约翰·米尔斯海默：为什么西方对乌克兰危机负有主要责任
2022年03月25日 | 来源： 时政国关分析 | 阅读量：2783
乌克兰战争是自1962年古巴导弹危机以来最危险的国际冲突。如果我们想防止它继续恶化，并设法结束它，了解它的根源至关重要。
西方尤其是美国要对这场危机承担主要责任。
美国不断挑起冲突
乌克兰的麻烦开始于2008年4月的北约布加勒斯特峰会。当时，乔治· W·布什政府推动该联盟宣布乌克兰和格鲁吉亚“将成为成员国”。俄罗斯领导人立即作出愤怒回应，称该决定是对俄罗斯的生存威胁，并且誓言要挫败它。然而，美国无视莫斯科的红线，向前推进，要把乌克兰变成俄罗斯边境上的西方堡垒。该战略还包括另外两个因素：拉近乌克兰与欧盟的距离，使其成为亲美“民主国家”。
这些努力最终在2014年2月引发了敌对状态，起因是一次（美国支持的）起义导致亲俄的乌克兰总统维克托·亚努科维奇逃离该国。作为回应，俄罗斯从乌克兰手中夺取了克里米亚，并且助推了乌克兰东部顿巴斯地区爆发的内战。
接下来的重大对抗发生在2021年12月，直接导致目前的战争。主因是乌克兰即将成为事实上的北约成员国。这个过程始于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，“防御性”的概念根本不明确，这些武器对莫斯科及其在顿巴斯地区的盟友来说无疑具有攻击性。其他北约国家也加入进来，向乌克兰运送武器，训练其武装部队，允许其参加空军和海军的联合演习。
在拜登执政期间，乌克兰与美国的关系继续加强。美国国务卿安东尼·布林肯和乌克兰外长德米特里·库列巴去年11月签署的重要文件《美乌战略合作伙伴宪章》体现了这一承诺。
不出所料，莫斯科认为这种不断变化的局势是不可容忍的，并从去年春天开始向乌克兰边境调集军队，以向华盛顿表明决心。但这没有产生任何效果，拜登政府继续向乌克兰靠拢。这导致俄罗斯在去年12月引发了全面外交僵局。随后的谈判失败了，正如布林肯明确表示的那样：“没有变化。不会有任何变化。”一个月后，普京进攻乌克兰，以消除在他看来北约构成的威胁。
西方说法颠倒是非
对形势的这种解读与西方的流行说法相悖。后者把北约的扩张描述为与乌克兰危机无关，反而将之归咎于普京的扩张主义目标。最近发给俄罗斯领导人的一份北约文件显示：“北约是防御性联盟，不对俄罗斯构成威胁。”现有证据与这些说法相矛盾。当前问题不在于西方领导人声明北约的目标或者意图何在，而在于莫斯科如何看待北约的行动。
普京当然知道，在东欧征服和占领大片领土的代价会让俄罗斯望而却步。尽管他对俄罗斯与乌克兰的紧密关系抱有信念，但试图夺回整个乌克兰就像是试图吞下一只豪猪。此外，包括普京在内的俄罗斯决策者几乎从未表示过要征服新领土以重建苏联或者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个必须阻止的生存威胁。
很能说明问题的是，西方领导人在2014年之前很少把俄罗斯说成是欧洲的军事威胁。事实上，在那之前，北约东扩的目的是把整个欧洲变成一个巨大的和平区，而不是遏制危险的俄罗斯。然而，一旦危机爆发，美国和欧洲的决策者都不会承认，他们试图让乌克兰融入西方，从而激怒了俄罗斯。他们宣称问题的真正根源是俄罗斯的复仇主义及其即便不征服乌克兰也要控制该国的愿望。
制裁将俄推向悬崖
我有关这场冲突起因的说法应该不会引起争议，因为自20世纪90年代末以来，许多美国著名外交政策专家一直警告北约不要东扩。布加勒斯特峰会召开时担任美国国防部长的罗伯特·盖茨认识到：“试图让格鲁吉亚和乌克兰加入北约确实太过火了。”
我的解读的要点是，我们正处于极其危险的境地，而西方政策正在加剧这些风险。对俄罗斯领导人来说，乌克兰局势与挫败他们的帝国野心没有多少关系，这关乎应对他们所认为的对俄罗斯未来的直接威胁。普京可能误判了俄罗斯的军事能力、乌克兰抵抗力量的有效性以及西方反应的范围和速度，但我们绝不能低估大国在认为自己陷入困境时会有多么冷酷无情。然而，美国及其盟友正在变本加厉，希望让普京遭受耻辱性的失败。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实施大规模惩罚，普京现在认为这一举措“类似于宣战”。
目前存在乌克兰以外局势升级的严重威胁，更不用说核战争的危险了。如果西方不仅在乌克兰战场上挫败莫斯科，而且对俄罗斯经济造成持久的严重损害，其实就是在把一个大国推向悬崖边缘。普京随后可能会转向动用核武器。
目前不可能知道化解这场冲突的条件。但是，如果不理解其深层原因，我们就无法在乌克兰被毁灭、北约最终与俄罗斯开战前结束它。
（作者为美国芝加哥大学国际政治教授约翰·米尔斯海默）
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-john-mearsheimer-blames-the-us-for-the-crisis-in-ukraine
For years, the political scientist has claimed that Putin’s aggression toward Ukraine is caused by Western intervention. Have recent events changed his mind?
