Is he now? I like to go watch his old video to laugh about what he predicted😂😂😂😂😂 It is strange to assume a RUclipsr who works as a low level analyst in a small country would be the most accurate analyst of a conflict attracting hundreds of billions of financing by NATO
@@Statueshop297challenge accepted. Debunking Anders is the easiest thing though. Are you so brain washed you can't go back on his channel and see? BRB.
@@beeble2003 Well, the people - like Mearsheimer - who were wrong, seem unwilling to discuss it. So it means the people who were right are the ones who need to bring it up.
There are , beside Putin's miserable assessment of Russia's and Ukraine's potential, also biographic factors like his ideologic education in the Soviet school system, fading memories about the catastrophic consequences of WW II vs. mounting glory and admiration of Stalin's "genius" and last but not least Putin's biographic desire to "finish the job" Ukraine/restoring former glory as long as it's physically possible for him turning 70 and getting a favourable position in future Russian history books. These personal motifs and biographic background shouldn't be underestimated.
The main reason is Western fake news and left-wing extremism a like. Similar today, the 2014/2015 connection of refuges, war in Ukraine and also weak Western politics made it easy, that real news about that were not published. Instead you had populism from left and right.
@@d.k.6335 This is more true for the Eastern Europeans, because they were "free" and therefor to be influenced. In Russia, they never became that free, so it was easy to control as the Western powers (US/UK) especially upliftet Russia after 1990, and also kept them out of Europe. Putin then played the book, that while the bad West doesn't want him in, he would play along and would help, but that didn't happen either with the war in Ukraine and politization of energy, and support of terrorism and China. Mearsheimer was right here, but he was downplayed by mass media and also the alarmism towards Russia came from a weak and not overall assessment, and made it easy for left-wing or fake news.
John Mearsheimer in August 2022 : "Putin did not invade Ukraine to conquer it" a month later Putin formally annexed four more territories in eastern and southern Ukraine.
In fairness he's correct: Putin didn't invade Ukraine to conquer it, he invaded it to turn it into a Belarus-esque client state, to humiliate NATO and the EU, and to return Russia to "superpower" status. It's only when all that failed that he annexed some territories to try and save face.
John Mearsheimer in Feb 2022: "Putin has no reason to invade Ukraine, he doesn't need to, he's already won." Mearsheimer in 2023: "The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a rational act." For those wondering, the latter is the title of an article/book chapter Mearsheimer wrote, which was published by Yale University Press. How people (including those at prestigious universities) take this guy seriously I do not understand. His theory of politics involves ignoring the role of ideology, emotion, and incomplete/inaccurate information in decision making. In other words, he removes the essence of politics from his theory of political action. Can anyone think of a single political figure, current or historical, who was entirely unaffected by those factors?
I have similar issues with Mearsheimer. His entire school of thought seems to be essentially an exercise in the selective, retroactive steelmanning of policy decisions. It seems to be a de facto assumption that states cannot perform irrational acts. In his thinking, if a state takes an action which seems on its face irrational, it must instead be an action whose rationale we don't understand. This model may or may not be more-or-less accurate when applied to states whose decision-making processes are more distributed. This is obviously not the case with Russia. Putin has near absolute power, which is advantageous in the sense that he can make final decisions without cutting through too much red tape. The downside is that this absolute power is also absolute fallibility. Where more distributed power structures have more voices that can be added to the mix, a pure vertical of power, as is the case with Russia, has no checks nor balances when an autocrat is hell-bent on making a poor decision. Seemingly, Mearsheimer cannot imagine this.
The problem, I think, is that Mearsheimer doesn’t understand Putin’s goals, as a defensive realist, he saw that Russia had everything they could have wanted for their national defense. Under that assumption, why would Russia invade Ukraine, what do they gain? And the answer is control of Ukraine, that’s Putin’s goal. Putin is a rational actor, but he’s trying to do something that’s not to just ensure the survival of the nation, and that doesn’t fit into Mearsheimer’s narrow framework.
He is, I suspect, deliberately naive when it comes to Putin's aims and motives. He tends to believe what the kremlin says, because thats what he want's to hear.
Absolutely, Mearsheimer is basically a glorified conspiracy theorist. He cherrypicks what he likes and builds narratives from it -- because something looks like it could be and suits his needs, here you go.
@@diepie5144In fact he is using almost exact Russian propaganda points: "Ukrainian Nazis", "CIA coup in Kyiv", "NATO encirclement", "not one inch East" etc. And in essence each grievance for Russia is real, it just have to be translated "Ukraine doesn't exist"; "popular uprising for the EU" and losing president they could influence directly; "former Eastern Bloc countries should remain open to our power projection" and so on
@@tinylazer ruzzia is consistently investing in their image. this conviction is carefully worked on. if i am not mistaken its their idea of hybrid warfare
That guy is a joke without an ounce of dignity, shame or self awareness. He reminds me of another admirer of Putin and his strategic "genius".. You may know him as an unrepented liar, self absorbed Army dodger and an insurrection instigator... To his friends he's known simply as Donnie.. To the rest of us as the Orange Buffoon.
@@SpiderDiscord how does it matter? The fact they tried to take capital and bragged they'd conquer it in 2-3 days on state TV primetime proves it was always the intention. Being delusional about your power doesn't change that fact.
"I'm Scandinavian, and we don't like to brag, buuuuuuut...' got me laughing out loud. Good on you for owning it. It's what it takes when facing down the irrationally confident.
Professor Jonathan Haslam, author of a large book on the subject says Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were the main NATO members insisting peace would be secured by Ukraine becoming a full member of NATO, but Denmark was the foremost advocate for Ukrainian membership of NAT0 among West European countries, and it pushed hard for military cooperation with Ukraine in peacekeeping operations all over the globe to qualify it as a NATO partner. What the Russians might think was behind all this was not much considered. The suspicion was mutual nevertheless; as Mearsheimer says countries can never be certain of each others intentions, or of what those intentions might become.
@@thomasbaader6629 Hodges was so right at the very begining about the invasion not working, but since then he has been completely unrealistic about the big picture. Like all these guys he has been conditioned to see the Russians as the main threat. They are not and moreover will be needed as allies against a future mega power China. Trouncing Russia using Ukraine as a cat's paw would be relatively easy, but counterproductive in the long term
@@Lien-ke7xcnot at all. He was totally right. Russia lost this war already in 2022. I feel you do not understand what loosing means. Even if Putin would be able to conquer Ukraine fully he has lost his original goal to push back NATO to the 1991 border.
I am remined of Vlad Vexler saying that by attempting to predict a state's actions without looking at the internal functions of the state, Realist theorists are effectively trying to judge the quality of a restaurant by looking at photos of it on google maps
As a political scientist, I'd say the google maps photo method has a better success rate. Realism tends to reject any kind of complexity generally due to its anarchic presumptions.
@@eliasross4576 The main purpose of political science isn’t to make predictions. I know, it’s got “science” in the name, so one might come to this misunderstanding quite easily. Political science isn’t science and is not great at making successful predictions consistently. Mearsheimer’s biggest weakness is his inability to accord agency to non-superpower or great power countries. Mearsheimer likes to see geopolitics as grand manichean struggles, and everyone else are chess pieces. That’s how Mearsheimer can blame the U.S. for Russia’s invasion. In his mind, the U.S provoked the attack.
I am a retired officer from an Eastern European NATO country. We are telling our Western partners since the '90s: "do not trust Russia! Sooner or later they will start marching to the center of Europe. We have to be prepared!" Their answer was always: "you are paranoid. They will see the advantages of Western democratic society and in time they will change. Let's invite them to NATO as observers, let's train together, let's be friends!" Now, the whole West is "surprised"???? Because you don't listen!!!!
Putin was open about his intentions since his speech at Munich conference 2007. People on the west just thought he does not believe what he says. But actually every other ordinary Russian thoughts the same way. They are obscessed with war.
As soon as Lavrov said "we have no plans to invade Ukraine" it became a certainty in my mind. (I even made a meme about it using Baghdad Bob saying the Russians have no plans to invade Ukraine) since it was laughable that this huge build up was going on with no plans. I posted THAT on Feb 11 2022. I think by then it was pretty obvious.
“This matter will be resolved on the battlefield”. - Lavrov. If that does not tell the world what sort of animal we are dealing with here nothing will.
Kind of like Walter Ullbricht saying "Niemand habe die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten" (Noone is going to build a wall) a short while before the Berlin Wall was built.
Actually, it is now pretty clear that Lavrov himself did not know about the invasion until it happened. Putin kept it very close to his chest until the last minute. That is why analysts like Mark Galeotti got it wrong, because they relied on intel from their sources in Russia and they all told him that there would be no invasion. They were not lying, that was the truth as they knew it at the time.
As a ukrainian, it's very pleasant for me to see that there are people on the West who understand what's going on, and spreading the information. Thank you!
@@cargocat1 Not true. Ukraine is VERY important to "the west" and will be an extremely wealthy country. Due to vast deposits of rare metals like lithium, cobalt etc Ukraine is going to be the new "Saudi" supplying these to the green energy sector. I believe a key reason for russias invasion was to control these deposits as russian economy is highly oil based and demand for oil is decreasing
@@duncansmith7576 Nah, Russia lacks the technology to even properly exploit its own oil and shale reserves. The massive investment required to develop a lithium mining industry is completely beyond Russia
as long as you understand his biases. Anders said in some interview recently that Ukraine *must* win. That's not an analysis, that's nato strategic plan.
@@ursodermatt8809 unbiased coverage means not telling what you (or your benefactors) want to happen, but what's actually happening. I was looking for an unbiased coverage of the conflict and got dyked by Anders, that's why I'm salty. Is it so wrong to seek actual journalism and analysis without jumping in on one of the camps?
@@stststefan you're wrong. We have different strategic goals, NATO wants war to be limited to Ukraine, and prevent ru federation's collapse. That's their entire plan. Ukrainians OF COURSE want war to be in any country _except_ Ukraine, and we are doing what we can to move it our (see Kursk & drones), also our main goal IS russian collapse, always has been. So that's why West does all it can to provide putin with missile components and block Ukraine from using any. So our strategy is diametrically opposite to corrupt russophile West.
Merkelnomics of "peace through interconnected trade" was a powerfully convincing theory to a lot those who claimed insight as was the delusion that Putin is some sort of hyper-rational actor with a mastery of geopolitics.
Yeah, it’s very easy to say that from the outside (an i do largely agree), but you have to understand the cultural and internal political situation in Germany and how it has always affected the situation. The Second World War is a dominating factor, and most Germans want nothing more than to prevent it from happening again. This is why Germany is so extremely pacifistic, why Germany never escalates in Ukraine.
Germans, because of their history, are incentivised to pretend that war is due to things such as "economic forces" rather than anything more moral. It's a reassuring idea that if you suffer under a harsh peace treaty and then a bad economic depression then this will effectively take away your free will to act morally. Thus all you need to do to achieve peace is to give more money to the evil dictator (what could go wrong).
Unfortunatelly the whole "win-win situation" is western construct. How is it possible for you to win without anybody loosing? Russia had upper hand, they could blackmail resources hungry Europe, they wanted to capitalize this "advatange".
@@MarcosElMalo2 the kid could fix his predicament by bathing frequently; it's not like critiquing his hair or skin colour. Stupidity needs to be called out.
A smart man, a moral man would admit errors. Neither Mearsheimer nor Putin can admit error. They must believe they are superior at all times, in all ways, and it is the puny weak others that are wrong. Colossal arrogance is present in both men. When nuclear threats and terrorist actions don't work, Putin just does more of it, because he can't say "That didn't work." This is also a core trait of maga and evangelicals: they cannot admit they ever make mistakes or need to change or rethink. They all think alike. Election denial is the same function.
The problem with these analysts is that they think they’re studying Russia, but very few of them speak Russian, understand the Russian mentality, or have direct experience interacting with Russians. They absolutely have no understanding of Ukraine at all, neither now nor in the past. These Western experts perceive Ukraine entirely through a Russian lens, which is flawed because it’s imperialistic. When I read what that Professor Mershchamer believes, it makes me laugh. It’s just nonsense from someone who doesn’t really understand what they’re talking about. It’s ridiculous.
Agree - it is surprising how many of these so called experts have no understanding of Ukrainian history and how Russia is viewed by their near neighbours.
They have their own fantasy r&$@a with Tolstoyevsky and ballet. While in reality it's closer to Green Elephant that fetishes Fallout in an unhealthy way.
Russia behaves like an eternal bully, admittedly a very unscrupulous bully. The basic principles of how a bully behaves should be familiar to anyone who has ever attended a public school.
You cannot like Putin have any part of Ukraine including Crimea he has to go back to his original border and start paying to rebuild and whatever other sanctions they put on this f****** moron
Interesting analysis. Few assumptions I think Putin made going into 'special operations' which did not pan out 1) Assuming that Germany, and in general Europe would be neutral, especially as Europe has big dependence on Russian gas 2) Underestimating resistance by Ukrainians (which is covered here) and overestimating support for Russian "liberators" in Ukraine 3) Assumption that China, Iran, North Korea, and India's support would significantly help if the invasion took longer than days/weeks 4) Overestimation of quality of Russia's conventional arms defense 5) Assuming that the west would tread very lightly given catastrophic risk of nuclear escalation even if odds are low 6) Discounting unpredictability of private mercenaries like Wagner Hindsight is 20/20, but general theme of strategic failures have been a) not paying attention to worse case scenario(s) and b) not having an exit strategy if things were to go very wrong.
They were right on 1), 3) and 5), West is STILL blocking Ukraine from striking enemy bases inside their country, and Germany, Hungary and USA are blocking everything they can from Ukrainians to make sure ru doesn't collapse. Also every Ukrainian is jealous of the allies ru got, North Korea alone supplies more shells than entire NATO combined, I WISH we had support even half as good as enemies get from Iran, China, EU etc.
Agreed. Plus underestimating the extent and damage of corruption within Russia and the general idea that “democracies are weak and unwilling to make series sacrifices.”
@@ethank5059 Nobody is willing to make serious sacrifices when opponent is real tough peanut, not banana republic led by hated leader from ethnic minority these are easy preys. Russia was always different.
Brilliant Analysis, Anders. When people talk about empathy, what they really mean is often compassion. But that is really only one side of it, and people often neglect to talk about the other one, because it's a much darker one. Some people really do have bad intentions, some people really don't care about the well-being of others, some people really won't listen to reason, and understanding and acknowledging all of that is also a form of empathy. And regarding the bragging, we should never forget the wise words of Muhammad Ali: “It's not bragging if you can back it up!”
LOL! Finally Mearsheimer's nonsense is addressed. He's an obvious pro-Russian apologists in every single interview he's in. Glad Anders addressed this finally.
