Int'l Power Politics - Dr. Mearscheimer 2015

 I caught one of the esteemed Dr Mearscheimer's presentations on You Tube.  It was a presentation he gave in 2015 and its focus was on Ukraine.  His main point seemed to be that the U.S. was responsible for the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine.  We never realized that the idea of belonging to NATO would be anathema to Russia; that it was something they simply could not accept.  America's support for Ukraine is what got us into this mess according to Mearscheimer.

Mearsheimer is considered to be a great, international thinker?

We all understand power  politics.  We see the major power players to be Russia, China and the USA.  It's when you jump from there to what's happened to Ukraine that people like Mearscheimer seem to enter into a wilderness.  True, we must admit that great powers are defined by strong and large economies, a sizable population, and military strength.

But to what purpose should one, who lives in a country that's a major power block, utilize one's position of power?  Is it to dominate one's neighbors?  Is it to have a check over what one's neighbors decide to do for their people?

Mearscheimer not only seems to recognize major powers, but seems to worship them.  This leads to peculiar situations.  Is a nation like Ukraine to belong to this power or that power?  Or, should it remain neutral.  What sort of decisions do the people of a country have a right to make as regards their country?

Mearscheimer totally disregards whether the behavior of a country is benign or hostile.  True, there were periods when land was divided up into segments and major powers often decided what countries these segments should emerge as.  The breakup of the Ottoman Empire after WW I is one example.  Sometimes the segments don't hold together, as in the case of Yugoslavia.  Does Russia have the right to divide up Ukraine?

There's this bug-a-boo about NATO.  You may recall that it was established as a defense against Russian aggression.  As evidence of such aggression wained, the significance of NATO seemed to wain.  Germany allowed itself to become more dependent on Russian oil.  NATO nations had begun to lapse on their commitment to maintain a military readiness based on their GDP.  With Russia's attack on Ukraine, NATO has gotten a new shot in the arm.  Suddenly Sweden and Finland seem to be deciding that they too want to be a part of NATO.  I doubt this was what Russia expected.

A factor that doesn't seem to be taken into much ccount when evaluating major power blocks is corruption.  In my opinions all nations suffer from corruption to greater or lesser extent.  It's like most metals.  If you want to keep them looking good, you've got to keep polishing them.  A nation that disregards the need to keep ever vigilant as regards corruption will become increasingly corrupt.  It's one of the benefits of a democracy with sound and stable institutions.  We too have corruption but to a somewhat lesser degree.

May the Ukrainian people prevail and to hell with Russia.

Israeli vs Palestinian

 A group of Israeli actors decided to boycott an award for their work in an Israeli TV series.  These actors were Israeli citizens.  They had trained in an Israeli art school. Their gripe:  They wanted to be recognized as Palestinians.

For me that's hard to fathom.  Here's why:

1, The word "Palestine" refers to a region of the old Ottoman empire in the same way that Syria and Iraq refers to other regions.  After World War I these regions were divided into individual nations.  The divisions were somewhat arbitrary.  Lebanon had been Syrian, but the French decided that the Christians living in the western part of Syria would be destroyed if left in a Muslim country.  This prompted them to carve out Lebanon from Syria and establish it as an independent country.

2. Palestine was just one more part of the Ottoman empire.  It was a desolate area with swamps and mostly arid land.  Its total peopulation in the 1800"s was no greater than that of today's Tel Aviv. (And that was back when Jordan was a part of Palestine.)  Being a land bridge from Europe to Africa was perhaps Palestine's single most notable feature.

3. In the 20th century, Jews and Muslims were both mostly immigrants.  The Jews immigrated to Palestine for two reasons:  a. It was their religious homeland and b. they had nowhere else to go.   Jews brought in funding to develop the land and drained its swamps, the land became more valuable.  As a British mandate following World War I, more economic development arose.  Suddenly, Palestine was a place for Arabs from Syria, Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere to go to find work.  The early settlers were all referred to as Palestinians - even Jews.  The Palestine Post was a Jewish newspaper.

4. For the Arab world the establishment of Israel was an unforgivable sin.  Why this should be so was not readily understood by Jews.  Weren't all the nations along northern Africa, Islamic?  Weren't all the nations in the middle east Islamic?  What was the problem with having one small nation declaring itself a Jewish state?  Add to that, 20% of Israel's population is non-Jewish.  What Islamic state has a non-Islamic population of that magnitude.  True, Egypt had a Coptic population, but it's been on steady decline as a result of their being constantly abused.

5. If the Arabs in areas A and B (Oslo Accords) wish to identify themselves as Palestinians so be it.  But what does that have to do with Israeli Muslims?

The Arab actors who are Muslim say that they identify with the Palestinians because the apartheid conditions in which they are being held.  But their governance is entirely up to the Palestinian Authority.  True the PA is well known to be corrupt.  But what can Israel do about that?  How does that make Issrael an apartheid nation?