By Isaac Chotiner March 1, 2022
“He is not going to conquer all of Ukraine,” Mearsheimer says, of Putin. “It would be a blunder of colossal proportions to try to do that.”
The political scientist John Mearsheimer has been one of the most famous critics of American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Perhaps best known for the book he wrote with Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” Mearsheimer is a proponent of great-power politics—a school of realist international relations that assumes that, in a self-interested attempt to preserve national security, states will preëmptively act in anticipation of adversaries. For years, Mearsheimer has argued that the U.S., in pushing to expand nato eastward and establishing friendly relations with Ukraine, has increased the likelihood of war between nuclear-armed powers and laid the groundwork for Vladimir Putin’s aggressive position toward Ukraine. Indeed, in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, Mearsheimer wrote that “the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for this crisis.”
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The current invasion of Ukraine has renewed several long-standing debates about the relationship between the U.S. and Russia. Although many critics of Putin have argued that he would pursue an aggressive foreign policy in former Soviet Republics regardless of Western involvement, Mearsheimer maintains his position that the U.S. is at fault for provoking him. I recently spoke with Mearsheimer by phone. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed whether the current war could have been prevented, whether it makes sense to think of Russia as an imperial power, and Putin’s ultimate plans for Ukraine.
Looking at the situation now with Russia and Ukraine, how do you think the world got here?
I think all the trouble in this case really started in April, 2008, at the nato Summit in Bucharest, where afterward nato issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of nato. The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand. Nevertheless, what has happened with the passage of time is that we have moved forward to include Ukraine in the West to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. Of course, this includes more than just nato expansion. nato expansion is the heart of the strategy, but it includes E.U. expansion as well, and it includes turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy, and, from a Russian perspective, this is an existential threat.
You said that it’s about “turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy.” I don’t put much trust or much faith in America “turning” places into liberal democracies. What if Ukraine, the people of Ukraine, want to live in a pro-American liberal democracy?
If Ukraine becomes a pro-American liberal democracy, and a member of nato, and a member of the E.U., the Russians will consider that categorically unacceptable. If there were no nato expansion and no E.U. expansion, and Ukraine just became a liberal democracy and was friendly with the United States and the West more generally, it could probably get away with that. You want to understand that there is a three-prong strategy at play here: E.U. expansion, nato expansion, and turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy.
You keep saying “turning Ukraine into a liberal democracy,” and it seems like that’s an issue for the Ukrainians to decide. nato can decide whom it admits, but we saw in 2014 that it appeared as if many Ukrainians wanted to be considered part of Europe. It would seem like almost some sort of imperialism to tell them that they can’t be a liberal democracy.
It’s not imperialism; this is great-power politics. When you’re a country like Ukraine and you live next door to a great power like Russia, you have to pay careful attention to what the Russians think, because if you take a stick and you poke them in the eye, they’re going to retaliate. States in the Western hemisphere understand this full well with regard to the United States.
The Monroe Doctrine, essentially.
Of course. There’s no country in the Western hemisphere that we will allow to invite a distant, great power to bring military forces into that country.
Right, but saying that America will not allow countries in the Western hemisphere, most of them democracies, to decide what kind of foreign policy they have—you can say that’s good or bad, but that is imperialism, right? We’re essentially saying that we have some sort of say over how democratic countries run their business.
We do have that say, and, in fact, we overthrew democratically elected leaders in the Western hemisphere during the Cold War because we were unhappy with their policies. This is the way great powers behave.
Of course we did, but I’m wondering if we should be behaving that way. When we’re thinking about foreign policies, should we be thinking about trying to create a world where neither the U.S. nor Russia is behaving that way?