In 1994 Mearsheimer published an article in which he opined that Ukraine would need their own nuclear deterrent to Russia. You can judge for yourself how 'pro Russian' his' nonsense' analyses was
@@seancidy6008 That was 30 years ago, and Mearsheimer changed his tune since then. Try to stay current, and don't dredge up crap from decades ago to pretend it connects to today. That is what the Rus trolls do, start talking about the glory days of Russia or the US in Vietnam. These things are not alike or connected.
@@antimatters6283 Which country's leaders ignored Mearsheimer, took money from the West and put it in their personal Swiss bank accounts to leave their country dependent on empty promises from Nato? Not Russia. If the Ukrainians had listened to _Professor_ Mearsheimer there would not have been an invasion of Ukraine. It really is a bit much to BLAME him for a war he tried to prevent.
I don't think he's a pro-Russia apologist. He's just gotten something very fundamentally wrong. And he doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes, but keeps believing his wrong assumptions like a religion. We all want so desperately to be right, and I don't think highly-regarded experts and academics are completely free of that flaw either.
I have watched your channel for two years, and appreciated all of your commentary on the Ukraine war. This was the most solid, useful, incisive of any of them. Thank you 🙂
you absolutely deserve credit. here in the states we have so many idiots bloviating get things wrong everyday and still called "experts". you have been clear eyed since the begging and a study voice since day one. thank you
You are the best at analyzing the war in Ukraine. Raise your hand higher Mr. Nielsen, you were and continue to be right, your opinion needs to be heard. It is not bragging, it is pointing up facts. Keep up your excellent work, it´s always a pleasure to hear your opinion.
I don't think you're entirely correct. He probably acted rationally (to a degree) based on the information he had. Unfortunately, you get a massively skewed picture of reality if you surround yourself with yes men who tell you what you want to hear.
Why is Mearsheimer considered an expert on Russia and Ukraine anyway? He's been wrong about just about everything. Pro tip: if an expert blames NATO expansion for Putin invading Ukraine (in 2014 or 2022) then they aren't really experts.
I just wanna say that this gets wayyy more impressive if you speak Danish. I slowed it down and read the shown parts of the article. Guy basically nailed the entire conflict and its various international ramifications in one paragraph. In an article published 12 days before the invasion even started.
When the Warsaw Pact fell apart, NATO should also have fallen apart logically!!! But Nato, on the contrary, only grew and pushed ever closer to Russia!!! When you pushed Russia to the wall by making Ukraine join NATO and Russia should be a NATO neighbor!!! So finally wake up and don't spread lies here!!! Is Russia pressing on the borders of GB or USA? No!!! The USA already has military bases all over the world and wants to rule the whole world!
some of these predictions are chilling in hindsight. My brother predicted 30 years ago that Viktor Orban of Hungary would just grab attention and power, he wasn't really a democratic person. I laughed him off. Now I had to apologise, big time.
Just because a 10 crazy people predict 10 different ends of the world and one of them turned out correct, doesn't mean he actually new it. There so many options the future cat have. I can predict the gender of a future kid with about 50%certainty 😅
@@Ihtiandr13 no, your comparison case is wrong. The correct analogy is to predict a boy, when the doctors, nurses, fortune tellers, and astrology says it should be a girl. In those days, the general consesus was that democracy and peace prevailed over dictatorship and wars, so the odds were not 50:50, but around 1:100000.
You should raise your hand! I watch 'Krigens Døgn' always, and you are by far the best expert there. You present the same knowledge here on youtube, always well-reasoned, looking at the issue from several angles and not shy to own your mistakes. You are an excellent representative of the Scandinavian mindset. Keep up the good work!
This is the reason why I trust Anders in the first place. He was one of the few analysts who predicted that Russia would invade Ukraine, and that the fighting would be closely matched. At first, I thought he was completely wrong. But after a few months, it turned out he was right all along, and I’ve been following his analysis to understand the war in Ukraine ever since.
@@iliaalekov2949 Soviets were never using American equipment and there were never any significant shipments to Russia. It's not true what you're saying. The size of Russia and their ability to handle misery under dictators ended up being impossible for invaders to control. Hitler was a narcissist sociopath like most dictators and his hubris was his failure. Russians are strong willed people, though not to say necessarily in a positive direction.
Yep, ironically the analysts who thought the war would go badly for Russia were wrong, but cleverer than Putin; and the analysts who thought Russia would invade Ukraine were correct, but no cleverer than Putin. Basically, the first group were too clever and thought Putin was as clever as them.
@@phueal The mistake is assuming leaders make good decisions that are good for their country. It's hard to predict a leader would choose to willfully enter a quagmire. But that is always more likely for dictators who don't listen to advice. Putin made a stupid decision and is destroying Russia's future. It's a decision of personal hubris.
“It cannot be stressed enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire [95].” ― Zbigniew Brzeziński, Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power, published 24 January 2012 In the main, Western elites saw what they wanted to see. They did not have a clear eyed view of the mindset of Russia's ruling class. It was cognitive dissonance and expedience that carried the day. Zbigniew Brzeziński, however, fully understood, because he was east European.
Because he was a Pole. But for a common westerner it is quite impossible to get the russian mentality because of 2 reasons: 1)it is really different, 2)the russians learnt the western mentality and disguise themselves so that the westerners think they are dealing with someone similar to them. BTW there was a westerner who got russians right - a French nobleman marquis de Custine who wrote a book on the topic.
I think it’s much easier to understand the Russian geopolitical mindset when we look back a century. After humiliation of WW1 and the loss of many western territories, the Soviet Union did everything to get them back. After the Soviet collapse, the borders basically returned to the post WW1 borders. This was, is, and always will be unacceptable to Russia. Now I think Russia would’ve been fine with them being independent as long as the economies were close, but that started to fade, and in the case of Ukraine, they are the most significant. So the loss of Ukraine from their sphere of influence was something they could not let go of lightly.
Exactly, and the West started trading with both Russia and China against better knowledge, hoping that thing would not explode too early. Putin har now exploded, and there are still countries trading with Russia in the middle of a war. China will go for either Taiwan or Russias eastern provinces within a few decades. My personal theory is that Putin has walked westwards from Gerogia, Armenia and Azerbadjan, and simply thought that he had now perfected hit tactics, like similar dictators before him (e.g. Lenin) he think he is a strategic genius while in reality he i stuck in the same violence. When the puppet regime fell, he tried annexation (this is the direct equivalent to Sudetenland in the 1930s) and "nobody cared". If the red line had not been the things Russia did in central Asia, then the red line should have been Krimea, but it was allowed. So of course he believed it would work, and the logical next step was an invasion. An invasion that might have succeeded if not for the extreme levels of corruption and incompetense in the Russian miliary. But unlike in 1939, there was not another dictatorial military power to have a pact with.and "slip under the radar". Another aspect is that Putin is losing power at home, he needed a quick military victory. He failed, but he also knows that the end of the war in Ukraine is the day Vladimir Putin is no longer the tsar of Russia.
When the Warsaw Pact fell apart, NATO should also have fallen apart logically!!! But Nato, on the contrary, only grew and pushed ever closer to Russia!!! When you pushed Russia to the wall by making Ukraine join NATO and Russia should be a NATO neighbor!!! So finally wake up and don't spread lies here!!! Is Russia pressing on the borders of GB or USA? No!!! The USA already has military bases all over the world and wants to rule the whole world! Zbigniew Brzeziński was obsessed with the destruction of Russia, because he was a Polish warmonger, and Poles are still dreaming their wet dreams of Greater Poland!
@@christianmirmo4942 And on the Ukrainian side contemplate the long term effects of Holodomor among other things. Genocides tend to result in polarization. It’s not surprising they are fighting tooth and nail to keep their independence, if one considers the history.
Exactly! Mearsheimer is always sooo gleeful about his proclamations. He's always saying that Ukraine is doomed while smiling from ear to ear. I hate that guy.
"33 years of peace, and it all came down to one man..." As a business analyst I honestly believed that the russians valued money and business more than territory, that war was more expensive than peace, and that Crimea was enough. Even when NATO issued their invasion warning I still didnt believe it. My issue was that I grew up in the Cold War and I didnt want to believe it, as I wanted the Cold War era to remain in the history books.
But Putin was not a business man. He was a wannabe zar. Who saw himself as chosen to "Make Russia Great Again". Unfortunately not by building it with hard work and smart plans for the future, but by stealing border countries. 🤷♂️
They do value money and business, but they think you get money and business from having more territory/land/people. They also don't understand the West, where you make money from trade and create allies and all benefit from the same rules (more or less). Worryingly, Xi is probably of the same thinking as Putin.
as a "business analyst" the actual reasons for capturing most important assets of Ukraine = main goal conquest should be crystal clear - hint: it is the only perfect form of business to help you out - to gain energy monopoly over whole Europe , all the rest is just made up fairy tale and warm air
Berlin: WW, 1st try. Russian Revolution n Russian Civil w. Molotov Ribbentro pact n WW, 2nd try. Nord Stream pipeline for Russian natural gas. Berlin is guilty. WW, last try
@@Chrisklown Bullshit. Germany is definitely not guilty for Putin starting that war. In the contrary. Putin underestimated Germany's willingness to cut ties to Russia. If Russia would've known that Germany was able and willing to cut all dependencies to Russia in case of invasion, THAT might have prevented the invasion. No. I say the failure lays with Putin, who, as a KGB man, should have known better.
He disappeared for a while after his catastrophically flawed predictions. I suspect that his reappearance is a reflection of another failed prediction --------- he thought that *we* would forget.
One thing about Mark Galeotti that Anders probably intended to say but left unsaid: unlike Mearsheimer, Galeotti did acknowledge his mistake in predicting Putin wouldn't invade, and has done a lot of analysis on why he did get it wrong. Galeotti is certainly one of the best Russian analysts... Partly because he knows he's not perfect. Unlike Mearsheimer (whose sympathies are also questionable).
Galeotti is great, though occasionally slips into “protecting his investment” by defending or downplaying the crimes and history of russian brutality, he seems to keep dark truths at bay whilst staying an excited voyeur of the “clever” dangers and actions of russia.
Yep. I figure he is a Kremlin asset or Trotskyite which is basically the same thing. He is consistently "mistaken" and all his "mistakes" just happen to work to Putin's favor. My contact says he's been bribed up with oil money.
Calling Mearsheimer an expert on anything is wildly generous at best. Dude has been so wrong on so many things. The only reason he's popular is that Tankies love him.
I didn’t. It was pathetically catty backbiting from the rear-view mirror. Why is this fool now babbling about international relations? I thought he was a military analyst? Suddenly he’s mute as Ukraine continues to lose ground on the battlefield.
Anders! Thank you for this and all of your videos. You are not just the best source to understand this horrible war, but your analytical skills and methods are deeply inspriring. I watch your videos both to make sense of the war, but also to be inspired on a general level. Thank you!
Having served on the Fulda gap for 4 years, the last 4 years the wall stood. I was trained over and over on how russia would operate. So when all the analysts popped up as notable and recognized experts I gave them one chance to impress me and they failed. Of all the analysts I have seen this channel is the Only one I still watch and have subscribed to. I had no Idea how things would go but was sure of 2 things, it was going to happen and it wouldn't be a short war. And making sure russia looses this war is the only thing staving off the rest of his plans for europe.
Russia today has both similarities and great differences to the Soviet Union. I can't think of them like the Soviet Union at the height of it's military power, somewhere after WW II. The ideological underpinning of the Soviet Union is gone, Russians are heavily depoliticized.
Because experts think rationally while dictators think irrationally. History is full of examples of irrational dictators who made bad decisions which made no sense.
Yes, we know that they wouldn't do it if they were in charge, but what Anders is telling us is that those experts failed to take into account what putin was after and what he believed was true. It showed misunderstanding of the Russian perspective, which, being experts they should also account for.
Except they did predict invasion. Various agencies were in Ukraine from a decade, preparing them for such scenario. They only consider it as extremely stupid thing to do, what in fact was extremely stupid thing to do. Of course Russian propaganda claimed it to be brilliant 4D chess move and Western propaganda repeat everything what Russian telegram say about West being surprised.
Putin was thinking rationally. However, first of all, his main goal with Russian invasion was to prevent the collapse of "Russian World", or prevent the "Russian World" from becoming westernized. Russia as it is could not exist with free democratic prosperous Ukraine just beside it. Such Ukrainian example would force Russia to change and Putin to lose his power (and likely his head). So in his view, looking longer term- this is a fight for survival. And Putin was probably right about that. Second of all- I feel Putin between ~2014 and 2022 succumbed to the disease every emperor suffers. He got surrounded by yes men and he was being fed wildly inaccurate information. First, the capabilities of Russian military were inflated to him. Real situation was highly different due to corruption, and well hidden due to same reason. Second, the capabilities of Ukraine were seriously underestimated in Russia. Third- I believe the willingness of Ukraine to resist the Russian invasion at all were seriously underappreciated in Putin's circles. I remember there being rumors of some FSB officers falling out of windows right after invasion due to a) incorrect analysis b) embezzling billions of dollars that were supposed to be used to bribe key Ukrainian officials not to resist the invasion... Ultimately, the system in Russia is what doomed this invasion. The system is built on kleptocracy and corruption and lies, and this kleptocracy and corruption and lies made the system and its rulers unable to make well informed decisions. Even if the ruler at the top is rational.
Anders makes some great points with great insight, but he may be over analyzing too. Putin believes he is superior to Western leaders, that he has them all fooled and cowed with his nuclear threats talk. He also still believes he can terrorize the Ukraine civilians into submission, as he did in other nations. When that isn't true and it doesn't work, Putin is too proud, far too arrogant to admit any error in his thinking. He believes he is right, better, smarter, superior, so he doubles and triples down on the same thing: make more nuclear threats, try to terrorize civilians even more. His thinking is dangerous, but astonishingly limited and inflexible. And, he ran and was unable to cope when things break his script, like Yevgeny Prigozhin's rebellion. Problems with militate goals and attack? Don't rethink it, just get more bodies and do it over and over. This is primitive, dimwit thinking. Putin makes sure no one around him is smarter, and he isn't all that smart himself. He has gotten by based on brutality and threats. When that doesn't work, he has no other ideas.
Every "expert" who has been proven to be wrong - but who doesn't address the fact that they were wrong - should never ever be listened to again on this subject that they claim to be "expert" in. I saw some Lex Fridman episode about Mearsheimer and he (Mearsheimer) acted like he was the biggest expert on the universe on the topic (Russia-Ukraine war), while all I got from it was a big nothingburger. Please stop worshipping these morons.
