Ukraine war is an existential struggle — for the West


As Henry Kissinger turned 100 and Individuals marked the arrival of summer season with a vacation meant to memorialize our battle lifeless, Europe stood on the abyss.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the continent’s largest battle since World Conflict II’s finish.

And it’s an existential battle for Europe, in line with John Mearsheimer, the controversial scholar many think about the dean of US foreign-policy realists.

Kissinger may dispute that title. However whereas Kissinger has devoted himself to follow, Mearsheimer gained renown as a theorist, notably along with his 2001 ebook “The Tragedy of Nice Energy Politics.”

Mearsheimer additionally obtained obloquy for his 2007 ebook “The Israel Foyer and U.S. Overseas Coverage,” co-authored by Harvard’s Stephen Walt.

Extra lately, Mearsheimer outraged supporters of Ukraine with feedback pinning a lot of the accountability for Russia’s invasion on American coverage.

Increasing NATO after the Chilly Conflict, and holding membership open to Ukraine, infected Russian fears, he argues.

And he rejects the thought Putin has grand designs to rebuild the Soviet empire.


Ukrainian servicemen firing a mortar at Russian troops in the Donetsk region on May 28, 2023.
Ukrainian servicemen firing a mortar at Russian troops within the Donetsk area on Might 28, 2023.
REUTERS/Anna Kudriavtseva

However when Mearsheimer lately got here to Washington, DC, his matter was not the battle’s origins however its stakes and certain final result.

He spoke as a realist, and the truth as he sees it’s that each get together to the combat has cause to understand it as an existential battle.

In Ukraine’s case, that’s apparent — it’s preventing for survival.

But which means extra than simply resisting obliteration. Kyiv’s goals are to reclaim all its sovereign territory and ensure Russia can’t resume aggression sooner or later.

Something much less could be solely a short lived reprieve.

Mearsheimer reiterated his argument that the Russians imagine their existence as a fantastic energy is jeopardized by NATO’s development.

If Ukraine recovers Crimea and will get admitted to NATO, Russia loses dependable entry to the Black Sea and Mediterranean past it.

For the czars, Soviets and Putin alike, Crimea has been a significant safety curiosity.

Putin’s goal, in Mearsheimer’s estimation, isn’t the entire conquest of Ukraine. That will be like “swallowing a porcupine.”

The Ukrainian inhabitants as a complete is just too giant and too hostile for Russia to soak up the total nation.


A fire at an oil reservoir in Crimea after it was hit by a drone strike this month.
A fireplace at an oil reservoir in Crimea after it was hit by a drone strike this month.
Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev telegram channel by way of AP

However Russia will proceed its battle of attrition till it secures the oblasts it has occupied up to now.

And Mearsheimer thinks Moscow needs 4 extra oblasts after that, till Russia controls greater than 40% of Ukrainian territory.

Taking Odessa and reducing Ukraine off from the Black Sea can also be an goal.

Russian victory means a mutilated, unstable, commercially remoted, undefendable Ukraine.

For all his criticisms of US coverage earlier than the invasion, Mearsheimer sees no method for America and Western Europe to again down now.

For them, too, the battle is existential.


Ukrainian soldiers riding in a tank near Bakhmut on May 23, 2023.
Ukrainian troopers using in a tank close to Bakhmut on Might 23, 2023.
AP Picture/Efrem Lukatsky

European safety is dependent upon NATO. If the West invests every part it could within the Ukrainian effort, in need of direct navy intervention, and Russia nonetheless wins, confidence in NATO will shatter.

That doesn’t imply Russia’s armies march onward. What Mearsheimer foresees is relatively the disintegration of NATO from inside, a lack of strategic cohesion that enables Russia and China to play completely different European nations, and completely different factions inside these nations, towards each other.

As for the USA, our leaders see the result in Ukraine as a harbinger of what’s to come back in East Asia.

Mearsheimer has at all times been a China hawk. He argues a rival hegemon in East Asia would constrain our freedom of motion and injure our business and strategic pursuits.

If America can’t defend Ukraine from Russia and uphold NATO’s credibility in Europe, what probability would we now have to save lots of Taiwan from China or to maintain our alliances in East Asia?

Mearsheimer was in Washington to speak to the Committee for the Republic, a gaggle based by the late C. Boyden Grey, William Nitze (son of Chilly Conflict strategist Paul Nitze) and others to oppose the hawkish drift of US international coverage on the time of the Iraq Conflict.

But Mearsheimer’s evaluation contained little to consolation doves.

He may be improper.

What would stop Europe from creating a brand new safety structure if NATO will get discredited — assuming a loss in Ukraine, if it occurs, would certainly discredit NATO?

And might China actually hope for hegemony with such giant and cautious powers as India and Japan in its neighborhood?

However Mearsheimer’s grim realism is a reminder of how world wars begin.

In a battle with a fantastic energy, a smaller state’s solely hope may be to carry one other nice energy in on its aspect.

And nice powers act out of fears based mostly on perceptions, not merely goal details.

As the recent canine grill, we don’t really feel like a world battle is starting.

However for the English-speaking peoples that is additionally how the primary two started.

Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Trendy Age: A Conservative Assessment.