That’s not the way the world works. When you try to create a world that looks like that, you end up with the disastrous policies that the United States pursued during the unipolar moment. We went around the world trying to create liberal democracies. Our main focus, of course, was in the greater Middle East, and you know how well that worked out. Not very well.
I think it would be difficult to say that America’s policy in the Middle East in the past seventy-five years since the end of the Second World War, or in the past thirty years since the end of the Cold War, has been to create liberal democracies in the Middle East.
I think that’s what the Bush Doctrine was about during the unipolar moment.
In Iraq. But not in the Palestinian territories, or Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, or anywhere else, right?
No—well, not in Saudi Arabia and not in Egypt. To start with, the Bush Doctrine basically said that if we could create a liberal democracy in Iraq, it would have a domino effect, and countries such as Syria, Iran, and eventually Saudi Arabia and Egypt would turn into democracies. That was the basic philosophy behind the Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine was not just designed to turn Iraq into a democracy. We had a much grander scheme in mind.
We can debate how much the people who were in charge in the Bush Administration really wanted to turn the Middle East into a bunch of democracies, and really thought that was going to happen. My sense was that there was not a lot of actual enthusiasm about turning Saudi Arabia into a democracy.
Well, I think focussing on Saudi Arabia is taking the easy case from your perspective. That was the most difficult case from America’s perspective, because Saudi Arabia has so much leverage over us because of oil, and it’s certainly not a democracy. But the Bush Doctrine, if you go look at what we said at the time, was predicated on the belief that we could democratize the greater Middle East. It might not happen overnight, but it would eventually happen.
I guess my point would be actions speak louder than words, and, whatever Bush’s flowery speeches said, I don’t feel like the policy of the United States at any point in its recent history has been to try and insure liberal democracies around the world.
There’s a big difference between how the United States behaved during the unipolar moment and how it’s behaved in the course of its history. I agree with you when you talk about American foreign policy in the course of its broader history, but the unipolar moment was a very special time. I believe that during the unipolar moment, we were deeply committed to spreading democracy.
With Ukraine, it’s very important to understand that, up until 2014, we did not envision nato expansion and E.U. expansion as a policy that was aimed at containing Russia. Nobody seriously thought that Russia was a threat before February 22, 2014. nato expansion, E.U. expansion, and turning Ukraine and Georgia and other countries into liberal democracies were all about creating a giant zone of peace that spread all over Europe and included Eastern Europe and Western Europe. It was not aimed at containing Russia. What happened is that this major crisis broke out, and we had to assign blame, and of course we were never going to blame ourselves. We were going to blame the Russians. So we invented this story that Russia was bent on aggression in Eastern Europe. Putin is interested in creating a greater Russia, or maybe even re-creating the Soviet Union.
Let’s turn to that time and the annexation of Crimea. I was reading an old article where you wrote, “According to the prevailing wisdom in the West, the Ukraine Crisis can be blamed almost entirely on Russian aggression. Russian president Vladimir Putin, the argument goes, annexed Crimea out of a longstanding desire to resuscitate the Soviet Empire, and he may eventually go after the rest of Ukraine as well as other countries in Eastern Europe.” And then you say, “But this account is wrong.” Does anything that’s happened in the last couple weeks make you think that account was closer to the truth than you might have thought?
Oh, I think I was right. I think the evidence is clear that we did not think he was an aggressor before February 22, 2014. This is a story that we invented so that we could blame him. My argument is that the West, especially the United States, is principally responsible for this disaster. But no American policymaker, and hardly anywhere in the American foreign-policy establishment, is going to want to acknowledge that line of argument, and they will say that the Russians are responsible.
You mean because the Russians did the annexation and the invasion?
Yes.
I was interested in that article because you say the idea that Putin may eventually go after the rest of Ukraine, as well as other countries in Eastern Europe, is wrong. Given that he seems to be going after the rest of Ukraine now, do you think in hindsight that that argument is perhaps more true, even if we didn’t know it at the time?
It’s hard to say whether he’s going to go after the rest of Ukraine because—I don’t mean to nitpick here but—that implies that he wants to conquer all of Ukraine, and then he will turn to the Baltic states, and his aim is to create a greater Russia or the reincarnation of the Soviet Union. I don’t see evidence at this point that that is true. It’s difficult to tell, looking at the maps of the ongoing conflict, exactly what he’s up to. It seems quite clear to me that he is going to take the Donbass and that the Donbass is going to be either two independent states or one big independent state, but beyond that it’s not clear what he’s going to do. I mean, it does seem apparent that he’s not touching western Ukraine.
His bombs are touching it, right?
