The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has been justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “special military operation” with a few barbed purposes, among them cleaning the country’s stables of Nazis. As with so many instances of history, it was not entirely untrue, though particularly convenient for Moscow. At the core of many a nationalist movement beats a reactionary heart, and the trauma-strewn stretch that is Ukrainian history is no exception.
A central figure in this drama remains Stepan Bandera, whose influence during the Second World War have etched him into the annals of Ukrainian history. His appearance in the Russian rationale for invading Ukraine has given his spirit a historical exit clause, something akin to rehabilitation. This has been helped by the scant coverage, and knowledge of the man outside the feverish nationalist imaginings that continue to sustain him.
Since his 1959 assassination, the subject of Bandera as one of the foremost Ukrainian nationalists has lacked any lengthy treatment. Then came Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe’s door stop of a work in 2014, which charted the links between Bandera’s nationalist thought, various racially-minded sources such as Mykola Mikhnovs’kyi, who dreamed of a Ukraine cleansed of Russians, Poles, Magyars, Romanians and Jews, and the role of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which was founded in Vienna in 1929 by Yevhen Konovalets and Andriy Melnyk.
Notwithstanding the cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic composition of the territories that would become modern Ukraine, the OUN specialised in the babble of homogenous identity and purity. A hatred of Jews was more than casual: it was integral. They were, to quote the waspish words of Yuri Lylianych in Rozbudova Natsii (Rebuilding the Nation), the official OUN journal, “an alien and many of them even a hostile element of the Ukrainian national organism.”
For his part, Bandera, son of a nationalist Greek Catholic priest, was a zealot, self-tormentor and flagellator. As head of the Ukrainian Nationalists, Bandera got busy, blooding himself with such terrorist attacks as the 1934 assassination of the Polish Minister of the Interior Bronisław Pieracki. He was fortunate that his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, not that it stopped him from bellowing “Slava Ukrayiny!”
Followers of Bandera came to be known as the Banderowzi. During the second week after the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Benderowzi, flushed with confidence, declared a Ukrainian state in Lemberg. The occasion was celebrated a few days with a pogrom against Jews in the city. It remains unclear, however, where the orders came from. With the Germans finding Bandera’s followers a nuisance and ill-fitting to their program, they were reduced in importance to the level of police units and sent to Belarus. On being transferred to Volhynia in Ukraine, many melted into the forests to form the future UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army).
For its part, the OUN, aided by the good services of the Ukrainian citizenry, assisted the Third Reich slaughter 800,000 Jews in western Ukraine. The UPA, as historian Jaroslav Hryzak writes, proceeded to fight all and sundry, be they units of the German Army, red partisans, the Polish underground army, and other Ukrainian nationalists. Volhynia and Galicia were sites of frightful slaughter by the UPA, with the number of murdered Poles running upwards of 100,000. One target remained enduring – at least for five years. From 1944 to 1949, remnants of the UPA and OUN were fixated with the Soviets while continuing a campaign of terror against eastern Ukrainians transferred to Volhynia and Galicia as administrators or teachers, along with alleged informers and collaborators.
Oddly enough, Bandera as a historically active figure played less of a direct role in the war as is sometimes thought, leaving the Banderowzi to work their violence in the shadow of his myth and influence. From the Polish prison he was kept in, he escaped after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. In the summer of 1941, he anticipated a more direct role in the conflict as future Prowidnyk (leader) but was arrested by the Germans following the Lviv proclamation of a Ukrainian state On June 30, 1941.
Prior to his arrest, however, he had drafted, with the aid of such deputies as Stepan Shukhevych, Stepan Lenkavs’kyi and Iaroslva Stes’ko, an internal party document ominously entitled, “The Struggle and Activities of the OUN in Wartime.” In it, purification is cherished, one that will scrub Ukrainian territory of “Muscovites, Poles, and Jews” with a special focus on those protecting the Soviet regime.
Following his arrest, Bandera spent time in Berlin. From there, he had a stint as a political prisoner of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. His time in detention did little to quell the zeal of his followers, who went along their merry way butchering in the name of their cult leader. After the war, he settled in Munich with his family, but was eventually identified by a KGB agent and murdered in 1959.
