2022.03.19 北约的鲁莽扩张激怒了俄罗斯

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By Invitation | Russia and Ukraine
John Mearsheimer on why the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis
The political scientist believes the reckless expansion of NATO provoked Russia

Mar 19th 2022

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THE WAR in Ukraine is the most dangerous international conflict since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Understanding its root causes is essential if we are to prevent it from getting worse and, instead, to find a way to bring it to a close.

There is no question that Vladimir Putin started the war and is responsible for how it is being waged. But why he did so is another matter. The mainstream view in the West is that he is an irrational, out-of-touch aggressor bent on creating a greater Russia in the mould of the former Soviet Union. Thus, he alone bears full responsibility for the Ukraine crisis.


But that story is wrong. The West, and especially America, is principally responsible for the crisis which began in February 2014. It has now turned into a war that not only threatens to destroy Ukraine, but also has the potential to escalate into a nuclear war between Russia and NATO.

The trouble over Ukraine actually started at NATO’s Bucharest summit in April 2008, when George W. Bush’s administration pushed the alliance to announce that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members”. Russian leaders responded immediately with outrage, characterising this decision as an existential threat to Russia and vowing to thwart it. According to a respected Russian journalist, Mr Putin “flew into a rage” and warned that “if Ukraine joins NATO, it will do so without Crimea and the eastern regions. It will simply fall apart.” America ignored Moscow’s red line, however, and pushed forward to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. That strategy included two other elements: bringing Ukraine closer to the eu and making it a pro-American democracy.

These efforts eventually sparked hostilities in February 2014, after an uprising (which was supported by America) caused Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, to flee the country. In response, Russia took Crimea from Ukraine and helped fuel a civil war that broke out in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

The next major confrontation came in December 2021 and led directly to the current war. The main cause was that Ukraine was becoming a de facto member of NATO. The process started in December 2017, when the Trump administration decided to sell Kyiv “defensive weapons”. What counts as “defensive” is hardly clear-cut, however, and these weapons certainly looked offensive to Moscow and its allies in the Donbas region. Other NATO countries got in on the act, shipping weapons to Ukraine, training its armed forces and allowing it to participate in joint air and naval exercises. In July 2021, Ukraine and America co-hosted a major naval exercise in the Black Sea region involving navies from 32 countries. Operation Sea Breeze almost provoked Russia to fire at a British naval destroyer that deliberately entered what Russia considers its territorial waters.


The links between Ukraine and America continued growing under the Biden administration. This commitment is reflected throughout an important document—the “us-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership”—that was signed in November by Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, and Dmytro Kuleba, his Ukrainian counterpart. The aim was to “underscore … a commitment to Ukraine’s implementation of the deep and comprehensive reforms necessary for full integration into European and Euro-Atlantic institutions.” The document explicitly builds on “the commitments made to strengthen the Ukraine-u.s. strategic partnership by Presidents Zelensky and Biden,” and also emphasises that the two countries will be guided by the “2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration.”

Unsurprisingly, Moscow found this evolving situation intolerable and began mobilising its army on Ukraine’s border last spring to signal its resolve to Washington. But it had no effect, as the Biden administration continued to move closer to Ukraine. This led Russia to precipitate a full-blown diplomatic stand-off in December. As Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, put it: “We reached our boiling point.” Russia demanded a written guarantee that Ukraine would never become a part of NATO and that the alliance remove the military assets it had deployed in eastern Europe since 1997. The subsequent negotiations failed, as Mr Blinken made clear: “There is no change. There will be no change.” A month later Mr Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine to eliminate the threat he saw from NATO.

This interpretation of events is at odds with the prevailing mantra in the West, which portrays NATO expansion as irrelevant to the Ukraine crisis, blaming instead Mr Putin’s expansionist goals. According to a recent NATO document sent to Russian leaders, “NATO is a defensive Alliance and poses no threat to Russia.” The available evidence contradicts these claims. For starters, the issue at hand is not what Western leaders say NATO’s purpose or intentions are; it is how Moscow sees NATO’s actions.

Mr Putin surely knows that the costs of conquering and occupying large amounts of territory in eastern Europe would be prohibitive for Russia. As he once put it, “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.” His beliefs about the tight bonds between Russia and Ukraine notwithstanding, trying to take back all of Ukraine would be like trying to swallow a porcupine. Furthermore, Russian policymakers—including Mr Putin—have said hardly anything about conquering new territory to recreate the Soviet Union or build a greater Russia. Rather, since the 2008 Bucharest summit Russian leaders have repeatedly said that they view Ukraine joining NATO as an existential threat that must be prevented. As Mr Lavrov noted in January, “the key to everything is the guarantee that NATO will not expand eastward.”

Tellingly, Western leaders rarely described Russia as a military threat to Europe before 2014. As America’s former ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul notes, Mr Putin’s seizure of Crimea was not planned for long; it was an impulsive move in response to the coup that overthrew Ukraine’s pro-Russian leader. In fact, until then, NATO expansion was aimed at turning all of Europe into a giant zone of peace, not containing a dangerous Russia. Once the crisis started, however, American and European policymakers could not admit they had provoked it by trying to integrate Ukraine into the West. They declared the real source of the problem was Russia’s revanchism and its desire to dominate if not conquer Ukraine.


