to have the fact that the EU lacks any form of democracy at senior levels thrust in their faces for the first time . That is a lesson they are not likely to forget.
I was able to respect the conversation up until Kratz's last comment. May I translate her position into the common language the professor so wisely demurs to use?
"Now, after 16 years of brutal disregard and disrespect for the world's most heavily armed nuclear state, after 10 years of perfidy regarding the Minsk agreements, which Russia negotiated in good faith while the ever-righteous West sniggered behind its hands, after rejecting and derailing peace and neutrality proposals at every step of the way, after stealing Russia's sovereign funds, after going on the public record as seeing Ukraine as a means toward the end of destabilizing and disintegrating Russia, after weaponizing the West's hegemonic stranglehold on global finance in a straightforward effort to destroy the Russian state-- now, now that all the above policies have resulted in the destruction of the Ukraine, and in the massive re-arming and mobilization of a revived and renewed Russia, now that the Bear stands growling at the bank of the Dnieper and the moron parade in the West is utterly at a stand: Now negotiations must give <some>thing to our brave pawns in the neo-nazi junta we installed in 2014, something, oh, I don't know, something like the Minsk agreement we threw back in Putin's face after wiping our collective ass with it. Oh, and did we mention certain western interests are highly excited about the mineral resources underlying Ukrainian soil?"
It is difficult to believe this degree of idiocy can imbue an entire foreign policy establishment, absent a deliberate plan to make it so, but here we are.
You just get wrangled by these Edward Bernays 3.0 cretins. Why not at least put the term "peace" in quations? It was a war summit, and a mastubatory thing at that.
It is the century of the Jew. Zeleknsky, Bibi, Zyklon BLinken, the entire retinue of Wailing Wall White House advisors and assassins.
So, countless discussions on this lie or lies? To what avail? Get with the program: Five Eyes and then Nine EYes, and now 14 Eyes, they have all the cards.
You can talk abojut Xi or Putin, but it's all talk.
https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/oh-wisconsin-is-just-another-canary
"a disproportionate number of Zionists" Translation: the majority of the Bolshevists, almost 90%, were Jews. The majority of immorality, strife and wars in this world is caused by Talmudic Jews. They hate everyone, especially White European people as they are their only threat. It's all about race to the Jews who use their "Holocaust" propaganda to emotionally manipulate everyone and make laws to punish anyone who notices their bad behavior and speaks out against them.
Professor Mearsheimer, This was posted on Russian Ministry website:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
24 June 2024 12:27
Press release on the Foreign Ministry summoning US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy
1185-24-06-2024
On June 24, US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, where she was presented with a demarche in connection with a new bloody crime committed by the Kiev regime, patronised and armed by Washington, which launched a well-targeted missile attack on civilians in Sevastopol that led to numerous casualties, including among children.
It was stressed that the United States was conducting a hybrid war against Russia and supplying the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the most advanced weapons, including ATACMS missiles with cluster warheads used against Sevastopol residents, which actually made the US a party to the conflict. Moreover, the targeting and flight data entry is performed by US military crews and therefore the United States shares equal responsibility with the Kiev regime for this outrage.
The ambassador was told that Washington’s actions of this sort, including its permission to fire at targets in the Russian hinterland, actions that were aimed at encouraging the pro-Nazi authorities in Ukraine to continue hostilities “until the last Ukrainian,” would not be left unpunished. Retaliatory measures are certain to follow.
********************************
Official Statement on Sevastopol attack
https://mid.ru/tv/?id=1958997&lang=en
I really don’t care what anyone thinks of me anymore when it comes to doing the right thing and so let me say this…. John Mearsheimer has been exactly correct about everything he’s weighed in on. So guess what? What might be a good question boys and girls? If he’s been exactly correct on everything he’s weighed in on in the past, why don’t we listen to him and take his advice now? - It’s called being stupid! Being stupid isn’t smart.
More and more, I'm getting the feeling that some time, within three years, after the shooting stops, Ukraine and Russia will end up being, if not friendly, at least cooperative with each other. Ukrainians and Russians are not the same people, but they have more in common with each other than they do with anyone in the West. I don't think the Ukrainians will respect the West after they have a little time to think about what's happened. If there is any relationship with the West at all, it will be Ukraine wheedling and strong-arming Europe to give up more "aid," and diddling the opportunistic vultures that are trying to get advantage now.
Here again, for the millionth time, John Mearsheimer has been proven exactly correct and it’s as though he’s looking at a crystal ball. Why we in the west haven’t listened to his unbelievably good advice is beyond comprehension. As I’ve said previously, the fact that we haven’t listened to and followed his advice would be just another academic exercise in some type of an obscure debate and maybe even somewhat amusing if it weren’t for the fact that by not following his advice has lead to thousands of deaths, thousands of those who’ve been permanently maimed, thousands of lives ruined, and entire countries that’ve been ruined. Ignoring John’s good advice should be viewed as a cardinal sin. By not following his good advice we’re hurtling towards world war 3 and nuclear holocaust in both Eastern Europe and in the Middle East. This is not to mention the fact that, as he’s said repeatedly, because of the fact that we’ve made all of these foolish miscalculations we’ve taken our eye off the ball in trying to contain the China. It’s my opinion, along with that of people like Jeffrey Sachs, that it’s possible to develop better relations with China, in addition to maintaining a realist stance towards them. After all, it’s not in anyone’s interest for the US to get into a conflict with China, and that’s especially true for China itself.