Bandera offers a slice of historical loathing and reverence for a good number of parties: as a figure of the Holocaust, an opportunistic collaborator, a freedom fighter. Even within Ukraine, the split between the reverential West and the loathing East remained. In January 2010, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko declared Bandera a Hero of Ukraine.
In 2020, Poland and Israel jointly rebuked the city government of Kyiv via its ambassadors for sporting banners connected with the nationalist figure. Bandera’s portrait made an appearance on a municipal building at the conclusion of a January 1 march honouring the man’s 111th birthday, with hundreds of individuals in attendance.
In their letter to the city state administration, ambassadors Bartosz Cichocki and Joel Lion of Poland and Israel respectively expressed their “great concern and sorrow… that Ukraine’s authorities of different levels: Lviv Oblast Council and the Kyiv City State Administration continue to cherish people and historical events, which has to be once and forever condemned.”
The ambassadors also expressed concern to the Lviv Oblast for tolerating its celebration of a number of other figures: Andriy Melnyk, another Third Reich collaborator whose blood lust was less keen than that of Bandera’s followers; Ivan Lypa, “the Anti-Semite, Antipole and xenophobe writer,” along with his son, Yurii Lypa, “who wrote the racist theory of the Ukrainian Race.”
The stubborn Bandera itch can manifest at any given moment. In July 2022, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, as it so happens another Andriy Melnyk, misjudged the mood by airing his views about Bandera. He insisted that the nationalist figure had been needlessly libelled; he “was not a mass murderer of Jews and Poles” and nor was there evidence to suggest otherwise. The same Melnyk had also accused the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of being a “beleidigte Leberwurst” (offended liver sausage), a delightful term reserved for the thin-skinned.
As ambassadors are usually expected to be vessels of government opinion, such conduct should have been revealing enough, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s decision to remove Melnyk from his Berlin post was put down to “a normal part of diplomatic practice.” A likelier explanation lies in the furore the pro-Bandera remarks caused in the Israeli Embassy (“a distortion of the historical facts,” raged the official channel, not to mention belittling “the Holocaust and is an insult to those who were murdered by Bandera and his people) and Poland (“such an opinion and such words are absolutely unacceptable,” snapped the country’s Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz).
Despite his removal from the post, messages of regret and condolences flowed from a number of his German hosts, suggesting that the butcher-adoration-complex should be no barrier to respect in times of conflict. “The fact that he did not always strike the diplomatic tone here is more than understandable in view of the incomprehensible war crimes and the suffering of the Ukrainian people,” reasoned the foreign policy spokesman of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) parliamentary group, Roderich Kiesewetter. Bandera would surely have approved the sentiment.
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Thanks Dr Binoy for shining a light into little known dark spaces.
And yet fascist monuments and movements throughout Europe, and notably in Italy, attract surprisingly little interest or opprobrium.
Ukraine is only regarded as noteworthy because Putin has used this as a (false) excuse for his brutal invasion
Thought we had seen enough of Bandera in pro-Putin commentary by faux anti-imperialists running cover for Russia’s invasion?
Not analysis to focus on the past, then cherry pick historical, anecdotal or other more recent comments, to justify Russia’s response while ignoring young Ukrainians’ ‘agency for the future; relying on sources from WSWS & DW to present Ukraine’s citizens as passive but complicit robots?
Avoids concrete events on the ground as many in the Anglosphere e.g. the GOP, Tories/Reform, ageing tankies, Trump’s team, Wikileaks/Assange (accused of becoming a ‘Russian cut out’), Koch linked think tanks (inc. in PM ‘mini Putin’ Orban’s regime), Tucker Carlson & now Hannity at Murdoch’s FoxNews (ditto), CPAC, long standing Christian Groups inc. one Abbott presents at i.e. ADF etc. and simply corrupt nativist Christian authoritarianism.
However, there are recent allegations that much of the pro-Putin & anti-Ukraine noise swirling around the GOP, Trump, Koch’s Heritage Foundation/Daily Signal, FoxNews, Zero Hedge etc. is masking something much deeper.