My impression is he is saying Russia will win and the Washington establishment have come to understand that now although it is still a publicly unspoken understanding. The forces Putin had poised on the border in 2022 were totally inadequate for what Putin seemed to expect them to achieve. Now he is using mass effect for lesser objectives
Im austrian, married to a russian, and we are living in paris after a while in moscow. I at that time was not aware of anders an his channel. However i also predicted the invasion, against all my russian relatives and friends. Even our ukrainian did not get it. For me the strongest reason was that the "most nearest brothers" took a different path away from the russian thugocraty towards europe. How would the russians reflect on their brothers develop a civic society and prevail ecomically. However, anders, thank you for your content and analysis.
I'm a westerner, who lived in Novosibirsk prior and at the time of the invasion. I also had the same experience as you did. My reasoning was due to observations that I've had throughout the years, which included many of the same observations that Anders has put up here. But what was most incredible, was dealing with my Western friends and family, and how they viewed it, and how they misunderstood the dynamics both at the Kremlin which is not Russia, and in Russia itself. Somebody once said that for there to be war there has to be two mistakes, one on each side. The misreading of the situation both from the Russian and the Western perspective, and honestly the third mistake, the Kremlin's side, was just something that was making me shake my head. That's part of the misunderstanding the world has, the misunderstanding that it's only two sides involved here, it's a multi-part, multi-sided issue. That misunderstanding is still driving policy today
One of the greatest Russian success was their "smoke and mirrors" disinformation campaign on social media and its creation of fake 'institutes for neutrality studies' and its hybrid warfare. They for instance accused Ukraine of being "neo nazi" and fabricated abuse of Russian speakers and made the failure of the Minsk protocols Europes fault when it was they that broked the treies by refusing inspections (which would have revealed Russian agents and military interferance) . The liberal left media is extremely gullible to accusations of "neo nazism" and fall for it without critical evaluation and its equal to calling a woman a witch in the 15th century. Left leaning newspapers, I'm thinking of the Guardina etc, fell entirely for this at the time as most will recall. -Meersheimers naive theories were promoted by Russian PMC disinformation contractors, corrupted social media creators etc. So Russia full of revanchism and the kleptocratic KGB dictator Putin by nature of all dictators eager to extend his totalitarianism and imperialism were able to disguise their selfish vulgar motives as some kind of anti fascists fight. It's clear now that Meersheimers theories were a case of a clock being right at least once per day rather than a correct methodology. Russia always invades or starts a war for territory every 20-30 years and so any theory can satisfy the event.
The idea that a post-soviet "russian" state can throw off the yoke of the kleptocracy, install a genuinely democratically elected government and make progress towards westernization is indeed very scary for the upper levels of Russian society.
Putin could not have a successful democratic country with a similar bloodline and culture, right on his border. Jealousy, vindictiveness, and an overwhelming need to tear down others to build one's self up.
Comment added earlier, I lost it, sorry for a repeat A great and useful analysis Anders as usual. (I don't always agree) When the Russian build up happened, I remembered something from Gulf War 1. Someone said 'No one positions 250,000 troops and then DOESN'T invade. Russia didn't have 250k, but enough to prove the rule. The world will be safer if they fail badly, the West should try to make that happen. Russia's next dictator won't necessarily be more co-operative. They will be slaves to Chinese influence, from our perspective, that will look really weird. You speak very well and analytically, I appreciate that greatly. Your openness is a refreshing contrast to some more biased sources.
This has to be one of your best and most interesting videos to date. Maybe it's my psychology background talking, but I always like it when people point out the failures of assuming rationality while at the same time promoting empathy
Good video, mr Nielsen. One thing that stood out in Mearsheimer's analysis was the idea that a well armed and militarily competent Ukraine would be an existential threat to Russia. And it left me wondering....how??? Russia is a full fledged nuclear power, with the ability to service targets globally with nuclear weapons of various sizes and flavours. How can that country ever be existentially threatened by Ukraine in a conventional sense?? An absurd prospect imo.
@@WindmillStalker Are you stupid? Nuclear capable missiles with a sub 5 minute flight time to Moscow is not an existential threat? So why was the US so concerned about Cuba? We all know what the US would do if China or Russia based missiles in Mexico or any other Latin American country. Immediate war.
@@WindmillStalker In this case, the United States should not worry if Russia places its military bases in the United States on the border with Texas...
I went to that particular video on that channel. Since 2022 the channel is pretty much dead. And only this video with Mearsheimer has like a million views, while all other videos are in the low 4-digit area..... And the comments under that video are very suspicious IMO. I believe many of those comments are from Russians pretending to be Westeners.
No shit Sherlock... what was your first clue? Sorry, could not help it. As recently as 2016 I thought all the crazy divisive comments on RUclips and everywhere else on the internet were from actual Americans or actual Westerners, just people with crazy radical political views. I suppose now that maybe 25% or 50% are from Western "useful idiots," but it has been clear to me for a long time there is organized Russian planning behind this and paid professionals carrying out at least 50% of these comments. Not sure how it all works... I always imagine rows of PCs set up in "phone bank" conditions in some poor 3rd World country someplace. I always use the word "troll" myself, but maybe there is more automation behind it, as the term "bot" seems to imply? Or there soon WILL be, I suppose!
US intelligence makes plenty of failures. But in this case, they got it painfully right. Painfully, I say, because too many people dismissed these warnings.
US intelligence got it right on Putin wanting to invade. They didn't get it right on Ukraine's capacity to fight back and to continue to exist as a state.
@@Gregoryking-e9q or perhaps its the countless times the intelligence agencies were either wrong or lying - as is their job. If you trust them, theres no hope for you.
History did not begin on February 24, 2022! The US secret services knew it, because they provoked it themselves! When the Warsaw Pact fell apart, NATO should also have fallen apart logically!!! But Nato, on the contrary, only grew and pushed ever closer to Russia!!! When you pushed Russia to the wall by making Ukraine join NATO and Russia should be a NATO neighbor!!! So finally wake up and don't spread lies here!!! Is Russia pressing on the borders of GB or USA? No!!! The USA already has military bases all over the world and wants to rule the whole world!
Superb episode. Touches upon all the right themes: expertise, groupthink, making excuses, failing to learn from mistakes, false assumptions (especially about rationality), and more.
Putin as an Analyst saw Victoria Nuland coming 30 years ago. Russia has had plenty of time to prepare for the NATO assault. The USA on the other Hand appears to have lost a lot of Appropriations , to Corruption? Pentagon Audits reveal the US Funding of Military provisions, may not be as effective as the appearance of spending was intended? The G-7 Guys appear to be the weak ones. Economic War is Hell.
@@pwp8737 Many of the Draftees that Kyiv sends to the Front, may be Russian relatives that the Russian Military is not so eager to kill? Russia with a couple million Reserve Troops, appears to deliver a very small portion of their Military strength to defending their Border from the NATO attack. The term, "Full Scale Invasion" that Politicians and Pundits use, appears to be a major exaggeration?
I'd like to point out the Napoleon syndrome here and its limits -- Putin (a short man) underestimated the leadership of Zelensky (an even shorter man).
@@j.obrien4990 Any assumption of Zelenskyy as a Leader who makes Policy moves, appears to overlook Victoria Nuland working that stick and string that moved the Comedian's Noggin and lips, to say what Wall Street wants to hear, seems vastly overblown? Putin as an Analyst, saw Victoria Nuland coming 30 years ago when the Clinton's hired Her. Russia had time to prepare, and the USA lost too much to corruption. The Russians are patiently pulverizing the Kyiv Military, as well as any incoming Airplanes. Napoleon left the majority of the Grand Army of the Republic, along the Road back to Paris, clutching their Booty to their frozen Bodies.
@@danielheckel2755Really? The Middle East seems more attempting to counter U.S. influence and support Iran. It's logical to me. Africa is neocolonialism by establishing 'allies' willing to support and pay for the presence of a loyal military unit, who will cause more trouble than they're worth if they stop liking you. EDIT: I do agree Crimea seems dumb, as Russia had seemingly a strong presence even without owning Crimea directly, but it's still far more logical than the full-on invasion of Ukraine
It's funny, that in August 2021 Putin actually published a long article about Russian-Ukrainian relations. Any expert could read it to try to understand what is in Putin's mind. It looked like almost nobody cared.
@@danielheckel2755 nothing really tops Ukraine and the big problem with all of the above is that he didn't receive any significant push back on any of it so in his mind why not Ukraine, what will the West do about it, he will take it within a short period overtake the government. The West will be annoyed by it slap some sanctions for a while and then go back to normal. It was a gross mistake to think that
Totally agree that it's appropriate to point out incorrect versus correct reasoning and understanding. By way of analogy, the people who got it wrong could be compared to a search party member trying to find a missing person. It would be bad enough to miss critical signs of footprints, but even worse to clumsily trample all over the prints while claiming there are no signs in the area to be found.
As an observer born in 1942 I knew about Ukrainian nationalism because I knew about Stalin’s slaughter of the Kulacks , and that I had been reading Alexander Dugan and understood that many highly intelligent Russians just simply could not see Ukrainians as anything other than a subject people. It certainly surprised me when the Ukrainian people backed Zelinski so strongly and competently. I understood the limitations of the Russian military from studying the military history of Russia from Bonaparte on. The Russian failure in WW1 seems soberingly similar to the current failure. Academically the overconfidence in Russia and Putin is reminiscent of the way the Cold War rivalry was taught at Columbia in the early 60s as simply two rival forms of economic organisation which were presented as somehow equal. I think seeing Communism or Putin as simply rational actors misses too much of the complex factors such as self delusion, ambition and the drive for power and control.
It is not unrelated that Stalin systematically repelled or murdered the smartest people in Russia for decades. There was some relief from Khruschev forward, but then V. Putin started doing it again. Is it any wonder that Russia is generally stupid?
Both Socialism and Capitalism are based on some critically false assumtions of human nature, so it's easy to dismiss them as equals. Yet, the way the assumptions are wrong and - most importantly - what that deviation from reality leads to is very different in each system, as history proves.
Well looking at us I still wonder if we in the west did not only failed to understand Putin but might also overestimate our capabilities to properly support Ukraine…
@@worldpeace1822 No, the US has VAST stocks of Abrams tanks and every other sort of thing Ukraine wants. An order of magnitude more that Ukraine has been given would be no problem if Washington really wanted to defeat Russia in Ukraine. But it doesn't..
Many people from countries neighboring Russia have been sounding the alarm about Russia for a long time, but their warnings were ignored, or even laughed at. In my view, the core reason Western "experts" misread Russia is that they don’t truly listen to those who understand Russia. Heck, they don't even listen Russians when they tell in no uncertain terms what they're going to do. The "experts" cling to their preconceived theories that fit neatly into their worldview, and anything outside of that is dismissed or unseen. Essentially, they’re blinded by their own assumptions about how things operate. They won’t even entertain the idea that they’ve never fully understood the subject of their study. Personally, I stopped paying attention to figures like Galeotti, Mearsheimer and others alike long ago. They exist in a bubble of their own making, detached from the realities of the world.
It's a sign of intelligence, that when faced with new facts, that you have to change your world view and adapt to those facts. Unfortunattely many people, including scholars, seem to try to defend their own world view at any cost, ignoring facts they don't like and coming up with excuses, when their own expectations and predictions obviously don't match reality anymore.
I think that you get to bragg. Your work, over the past couple of years, is among the most insightful out there. Bravo! Also, thanks for showing Mearsheimer at his finest.
It’s funny. I remember a discussion at our local pup just before Russia invaded Ukraine, we all thought that Putin would invade and we also all thought that Ukraine would be no pushover. and would fight Russia to the end. Most of the “experts” were telling us that Putin was only saber rattling, that he would never invade but if he did it would be all over within a week or two. None of the regulars of the local pub is an ‘expert’ we are just ordinary English men and women who tend to rely on our own judgement rather than the so called experts.
There is a saying here in Germany, an expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until he finally knows everything about nothing. Tell your mates someone in Germany raises a glass for them.
I remember our professor polling us on the matter in political science class and most of my course mates thought it was saber rattling and a bluff too. Perhaps the fault of those flawed international relations theories that Anders mentions as being taught to people - Mearsheimer is one of the people whose work we studied as well. He's a complete hack.
I don’t know what “experts” thought he wouldn’t invade but Ukraine would fall if he did. The main logical argument for it just being sabre rattling was exactly that there would be no way for Russia to defeat Ukraine, much less rule over it for any length of time. Saying he could easily conquer Ukraine but he wouldn’t do it because “reasons” seems extremely illogical.
One thing that baffled me was why Russia had so few troops? I looked at the numbers and it was clear that 190k troops CANNOT take a country of 40 million IF the 40 million seriously fight back. I knew that for Russia to “win” Ukraine would need to collapse without serious resistance like the ANA or Russia would need way more manpower and resources. It seemed weird to me that the international consensus was that Russia could win so quickly.
Common sense is not common in academics. I know a PhD who tried to clean the snow of his wife's car with a snow shovel. Didn't turn out well for the car. I admittedly thought it was a bluff until US intelligence said there were field hospitals erected and being supplied with real blood, a very perishable item. That clinched it for me.
Anders, yes, you nailed it on this one, in autumn 2021 and very precisely in January 2022, even the exact time of the invasion (which in the last moment was postponed for a few days to urgently repair equipment). For the planned start you were spot on.
As a dutch navy veteran, I must say you were accurate on your analysis back then. Weird enough the signs show many similarities with the the invasion of Poland by the Germans. (Sudeten Deutschland, ethnic germans, troubles at the border) and still 'experts' believed Russia when saying is was 'just' a practice. I thought then I might draw parralels to easy (...) Therefore, with the knowledge I have now, I fear this is not the end of russian expansion when they succeed in Ukrain. Power makes hungry. (B.t.w. I can speak and read danish, so I am very impressed with your analysis back then) I was already in doubt about Putin when the troubles with the submarine 'Kursk' took place.
Not only were the preparations for the invasions identical, but the circumstances and war goals were also very similar: * Germany wanted to annex parts of Poland, just as Russia wants to annex parts of Ukraine. * Germany aimed to control the remaining parts of Poland, while Russia seeks to control the remaining parts of Ukraine. * In 1939, Poland, trying to defend itself and deter the upcoming invasion, entered into military alliances with Germany's geopolitical rivals (UK & FR), much like Ukraine has been desperate to join NATO to protect itself.
I recall how prior to a US invasion of Iraq, it was just "one of the options on table". Like they were toying with the idea, not making serious plans. It was an abstract toy idea ... till they went and did it. Not disagreeing with you, but noting an odd historical chord.
If someone wants to understand Russia, they should read the history of medieval Russia and the birth of the Tsars of Russia, because nothing has changed in the thinking of the Russian elites from that time.
Its a case of extreme worship of winning leaders (despite other behaviors) and extreme hate of losers. Couple that with the dedication to violence as test of strength, and the Russians seem trapped in the world of empire
Though Putin contributions include seizing the “Third Rome” fantasy and scizo-charging it with gangsterism and mafia management, enabling the rise of private police and military, also accelerating revisionism and post-truth misinformation on a global scale.