My story about the conflict’s causes should not be controversial, given that many prominent American foreign-policy experts have warned against NATO expansion since the late 1990s. America’s secretary of defence at the time of the Bucharest summit, Robert Gates, recognised that “trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching”. Indeed, at that summit, both the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, were opposed to moving forward on NATO membership for Ukraine because they feared it would infuriate Russia.

The upshot of my interpretation is that we are in an extremely dangerous situation, and Western policy is exacerbating these risks. For Russia’s leaders, what happens in Ukraine has little to do with their imperial ambitions being thwarted; it is about dealing with what they regard as a direct threat to Russia’s future. Mr Putin may have misjudged Russia’s military capabilities, the effectiveness of the Ukrainian resistance and the scope and speed of the Western response, but one should never underestimate how ruthless great powers can be when they believe they are in dire straits. America and its allies, however, are doubling down, hoping to inflict a humiliating defeat on Mr Putin and to maybe even trigger his removal. They are increasing aid to Ukraine while using economic sanctions to inflict massive punishment on Russia, a step that Putin now sees as “akin to a declaration of war”.

America and its allies may be able to prevent a Russian victory in Ukraine, but the country will be gravely damaged, if not dismembered. Moreover, there is a serious threat of escalation beyond Ukraine, not to mention the danger of nuclear war. If the West not only thwarts Moscow on Ukraine’s battlefields, but also does serious, lasting damage to Russia’s economy, it is in effect pushing a great power to the brink. Mr Putin might then turn to nuclear weapons.

At this point it is impossible to know the terms on which this conflict will be settled. But, if we do not understand its deep cause, we will be unable to end it before Ukraine is wrecked and NATO ends up in a war with Russia.

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.



应邀参加｜俄罗斯和乌克兰
约翰-米尔斯海默谈为何西方要对乌克兰危机负主要责任
这位政治学家认为，北约的鲁莽扩张激怒了俄罗斯

2022年3月19日



乌克兰战争是1962年古巴导弹危机以来最危险的国际冲突。如果我们要防止战争恶化，并找到结束战争的方法，了解其根源是至关重要的。

毫无疑问，弗拉基米尔-普京发动了这场战争，并对战争的发动方式负责。但他为什么这样做是另一回事。西方的主流观点是，他是一个非理性的、不合群的侵略者，一心想按照前苏联的模式建立一个更大的俄罗斯。因此，只有他对乌克兰危机负有全部责任。


但这种说法是错误的。西方，特别是美国，对2014年2月开始的危机负有主要责任。它现在已经变成了一场战争，不仅有可能摧毁乌克兰，而且有可能升级为俄罗斯和北约之间的核战争。

关于乌克兰的麻烦实际上始于2008年4月的北约布加勒斯特峰会，当时小布什政府推动联盟宣布乌克兰和格鲁吉亚 "将成为成员"。俄罗斯领导人立即做出了愤怒的反应，将这一决定定性为对俄罗斯的生存威胁，并发誓要挫败它。据一位受人尊敬的俄罗斯记者说，普京先生 "大发雷霆"，并警告说，"如果乌克兰加入北约，它将在没有克里米亚和东部地区的情况下加入。它将直接分崩离析"。然而，美国无视莫斯科的红线，并推动乌克兰成为俄罗斯边境上的西方堡垒。这一战略包括另外两个因素：使乌克兰更接近欧盟，并使其成为亲美民主国家。

这些努力最终在2014年2月引发了敌对行动，当时一场起义（得到了美国的支持）导致乌克兰的亲俄总统亚努科维奇逃离了该国。作为回应，俄罗斯从乌克兰手中夺取了克里米亚，并帮助助长了在乌克兰东部顿巴斯地区爆发的内战。

下一次重大对抗发生在2021年12月，直接导致了当前的战争。主要原因是乌克兰正在成为北约的事实上的成员。这个过程开始于2017年12月，当时特朗普政府决定向基辅出售 "防御性武器"。然而，什么是 "防御性 "很难说清楚，这些武器对莫斯科及其在顿巴斯地区的盟友来说当然是进攻性的。其他北约国家也参与其中，向乌克兰运送武器，训练其武装部队，并允许其参加联合空中和海上演习。2021年7月，乌克兰和美国在黑海地区共同主办了一次大型海军演习，有32个国家的海军参加。海风行动几乎激怒了俄罗斯，使其向一艘故意进入俄罗斯认为的领海的英国海军驱逐舰开火。