This week, according to Thom Hartmann at Alternet (where coincidentally two infamous tankies, Max Blumenthal & Aaron Mate used to work…but now for the Kremlin backed Grayzone), wrote ‘What if Trump’s conspiracy was way bigger’, suggesting Trump just happens to be useful:
‘Complete realignment of US foreign policy away from NATO and the EU and toward oligarchic, autocratic nations like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Hungary’ (can find the article at Alternet, but only one shot/view)
Then add Koch’s Heritage Foundation’s public plans for a Trump or GOP Presidency in ’25 ‘Project 25’, plans to entrench corrupt nativist authoritarianism https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/20/4-pillars-project-2025-conservative-plan-undermine-liberal-behemoth-washington/
Seems logical when you see the confluence of influencers and players around Brexit, Trump, Ukraine and Hungary….and also the events in Budapest crossing all….
Albanese, the Astral-American warmongering pimp for war, has dutifully supported the brutal broken promises, the profusion of lies, the deliberate deceit and the dangerous deception of the war in Ukraine with over a billion dollars of Australian taxpayers hard earned money gifted to Ukraine.
Western governments and their media allies sycophantic coverage of the war in Ukraine is where truth takes a holiday.
Albanese’s failures, like AUKUS, costs Australian taxpayers money but also Australia’s credibility and its moral compass.
Albanese has joined America’s and Biden’s decades long attack on Russia using NATO expansion as their weapon of choice. Ukraine has always been the real ambitious target.
The US does not want peace in Ukraine, it wants to overextend Russia, shore up military and energy dominance over Europe, expand its war machine and enrich the military-industrial complex. That’s why it knowingly provoked this war. It’s posing as Ukraine’s saviour while being clearly invested in Ukraine’s destruction.
It is not legitimate to support this proxy war without squarely addressing this massive contradiction using hard facts and robust argumentation. Nobody ever has. Albanese is up to his eyeballs in the US’s deception.
Throughout his entire career, Biden has served the military-industrial complex. He has relentlessly promoted NATO enlargement and supported America’s deeply destabilising wars of choice in Afghanistan, Serbia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Ukraine. He defers to generals who want more war and more “surges,” and who predict imminent victory just ahead to keep the gullible public onside.
Biden’s dream team of deceit
Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Victoria Nuland (who instigated the 2014 Ukraine
Maidan coup that removed a democratically elected government)
seem to have believed their own propaganda
that Western sanctions would strangle the Russian economy, while miracle weapons such as HIMARS would defeat Russia. And all the while, they have been telling Americans to pay no attention to Russia’s 6,000 nuclear weapons. Here is a brief chronology ofT some key events leading to the ongoing war.
January 31, 1990. German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich-Genscher pledges to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that in the context of German reunification and disbanding of the Soviet Warsaw Pact military alliance, NATO will rule out an “expansion of its territory to the East, i.e., moving it closer to the Soviet borders.”
February 9, 1990. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III agrees with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.”
The rest is here
https://mises.org/wire/media-and-ukraine-war-coverage-where-truth-takes-holiday
AC says “And yet fascist monuments and movements throughout Europe, and notably in Italy, attract surprisingly little interest or opprobrium.” Not relevant. Here’s why.
In Australia we have monuments to Governor Macquarie, and we have those who wish for history to regard him with respect and admiration, yet as the ABC reports “ Macquarie was ultimately responsible for his men. By today’s standards, his actions — and lack of action in not bringing soldiers who disobeyed his instructions to account — would, as a minimum, likely be regarded as a war crime involving a disproportionate response that led to a significant loss of life. And, depending on the definition, the incident might also be described as “mass murder”, perhaps akin to recent military massacres in which innocent civilians attempting to flee were killed.”
The difference between monuments and movements in Europe and Australia to the situation in Ukraine, is that in Europe and Australia these groups are not working with the government to engage in violence.
AC goes on to say “Ukraine is only regarded as noteworthy because Putin has used this as a (false) excuse for his brutal invasion” Somewhat true, but lacking crucial info.