But that’s not the key issue. The key issue is: What territory do you conquer, and what territory do you hold onto? I was talking to somebody the other day about what’s going to happen with these forces that are coming out of Crimea, and the person told me that he thought they would turn west and take Odessa. I was talking to somebody else more recently who said that that’s not going to happen. Do I know what’s going to happen? No, none of us know what’s going to happen.
You don’t think he has designs on Kyiv?
No, I don’t think he has designs on Kyiv. I think he’s interested in taking at least the Donbass, and maybe some more territory and eastern Ukraine, and, number two, he wants to install in Kyiv a pro-Russian government, a government that is attuned to Moscow’s interests.
I thought you said that he was not interested in taking Kyiv.
No, he’s interested in taking Kyiv for the purpose of regime change. O.K.?
As opposed to what?
As opposed to permanently conquering Kyiv.
It would be a Russian-friendly government that he would presumably have some say over, right?
Yes, exactly. But it’s important to understand that it is fundamentally different from conquering and holding onto Kyiv. Do you understand what I’m saying?
We could all think of imperial possessions whereby a sort of figurehead was put on the throne, even if the homeland was actually controlling what was going on there, right? We’d still say that those places had been conquered, right?
I have problems with your use of the word “imperial.” I don’t know anybody who talks about this whole problem in terms of imperialism. This is great-power politics, and what the Russians want is a regime in Kyiv that is attuned to Russian interests. It may be ultimately that the Russians would be willing to live with a neutral Ukraine, and that it won’t be necessary for Moscow to have any meaningful control over the government in Kyiv. It may be that they just want a regime that is neutral and not pro-American.
When you said that no one’s talking about this as imperialism, in Putin’s speeches he specifically refers to the “territory of the former Russian Empire,” which he laments losing. So it seems like he’s talking about it.
I think that’s wrong, because I think you’re quoting the first half of the sentence, as most people in the West do. He said, “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart.” And then he said, “Whoever wants it back has no brain.”
He’s also saying that Ukraine is essentially a made-up nation, while he seems to be invading it, no?
O.K., but put those two things together and tell me what that means. I’m just not too sure. He does believe it’s a made-up nation. I would note to him, all nations are made up. Any student of nationalism can tell you that. We invent these concepts of national identity. They’re filled with all sorts of myths. So he’s correct about Ukraine, just like he’s correct about the United States or Germany. The much more important point is: he understands that he cannot conquer Ukraine and integrate it into a greater Russia or into a reincarnation of the former Soviet Union. He can’t do that. What he’s doing in Ukraine is fundamentally different. He is obviously lopping off some territory. He’s going to take some territory away from Ukraine, in addition to what happened with Crimea, in 2014. Furthermore, he is definitely interested in regime change. Beyond that, it’s hard to say exactly what this will all lead to, except for the fact that he is not going to conquer all of Ukraine. It would be a blunder of colossal proportions to try to do that.
I assume that you think if he were to try to do that, that would change your analysis of what we’ve witnessed.
Absolutely. My argument is that he’s not going to re-create the Soviet Union or try to build a greater Russia, that he’s not interested in conquering and integrating Ukraine into Russia. It’s very important to understand that we invented this story that Putin is highly aggressive and he’s principally responsible for this crisis in Ukraine. The argument that the foreign-policy establishment in the United States, and in the West more generally, has invented revolves around the claim that he is interested in creating a greater Russia or a reincarnation of the former Soviet Union. There are people who believe that when he is finished conquering Ukraine, he will turn to the Baltic states. He’s not going to turn to the Baltic states. First of all, the Baltic states are members of nato and—
Is that a good thing?
No.
You’re saying that he’s not going to invade them in part because they’re part of nato, but they shouldn’t be part of nato.
Yes, but those are two very different issues. I’m not sure why you’re connecting them. Whether I think they should be part of nato is independent of whether they are part of nato. They are part of nato. They have an Article 5 guarantee—that’s all that matters. Furthermore, he’s never shown any evidence that he’s interested in conquering the Baltic states. Indeed, he’s never shown any evidence that he’s interested in conquering Ukraine.
It seems to me that if he wants to bring back anything, it’s the Russian Empire that predates the Soviet Union. He seems very critical of the Soviet Union, correct?
Well, I don’t know if he’s critical.
He said it in his big essay that he wrote last year, and he said in a recent speech that he essentially blames Soviet policies for allowing a degree of autonomy for Soviet Republics, such as Ukraine.
But he also said, as I read to you before, “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart.” That’s somewhat at odds with what you just said. I mean, he’s in effect saying that he misses the Soviet Union, right? That’s what he’s saying. What we’re talking about here is his foreign policy. The question you have to ask yourself is whether or not you think that this is a country that has the capability to do that. You realize that this is a country that has a G.N.P. that’s smaller than Texas.