It's even more sad because it really didn't have to be this way. Russia is a country which without corruption could be a huge Norway. If Russia had effectivly utilised soft power, mobilised its civilian economy and actually made itself an alternative power I fully believe that they could keep 'control' over Ukraine and its neighbours. Russia dugg their own grave in Crimea
You and Julia Ioffe are the two people that seem to have understood the variables of this war better then many other "professionals". Your insights were critical in adding context for me early in this war. Hope you keep on providing them!
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 not only marked a watershed moment in contemporary geopolitics but also highlighted the stark divisions in predictive analysis concerning the conflict. In the lead-up to the invasion, opinions were split into two primary camps: those who believed Russia would not invade Ukraine and those who did. Among the latter group, there was further division regarding Russia’s potential success. Only a small minority predicted both the invasion and its failure, placing them in a unique position as events unfolded. The Initial Divide: Will Russia Invade? Before the invasion, many experts and political figures expressed skepticism that Russia would launch a full-scale attack on Ukraine. Despite the build-up of troops along Ukraine’s borders and persistent warnings from U.S. and British intelligence, there were numerous voices that either doubted the likelihood of invasion or believed that it was posturing by the Kremlin. This group was grounded in the belief that Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, would not cross the boundary of invading a sovereign state in Europe in the 21st century. Their reasoning stemmed from several factors, including the potential consequences of severe international sanctions, economic isolation, and diplomatic fallout that would accompany such an aggressive move. This skepticism was bolstered by the view that a large-scale war would be detrimental to Russia’s long-term interests. Analysts pointed to Putin’s history of using hybrid warfare, cyberattacks, and diplomatic brinksmanship, rather than direct military aggression, to achieve his objectives. Additionally, many in this camp believed that Russia could extract concessions from Ukraine and the West through coercion rather than outright war  . The Second Divide: Russia Will Invade, but Will It Succeed? Among those who predicted that Russia would invade Ukraine, there was another significant division regarding the outcome of the invasion. Many analysts, particularly in military and strategic circles, assumed that if Russia did invade, it would achieve its objectives swiftly. This assumption was based on Russia’s seemingly modernized military, its overwhelming numerical advantage, and its successes in previous conflicts such as in Georgia (2008), Crimea (2014), and Syria. These voices pointed to Russia’s ability to deploy large forces rapidly and believed that Kyiv would fall within days, if not hours, of an invasion. Western intelligence even warned that Russia had positioned 175,000 troops along the Ukrainian border in preparation for a full-scale assault  . However, a minority within this camp held a different view. They predicted that while Russia might invade, it would not succeed in its goals as easily as expected. This group questioned the true effectiveness of the Russian military, suggesting that while Russia had modernized on paper, much of its supposed military prowess was exaggerated. Analysts in this camp pointed to institutional corruption, poor command structures, and overestimation of Russia’s logistical capabilities as weaknesses that could hinder its success in a prolonged conflict . These voices were often drowned out by the consensus that Russia’s military might was formidable and that Ukraine, with a much smaller military, could not mount a significant defense. The Correct Minority: Predicting Both the Invasion and Its Failure In hindsight, the group that both correctly predicted Russia’s invasion and foresaw its difficulties in achieving success stands out as a rare and insightful minority. These analysts combined a deep understanding of Russian military weaknesses with an appreciation of Ukraine’s determination and evolving defense capabilities. They recognized that while Russia could mobilize a large number of troops, its military strategy would be undermined by a range of factors, including: 1. Ukrainian Resistance: Ukraine’s military had been significantly bolstered since 2014, with Western training, intelligence, and equipment. Analysts in this camp foresaw that Ukraine’s military, backed by its citizens, would not fold easily. Ukraine had prepared for such an invasion for years, and volunteers quickly mobilized to defend key strategic points, like the airfield near Kyiv, which prevented Russian paratroopers from seizing the capital early on  . 2. Russian Military Shortcomings: The minority that predicted Russia’s failure also highlighted the Russian military’s systemic issues, such as poor logistics, ineffective command structures, and corruption. They noted that Russia’s ability to execute complex operations was overestimated, and its reliance on outdated Soviet tactics would prove inadequate against a motivated and adaptive Ukrainian defense  . 3. Western Support: Though Ukraine was outmatched in terms of military size, this group correctly anticipated that the West would provide crucial support. While NATO forces did not intervene directly, Western intelligence, equipment, and economic sanctions were pivotal in sustaining Ukraine’s defense and weakening Russia’s military campaign . Conclusion The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has been a study in miscalculation and the limitations of conventional military analysis. The majority of experts either doubted the invasion would happen or believed Russia would easily overwhelm Ukraine. However, a small minority correctly predicted both the invasion and Russia’s failure to achieve its objectives. This group understood that the dynamics of modern warfare, national resilience, and the complexities of military capabilities cannot always be discerned from troop numbers or equipment inventories. Their insights now serve as a crucial lesson in strategic analysis, showing the importance of questioning assumptions and examining not just the surface-level strengths of an adversary but also the deeper, often hidden, weaknesses that can undermine even the most formidable forces.
Thank you, Anders Puck Nielsen, for this very helpful perspective. It is quite annoying that those persons still don't understand and fuel the discourse with their wrong assumptions. 🇺🇦 Перемоги та миру всім українцям! 🇺🇦
I can tell that this wise speech is the best explanation of what in fact going on (and why) between Russia and Ukraine, what I until now have heard or read. It's perfect for comprehension, and it's priceless as well.
what has mearscheimer been wrong about? the fact that he didn't predict just how serious the russians were? he has been warning that russia doesn't bluff and has repeatedly pointed out the red lines that russia has drawn and criticized our foolish and arrogant and short-sighted leaders that underestimated russia and that thought that they could expand NATO right up to russia's border and bring in everyone and their grandma without any consequences including countries that nobody really intends to defend, and that they would never have to fight over these places because russia wouldn't do anything. turns out he was one hundred percent correct about that. and then he was correct that ukraine had absolutely zero chance of militarily defeating or outlasting russia and should have taken the istanbul deal that offered excellent terms considering the circumstances. or at least been smart enough to see that they had peaked back in the closing months of 2022 and that it could only go downhill from there since russia was clearly setting everything up to be able to come back and finish them off, and that the difference in power between russia and ukraine would only continue to grow as ukraine gets weaker and weaker until they eventually end up being totally incapable of stopping the russians anymore. and this is exactly what we have seen playing out over the last year and a half. russia outnumbers ukraine 6 to 1 and outguns them 10 to 1 and outproduces all of us by a factor of nearly 5 to 1 and outperforms ukraine in every single metric both on and off the battlefield. and we are now seeing the consequences of that as ukraine now finds itself on the verge of collapse. you think buddy here and his super duper general ben hodges and institute of war studies television general jack keanes and other little hall of shame buddies with their ghosts of kiev and super duper game-changing sieges of crimea and victory beach parties and "ukraine will defeat russia.. any minute now, yep yep!" were right about anything?
I was wondering what his prediction on the invasion had been. He did say he had predicted Russia would easily win along with most analysts, so I guess he was "half right".
@@darrenmclaughlin1362 The basis of his prediction is what's most interesting. He argued that based on russia's terminal demographics they must achieve defensible geography before they don't have enough young men to have a viable military. He was spot on.
Yeah, he was half right - because he predicted Russia would win easily and quickly. He was shocked at how much corruption had weakened the Russian military.
One of Putin's (aka the mastermind) misconceptions before the full scale invasion involved the West's reaction once he sent his troops into Ukraine. This was based on his views and his experience with central European states, Germany in particular - since he considers himself an expert on Germany. He would have ruled out any move by Germany against Russia. Given the economic ties and Germany's dependencies on Russia's fossile fuels, a weak and soft German govt. would not cut ties with Russia entirely, it could not be done, it would be economically suicidal. So Putin thought. And as a consequence, the West's response after Feb. 2022 wouldn't really hurt Russia. Some superficially harsh sanctions which would be looking good on paper, maybe, but only for a limited period of time. Something like Crimea 2.0; And with Germany taking a 'neutral' stance in this conflict, again, other EU countries would be more than happy to follow, like Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, maybe France. Certainly not Poland and the Baltic states, most probably not The Netherlands and Denmark, but those rifts inside EU and NATO would also play out in Russia's favour. In fact, it took the German govt. a couple of days to sort things out (while they were offering to send those 5.000 helmets to Ukraine) and then the 'Zeitenwende' was announced. And this came as a surprise - not just for me. I bet Putin never imagined this - and that Germany would become the second biggest supplier of *military* and financial aid after the US.
It did turn out to be pretty suicidal for German industry (not that I don't appreciate their help to Ukraine, mind you) although I'm not sure if that's only due to Europe's dependence on car manufacturing that is now undermined by China.
For the media, the definition of an expert is - A person that will answer the phone early morning so the quote can hit the morning news.
They also want to have a "take" that sells
Ex is a term for a 'has been', a spurt is a drip under pressure. Combined you get expert😊
And for me it's a person who will predict heavy rains for the weekend, and call us on Monday to explain why the weather was sunny.
@@OhFishyFishthat’s because the weather has become far harder to predict because of the worsening effects of climate change
For me, the definition of a smart-ass is some random dude in YT comments who think they can do a better job of running a media organisation.....
When you are right you are right, take the credit Anders. You are the most accurate commentator on this stupid war, thank you for your efforts.
Is he now? I like to go watch his old video to laugh about what he predicted😂😂😂😂😂
It is strange to assume a RUclipsr who works as a low level analyst in a small country would be the most accurate analyst of a conflict attracting hundreds of billions of financing by NATO
@@toto-yf8tcyes yes yes tow the line comrade
@@toto-yf8tcPlease educate us on what he got wrong Ivan, and what Putin got right. I won't be holding my breath for your response
@@davidjb3671if you get a credible answer you will make history. 😂😂😂😂😂
@@Statueshop297challenge accepted. Debunking Anders is the easiest thing though. Are you so brain washed you can't go back on his channel and see? BRB.
You are absolutely right. Mistakes need to be openly discussed to improve.
Yeah, but I'm not sure that "I was right, you were all wrong" is the right context in which to discuss that.
@@beeble2003 Well, the people - like Mearsheimer - who were wrong, seem unwilling to discuss it. So it means the people who were right are the ones who need to bring it up.
There are , beside Putin's miserable assessment of Russia's and Ukraine's potential, also biographic factors like his ideologic education in the Soviet school system, fading memories about the catastrophic consequences of WW II vs. mounting glory and admiration of Stalin's "genius" and last but not least Putin's biographic desire to "finish the job" Ukraine/restoring former glory as long as it's physically possible for him turning 70 and getting a favourable position in future Russian history books. These personal motifs and biographic background shouldn't be underestimated.
The main reason is Western fake news and left-wing extremism a like. Similar today, the 2014/2015 connection of refuges, war in Ukraine and also weak Western politics made it easy, that real news about that were not published. Instead you had populism from left and right.
@@d.k.6335 This is more true for the Eastern Europeans, because they were "free" and therefor to be influenced. In Russia, they never became that free, so it was easy to control as the Western powers (US/UK) especially upliftet Russia after 1990, and also kept them out of Europe. Putin then played the book, that while the bad West doesn't want him in, he would play along and would help, but that didn't happen either with the war in Ukraine and politization of energy, and support of terrorism and China. Mearsheimer was right here, but he was downplayed by mass media and also the alarmism towards Russia came from a weak and not overall assessment, and made it easy for left-wing or fake news.
John Mearsheimer in August 2022 : "Putin did not invade Ukraine to conquer it" a month later Putin formally annexed four more territories in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Why is he so prominent?
@FunkySpaceLord Conquering usually means taking over the whole country so I'm not seeing a contradiction.
In fairness he's correct: Putin didn't invade Ukraine to conquer it, he invaded it to turn it into a Belarus-esque client state, to humiliate NATO and the EU, and to return Russia to "superpower" status. It's only when all that failed that he annexed some territories to try and save face.
Mearsheimer is an idiot!
@@mitchyoung93 Wrong!
John Mearsheimer in Feb 2022: "Putin has no reason to invade Ukraine, he doesn't need to, he's already won." Mearsheimer in 2023: "The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a rational act."
For those wondering, the latter is the title of an article/book chapter Mearsheimer wrote, which was published by Yale University Press. How people (including those at prestigious universities) take this guy seriously I do not understand. His theory of politics involves ignoring the role of ideology, emotion, and incomplete/inaccurate information in decision making. In other words, he removes the essence of politics from his theory of political action. Can anyone think of a single political figure, current or historical, who was entirely unaffected by those factors?
I have similar issues with Mearsheimer. His entire school of thought seems to be essentially an exercise in the selective, retroactive steelmanning of policy decisions. It seems to be a de facto assumption that states cannot perform irrational acts. In his thinking, if a state takes an action which seems on its face irrational, it must instead be an action whose rationale we don't understand. This model may or may not be more-or-less accurate when applied to states whose decision-making processes are more distributed. This is obviously not the case with Russia. Putin has near absolute power, which is advantageous in the sense that he can make final decisions without cutting through too much red tape. The downside is that this absolute power is also absolute fallibility. Where more distributed power structures have more voices that can be added to the mix, a pure vertical of power, as is the case with Russia, has no checks nor balances when an autocrat is hell-bent on making a poor decision. Seemingly, Mearsheimer cannot imagine this.
The problem, I think, is that Mearsheimer doesn’t understand Putin’s goals, as a defensive realist, he saw that Russia had everything they could have wanted for their national defense. Under that assumption, why would Russia invade Ukraine, what do they gain? And the answer is control of Ukraine, that’s Putin’s goal. Putin is a rational actor, but he’s trying to do something that’s not to just ensure the survival of the nation, and that doesn’t fit into Mearsheimer’s narrow framework.
He is, I suspect, deliberately naive when it comes to Putin's aims and motives. He tends to believe what the kremlin says, because thats what he want's to hear.
Absolutely, Mearsheimer is basically a glorified conspiracy theorist. He cherrypicks what he likes and builds narratives from it -- because something looks like it could be and suits his needs, here you go.
@@diepie5144In fact he is using almost exact Russian propaganda points: "Ukrainian Nazis", "CIA coup in Kyiv", "NATO encirclement", "not one inch East" etc. And in essence each grievance for Russia is real, it just have to be translated "Ukraine doesn't exist"; "popular uprising for the EU" and losing president they could influence directly; "former Eastern Bloc countries should remain open to our power projection" and so on
Even after Russia tried and failed to capture Kyiv, Mearshimer said with a straight face that Russia never intended to take Kyiv
Some people I've had the displeasure of interacting with are still convinced that it was a feint. Because Russia can never fail by definition.
