Re: <nettime> Stormy weather?

[Stefan Heidenreich <mail@stefanheidenreich.de>]

Hi Felix,
there is a problem in your analysis: your framing is only one amongst 
many others, equally possible.

For example, from the viewpoint of the realist school (Mearsheimer) or 
the geo-economic perspective (M. Hudson) the situation looks very 
different. Let me sketch it briefly:

> Well, in autocracies, autocrats matters. 
what matters in liberal democratic oligarchies?

> Did fossil-dependent Russia have to invade Ukraine because of that?
did Russia have to invade because of the NATO-expansion and subsequent 
weaponization of Ukraine? (for comparison: think of a russian-supported 
Ottawa-Maidan followed by a hypothetical weaponization of Canada. How 
would the US react?)

Was he walking into a trap > that NATO created and he was too stupid to 
see?
Was he clever enough to see that he could turn the Nato-trap into 
reverse by invading at a moment of choice, with diplomatic relations 
(very little support for Western sanctions around the globe, stable 
alignment with China & India), economic conditions (ability to bypass 
financial and trade sanctions), and military conditions (war of 
attrition overstretching NATO) in his favor?

In the reading of
> the US (and Europe), the conflicts of 2008 (Donbas) and 2014 (Crimea)
> were regional conflicts, while the 2022 invasion had a clear
> geopolitical dimension, with power in Europe and control over the global
> food supply at stake. 
In the reading of Mearsheimer 2008 and 2014 were mere defensive steps 
against an ongoing NATO-expansion that made it clear to Moscow, that the 
US wanted to overextend Russia (cf Rand-Paper from 2019) and that a 
bigger war was unfortunately the only defense against the slow-motion 
assault.
That veiw follows more or less the reading of Mearsheimer (just to say, 
before I am accused of Putinism...)

I guess the Ukrainians understood quickly that
> aligning themselves with this reading and portraying themselves as
> defenders of freedom is their only chance for survival.
Or, the Ukrainians will have to understand that sacrificing their lives 
following a deeply miscalculated plan of the Neocons in charge at the 
State Dept in Washington they will be doomed.

Just to give another perspective that leads to very different conlusions.
Most likely we can agree, when it comes to Climate Change. But given the 
turn of even the Green party from preserving nature to deliver weapons, 
one may as well take the coming Climate catastrophe as a given and 
prepare for the worst.

s


> On 15.02.23 13:44, d.garcia@new-tactical-research.co.uk wrote:
>
> > It may not offer us much, but it just seemed that Clark’s approach 
> > might help us guard against us so over-regarding the explanatory power 
> > of large-scale historical forces that we underestimate the importance 
> > of amplifying our own collective and individual agency in confronting 
> > the power wielded by key (or elite) political actors. It might 
> > mitigate against the overwhelming feeling of impotence that sometimes 
> > seems to turn the least and the best us all into sleepwalkers.
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