When the military action was announced, one of the stated aims was to clear Ukraine of neo-nazis. Not surprising, given that these extremist groups, emboldened by US arms, training and financing, had vowed to wage war on Russia. The influence of the extremists in Ukraine had been building for years and was “noteworthy” as AC put it, was the subject of warnings to the West by well-known Kremlin mouthpieces such as the BBC, NBC, Reuters etc, long before the invasion. Here’s a few of those warnings. I haven’t checked these out, but it’s probably safe to assume that the headlines are an accurate reflection of the content.
Yes, There Are Bad Guys in the Ukrainian Government – Mar 18 2014 – Foreign Policy
Analysis: U.S. Cozies Up to Kiev Government Including Far Right – Mar 30 2014 – NBCnews
Profile: Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist Right Sector – Apr 28 2014 – BBC
The Neo-Nazi Question in Ukraine – May 11 2014 – Huffpost
Fascism returns to the continent it once destroyed – May 12 2014 – TNR
Ukraine conflict: ‘White power’ warrior from Sweden – Jul 16 2014 – BBC
Preparing for War With Ukraine’s Fascist Defenders of Freedom -, Aug 30 2014 – Foreign Policy
German TV Shows Nazi Symbols on Helmets of Ukraine Soldiers – Sep 9 2014 – NBC
Azov fighters are Ukraine’s greatest weapon and may be its greatest threat – Sep 10 2014 – Guardian
Volunteer Ukrainian unit includes Nazis – Mar 10 2015 – USA Today
US House Admits Nazi Role in Ukraine – Jun 14 2015 – Consortium News
Ukraine’s Hyper-Nationalist Military Summer Camp for Kids | NBC Left Field (vid) – Jul 13 2017 – NBCnews
The reality of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is far from Kremlin propaganda – Nov 9 2017 – The Hill
The US is Arming and Assisting Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, While Congress Debates Prohibition – Jan 18 2018 – The RealNews Network
In Ukraine, Ultranationalist Militia Strikes Fear In Some Quarters – Jan 30 2018 – RFERL
Commentary: Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem – Mar 19 2018 – Reuters
America’s Collusion With Neo-Nazis – May 2 2018 – The Nation
Ukraine, Anti-Semitism, Racism, and the Far Right – Oct 16 2018 – Atlantic Council
And my favourite;
Ukraine’s Got a Real Problem with Far-Right Violence (And No, RT Didn’t Write This Headline) – Jun 20 2018 – Atlantic Council
Now keep in mind that when the aims of the Russian action were announced, the West, in unison, denied that there was a serious fascism problem in Ukraine, despite all the reports to that effect that had been made. (Sorry, links to the articles did not come thru, which took a lot of the punch out of the final headline.)
Nice history lesson.
nice lesson sure, now I know of a nation that also participated in genocide, had a whites only policy too.
Ukraine like most of europe has copped a battering over the centuries. Its been under russian control for who knows how long. Its no wonder they have had their share of nut jobs.
Now for another perspective, Russia has invaded because Ukraine had the temerity of drifting away from its influence by wanting to become more “European”. Now that history lessons are over, lets not lose sight of the currents facts. Ukraine is willing to do what ever to become a modern free state.
“Now that history lessons are over…”
andyfiftysix, the history lessons are never over.
Just look at our history of white occupation over the short period of just over two hundred years. A tangled mess that we are still painfully coming to terms with, as the Voice debate demonstrates. And when the referendum has come and gone there will still be issues to resolve, perhaps in even sharper form. The consequences of a defeat for the referendum are unpredictable.
Our situation is bad enough, but it’s far deeper and more complex in Europe. There’s still virulent antagonism there over events that took place about a thousand years ago.
By the time we get information trickling through about a tragedy such as is happening in Ukraine right now, it’s been filtered through the news media and is often presented as black and white.
It’s never black and white. That’s why independent media sites such as this play such a vital role.
A bit more history
Governor Arthur Phillip ruled the small colony at Sydney Cove with an iron-fist.