@@tinylazer ruzzia is consistently investing in their image. this conviction is carefully worked on.
if i am not mistaken its their idea of hybrid warfare
That guy is a joke without an ounce of dignity, shame or self awareness. He reminds me of another admirer of Putin and his strategic "genius".. You may know him as an unrepented liar, self absorbed Army dodger and an insurrection instigator... To his friends he's known simply as Donnie.. To the rest of us as the Orange Buffoon.
Did they have the soldiers to do it?
@@SpiderDiscord how does it matter? The fact they tried to take capital and bragged they'd conquer it in 2-3 days on state TV primetime proves it was always the intention. Being delusional about your power doesn't change that fact.
"I'm Scandinavian, and we don't like to brag, buuuuuuut...' got me laughing out loud. Good on you for owning it. It's what it takes when facing down the irrationally confident.
Professor Jonathan Haslam, author of a large book on the subject says Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were the main NATO members insisting peace would be secured by Ukraine becoming a full member of NATO, but Denmark was the foremost advocate for Ukrainian membership of NAT0 among West European countries, and it pushed hard for military cooperation with Ukraine in peacekeeping operations all over the globe to qualify it as a NATO partner. What the Russians might think was behind all this was not much considered. The suspicion was mutual nevertheless; as Mearsheimer says countries can never be certain of each others intentions, or of what those intentions might become.
Sorry, but if he's going to claim to be right, he should release the article from behind the paywall.
@@oliversissonphone6143 _Zelensky_ didn't think Russia was actually going to do it.
Probably Not his decision to make
There had been a war in Donbass since Russia invaded in 2014.
Its incredible how much attention John Mearsheimer gets despite the fact that his analysis of the Ukraine situation is a complete failure
He says what the pro-russia crowd wants to hear.
Well he is a Semite, so it's natural for him to worship a country like Russia.
What did you expect from someone with a name like Mearsheimer
Mearsheimer used to be a well respected academic icon. Now he’s just a talking head for Kremlin talking points. The Kremlin has Kompromat on him.
@@MarkSullivan_xyz Nah, the Kremlin didn't need to do anything, it was in his genetic and cultural nature.
Respect to you and Ben Hodges for making the right calls.
@@dark6c159 Do you know what the word *can* means?
Ben Hodges? 😂 He’s been dead wrong since the invasion started.
@@thomasbaader6629 Hodges was so right at the very begining about the invasion not working, but since then he has been completely unrealistic about the big picture. Like all these guys he has been conditioned to see the Russians as the main threat. They are not and moreover will be needed as allies against a future mega power China. Trouncing Russia using Ukraine as a cat's paw would be relatively easy, but counterproductive in the long term
@@dark6c159Number 1 looks pretty unlikely, but 2 and 3 are still on the table - you'll be crying for a different reason then maybe?
@@Lien-ke7xcnot at all. He was totally right. Russia lost this war already in 2022. I feel you do not understand what loosing means. Even if Putin would be able to conquer Ukraine fully he has lost his original goal to push back NATO to the 1991 border.
I am remined of Vlad Vexler saying that by attempting to predict a state's actions without looking at the internal functions of the state, Realist theorists are effectively trying to judge the quality of a restaurant by looking at photos of it on google maps
I had the same thought!
As a political scientist, I'd say the google maps photo method has a better success rate. Realism tends to reject any kind of complexity generally due to its anarchic presumptions.
I remember Vlad Vlexer trying to explain Russia from 19 century book 😂 What you guys are trying to say actually?
@@pieterfaes6263what kind of predictions have realists made successfully? If they missed Ukraine then what’s the point their approach?
@@eliasross4576 The main purpose of political science isn’t to make predictions. I know, it’s got “science” in the name, so one might come to this misunderstanding quite easily. Political science isn’t science and is not great at making successful predictions consistently.
Mearsheimer’s biggest weakness is his inability to accord agency to non-superpower or great power countries. Mearsheimer likes to see geopolitics as grand manichean struggles, and everyone else are chess pieces.
That’s how Mearsheimer can blame the U.S. for Russia’s invasion. In his mind, the U.S provoked the attack.
I am a retired officer from an Eastern European NATO country. We are telling our Western partners since the '90s: "do not trust Russia! Sooner or later they will start marching to the center of Europe. We have to be prepared!"
Their answer was always: "you are paranoid. They will see the advantages of Western democratic society and in time they will change. Let's invite them to NATO as observers, let's train together, let's be friends!"
Now, the whole West is "surprised"???? Because you don't listen!!!!
You are good at copy/paste , I have seen your post many times
Unfortunately they still do not believe partially because of big ego and partially because they are in state of shock and panic .
@@Ikkeligeglad SO what ? I repeat relevant posts like that instead of typing them out again. He does the same.
Putin was open about his intentions since his speech at Munich conference 2007. People on the west just thought he does not believe what he says. But actually every other ordinary Russian thoughts the same way. They are obscessed with war.
@@Ikkeligegladwhere did he did this copy/paste?
Please tell me I need to support him there to ❤
As soon as Lavrov said "we have no plans to invade Ukraine" it became a certainty in my mind. (I even made a meme about it using Baghdad Bob saying the Russians have no plans to invade Ukraine) since it was laughable that this huge build up was going on with no plans. I posted THAT on Feb 11 2022. I think by then it was pretty obvious.
“This matter will be resolved on the battlefield”. - Lavrov. If that does not tell the world what sort of animal we are dealing with here nothing will.
Kind of like Walter Ullbricht saying "Niemand habe die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten" (Noone is going to build a wall) a short while before the Berlin Wall was built.
@@Thesecret101-te1lm Really Just my thought a few minutes ago! Walter Ulbricht did exactly the same "inverted prediction" in 1961.
Actually, it is now pretty clear that Lavrov himself did not know about the invasion until it happened. Putin kept it very close to his chest until the last minute. That is why analysts like Mark Galeotti got it wrong, because they relied on intel from their sources in Russia and they all told him that there would be no invasion. They were not lying, that was the truth as they knew it at the time.
A bit like James Baker saying after re-unification of Germany that NATO would not move one inch to the east.
As a ukrainian, it's very pleasant for me to see that there are people on the West who understand what's going on, and spreading the information.
Thank you!
Let's face it. Ukraine never mattered to other than Ukrainians. But with or without recognition they must preserve their land and their identity.
@@cargocat1 Not true. Ukraine is VERY important to "the west" and will be an extremely wealthy country. Due to vast deposits of rare metals like lithium, cobalt etc Ukraine is going to be the new "Saudi" supplying these to the green energy sector. I believe a key reason for russias invasion was to control these deposits as russian economy is highly oil based and demand for oil is decreasing
@@duncansmith7576 Nah, Russia lacks the technology to even properly exploit its own oil and shale reserves. The massive investment required to develop a lithium mining industry is completely beyond Russia
@cargocat1 Incorrect, Ukraine for decades has been a strong NATO Ally and their Forces have assisted the West all around the globe.
@@cargocat1 Speak for yourself. Or better yet, don't speak at all.
Danke!
Anders, please keep making predictions and analysis! You are honestly one of the only voices I feel I can trust on Ukraine.
it is very difficult to put your mind into that of a lunatic and irrational mind.
as long as you understand his biases. Anders said in some interview recently that Ukraine *must* win. That's not an analysis, that's nato strategic plan.
@@stststefan
yeah sure
he must predict russia must win.
then that's a russian strategic plan.
@@ursodermatt8809 unbiased coverage means not telling what you (or your benefactors) want to happen, but what's actually happening.
I was looking for an unbiased coverage of the conflict and got dyked by Anders, that's why I'm salty. Is it so wrong to seek actual journalism and analysis without jumping in on one of the camps?
@@stststefan you're wrong. We have different strategic goals, NATO wants war to be limited to Ukraine, and prevent ru federation's collapse. That's their entire plan. Ukrainians OF COURSE want war to be in any country _except_ Ukraine, and we are doing what we can to move it our (see Kursk & drones), also our main goal IS russian collapse, always has been. So that's why West does all it can to provide putin with missile components and block Ukraine from using any. So our strategy is diametrically opposite to corrupt russophile West.
Merkelnomics of "peace through interconnected trade" was a powerfully convincing theory to a lot those who claimed insight as was the delusion that Putin is some sort of hyper-rational actor with a mastery of geopolitics.
I don't want sound to harsh but Germans politics been wrong about a lot of things for well last 70 years
Yeah, it’s very easy to say that from the outside (an i do largely agree), but you have to understand the cultural and internal political situation in Germany and how it has always affected the situation. The Second World War is a dominating factor, and most Germans want nothing more than to prevent it from happening again. This is why Germany is so extremely pacifistic, why Germany never escalates in Ukraine.
Germans, because of their history, are incentivised to pretend that war is due to things such as "economic forces" rather than anything more moral. It's a reassuring idea that if you suffer under a harsh peace treaty and then a bad economic depression then this will effectively take away your free will to act morally. Thus all you need to do to achieve peace is to give more money to the evil dictator (what could go wrong).
German and Russian trade was also booming in 1940.
Unfortunatelly the whole "win-win situation" is western construct. How is it possible for you to win without anybody loosing? Russia had upper hand, they could blackmail resources hungry Europe, they wanted to capitalize this "advatange".
Totally agree with your comments on Mearsheimer.
I also agree, but it sort of felt like picking on the kid with head lice and smells like pee. 😅
@@MarcosElMalo2 the kid could fix his predicament by bathing frequently; it's not like critiquing his hair or skin colour. Stupidity needs to be called out.
A smart man, a moral man would admit errors. Neither Mearsheimer nor Putin can admit error. They must believe they are superior at all times, in all ways, and it is the puny weak others that are wrong. Colossal arrogance is present in both men.
When nuclear threats and terrorist actions don't work, Putin just does more of it, because he can't say "That didn't work."
This is also a core trait of maga and evangelicals: they cannot admit they ever make mistakes or need to change or rethink. They all think alike. Election denial is the same function.
Thanks!
The problem with these analysts is that they think they’re studying Russia, but very few of them speak Russian, understand the Russian mentality, or have direct experience interacting with Russians. They absolutely have no understanding of Ukraine at all, neither now nor in the past. These Western experts perceive Ukraine entirely through a Russian lens, which is flawed because it’s imperialistic. When I read what that Professor Mershchamer believes, it makes me laugh. It’s just nonsense from someone who doesn’t really understand what they’re talking about. It’s ridiculous.
Doesn’t that apply to Anders as well yet he correctly predicted the nvasion and that it wouldn’t go well.
Agree - it is surprising how many of these so called experts have no understanding of Ukrainian history and how Russia is viewed by their near neighbours.
They have their own fantasy r&$@a with Tolstoyevsky and ballet. While in reality it's closer to Green Elephant that fetishes Fallout in an unhealthy way.
Russia behaves like an eternal bully, admittedly a very unscrupulous bully. The basic principles of how a bully behaves should be familiar to anyone who has ever attended a public school.
You cannot like Putin have any part of Ukraine including Crimea he has to go back to his original border and start paying to rebuild and whatever other sanctions they put on this f****** moron
Interesting analysis. Few assumptions I think Putin made going into 'special operations' which did not pan out
1) Assuming that Germany, and in general Europe would be neutral, especially as Europe has big dependence on Russian gas
2) Underestimating resistance by Ukrainians (which is covered here) and overestimating support for Russian "liberators" in Ukraine
3) Assumption that China, Iran, North Korea, and India's support would significantly help if the invasion took longer than days/weeks
4) Overestimation of quality of Russia's conventional arms defense
5) Assuming that the west would tread very lightly given catastrophic risk of nuclear escalation even if odds are low
6) Discounting unpredictability of private mercenaries like Wagner
Hindsight is 20/20, but general theme of strategic failures have been a) not paying attention to worse case scenario(s) and b) not having an exit strategy if things were to go very wrong.
They were right on 1), 3) and 5), West is STILL blocking Ukraine from striking enemy bases inside their country, and Germany, Hungary and USA are blocking everything they can from Ukrainians to make sure ru doesn't collapse. Also every Ukrainian is jealous of the allies ru got, North Korea alone supplies more shells than entire NATO combined, I WISH we had support even half as good as enemies get from Iran, China, EU etc.
Agreed. Plus underestimating the extent and damage of corruption within Russia and the general idea that “democracies are weak and unwilling to make series sacrifices.”
Assuming Zelensky would flee the country.
Assuming Europe would not reduce ruSSian gas imports.
@@darshanaiyengar So you are by watching Anders assumed that Russia is defeated?
@@ethank5059 Nobody is willing to make serious sacrifices when opponent is real tough peanut, not banana republic led by hated leader from ethnic minority these are easy preys. Russia was always different.
You give the best analysis on the war against Ukraine 🙌💪
😮
😂😂😂😂😂
he's good, but dr yaron brook is better imo
Not by a longshot.
Because he says what you like to hear, what feels comfortable to you
Brilliant Analysis, Anders. When people talk about empathy, what they really mean is often compassion. But that is really only one side of it, and people often neglect to talk about the other one, because it's a much darker one. Some people really do have bad intentions, some people really don't care about the well-being of others, some people really won't listen to reason, and understanding and acknowledging all of that is also a form of empathy.
And regarding the bragging, we should never forget the wise words of Muhammad Ali: “It's not bragging if you can back it up!”
LOL! Finally Mearsheimer's nonsense is addressed. He's an obvious pro-Russian apologists in every single interview he's in. Glad Anders addressed this finally.
In 1994 Mearsheimer published an article in which he opined that Ukraine would need their own nuclear deterrent to Russia. You can judge for yourself how 'pro Russian' his' nonsense' analyses was
@@seancidy6008 That was 30 years ago, and Mearsheimer changed his tune since then. Try to stay current, and don't dredge up crap from decades ago to pretend it connects to today. That is what the Rus trolls do, start talking about the glory days of Russia or the US in Vietnam. These things are not alike or connected.
@@antimatters6283 Which country's leaders ignored Mearsheimer, took money from the West and put it in their personal Swiss bank accounts to leave their country dependent on empty promises from Nato? Not Russia. If the Ukrainians had listened to _Professor_ Mearsheimer there would not have been an invasion of Ukraine. It really is a bit much to BLAME him for a war he tried to prevent.
@@antimatters6283you don’t understand how he views geopolitical power then
I don't think he's a pro-Russia apologist. He's just gotten something very fundamentally wrong. And he doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes, but keeps believing his wrong assumptions like a religion. We all want so desperately to be right, and I don't think highly-regarded experts and academics are completely free of that flaw either.
I have watched your channel for two years, and appreciated all of your commentary on the Ukraine war. This was the most solid, useful, incisive of any of them. Thank you 🙂
you absolutely deserve credit. here in the states we have so many idiots bloviating get things wrong everyday and still called "experts". you have been clear eyed since the begging and a study voice since day one. thank you
This channel is so good. Flott jobbet, Anders
You are the best at analyzing the war in Ukraine. Raise your hand higher Mr. Nielsen, you were and continue to be right, your opinion needs to be heard. It is not bragging, it is pointing up facts. Keep up your excellent work, it´s always a pleasure to hear your opinion.
