War in Ukraine VIII

Anatol Lieven and John Mearsheimer on the conflict

Anatol Lieven is a British journalist, author, and policy analyst. I’ve been following his work for more than 20 years. In my 2005 book War and Peace War, for example, I use his excellent analysis of two faces of American nationalism, the “American Creed” and the “Jacksonian Nationalism.” I also recommend his other books

Pakistan: A Hard Country (2011)

Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry (1999)

As an aside, Anatol’s brother, Dominic Lieven is a historian of Russia, and I recommend a great book by him, Russia against Napoleon.

Back to Anatol, his geopolitical analysis is well worth reading. In his latest opinion, Why Trump gets it right on Ukraine peace, he makes the following points:

1. Russia is winning the war.

2. It would be completely illogical for Putin to agree to an unconditional ceasefire, while Russians are advancing (and more importantly, I’d add, are grinding down the Ukrainian army).

3. European heads of state are delusional in refusing to recognize the first two points.

4. The West cannot provide soldiers to supplement Ukraine’s increasingly depleted forces. Without US (where Trump has repeated many times that he will not use American troops in this conflict), the Europeans simply don’t have enough troops. In any case, they are not prepared to go to war to defend Ukraine.

5. Trump is reportedly advising the Ukrainian government to accept Russia’s demand for the Ukrainian army to withdraw from the parts of Donbass that they still hold.

6. “They are refusing to do so, which is very understandable, but also mistaken if by accepting this they can get a stable peace and Russian compromise in other areas … For realistically speaking, the Ukrainian army seem to be in the process of losing this land anyway.”

7. Insisting on perpetuating the conflict is either insanity or duplicity, because every European government has stated that they are not prepared to go to war to defend Ukraine.

Note that Lieven is far from a Russian apologist. Here’s what he said in an interview shortly after the beginning of the war: “The Russian government has committed a very grave crime under international law by invading Ukraine. I think it’s also made a terrible mistake.”

Another thinker who holds similar views is John Mearsheimer. No reasonable person can doubt his credentials as an American patriot. After all, there are few professors of international relations who enlisted in the US Army when 17, then went to graduate from West Point and serve as an officer in the Air Force.

Like Lieven, Mearsheimer is also a realist (in fact, he is best known as the author of the offensive realism theory). And Mearsheimer has been recently much in evidence in the media (mostly speaking to alternative media, but increasingly also in the MSM). You can listen to his opinion about Ukraine’s future in a recent appearance on UnHerd with Freddie Sayers. Similarly to Lieven, Mearsheimer argues that there are only two options: a bad one (Ukraine must cut a deal now, accepting most Russian demands) and a worse one (continuing the war, thousands more casualties, and losing more land in the end).

That particular UnHerd episode paired Mearsheimer with Matthew Syed, a columnist for the Sunday Times in London, who in a recent article, called Mearsheimer “morally deranged.” Sayers frames the disagreement between Mearsheimer and Syed as “realism” versus “idealism.” But a better word to describe Syed’s position, in my view, is “emotionalist.” In the column he keeps saying things like “I was sickened to the stomach,” “I feel nauseated,” “feel despair.”

Of course, feeling emotions is human; I am not saying that we should strive to become emotionless robots. But humans also have (and should use) reason. Emotions help us set goals, but reason makes it possible to achieve those goals. The alternative is to enter a self-constructed delusionary world—a sure road to ruin.

It’s darkly ironic that Mearsheimer is accused of being morally deranged. In September 2014 he published an article in Foreign Affairs, "Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin". The last paragraph of this article is worth quoting in full:

The United States and its European allies now face a choice on Ukraine. They can continue their current policy, which will exacerbate hostilities with Russia and devastate Ukraine in the process—a scenario in which everyone would come out a loser. Or they can switch gears and work to create a prosperous but neutral Ukraine, one that does not threaten Russia and allows the West to repair its relations with Moscow. With that approach, all sides would win.

Had Western leaders listened to Mearsheimer and a number of other non-delusional thinkers (e.g., George Kennan, see his 1997 NYT article, A Fateful Error), there wouldn’t be a million casualties and Crimea would be the only territorial loss to Ukraine (with Donbass staying within Ukraine in some sort of autonomy status). Was attempting to prevent this outcome “morally deranged”?

Cassandra had a gift of prophecy, but was cursed, so that nobody believed her. Source

I can sympathize with Mearsheimer’s predicament. My job in this Substack is to strive for a dispassionate, even-handed analysis, as there are plenty of “emotionalist” takes elsewhere. This attitude seems to be off-putting to some journalists. As an example, in his FT 2024 piece Henry Mance wrote, “There is something disconcerting in Turchin’s willingness to discuss the fate of societies in coldly amoral terms.” But at least he didn’t call me “morally depraved.”