Taking Aim at Ukraine: How John Mearsheimer and Stephen Cohen Challenged the Dominant Narrative

Russia has told the US and its allies time after time that they will not “tolerate NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia (the 2008 Russia-Georgia war and present conflict in Ukraine should make this clear). Let me finish with two brief conclusions from Mearsheimer. First, Western elites have a “flawed understanding of international politics” (p. 177). The US believes that “it is a benign hegemon that does not threaten Russia or any other country” (ibid.). One gags upon reading this nonsense. Second, the “grand scheme to turn Europe into a giant security community went awry over Ukraine, but the seeds of this disaster were sown in the mid-1990s, when the Clinton administration began pushing for NATO expansion” (ibid.).