I am not impressed by "NATO's fault" Mearsheimer, but he reveals an underlying mistake ---------- experts credited Putin with rationality.
Putin's first mistake was surrounding himself by yes men, and then expecting accurate information and good advice.
I don't think you're entirely correct. He probably acted rationally (to a degree) based on the information he had. Unfortunately, you get a massively skewed picture of reality if you surround yourself with yes men who tell you what you want to hear.
they credit him with western rationality, but eastern rationality and especialy the russian one is different.
Why is Mearsheimer considered an expert on Russia and Ukraine anyway? He's been wrong about just about everything.
Pro tip: if an expert blames NATO expansion for Putin invading Ukraine (in 2014 or 2022) then they aren't really experts.
@@charlescze1701 Amen brother.
I just wanna say that this gets wayyy more impressive if you speak Danish. I slowed it down and read the shown parts of the article. Guy basically nailed the entire conflict and its various international ramifications in one paragraph. In an article published 12 days before the invasion even started.
WOW, owning Mearsheimer. Respect😜
Why do people even listen to Mersheimer?
@@elijahFree2000 Mersheimer sounds like a Kremlin spokesman most of the time....
why is this kgb asset still a free man - John Mearsheimer???
@@olenmees9150 A very good question....
Anders, I find your opinions well grounded and, looking from a POV of ex-soviet citizen, spot on. Congratulations on your excellent analysis.
Around 2012, one of my colleagues joked that one day Putin would send the tanks into Ukraine. I laughed and didn't believe him... Until Crimea.
When the Warsaw Pact fell apart, NATO should also have fallen apart logically!!! But Nato, on the contrary, only grew and pushed ever closer to Russia!!! When you pushed Russia to the wall by making Ukraine join NATO and Russia should be a NATO neighbor!!! So finally wake up and don't spread lies here!!! Is Russia pressing on the borders of GB or USA? No!!! The USA already has military bases all over the world and wants to rule the whole world!
some of these predictions are chilling in hindsight. My brother predicted 30 years ago that Viktor Orban of Hungary would just grab attention and power, he wasn't really a democratic person. I laughed him off. Now I had to apologise, big time.
Just because a 10 crazy people predict 10 different ends of the world and one of them turned out correct, doesn't mean he actually new it.
There so many options the future cat have.
I can predict the gender of a future kid with about 50%certainty 😅
@@Ihtiandr13 no, your comparison case is wrong. The correct analogy is to predict a boy, when the doctors, nurses, fortune tellers, and astrology says it should be a girl. In those days, the general consesus was that democracy and peace prevailed over dictatorship and wars, so the odds were not 50:50, but around 1:100000.
You should raise your hand!
I watch 'Krigens Døgn' always, and you are by far the best expert there.
You present the same knowledge here on youtube, always well-reasoned, looking at the issue from several angles and not shy to own your mistakes.
You are an excellent representative of the Scandinavian mindset.
Keep up the good work!
This is the reason why I trust Anders in the first place. He was one of the few analysts who predicted that Russia would invade Ukraine, and that the fighting would be closely matched. At first, I thought he was completely wrong. But after a few months, it turned out he was right all along, and I’ve been following his analysis to understand the war in Ukraine ever since.
Over estimating the ruzzian military was a general problem, not least by putin himself!
yes, otherwise he wouldn't have started the war with almost no preparation
@@traumvonhaiti i think the only think ze jermans were wrong about is america...
without "lend- lease" the soviets were done for..
@@iliaalekov2949 Soviets were never using American equipment and there were never any significant shipments to Russia. It's not true what you're saying. The size of Russia and their ability to handle misery under dictators ended up being impossible for invaders to control. Hitler was a narcissist sociopath like most dictators and his hubris was his failure. Russians are strong willed people, though not to say necessarily in a positive direction.
Yep, ironically the analysts who thought the war would go badly for Russia were wrong, but cleverer than Putin; and the analysts who thought Russia would invade Ukraine were correct, but no cleverer than Putin. Basically, the first group were too clever and thought Putin was as clever as them.
@@phueal The mistake is assuming leaders make good decisions that are good for their country. It's hard to predict a leader would choose to willfully enter a quagmire. But that is always more likely for dictators who don't listen to advice. Putin made a stupid decision and is destroying Russia's future. It's a decision of personal hubris.
“It cannot be stressed enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire [95].”
― Zbigniew Brzeziński, Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power, published 24 January 2012
In the main, Western elites saw what they wanted to see. They did not have a clear eyed view of the mindset of Russia's ruling class. It was cognitive dissonance and expedience that carried the day. Zbigniew Brzeziński, however, fully understood, because he was east European.
Because he was a Pole.
But for a common westerner it is quite impossible to get the russian mentality because of 2 reasons: 1)it is really different, 2)the russians learnt the western mentality and disguise themselves so that the westerners think they are dealing with someone similar to them. BTW there was a westerner who got russians right - a French nobleman marquis de Custine who wrote a book on the topic.
I think it’s much easier to understand the Russian geopolitical mindset when we look back a century. After humiliation of WW1 and the loss of many western territories, the Soviet Union did everything to get them back. After the Soviet collapse, the borders basically returned to the post WW1 borders. This was, is, and always will be unacceptable to Russia. Now I think Russia would’ve been fine with them being independent as long as the economies were close, but that started to fade, and in the case of Ukraine, they are the most significant. So the loss of Ukraine from their sphere of influence was something they could not let go of lightly.
Exactly, and the West started trading with both Russia and China against better knowledge, hoping that thing would not explode too early. Putin har now exploded, and there are still countries trading with Russia in the middle of a war. China will go for either Taiwan or Russias eastern provinces within a few decades.
My personal theory is that Putin has walked westwards from Gerogia, Armenia and Azerbadjan, and simply thought that he had now perfected hit tactics, like similar dictators before him (e.g. Lenin) he think he is a strategic genius while in reality he i stuck in the same violence.
When the puppet regime fell, he tried annexation (this is the direct equivalent to Sudetenland in the 1930s) and "nobody cared". If the red line had not been the things Russia did in central Asia, then the red line should have been Krimea, but it was allowed. So of course he believed it would work, and the logical next step was an invasion. An invasion that might have succeeded if not for the extreme levels of corruption and incompetense in the Russian miliary.
But unlike in 1939, there was not another dictatorial military power to have a pact with.and "slip under the radar".
Another aspect is that Putin is losing power at home, he needed a quick military victory. He failed, but he also knows that the end of the war in Ukraine is the day Vladimir Putin is no longer the tsar of Russia.
When the Warsaw Pact fell apart, NATO should also have fallen apart logically!!! But Nato, on the contrary, only grew and pushed ever closer to Russia!!! When you pushed Russia to the wall by making Ukraine join NATO and Russia should be a NATO neighbor!!! So finally wake up and don't spread lies here!!! Is Russia pressing on the borders of GB or USA? No!!! The USA already has military bases all over the world and wants to rule the whole world! Zbigniew Brzeziński was obsessed with the destruction of Russia, because he was a Polish warmonger, and Poles are still dreaming their wet dreams of Greater Poland!
@@christianmirmo4942 And on the Ukrainian side contemplate the long term effects of Holodomor among other things. Genocides tend to result in polarization. It’s not surprising they are fighting tooth and nail to keep their independence, if one considers the history.
And this is why I subscribe and will continue to subscribe to your newsletter. Thank you for your continued insight on these matters!
17:43 Mearsheimer sounds gleeful as he makes his proclamation.
Agree
Exactly! Mearsheimer is always sooo gleeful about his proclamations. He's always saying that Ukraine is doomed while smiling from ear to ear. I hate that guy.
"The Goyim non-Russians will be exterminated by our glorious Russia!!!" -Mearsheimer, Goodman, Blumenthal, Young, Ritter, etc.
He looks like a man eating his own foot and grunting in appreciation.
Reminds me of Galeotti. He seems to get his own identity wrapped up in analysis. It's weird
"33 years of peace, and it all came down to one man..." As a business analyst I honestly believed that the russians valued money and business more than territory, that war was more expensive than peace, and that Crimea was enough. Even when NATO issued their invasion warning I still didnt believe it. My issue was that I grew up in the Cold War and I didnt want to believe it, as I wanted the Cold War era to remain in the history books.
As someone who grew up during the Cold War, too, I completely get where you're coming from.😐
But Putin was not a business man. He was a wannabe zar. Who saw himself as chosen to "Make Russia Great Again". Unfortunately not by building it with hard work and smart plans for the future, but by stealing border countries. 🤷♂️
They do value money and business, but they think you get money and business from having more territory/land/people. They also don't understand the West, where you make money from trade and create allies and all benefit from the same rules (more or less). Worryingly, Xi is probably of the same thinking as Putin.
as a "business analyst" the actual reasons for capturing most important assets of Ukraine = main goal conquest should be crystal clear
- hint: it is the only perfect form of business
to help you out - to gain energy monopoly over whole Europe , all the rest is just made up fairy tale and warm air
Yes, wishful thinking definitely played a role for many, me included.
It was pretty clear since that munich speech. The west( looking at you germany) just ignored it.
Cheap energy, juicy contracts and wishful reveries on a Russian renaissance warp perspective.
giorgian invasion. that shook me up.
Berlin: WW, 1st try. Russian Revolution n Russian Civil w. Molotov Ribbentro pact n WW, 2nd try. Nord Stream pipeline for Russian natural gas. Berlin is guilty. WW, last try
@@Chrisklown Bullshit. Germany is definitely not guilty for Putin starting that war. In the contrary. Putin underestimated Germany's willingness to cut ties to Russia. If Russia would've known that Germany was able and willing to cut all dependencies to Russia in case of invasion, THAT might have prevented the invasion. No. I say the failure lays with Putin, who, as a KGB man, should have known better.
@@amogorkon polish soviet war. Andropov n master plan. World domination was always the plan
Merschemeir is still in pathological denial
He disappeared for a while after his catastrophically flawed predictions. I suspect that his reappearance is a reflection of another failed prediction --------- he thought that *we* would forget.
@@bellumfallax What do you mean he disappeared? He's been making videos every month since 2022.
Merschemeir was wrong going back to at least 2014. His analysis even with hindsight was wrong.
@@bellumfallax nice one :)
In the 1980s Merschaimer thought that if Germany reunited they would invade Poland… and he calls himself a “realist”
Such wise words. Youre a magnificent analyst. Really enjoy your format, topics and way of presenting.
Godt gået! En anelse selvros er på sin plads i dit tilfælde 🤘🏻❤️
Helt enig med dig der 👍
Når man har ret, har man ret. Ellers har han os til at rose ham lidt mere.
Big like. Tak for endnu en sober og dybdegående analyse med få sætninger. ❤
One thing about Mark Galeotti that Anders probably intended to say but left unsaid: unlike Mearsheimer, Galeotti did acknowledge his mistake in predicting Putin wouldn't invade, and has done a lot of analysis on why he did get it wrong.
Galeotti is certainly one of the best Russian analysts... Partly because he knows he's not perfect. Unlike Mearsheimer (whose sympathies are also questionable).
Galeotti is great, though occasionally slips into “protecting his investment” by defending or downplaying the crimes and history of russian brutality, he seems to keep dark truths at bay whilst staying an excited voyeur of the “clever” dangers and actions of russia.
Mearsheimer always gets everything wrong.
He is a fool
(ok you made that point later. I was surprised to see someone like him brought up in a video by The Puck)
He's a Russia apologist. I will not blame experts for thinking Russia would not invade, but Mearsheimer has been defending them all this time
I got triggered too 😂
Yep. I figure he is a Kremlin asset or Trotskyite which is basically the same thing. He is consistently "mistaken" and all his "mistakes" just happen to work to Putin's favor. My contact says he's been bribed up with oil money.
I love your dunk on Mearsheimer!!
That geezer irks me
Calling Mearsheimer an expert on anything is wildly generous at best. Dude has been so wrong on so many things. The only reason he's popular is that Tankies love him.
@@johnjingleheimersmith9259tankies and pro-russia fascists both.
I didn’t. It was pathetically catty backbiting from the rear-view mirror.
Why is this fool now babbling about international relations? I thought he was a military analyst? Suddenly he’s mute as Ukraine continues to lose ground on the battlefield.
Absolutely ! ❤
Anders! Thank you for this and all of your videos. You are not just the best source to understand this horrible war, but your analytical skills and methods are deeply inspriring. I watch your videos both to make sense of the war, but also to be inspired on a general level. Thank you!
Having served on the Fulda gap for 4 years, the last 4 years the wall stood. I was trained over and over on how russia would operate. So when all the analysts popped up as notable and recognized experts I gave them one chance to impress me and they failed. Of all the analysts I have seen this channel is the Only one I still watch and have subscribed to. I had no Idea how things would go but was sure of 2 things, it was going to happen and it wouldn't be a short war. And making sure russia looses this war is the only thing staving off the rest of his plans for europe.
Where did you serve?
"The rest of Europe" boogie man. Spooky.
Russia today has both similarities and great differences to the Soviet Union.
I can't think of them like the Soviet Union at the height of it's military power, somewhere after WW II. The ideological underpinning of the Soviet Union is gone, Russians are heavily depoliticized.
Thank you for being always so straight and clear, just like Ben Hodges and Philip Breedlove. Please keep up your great work!
Thank you Anders for your clear and eyeopening dissertation.
Anders most excellent topic…thank you!
Because experts think rationally while dictators think irrationally. History is full of examples of irrational dictators who made bad decisions which made no sense.
...except within their own tiny circles.
Yes, we know that they wouldn't do it if they were in charge, but what Anders is telling us is that those experts failed to take into account what putin was after and what he believed was true. It showed misunderstanding of the Russian perspective, which, being experts they should also account for.
Except they did predict invasion. Various agencies were in Ukraine from a decade, preparing them for such scenario. They only consider it as extremely stupid thing to do, what in fact was extremely stupid thing to do. Of course Russian propaganda claimed it to be brilliant 4D chess move and Western propaganda repeat everything what Russian telegram say about West being surprised.
Correction: because experts think they think rationally ;)
And then project their worldview on someone they think should act rationally
Putin was thinking rationally.
However, first of all, his main goal with Russian invasion was to prevent the collapse of "Russian World", or prevent the "Russian World" from becoming westernized. Russia as it is could not exist with free democratic prosperous Ukraine just beside it. Such Ukrainian example would force Russia to change and Putin to lose his power (and likely his head). So in his view, looking longer term- this is a fight for survival. And Putin was probably right about that.