If one zooms out and looks back at earth from a few thousand miles away, it’s relatively easy to see what we as a species need to be trying to do in order to save ourselves from ourselves and save ourselves from artificial intelligence. Some of what we have to do is relatively easy and some of it will be more difficult. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you’re making a complete botch job of the relatively easy “old school” problems, the “new school” problems will be that much harder to manage and overcome. In my opinion the old school problems are almost all relatively easy to manage if we had the right leadership. The first of the two most troubling or problematic problems associated with the new school problems is how to change the incentives of the worldwide capitalistic system so that it is more equitable and much more sustainable. It’s clear that this could be achieved. The second and more difficult problem is the question as to how to make sure that artificial intelligence’s long term interests are aligned with those of humans and the human race as a species.
I actually think I might have figured this out. The way I did this is using the technique employed by John Mearsheimer which is to use a relatively simple theory to explain a complicated world or situation. The difference is that, unlike offensive realism which only addresses the set of phenomenon that are associated with international relations, trying to solve all the problems at once, the metacrisis, (which includes an entire host of problems, including internations), requires the utilization of what I call a “course”. This “course” has several theories and a multitude of concepts, lessons and wisdom embedded into it.
I think that in the same way as if we were to have followed John Mearsheimer’s advice with regard to IR we would be much further ahead, if we were to heed my advice with regards to the bigger constellation of problems we’re facing we’d be much further ahead and we’d be giving ourselves a much better chance at long term survival in the most beneficial way possible.
This is getting slightly off-topic, but it’s relevant. If you think about it, there could be a reason why we have not heard from any other intelligent forms of life from anywhere else in the universe. This could be due to the fact that once a species develops a certain level of technological competency, that level of technological competency causes the species to self-destruct.
It’s my thought that if one were to extrapolate the kind of wisdom that John Mearsheimer has applied to international relations to the metacrisis we would at least be able to give ourselves a chance at writing our own history in the best way possible.
And so, just as he’s figured out how the IR system works by way of the theory of offensive realism and the logic and wisdom that can be extrapolated from it, I’ve figured out how to try to tackle the metacrisis by way of a “course” which has logic as it’s basis and wisdom as its outcome.
As a result of that, what I’ve come up with makes for a very good basis for a political platform, it has non-religious spiritual elements associated with it, it serves as a masterclass in world leadership and diplomacy AND most importantly it itself serves as the best basis for an operating system for AI so that it’s long term interests are aligned with ours.
To summarize, by not following John Mearsheimer’s good advice we’ve got what we’ve got. By not following my good advice we’re going to get what we’re most likely to get. And what we’re most likely going to end up with isn’t going to be good unless we take the necessary steps to tackle the problems and manage them properly. And the best way to do that is by way of my “course”.
If anyone is interested in hearing what I have to say please let me know.
Article link shared at
A Skeptic War Reports
https://askeptic.substack.com/
Anatoly lost it if we compare his valuable comments on the war two years ago and the lady who’s been invited for some reason is a psychiatric case. Mearsheimer saved the day one le more but should probably consider his attending such poor events.
of course it was a failure. anything but giving putin the land that he has invaded and a little bit more, or actually a lot more, that would be a failure. and of course a promise not to try to get membership in nato. and also EU. and surprise surprise, Lieven agreed. so nice for putin to have such good friends in the west.
Vladimir Putin never wanted this conflict and in fact did everything humanly possible to avoid it. This includes of course the near decade he spent fruitlessly seeking a diplomatic solution to the situation via the Minsk Accords, the efforts to embrace the needs of the western powers AND Russia in the development of a new security architecture for Europe and finally seeking an extremely early end to the conflict in Istanbul in the first months of Russia's campaign, thwarted (once again) by the western powers.
dear arnur, you are probably aware of the most recent russian propaganda but not of the centuries of russian empire history. you are probably not aware that russia stretches over 11 time zones. how does a country get to stretch over 11 time zones you might ask yourself. it is not by seeking diplomatic solutions but by military conquest. newsflash to most americans on the left and to wherever you are located. but one thing that you got is that ukraine has no right to sovereignty. it is either a colony of russia or a pawn, a proxy of the west. and so you are on the side of making ukraine a russian colony, why not.