‘In 1789 A group of seven soldiers stole food and alcohol from the government storehouses, they had sets of keys made and they would raid the storehouses when one of their group was on guard duty and two of the men would be locked inside.[They would remain shut up until they had procured as much liquor or provisions as they could take. If the patrols visited the store while they were in there, the door was found locked and secure – later their co-conspirators would let them out with the haul]’
The group of soldiers continued this theft for eight months! They were caught when one of the seven soldiers tried to steal some supplies alone. Six of the seven soldiers were executed by hanging.
They were brutal times but there is also a certain irony – could those soldiers (marines) have been transported, as those in their care had been, if so where to ?
Since the 2014 Maidan Coup, Ukraine has been a US vassal – Nuland handing out cookies in Maidan Square
So Ukraine is NOT a sovereign state; all decisions originate in US State Dept = Blinken/Nuland/Sullivan neocons
OZ is also a US vassal; any bold leader will be Whitlam’d, or worse
See the Anglo influence with tankies out in force….agreeing with the US RW GOP, FoxNews, Kochs Heritage Foundation etc., allowing antipathy towards the US to cloud everything and throw Ukraine under a bus for personal satisfaction & hubris?
For example, ajogrady posted a P&I’s article by Jeffrey Sachs, who is linked to the Rockefeller (former owners Exxon) Foundation & UN Sustainability Development Goals, attends events in Budapest over populated with Koch grifters & visitors inc. Abbott, Sheridan et al., and like Mearsheimer (Charles Koch Foundation), kissed the ring of Abbott’s mate PM ‘mini Putin’ Orban.
A Finnish academic Pekka Kallioniemi who has been actively researching not just Russia’s physical invasion, but tracking through social media of these ‘faux anti-imperialist sh*theads of the left (& right)’, includes Jeffrey Sachs:
‘In May 2022, Sachs stated that Finland’s NATO membership would undermine peace in Ukraine, saying that “All of this talk of defeating Russia, to my mind, is reckless”. In Jun 2022, he co-signed a letter calling for ceasefire and questioning the military support for Ukraine.’
https://vatniksoup.com/en/soups/166
Steve Davis, it was a throw away line not meant to be taken seriously.
I was making the point that we are not perfect yet some commentators seem to think that Ukraine has to be perfect to get our support.
In a perfect world, Maynard wouldnt have knocked out Brayshaw with an innocuos smother. Once again we want to throw the good out because it isnt perfect. Whats wrong with you people? You think Russia has a right to just bomb ukraine to oblivion un checked because America has done some shit in the past? This is madness…… Yes , lets question but holly shit, but how about some empathy for those that dont want russian control. Because we all know deep down Ukaines really want to live under russian control.
** “Since the 2014 Maidan Coup” You need to freshen up you research.
Viktor Yanukovych was removed from office by the Ukraine parliament, in a unanimous vote. He lost control of the apparatus of government after the police and military wouldn’t comply with his (illegal) direction to shoot civilians.
** It seems to me that every complexion on the political spectrum in Ukraine has resisted the Russian invasion. However the Putin apologists that are so hell bent on supporting his discredited narrative, they neglect to discuss the contemporary fact- that Ukraine has a Jewish President, and a Moslem Minister of Defence. Hardly indicative of Nazis
Andrew Smith, instead of implying guilt by association in the case of Jeffrey Sachs, (a terrible habit of yours, by the way, I mean to say, twice in the one short comment, come on now) why don’t you take apart the points he made, one by one. That would actually make a contribution to the discussion.
Now, apparently the tankie you refer to is, from Wiki, (yes, I had to look it up) “a pejorative label generally applied to communists who express support for one-party communist regimes that are associated with Marxism-Leninism, whether contemporary or historical. It is commonly used by anti-authoritarian leftists, including anarchists, libertarian socialists, left-communists, democratic socialists, and reformists to criticize Leninism, although the term has seen increasing use by liberals and right-wing factions factions as well.”
I’m sure we’d all like to know to which of these groups you belong…oops, guilt by association — it comes back to bite ya !
NATO poster boi Stoltenberg recently stated this:
“The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.
The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.
So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.”
So NATO (US state dept) openly admits that Russia entered Ukraine to prevent NATO expansion.
Shooting messengers in deference to faux anti-imperialist grifters?