Second of all- I feel Putin between ~2014 and 2022 succumbed to the disease every emperor suffers. He got surrounded by yes men and he was being fed wildly inaccurate information. First, the capabilities of Russian military were inflated to him. Real situation was highly different due to corruption, and well hidden due to same reason. Second, the capabilities of Ukraine were seriously underestimated in Russia. Third- I believe the willingness of Ukraine to resist the Russian invasion at all were seriously underappreciated in Putin's circles. I remember there being rumors of some FSB officers falling out of windows right after invasion due to a) incorrect analysis b) embezzling billions of dollars that were supposed to be used to bribe key Ukrainian officials not to resist the invasion...
Ultimately, the system in Russia is what doomed this invasion. The system is built on kleptocracy and corruption and lies, and this kleptocracy and corruption and lies made the system and its rulers unable to make well informed decisions. Even if the ruler at the top is rational.
Great perspective Anders, the bubble of Prof Mersheimer really needed to be pricked.
He was extremely controversial on Israel long before Ukraine hit the headlines.
Anders makes some great points with great insight, but he may be over analyzing too. Putin believes he is superior to Western leaders, that he has them all fooled and cowed with his nuclear threats talk. He also still believes he can terrorize the Ukraine civilians into submission, as he did in other nations.
When that isn't true and it doesn't work, Putin is too proud, far too arrogant to admit any error in his thinking. He believes he is right, better, smarter, superior, so he doubles and triples down on the same thing: make more nuclear threats, try to terrorize civilians even more.
His thinking is dangerous, but astonishingly limited and inflexible. And, he ran and was unable to cope when things break his script, like Yevgeny Prigozhin's rebellion.
Problems with militate goals and attack? Don't rethink it, just get more bodies and do it over and over.
This is primitive, dimwit thinking. Putin makes sure no one around him is smarter, and he isn't all that smart himself. He has gotten by based on brutality and threats. When that doesn't work, he has no other ideas.
Now that Mearsheimer was wrong, he's doubling down on why it shouldn't have happened--and how we are "responsible."
Actually the professor was right if you listen what he said .
Every "expert" who has been proven to be wrong - but who doesn't address the fact that they were wrong - should never ever be listened to again on this subject that they claim to be "expert" in. I saw some Lex Fridman episode about Mearsheimer and he (Mearsheimer) acted like he was the biggest expert on the universe on the topic (Russia-Ukraine war), while all I got from it was a big nothingburger. Please stop worshipping these morons.
A Putin shill.
My impression is he is saying Russia will win and the Washington establishment have come to understand that now although it is still a publicly unspoken understanding. The forces Putin had poised on the border in 2022 were totally inadequate for what Putin seemed to expect them to achieve. Now he is using mass effect for lesser objectives
@@pavomrnarevic3900oh behave!! Either your brain cells have taken a day off or you’re a shill for Russia. Which is it?
Very correct assessments from the very beginning! Lots of support to you and your channel. I will keep recommending it!
Im austrian, married to a russian, and we are living in paris after a while in moscow.
I at that time was not aware of anders an his channel. However i also predicted the invasion, against all my russian relatives and friends. Even our ukrainian did not get it. For me the strongest reason was that the "most nearest brothers" took a different path away from the russian thugocraty towards europe. How would the russians reflect on their brothers develop a civic society and prevail ecomically. However, anders, thank you for your content and analysis.
I'm a westerner, who lived in Novosibirsk prior and at the time of the invasion. I also had the same experience as you did. My reasoning was due to observations that I've had throughout the years, which included many of the same observations that Anders has put up here. But what was most incredible, was dealing with my Western friends and family, and how they viewed it, and how they misunderstood the dynamics both at the Kremlin which is not Russia, and in Russia itself. Somebody once said that for there to be war there has to be two mistakes, one on each side. The misreading of the situation both from the Russian and the Western perspective, and honestly the third mistake, the Kremlin's side, was just something that was making me shake my head. That's part of the misunderstanding the world has, the misunderstanding that it's only two sides involved here, it's a multi-part, multi-sided issue. That misunderstanding is still driving policy today
One of the greatest Russian success was their "smoke and mirrors" disinformation campaign on social media and its creation of fake 'institutes for neutrality studies' and its hybrid warfare. They for instance accused Ukraine of being "neo nazi" and fabricated abuse of Russian speakers and made the failure of the Minsk protocols Europes fault when it was they that broked the treies by refusing inspections (which would have revealed Russian agents and military interferance) . The liberal left media is extremely gullible to accusations of "neo nazism" and fall for it without critical evaluation and its equal to calling a woman a witch in the 15th century. Left leaning newspapers, I'm thinking of the Guardina etc, fell entirely for this at the time as most will recall.
-Meersheimers naive theories were promoted by Russian PMC disinformation contractors, corrupted social media creators etc. So Russia full of revanchism and the kleptocratic KGB dictator Putin by nature of all dictators eager to extend his totalitarianism and imperialism were able to disguise their selfish vulgar motives as some kind of anti fascists fight. It's clear now that Meersheimers theories were a case of a clock being right at least once per day rather than a correct methodology. Russia always invades or starts a war for territory every 20-30 years and so any theory can satisfy the event.
Hoping more people see this (and the one reply before mine) as both support Anders' thesis of this video
The idea that a post-soviet "russian" state can throw off the yoke of the kleptocracy, install a genuinely democratically elected government and make progress towards westernization is indeed very scary for the upper levels of Russian society.
Putin could not have a successful democratic country with a similar bloodline and culture, right on his border. Jealousy, vindictiveness, and an overwhelming need to tear down others to build one's self up.
Comment added earlier, I lost it, sorry for a repeat
A great and useful analysis Anders as usual. (I don't always agree)
When the Russian build up happened, I remembered something from Gulf War 1. Someone said 'No one positions 250,000 troops and then DOESN'T invade. Russia didn't have 250k, but enough to prove the rule.
The world will be safer if they fail badly, the West should try to make that happen. Russia's next dictator won't necessarily be more co-operative.
They will be slaves to Chinese influence, from our perspective, that will look really weird.
You speak very well and analytically, I appreciate that greatly.
Your openness is a refreshing contrast to some more biased sources.
This has to be one of your best and most interesting videos to date. Maybe it's my psychology background talking, but I always like it when people point out the failures of assuming rationality while at the same time promoting empathy
Good video, mr Nielsen. One thing that stood out in Mearsheimer's analysis was the idea that a well armed and militarily competent Ukraine would be an existential threat to Russia. And it left me wondering....how??? Russia is a full fledged nuclear power, with the ability to service targets globally with nuclear weapons of various sizes and flavours. How can that country ever be existentially threatened by Ukraine in a conventional sense??
An absurd prospect imo.
Its the US basing offensive capable missiles in Ukraine, and Sevastopol becoming a NATO port that Russia is concerned about.
@@AP-cc1uw Neither of these are existential threats.
@@WindmillStalker Are you stupid? Nuclear capable missiles with a sub 5 minute flight time to Moscow is not an existential threat? So why was the US so concerned about Cuba? We all know what the US would do if China or Russia based missiles in Mexico or any other Latin American country. Immediate war.
The threat to Russia is NOT Ukraine, but the United States and NATO on the territory of Ukraine, which has been turned into a "gray zone"
@@WindmillStalker In this case, the United States should not worry if Russia places its military bases in the United States on the border with Texas...
I went to that particular video on that channel.
Since 2022 the channel is pretty much dead.
And only this video with Mearsheimer has like a million views, while all other videos are in the low 4-digit area.....
And the comments under that video are very suspicious IMO.
I believe many of those comments are from Russians pretending to be Westeners.
Russian bot farms. They can generate thousands of "views" within seconds.
No shit Sherlock... what was your first clue?
Sorry, could not help it. As recently as 2016 I thought all the crazy divisive comments on RUclips and everywhere else on the internet were from actual Americans or actual Westerners, just people with crazy radical political views. I suppose now that maybe 25% or 50% are from Western "useful idiots," but it has been clear to me for a long time there is organized Russian planning behind this and paid professionals carrying out at least 50% of these comments. Not sure how it all works... I always imagine rows of PCs set up in "phone bank" conditions in some poor 3rd World country someplace. I always use the word "troll" myself, but maybe there is more automation behind it, as the term "bot" seems to imply? Or there soon WILL be, I suppose!
Ok. You got me there for a second with that Mearsheimer bit. Was shocked before getting the joke. Good one 😅
US intelligence makes plenty of failures. But in this case, they got it painfully right. Painfully, I say, because too many people dismissed these warnings.
I don't think that us intelligence is get it wrong I think a lot of people in this country don't want to don't want to see the truth
US intelligence got it right on Putin wanting to invade. They didn't get it right on Ukraine's capacity to fight back and to continue to exist as a state.
Great 'crowd sourcing' by the Biden Administration (no offend or defend).
@@Gregoryking-e9q or perhaps its the countless times the intelligence agencies were either wrong or lying - as is their job.
If you trust them, theres no hope for you.
History did not begin on February 24, 2022! The US secret services knew it, because they provoked it themselves! When the Warsaw Pact fell apart, NATO should also have fallen apart logically!!! But Nato, on the contrary, only grew and pushed ever closer to Russia!!! When you pushed Russia to the wall by making Ukraine join NATO and Russia should be a NATO neighbor!!! So finally wake up and don't spread lies here!!! Is Russia pressing on the borders of GB or USA? No!!! The USA already has military bases all over the world and wants to rule the whole world!
Superb episode. Touches upon all the right themes: expertise, groupthink, making excuses, failing to learn from mistakes, false assumptions (especially about rationality), and more.
Useful analysis! Congratulations on your correct prediction.
In addition to underestimating Ukraine, Putin also underestimated Zelensky.
and overestimated his own forces abilities and preparedness.
Putin as an Analyst saw Victoria Nuland coming 30 years ago.
Russia has had plenty of time to prepare for the NATO assault.
The USA on the other Hand appears to have lost a lot of Appropriations ,
to Corruption?
Pentagon Audits reveal the US Funding of Military provisions,
may not be as effective as the appearance of spending was intended?
The G-7 Guys appear to be the weak ones.
Economic War is Hell.
@@pwp8737 Many of the Draftees that Kyiv sends to the Front,
may be Russian relatives that the Russian Military is not so eager to kill?
Russia with a couple million Reserve Troops,
appears to deliver a very small portion of their Military strength
to defending their Border from the NATO attack.
The term, "Full Scale Invasion" that Politicians and Pundits use,
appears to be a major exaggeration?
I'd like to point out the Napoleon syndrome here and its limits -- Putin (a short man) underestimated the leadership of Zelensky (an even shorter man).
@@j.obrien4990 Any assumption of Zelenskyy as a Leader who makes Policy moves,
appears to overlook Victoria Nuland working that stick and string that moved the Comedian's Noggin and lips,
to say what Wall Street wants to hear,
seems vastly overblown?
Putin as an Analyst, saw Victoria Nuland coming 30 years ago when the Clinton's hired Her.
Russia had time to prepare, and the USA lost too much to corruption.
The Russians are patiently pulverizing the Kyiv Military,
as well as any incoming Airplanes.
Napoleon left the majority of the Grand Army of the Republic,
along the Road back to Paris,
clutching their Booty to their frozen Bodies.
My answer: because it was so stupid move, almost nobody thought Putin would be stupid enough.
Russia in Syria, Russia in Crimea, those two together, and every Wagner operation in Africa is a stupid move.
@@danielheckel2755Really?
The Middle East seems more attempting to counter U.S. influence and support Iran. It's logical to me. Africa is neocolonialism by establishing 'allies' willing to support and pay for the presence of a loyal military unit, who will cause more trouble than they're worth if they stop liking you.
EDIT: I do agree Crimea seems dumb, as Russia had seemingly a strong presence even without owning Crimea directly, but it's still far more logical than the full-on invasion of Ukraine
Yes, yet he is still at it and amping ever more up to fight it. Maybe he thinks it is worth any price.
It's funny, that in August 2021 Putin actually published a long article about Russian-Ukrainian relations. Any expert could read it to try to understand what is in Putin's mind. It looked like almost nobody cared.
@@danielheckel2755 nothing really tops Ukraine and the big problem with all of the above is that he didn't receive any significant push back on any of it so in his mind why not Ukraine, what will the West do about it, he will take it within a short period overtake the government. The West will be annoyed by it slap some sanctions for a while and then go back to normal. It was a gross mistake to think that
Totally agree that it's appropriate to point out incorrect versus correct reasoning and understanding.
By way of analogy, the people who got it wrong could be compared to a search party member trying to find a missing person. It would be bad enough to miss critical signs of footprints, but even worse to clumsily trample all over the prints while claiming there are no signs in the area to be found.
As an observer born in 1942 I knew about Ukrainian nationalism because I knew about Stalin’s slaughter of the Kulacks , and that I had been reading Alexander Dugan and understood that many highly intelligent Russians just simply could not see Ukrainians as anything other than a subject people. It certainly surprised me when the Ukrainian people backed Zelinski so strongly and competently. I understood the limitations of the Russian military from studying the military history of Russia from Bonaparte on. The Russian failure in WW1 seems soberingly similar to the current failure. Academically the overconfidence in Russia and Putin is reminiscent of the way the Cold War rivalry was taught at Columbia in the early 60s as simply two rival forms of economic organisation which were presented as somehow equal. I think seeing Communism or Putin as simply rational actors misses too much of the complex factors such as self delusion, ambition and the drive for power and control.
It is not unrelated that Stalin systematically repelled or murdered the smartest people in Russia for decades. There was some relief from Khruschev forward, but then V. Putin started doing it again. Is it any wonder that Russia
is generally stupid?
Halford Mackinder was irrational? Zbigniew Brzezinski was irrational? They thought control of Ukraine was vital.
Both Socialism and Capitalism are based on some critically false assumtions of human nature, so it's easy to dismiss them as equals. Yet, the way the assumptions are wrong and - most importantly - what that deviation from reality leads to is very different in each system, as history proves.
Well looking at us I still wonder if we in the west did not only failed to understand Putin but might also overestimate our capabilities to properly support Ukraine…
@@worldpeace1822 No, the US has VAST stocks of Abrams tanks and every other sort of thing Ukraine wants. An order of magnitude more that Ukraine has been given would be no problem if Washington really wanted to defeat Russia in Ukraine. But it doesn't..
Many people from countries neighboring Russia have been sounding the alarm about Russia for a long time, but their warnings were ignored, or even laughed at. In my view, the core reason Western "experts" misread Russia is that they don’t truly listen to those who understand Russia. Heck, they don't even listen Russians when they tell in no uncertain terms what they're going to do. The "experts" cling to their preconceived theories that fit neatly into their worldview, and anything outside of that is dismissed or unseen. Essentially, they’re blinded by their own assumptions about how things operate. They won’t even entertain the idea that they’ve never fully understood the subject of their study. Personally, I stopped paying attention to figures like Galeotti, Mearsheimer and others alike long ago. They exist in a bubble of their own making, detached from the realities of the world.
