There’s no way to say this without looking like a brag, but sometimes your instincts luck you into positions that happen to coincide with the world’s leading authorities without your reading them first. This is one of those times.
On January 24, I had this to say on Facebook:
“I am adamantly opposed to entering a war against Russia over Ukraine, or NATO admission for Ukraine.
Here's an idea - let's use the might of NATO and Russia to enforce a Swiss-style neutrality on Ukraine. It wouldn't be easy but it's the best plan in the long run.
Russians have a paranoia against potential enemies right up against their western border. Ukraine as a buffer neutral state eliminates that obsession of theirs.”
Last night I was made aware of Dr. John Mearsheimer.
A short bio:
Professor John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He graduated from West Point in 1970 and then served five years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He has published six immensely influential books on international relations theory. In 2020, he won the James Madison Award, which is given once every three years by the American Political Science Association to “an American political scientist who has made a distinguished scholarly contribution to political science.”
Here is what he had to say in the aftermath of the Crimea crisis of 2015:
"What's going on here is that the West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path. And the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked. And I believe that the policy that I'm advocating, which is neutralising Ukraine, and then building it up economically, and getting it out of the competition between Russia on one side, NATO on the other side is the best thing that could happen to the Ukrainians. What we're doing is encouraging the Ukrainians to play tough with the Russians. We're encouraging, the Ukrainians to think that they will ultimately become part of the West, because we will ultimately defeat Putin, and we will ultimately get our way, time is on our side. And of course, the Ukrainians are playing along with this."
In the immediate run-up to the invasion, he repeated those words, right down to the “primrose path” formulation, in this talk.
Okay, so this post is not to brag on how brilliant I may or many not be but rather to say that obvious good ideas are obvious. Any fool with a limited grasp of European and Russian history and geography can look at a map and say, “Hey wouldn’t it be better if Ukraine were neutral?” That’s me.
And that’s also Dr Mearsheimer, who has spent countless hours thinking the idea over and examining it from every angle and defended it from every argument over the course of years and still finds it to be sound, the best course of action for lasting peace.
I completely agree and think you are a very stable genius. Just don't let the words "international relations theory" get into the wrong hands or it could go virally awry.