在拜登政府的领导下，乌克兰和美国之间的联系继续增长。这一承诺体现在一份重要文件中--《美乌战略伙伴关系宪章》--该文件由美国国务卿安东尼-布林肯和他的乌克兰同行德米特罗-库莱巴于11月签署。其目的是 "强调......对乌克兰实施全面融入欧洲和欧洲-大西洋机构所需的深入和全面改革的承诺"。该文件明确建立在 "泽伦斯基总统和拜登总统为加强乌克兰-美国战略伙伴关系所做的承诺 "之上，并且还强调两国将以 "2008年布加勒斯特首脑会议宣言 "为指导。

不出所料，莫斯科发现这种不断变化的局势是不可容忍的，并在去年春天开始在乌克兰边境调动军队，向华盛顿表明其决心。但这没有效果，因为拜登政府继续向乌克兰靠拢。这导致俄罗斯在12月催生了一场全面的外交对峙。正如俄罗斯外交部长谢尔盖-拉夫罗夫所说。"我们达到了沸点"。俄罗斯要求得到一份书面保证，即乌克兰永远不会成为北约的一部分，并要求北约撤走其自1997年以来在东欧部署的军事资产。随后的谈判失败了，布林肯先生明确表示："没有变化。不会有任何改变。" 一个月后，普京先生发动了对乌克兰的入侵，以消除他认为来自北约的威胁。

对事件的这一解释与西方的主流说法不一致，后者将北约的扩张描述为与乌克兰危机无关，而是指责普京先生的扩张主义目标。根据北约最近发给俄罗斯领导人的一份文件，"北约是一个防御性联盟，对俄罗斯不构成威胁"。现有的证据与这些说法相矛盾。首先，目前的问题不是西方领导人说北约的目的或意图是什么；而是莫斯科如何看待北约的行动。

普京先生肯定知道，征服和占领东欧的大量领土的代价对俄罗斯来说是难以承受的。正如他曾经说过的，"谁不怀念苏联，谁就没有心。谁想让它回来，谁就没有脑子。" 尽管他认为俄罗斯和乌克兰之间有紧密的联系，但试图夺回整个乌克兰就像试图吞下一只豪猪。此外，俄罗斯的政策制定者--包括普京先生--几乎没有说过要征服新的领土来重建苏联或建立一个更大的俄罗斯。相反，自2008年布加勒斯特峰会以来，俄罗斯领导人一再表示，他们认为乌克兰加入北约是一种生存威胁，必须加以阻止。正如拉夫罗夫先生在1月指出的，"一切的关键是保证北约不会向东扩张"。

有意思的是，西方领导人在2014年之前很少将俄罗斯描述为对欧洲的军事威胁。正如美国前驻莫斯科大使迈克尔-麦克福尔(Michael McFaul)指出的那样，普京先生对克里米亚的夺取并没有经过长时间的计划；这是对推翻乌克兰亲俄领导人的政变的冲动之举。事实上，在此之前，北约扩张的目的是将整个欧洲变成一个巨大的和平区，而不是遏制一个危险的俄罗斯。然而，一旦危机开始，美国和欧洲的政策制定者就不能承认他们试图将乌克兰融入西方而挑起危机。他们宣称，问题的真正来源是俄罗斯的忧郁主义和它对支配甚至征服乌克兰的渴望。


鉴于许多知名的美国外交政策专家自20世纪90年代末以来一直警告反对北约扩张，我关于冲突原因的故事不应该有争议。在布加勒斯特峰会上，美国国防部长罗伯特-盖茨承认，"试图将格鲁吉亚和乌克兰纳入北约确实是过分的"。事实上，在那次峰会上，德国总理安格拉-默克尔和法国总统尼古拉-萨科齐都反对推进乌克兰加入北约，因为他们担心这将激怒俄罗斯。

我的解释的结果是，我们正处于一个极其危险的局面，而西方政策正在加剧这些风险。对俄罗斯领导人来说，在乌克兰发生的事情与他们的帝国野心被挫败没有什么关系；这关系到处理他们认为对俄罗斯未来的直接威胁。普京先生可能误判了俄罗斯的军事能力、乌克兰抵抗的有效性以及西方反应的范围和速度，但人们永远不应低估大国在认为自己处于困境时可以多么无情。然而，美国及其盟友正在加倍努力，希望给普京先生带来一场耻辱性的失败，甚至可能引发他下台。他们正在增加对乌克兰的援助，同时利用经济制裁对俄罗斯进行大规模惩罚，普京现在认为这一步骤 "类似于宣战"。

美国及其盟友可能会阻止俄罗斯在乌克兰取得胜利，但这个国家将受到严重损害，甚至被肢解。此外，还有超越乌克兰的严重升级威胁，更不用说核战争的危险。如果西方不仅在乌克兰战场上挫败莫斯科，而且还对俄罗斯的经济造成严重、持久的损害，它实际上是把一个大国推向了边缘。然后普京先生可能会转向核武器。

在这一点上，我们不可能知道这场冲突将以何种条件来解决。但是，如果我们不了解其深层原因，我们将无法在乌克兰被破坏和北约最终陷入与俄罗斯的战争之前结束它。

John J. Mearsheimer是芝加哥大学R. Wendell Harrison政治学杰出服务教授。