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See this is the reason Mearshimer and the vatnik brigade was wrong in 2022: Russia did not in fact have the million man army of commie fame, it had a corrupt and underprepared army that was so incompetent Ukrainian spies in Belarus were convinced the invasion could not be real because the Russian forces and logistics were so poorly provisioned. The Kyiv thrust was so badly executed that Ritter, McGregor, Serge and all the other worthless vatniks Mearshimer cited as 'experts' had to 180 their assessment of Russian 2022 assaults from 'there are no russian losses kyiv has already fallen anf zelensky is in poland' to 'kyiv was a genius feint to allow capture of the donbass'. Most of this brigade remained continually humiliated by the Kharkiv counteroffensive (my specific introduction to this forum was seeing BigSerge cited here by someone and my supplier mocking that particular vatnik, with BigSerges 'its a genius trap!' rhetoric betraying a laughable understanding of military operations dressed up in distinctly pro-Russian dour seriousness) and the Kherson grind (where the retard brigade once again insisted that Ukraine had no chance of driving Russia back only to pivot into claiming the withdrawal was a sign of Russian genius).
2023 is when Russian force generation let it be the army Mearshimers fools imagined Russia to always be, and when more limited successes started, but that is hardly a reflection of the analytic powers of the vatniks. Russia stumbled into being the army of mass versus Ukraines army of mass, and the slow grind there still does not validate Mearshimers assessments. That Mearshimer is spoken of at all whereas Timothy Synder is ignored points to deliberate ignorance of the intellectual spheres and quality of discourse around: I hold little respect for academics as a whole but if people wish to appeal to academic authority it is necessary to parse competing academic points on their own merits. Sucking off Mearshimer tells me all I need to know and frankly the subsequent cherry picking reinforces my own suspicions: the argument for Russias inevitability is weak and those advancing it don't know enough to dismiss charlatans claiming its inevitability.
Synder is, to use your preferred terminology, retarded.
https://news.err.ee/1609348263/timothy-snyder-war-should-have-ended-in-2022-with-ukraine-s-victory
Look at the things he's willing to say! It's the same old rubbish about nominal GDP magically translating into military power. He still hasn't cottoned onto what RUSI was talking about in 2022 when it comes to shell production not actually being a function of GDP. Just today he's making wildly inappropriate metaphors for it being 1938: https://x.com/martenkokk/status/1792110889841066040
A few things have changed since 1938. The global balance of power. Nuclear weapons. Military affairs generally. Russia and Ukraine being totally different to Germany and Czechoslovakia in terms of politics, aspirations, goals, geography and industrial power...
He's a fantasyland ideologue who lacks any kind of military understanding, sophistication or nuance.
Mearsheimer is overwhelmingly superior. He actually predicts things (often decades in advance) because he has strategic models that work, not just a desperate desire to say what people want to hear. He foresaw this conflict, he foresaw China-US struggle, he foresaw that invading Middle Eastern countries wouldn't work out... What has Synder ever predicted? You're smearing Mearsheimer because he cited some other people that were themselves wrong about different matters.
Did Mearsheimer say 'Russia will stomp Ukraine instantly'? No, he said the exact opposite for years. He said that Russia would struggle to conquer even the eastern part of Ukraine but that it would incur that cost to achieve various strategic goals and that Ukraine cannot win a war of attrition with Russia. That's what we're seeing, from Ukraine's increasingly desperate conscription and Russia's recent advances.
Good! Call Synder retarded, Bloodlands is a polemic! But I never claimed he was THE intellectual authority, only that he is one of many, and stroking off Mearshimer just is an appeal to authority. Snyder is RIGHT about Russias revanchism, and he predicted THAT while Mearshimer in 2014 till 2022 was, per your OWN citation, predicting that Russia was peaceful in its intentions and should be courted as a reliable ally against China. Have you READ his shit? He treats Russia as a weak animal with no choice but to lash out in the 2015 lecture you cite. After Russia attacked and starts their insane rhetoric about nuking London and nazis is when Mearshimer goes off the deep end into supporting pro-Russia military inevitability, a laughable statement before Surovikins force generation efforts paid off in 2023.
Mearshimer is by no means a military genius, which is the criteria by which you judged his intellectual heft. Unbound to the neocon or neolib establishments that predicted happiness and sunshine for all in the wake of US 'freedom bombs'? Yes. Blind to his own hyperfocus on China as a threat to focus on? That is my assessment. Mearshimer (fuck I hate typing his stupid longass name) did your standard vatnik cope of 'Russia clearly had a grand plan when they attacked with their weak forces, look at me I'm so smart.' when the reality is much simpler: Putin fucked up, and Russia doubled down on a bad bet.
He didn't say this. Mearsheimer:
He then said that, before the Russians started sanction-proofing, the Russian military and economy was too weak to conquer Eastern Ukraine. And that's basically correct, they haven't easily conquered Eastern Ukraine!
He foresaw basically everything ten years in advance! He clearly knows more than I do, I thought the war would end much sooner. John "Cassandra" Mearsheimer was consistently proven right in the past. I trust he'll be right now that he's had extra time to analyse recent events.
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