Countries try to do things that they don’t have the capabilities for all the time. You could have said to me, “Who thinks that America could get the Iraqi power system working quickly? We have all these problems in America.” And you would’ve been correct. But we still thought we could do it, and we still tried to do it, and we failed, right? America couldn’t do what it wanted during Vietnam, which I’m sure you would say is a reason not to fight these various wars—and I would agree—but that doesn’t mean that we were correct or rational about our capabilities.
I’m talking about the raw-power potential of Russia—the amount of economic might it has. Military might is built on economic might. You need an economic foundation to build a really powerful military. To go out and conquer countries like Ukraine and the Baltic states and to re-create the former Soviet Union or re-create the former Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe would require a massive army, and that would require an economic foundation that contemporary Russia does not come close to having. There is no reason to fear that Russia is going to be a regional hegemony in Europe. Russia is not a serious threat to the United States. We do face a serious threat in the international system. We face a peer competitor. And that’s China. Our policy in Eastern Europe is undermining our ability to deal with the most dangerous threat that we face today.
What do you think our policy should be in Ukraine right now, and what do you worry that we’re doing that’s going to undermine our China policy?
We should be pivoting out of Europe to deal with China in a laser-like fashion, number one. And, number two, we should be working overtime to create friendly relations with the Russians. The Russians are part of our balancing coalition against China. If you live in a world where there are three great powers—China, Russia, and the United States—and one of those great powers, China, is a peer competitor, what you want to do if you’re the United States is have Russia on your side of the ledger. Instead, what we have done with our foolish policies in Eastern Europe is drive the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. This is a violation of Balance of Power Politics 101.
I went back and I reread your article about the Israel lobby in the London Review of Books, from 2006. You were talking about the Palestinian issue, and you said something that I very much agree with, which is: “There is a moral dimension here as well. Thanks to the lobby of the United States it has become the de facto enabler of Israeli occupation in the occupied territories, making it complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians.” I was cheered to read that because I know you think of yourself as a tough, crusty old guy who doesn’t talk about morality, but it seemed to me you were suggesting that there was a moral dimension here. I’m curious what you think, if any, of the moral dimension to what’s going on in Ukraine right now.
I think there is a strategic and a moral dimension involved with almost every issue in international politics. I think that sometimes those moral and strategic dimensions line up with each other. In other words, if you’re fighting against Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945, you know the rest of the story. There are other occasions where those arrows point in opposite directions, where doing what is strategically right is morally wrong. I think if you join an alliance with the Soviet Union to fight against Nazi Germany, it is a strategically wise policy, but it is a morally wrong policy. But you do it because you have no choice for strategic reasons. In other words, what I’m saying to you, Isaac, is that when push comes to shove, strategic considerations overwhelm moral considerations. In an ideal world, it would be wonderful if the Ukrainians were free to choose their own political system and to choose their own foreign policy.
But in the real world, that is not feasible. The Ukrainians have a vested interest in paying serious attention to what the Russians want from them. They run a grave risk if they alienate the Russians in a fundamental way. If Russia thinks that Ukraine presents an existential threat to Russia because it is aligning with the United States and its West European allies, this is going to cause an enormous amount of damage to Ukraine. That of course is exactly what’s happening now. So my argument is: the strategically wise strategy for Ukraine is to break off its close relations with the West, especially with the United States, and try to accommodate the Russians. If there had been no decision to move nato eastward to include Ukraine, Crimea and the Donbass would be part of Ukraine today, and there would be no war in Ukraine.
That advice seems a bit implausible now. Is there still time, despite what we’re seeing from the ground, for Ukraine to appease Russia somehow?
I think there’s a serious possibility that the Ukrainians can work out some sort of modus vivendi with the Russians. And the reason is that the Russians are now discovering that occupying Ukraine and trying to run Ukraine’s politics is asking for big trouble.
So you are saying occupying Ukraine is going to be a tough slog?
Absolutely, and that’s why I said to you that I did not think the Russians would occupy Ukraine in the long term. But, just to be very clear, I did say they’re going to take at least the Donbass, and hopefully not more of the easternmost part of Ukraine. I think the Russians are too smart to get involved in an occupation of Ukraine.
How Ukrainians saved their capital.
A historian envisions a settlement among Russia, Ukraine, and the West.
How Russia’s latest commander in Ukraine could change the war.
The profound defiance of daily life in Kyiv.
The Ukraine crackup in the G.O.P.
A filmmaker’s journey to the heart of the war.
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