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dis me arguing with a genuine realist:

as I said, the realist analysis leaves out a lot. it abstracts over all specific details about russian political culture. it abstracts over details of us political culture as well. it's simply focused on issues of great power positioning. clearly, a total account of the causes of the war would...

hmm, I think this is also a rather partial and one sided account of the tensions that led to the ukraine crisis. a better timeline can be found in adam tooze's crashed, in the chapter "fuck the eu", named after Victoria Nuland's now famous quote. tooze gives proper weight to the jockeying and...

I'm not suggesting that anyone wants to put nukes in Ukraine. it's just an analogy to show that you can have some kind of military resource where the distinction between defensive and offensive purposes is ambiguous, and where this ambiguity contributes to its strategic value. you don't need to...

think of our nuclear weapons. given that we'll probably never use them, do they provide any value? obviously they do, as a deterrent, or a "threat"

not at all. nothing ever needs to happen militarily in order for NATO expansion into Ukraine to provide leverage against Russia. just ask yourself, what's the strategic value of aligning Ukraine with the West vs it remaining neutral? clearly it's not nothing. even if we never invade Russia - as...

maybe so. I don't think the basic realist position, which I've laid out here, is particularly complex, or needs to be. the threat of NATO expansion into Ukraine is obviously provocative from a Russian perspective. If the situation were flipped on its head, the US would be no less aggressive in...

so what then is Putin's motivation, I snyders pov?

no one cares about canada, its not going to invade the us in any state of the world

note that the situation is not symmetrical.

the us will never invade canada bc canada will never enter into a military alliance with a country hostil to the us bc the monroe doctrine says that such a situ is completely untenable

russia isnt so different

its going to legitimise it in another way

if the us invades canada its not going to do so purely on the basis of great power politics

all of these things can coexist tho cant they

just play risk from russias POV. its obvs that their position is deteriorating. hence the need to do something drastic. ppl have been predicting this for many years.

but they're clearly quite closely connected. and it's also clear from russian statements that this is a pressing matter for them

from a russian POV, whether Ukraine is within the nato alliance is highly salient strategically - that's evident from their invasion. control of the north European plain is threatening to russia. its obvs quite similar to the prospect of russian bases in Ireland or scotland. they dont have to be...

there's a decade and more of context really, that's just the last couple of years