You are talking of historical Russia, not one in the current era. Your use of the word propaganda is typical of the patronizing way those who take the western state narratives as gospel truth so often speak. If you watched the video with the prof above you will perhaps recognize how a discussion works where mutual respect is a vital component. The fact of Vladimir Putin seeking a diplomatic path to peace and reconciliation regarding the situation in Ukraine post 2014 is indisputable. That he sought an early end to hostilities through the peace negotiations held in Belarus and then in Turkey cannot be disputed either. Nor that he desired to come to an arrangement with NATO and the current U.S. administration on agreeing a new security architecture for Europe.
it's really hard to have respect for people who have seen the devastation that putin has caused in ukraine and still justify him. their basis is that putin has a right to feel safe and ukraine has to give up its sovereignty if putin says he doesn't feel safe with a sovereign ukraine. ukraine had no intention of invading russia but justifiably had every reason to be afraid of russia and thus was finally seeking to join nato. negotiations with russia are of course very important for you. it's a nice stance to take. but russia was supposed to protect ukraine's sovereignty according to the budapest accord and instead russia invaded. small little difference as far as you are concerned. definitely a reliable negotiation partner from your perspective. much respect
I hope you have observed the situation in Ukraine from the beginning of this conflict. I began to take an interest in the winter of 2013-14 when the Maidan demonstrations were going on. I followed intently for the next four years. I saw how the most radical elements in western Ukraine got involved in shelling the civilian population of the Donbass day after day and night after night. The sentiments expressed by the utranationalists could not have been clearer. They wanted to ethnically cleanse eastern Ukraine of its Russian-speaking majority by initiating a reign of terror against them. This is why Putin began talking of a genocide. I saw the bodies, babies, children, women, the elderly. If you had seen any of this (if western mainstream news had shown it) I don't believe you would talk as you do. Most who talk as you do tend to be rude and even hateful. It is inappropriate. You have been primed to be that way. Anyway, just keep your ears open, many more are looking into the genesis of what is going on and are speaking out. Simply listen.
i think what you may have followed intently is putin's fakes. who is being invaded? who is being genocided? who is being killed and raped? and you are blaming the people who could have done terrible things bec putin calls them nazis. if you had any intention of being objective you would see that putin has fascist plans for russia. but you might defend him anyway. because finally i am not sure who you are, you very well might be one of the putin trolls that are running around all over the place. so you may not be victimized by putin/s fake stories but sending them out.
"how does a country get to stretch over 11 time zones you might ask yourself. it is not by seeking diplomatic solutions but by military conquest"
It was both, diplomatic solutions and military conquest, the latter by surprisingly small forces (especially if we are talking about time-zone-heavy expansion to the east). What is your point? One can expand by no more than, let's say, 3 time zones, or you are considered being evil empire or what? :)
yes diplomacy while standing on their throats i imagine
Your imagination is sadly imbued with a misconceived hatred nsakun.
Instead of imagining (which is fun of course), you can read. Expansion/conquest of Siberia, for example, was mostly done by relatively small private parties (like Ermak's for example) in the quest for fur. Government joined relatively late. Since they were not really hunting for fur themselves, they needed to deal with local hunters and trade with them. That was not dissimilar from expansion of Hudson's Bay Company into what is called Canada today. The relative ease of expansion was facilitated by (i) relative sparsity of population, and (ii) still heavily lingering "power vacuum" resulted from disintegration of Golden Horde/Mongol Empire.
Are you ready to fight, die for your beliefs in an on going confrontation with Russia, or are you just supporting other people needlessly dying?
So you think the US had good intentions when they supported a bunch of neo-Nazis in Ukraine to overthrow a pro-Russian government with no intentions of implementing the Minisk accords which were used as Merkel said to buy time for Ukraine to build up militarily? So, you think Russia was to feel okay with the US, with NATO, at her back door? When Biden returned from his trip to Ukraine he did say what was always intended, Putin has got to go. We used Ukraine to further our own political agenda and don't give a good damn about Ukraine and it's people that we put in harms way and will continue to do so if it serves US. You would think all our middle eastern wars, and all the dead and displaced and the rot that remains and the lies told to implement them might give you a different perspective on whose to blame here.
yes all ukrainians who want to have a sovereign ukraine are neonazis. how do i know this? because putin told me so. i am guessing he is your source for this also, either directly or via the likes of the code pink lady. russians who want to make ukraine a colony of russia are very fine folks. long live empire. we don't like it in africa but we do in ukraine.
I did not say all Ukrainians are Nazis, and I do understand that Ukrainians would want a country of their own, however the price to be paid will be hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians dead, and a country further destroyed. You're being extremely naive if you think the US is genuinely interested in this country, or it's people. It is being totally self serving in its a agenda, and cares little for how many will die in a continuing war with Russia. As Biden said after a visit to Ukraine, "Putin has got to go." This is what it's all about, and they will use Ukraine and the lives of it's young men to do it. Think about our Middle Eastern wars under Bush and Obama and the Middle Eastern countries destroyed with millions dead, and many more displaced. All those wars were based on lies.