‘Andrew Smith, instead of implying guilt by association in the case of Jeffrey Sachs’
No, that’s neither my opinion nor guilt by association, but from credible sources, including Sachs’ own.
Finnish academic and researcher Pekka Kallioniemi who established and runs ‘Vatnik Soup’ said that all he needed to do on Sachs et al is to analyse their Twitter posts and documented history; too easy.
Has a good interview explaining on Silicon Curtain of Jonathan Fink in
‘Pekka Kallioniemi – Vatnik Soup – Keeping Watch on Kremlin Assets, Agents, Useful Idiots & Oligarchs’
David O’Neil, you criticise Stoltenberg and NATO but do not explain why nations ask to join NATO and Putin has done nothing with Finland’s membership, so NATO is not an excuse, also confirmed by Prigozhin.
The fact is that none of the former Warsaw Pact signatories have remained a Russian ally.
Russia has proved to be a poor neighbour, expansionist and untrustworthy. So there has been a voluntary expansion of NATO.
Putin can look in a mirror to understand the motivation
Andrew Smith says no, that’s not “guilt by association, but from credible sources including Sachs’ own.”
I must be going blind. I was sure that he wrote “…article by Jeffrey Sachs, who is linked to the Rockefeller (former owners Exxon) Foundation & UN Sustainability Development Goals, attends events in Budapest over populated with Koch grifters & visitors inc. Abbott, Sheridan et al., and like Mearsheimer (Charles Koch Foundation), kissed the ring of Abbott’s mate PM ‘mini Putin’ Orban.”
In fact, as far as examples of guilt by association go, that’s about as good as they get. It’s a classic.
My original response to Andrew’s “tankies” jibe was light-hearted, but on reflection I think it’s time I ditched the niceness. I had intended to refer to it as a dog-whistle, something he has been known to object to, but it’s more serious than that. The jibe grouped everyone with an opinion different to his as communists of various affiliations, a sort of pick your own version of commie to hate, which is pretty pathetic.
He presents himself here as being an anti-fascist, which is admirable, but by resorting to slurs, a sure sign of an argument with nowhere to go, particularly when the slur involves an alleged connection to communism, then if he does not choose his words more wisely in the future, he is in danger of becoming the fascist he claims to despise. Which, I guess, would give an extra dimension to the term “self-loathing.”
Andrew Smith – you falsely accuse me of criticising Stoltenberg
Stoltenberg’s quote confirms NATO knew Russia DID NOT want it (NATO) close to its border
Do you remember 2008 William Burns’ (then US Moscow ambassador) cable entitled “Nyet means Nyet”! Thanks Wikileaks.
Burns 2008 cable detailed Russia’s serious concern of NATO expansion to its borders; how do you think USA would react if china/russia allied with Mexico on its southenr border?
Ask yourself also what is NATO purpose? It’s originbal purpose was to balance the Warsaw Pact. NATO ought to have ceased when USSR ceased.
Its FAILED forays into Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Kosovo etc etc affirm it is NOT a defensive but an aggressive warmongering tool.
A tool to support US military industrial congress complex.
Just one question:
If Putin’s excuse of the removal of neo-Nazis from Ukraine justifies his invasion and all the subsequent deaths and damage, does that mean that any nation can use that excuse to invade any other, so long as there are actual neo-Nazis in the target country? We have them here, they are throughout Europe, including the UK, they’re in the US, in Canada, pretty well worldwide. Or is there something unique about the Ukrainian neo-Nazis that makes this invasion just Jim-Dandy?
leefe
do your homework – russia (no just putin) is preventing nato next door
russia regard that as an existential risk
how would usa react if china/russia invaded mexico
Late post, but late news, Mearsheimer’s thread is up on Finnish Vatnik Soup; he’s linked to US fossil fuel Atlas or Koch Network, and has a long track record…. unsurprisingly he sounds like or echoes the flawed Kissinger’s views?
‘Pekka Kallioniemi:
In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American political scientist, John Mearsheimer. He’s best-known for his theory of offensive realism, for his pandering to authoritarian regimes, and for ignoring sovereignty of independent countries.’
1/22 interesting read…..
https://x.com/P_Kallioniemi/status/1732020079896764882?s=20