Very clear and very interesting. This is helpful in judging ongoing comments from analysts.
Excellent analysis Anders. Agree completely.
It's a sign of intelligence, that when faced with new facts, that you have to change your world view and adapt to those facts. Unfortunattely many people, including scholars, seem to try to defend their own world view at any cost, ignoring facts they don't like and coming up with excuses, when their own expectations and predictions obviously don't match reality anymore.
If reality doesn't respect your model, then reality is wrong and deny it. Many experts act like this, easier than admitting being wrong.
Commonly known as 'cognitive dissonance'.
I think that you get to bragg. Your work, over the past couple of years, is among the most insightful out there. Bravo! Also, thanks for showing Mearsheimer at his finest.
It’s funny. I remember a discussion at our local pup just before Russia invaded Ukraine, we all thought that Putin would invade and we also all thought that Ukraine would be no pushover. and would fight Russia to the end. Most of the “experts” were telling us that Putin was only saber rattling, that he would never invade but if he did it would be all over within a week or two. None of the regulars of the local pub is an ‘expert’ we are just ordinary English men and women who tend to rely on our own judgement rather than the so called experts.
There is a saying here in Germany, an expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until he finally knows everything about nothing. Tell your mates someone in Germany raises a glass for them.
I remember our professor polling us on the matter in political science class and most of my course mates thought it was saber rattling and a bluff too. Perhaps the fault of those flawed international relations theories that Anders mentions as being taught to people - Mearsheimer is one of the people whose work we studied as well. He's a complete hack.
I don’t know what “experts” thought he wouldn’t invade but Ukraine would fall if he did. The main logical argument for it just being sabre rattling was exactly that there would be no way for Russia to defeat Ukraine, much less rule over it for any length of time. Saying he could easily conquer Ukraine but he wouldn’t do it because “reasons” seems extremely illogical.
One thing that baffled me was why Russia had so few troops? I looked at the numbers and it was clear that 190k troops CANNOT take a country of 40 million IF the 40 million seriously fight back. I knew that for Russia to “win” Ukraine would need to collapse without serious resistance like the ANA or Russia would need way more manpower and resources. It seemed weird to me that the international consensus was that Russia could win so quickly.
Common sense is not common in academics. I know a PhD who tried to clean the snow of his wife's car with a snow shovel. Didn't turn out well for the car. I admittedly thought it was a bluff until US intelligence said there were field hospitals erected and being supplied with real blood, a very perishable item. That clinched it for me.
fantastic analysis and break down, well done sir.
Anders, yes, you nailed it on this one, in autumn 2021 and very precisely in January 2022, even the exact time of the invasion (which in the last moment was postponed for a few days to urgently repair equipment). For the planned start you were spot on.
As a dutch navy veteran, I must say you were accurate on your analysis back then. Weird enough the signs show many similarities with the the invasion of Poland by the Germans. (Sudeten Deutschland, ethnic germans, troubles at the border) and still 'experts' believed Russia when saying is was 'just' a practice. I thought then I might draw parralels to easy (...)
Therefore, with the knowledge I have now, I fear this is not the end of russian expansion when they succeed in Ukrain. Power makes hungry.
(B.t.w. I can speak and read danish, so I am very impressed with your analysis back then)
I was already in doubt about Putin when the troubles with the submarine 'Kursk' took place.
Not only were the preparations for the invasions identical, but the circumstances and war goals were also very similar:
* Germany wanted to annex parts of Poland, just as Russia wants to annex parts of Ukraine.
* Germany aimed to control the remaining parts of Poland, while Russia seeks to control the remaining parts of Ukraine.
* In 1939, Poland, trying to defend itself and deter the upcoming invasion, entered into military alliances with Germany's geopolitical rivals (UK & FR), much like Ukraine has been desperate to join NATO to protect itself.
I recall how prior to a US invasion of Iraq, it was just "one of the options on table". Like they were toying with the idea, not making serious plans. It was an abstract toy idea ... till they went and did it. Not disagreeing with you, but noting an odd historical chord.
The best “I told you so” I’ve ever heard
Fantastisk arbejde igen, Anders 💪
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦 🇩🇰 🇺🇦
If someone wants to understand Russia, they should read the history of medieval Russia and the birth of the Tsars of Russia, because nothing has changed in the thinking of the Russian elites from that time.
Its a case of extreme worship of winning leaders (despite other behaviors) and extreme hate of losers. Couple that with the dedication to violence as test of strength, and the Russians seem trapped in the world of empire
Slav by name...
Though Putin contributions include seizing the “Third Rome” fantasy and scizo-charging it with gangsterism and mafia management, enabling the rise of private police and military, also accelerating revisionism and post-truth misinformation on a global scale.
It's even more sad because it really didn't have to be this way. Russia is a country which without corruption could be a huge Norway. If Russia had effectivly utilised soft power, mobilised its civilian economy and actually made itself an alternative power I fully believe that they could keep 'control' over Ukraine and its neighbours. Russia dugg their own grave in Crimea
Let's be honnest... Verry few expert got it right... This makes it even more impressive for those who got it right!
You and Julia Ioffe are the two people that seem to have understood the variables of this war better then many other "professionals".
Your insights were critical in adding context for me early in this war. Hope you keep on providing them!
Very glad I found this channel keep up the good work Anders! 👍
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 not only marked a watershed moment in contemporary geopolitics but also highlighted the stark divisions in predictive analysis concerning the conflict. In the lead-up to the invasion, opinions were split into two primary camps: those who believed Russia would not invade Ukraine and those who did. Among the latter group, there was further division regarding Russia’s potential success. Only a small minority predicted both the invasion and its failure, placing them in a unique position as events unfolded.
The Initial Divide: Will Russia Invade?
Before the invasion, many experts and political figures expressed skepticism that Russia would launch a full-scale attack on Ukraine. Despite the build-up of troops along Ukraine’s borders and persistent warnings from U.S. and British intelligence, there were numerous voices that either doubted the likelihood of invasion or believed that it was posturing by the Kremlin. This group was grounded in the belief that Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, would not cross the boundary of invading a sovereign state in Europe in the 21st century. Their reasoning stemmed from several factors, including the potential consequences of severe international sanctions, economic isolation, and diplomatic fallout that would accompany such an aggressive move.
This skepticism was bolstered by the view that a large-scale war would be detrimental to Russia’s long-term interests. Analysts pointed to Putin’s history of using hybrid warfare, cyberattacks, and diplomatic brinksmanship, rather than direct military aggression, to achieve his objectives. Additionally, many in this camp believed that Russia could extract concessions from Ukraine and the West through coercion rather than outright war  .
The Second Divide: Russia Will Invade, but Will It Succeed?
Among those who predicted that Russia would invade Ukraine, there was another significant division regarding the outcome of the invasion. Many analysts, particularly in military and strategic circles, assumed that if Russia did invade, it would achieve its objectives swiftly. This assumption was based on Russia’s seemingly modernized military, its overwhelming numerical advantage, and its successes in previous conflicts such as in Georgia (2008), Crimea (2014), and Syria. These voices pointed to Russia’s ability to deploy large forces rapidly and believed that Kyiv would fall within days, if not hours, of an invasion. Western intelligence even warned that Russia had positioned 175,000 troops along the Ukrainian border in preparation for a full-scale assault  .
However, a minority within this camp held a different view. They predicted that while Russia might invade, it would not succeed in its goals as easily as expected. This group questioned the true effectiveness of the Russian military, suggesting that while Russia had modernized on paper, much of its supposed military prowess was exaggerated. Analysts in this camp pointed to institutional corruption, poor command structures, and overestimation of Russia’s logistical capabilities as weaknesses that could hinder its success in a prolonged conflict . These voices were often drowned out by the consensus that Russia’s military might was formidable and that Ukraine, with a much smaller military, could not mount a significant defense.
The Correct Minority: Predicting Both the Invasion and Its Failure
In hindsight, the group that both correctly predicted Russia’s invasion and foresaw its difficulties in achieving success stands out as a rare and insightful minority. These analysts combined a deep understanding of Russian military weaknesses with an appreciation of Ukraine’s determination and evolving defense capabilities. They recognized that while Russia could mobilize a large number of troops, its military strategy would be undermined by a range of factors, including:
1. Ukrainian Resistance: Ukraine’s military had been significantly bolstered since 2014, with Western training, intelligence, and equipment. Analysts in this camp foresaw that Ukraine’s military, backed by its citizens, would not fold easily. Ukraine had prepared for such an invasion for years, and volunteers quickly mobilized to defend key strategic points, like the airfield near Kyiv, which prevented Russian paratroopers from seizing the capital early on  .
2. Russian Military Shortcomings: The minority that predicted Russia’s failure also highlighted the Russian military’s systemic issues, such as poor logistics, ineffective command structures, and corruption. They noted that Russia’s ability to execute complex operations was overestimated, and its reliance on outdated Soviet tactics would prove inadequate against a motivated and adaptive Ukrainian defense  .
3. Western Support: Though Ukraine was outmatched in terms of military size, this group correctly anticipated that the West would provide crucial support. While NATO forces did not intervene directly, Western intelligence, equipment, and economic sanctions were pivotal in sustaining Ukraine’s defense and weakening Russia’s military campaign .
Conclusion
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has been a study in miscalculation and the limitations of conventional military analysis. The majority of experts either doubted the invasion would happen or believed Russia would easily overwhelm Ukraine. However, a small minority correctly predicted both the invasion and Russia’s failure to achieve its objectives. This group understood that the dynamics of modern warfare, national resilience, and the complexities of military capabilities cannot always be discerned from troop numbers or equipment inventories.
Their insights now serve as a crucial lesson in strategic analysis, showing the importance of questioning assumptions and examining not just the surface-level strengths of an adversary but also the deeper, often hidden, weaknesses that can undermine even the most formidable forces.
Because they are not experts, they are just labeled by media as such.
Qudos Anders. Keep up the good work.
This is a well thought out video, carefully put together without to much criticism to your peers. Very professional work as always.
Thank you, Anders Puck Nielsen, for this very helpful perspective. It is quite annoying that those persons still don't understand and fuel the discourse with their wrong assumptions.
🇺🇦 Перемоги та миру всім українцям! 🇺🇦
I always find you have the best analysis that aligns most with the reality I see when I try to look into the war
I can tell that this wise speech is the best explanation of what in fact going on (and why) between Russia and Ukraine, what I until now have heard or read. It's perfect for comprehension, and it's priceless as well.
Thanks for sharing your expertise, Anders. Excellent video; food for thought!
How can one person be as wrong as Mearsheimer as often he is😂😂😂
Because Mersheimer is fighting for his legacy
you sing the songs you are paid to sing - Finnish proverb : “you sing the songs of who gives you the bread you eat”
...And still be called an expert
@@olenmees9150 Vlad dishing out his rubles😂😂😂
what has mearscheimer been wrong about? the fact that he didn't predict just how serious the russians were?
he has been warning that russia doesn't bluff and has repeatedly pointed out the red lines that russia has drawn and criticized our foolish and arrogant and short-sighted leaders that underestimated russia and that thought that they could expand NATO right up to russia's border and bring in everyone and their grandma without any consequences including countries that nobody really intends to defend, and that they would never have to fight over these places because russia wouldn't do anything.
turns out he was one hundred percent correct about that.
and then he was correct that ukraine had absolutely zero chance of militarily defeating or outlasting russia and should have taken the istanbul deal that offered excellent terms considering the circumstances. or at least been smart enough to see that they had peaked back in the closing months of 2022 and that it could only go downhill from there since russia was clearly setting everything up to be able to come back and finish them off, and that the difference in power between russia and ukraine would only continue to grow as ukraine gets weaker and weaker until they eventually end up being totally incapable of stopping the russians anymore.
and this is exactly what we have seen playing out over the last year and a half. russia outnumbers ukraine 6 to 1 and outguns them 10 to 1 and outproduces all of us by a factor of nearly 5 to 1 and outperforms ukraine in every single metric both on and off the battlefield. and we are now seeing the consequences of that as ukraine now finds itself on the verge of collapse.
you think buddy here and his super duper general ben hodges and institute of war studies television general jack keanes and other little hall of shame buddies with their ghosts of kiev and super duper game-changing sieges of crimea and victory beach parties and "ukraine will defeat russia.. any minute now, yep yep!" were right about anything?
Peter Zehein predicted the invasion in 2017 and even said "within 5 years russia will invade ukraine" it was exactly 5 years later
I was wondering what his prediction on the invasion had been. He did say he had predicted Russia would easily win along with most analysts, so I guess he was "half right".
@@darrenmclaughlin1362 The basis of his prediction is what's most interesting. He argued that based on russia's terminal demographics they must achieve defensible geography before they don't have enough young men to have a viable military. He was spot on.
duh............................a blind person could see that coming - Can you say NATO? that's the reason.
Yeah, he was half right - because he predicted Russia would win easily and quickly. He was shocked at how much corruption had weakened the Russian military.
@@stevemyers2092 your comment makes no sense. What about NATO? You are on a video about a number of experts whose predictions were wrong..
Flott analys, jag var på den idén i januari.
One of Putin's (aka the mastermind) misconceptions before the full scale invasion involved the West's reaction once he sent his troops into Ukraine.
This was based on his views and his experience with central European states, Germany in particular - since he considers himself an expert on Germany.
He would have ruled out any move by Germany against Russia. Given the economic ties and Germany's dependencies on Russia's fossile fuels, a weak and soft German govt. would not cut ties with Russia entirely, it could not be done, it would be economically suicidal. So Putin thought. And as a consequence, the West's response after Feb. 2022 wouldn't really hurt Russia. Some superficially harsh sanctions which would be looking good on paper, maybe, but only for a limited period of time. Something like Crimea 2.0;
And with Germany taking a 'neutral' stance in this conflict, again, other EU countries would be more than happy to follow, like Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, maybe France. Certainly not Poland and the Baltic states, most probably not The Netherlands and Denmark, but those rifts inside EU and NATO would also play out in Russia's favour.
In fact, it took the German govt. a couple of days to sort things out (while they were offering to send those 5.000 helmets to Ukraine) and then the 'Zeitenwende' was announced. And this came as a surprise - not just for me. I bet Putin never imagined this - and that Germany would become the second biggest supplier of *military* and financial aid after the US.
Now we have the second year of recession in Germany thanks to a goverment which puts foreign interests first.
It did turn out to be pretty suicidal for German industry (not that I don't appreciate their help to Ukraine, mind you) although I'm not sure if that's only due to Europe's dependence on car manufacturing that is now undermined by China.
Very interesting. Failing to learn from past mistakes is not an option.
Absolutely excellent discussion. Thank you
Your continued analyses are excellent. Thank you!