I know the thread moves fast, and no one has 40 minutes[*] to listen to an analysis. But maybe you have the time? Then watch John J Mearsheimer talk about the failures of the USA in their unipolar moment (after 1991), when they thought they could now spread liberal democracy around the world and usher in an age of peace and prosperity, because country after country would turn into a liberal democracy and become really nice and useful.
Turning a country to become a liberal democracy has three goals: the first is, of course, to implement democracy, the second is to embed the country into the economic system (i.e. capitalism, essentially), and thirdly to embed the country in international organizations, like WTO, IMF, EU, ect, so rules to play by are established and accepted.
This talk was in February 2020, two years ago.
He identified three specific cases where US international policy failed big time:
1. The first was of course the Bush government believing they could turn Afghanistan, then Iraq, into democracies and well-behaving members of the international community, that other countries would follow like dominos, and this would solve the problems of proliferation and terrorism in due time. Okay, we all know, this failed. Completely.
3. The
third case involves China: US policy was keen to help China develop into a capitalist system, to get them into organizations like the WTO - and the hope was that China would eventually become more and more liberal and perhaps even a democracy, somehow, eventually. BUT this only helped China become richer sooner, and develop into a formidable peer competitor, and so the unipolar moment is already gone, we are in a multipolar world, where realism must carry the day, not liberalism. In short: We made China dangerous for us.
2. But the
second case example is Ukraine - the idea of luring them to the capitalist west, supporting color revolutions to implement liberal democracy, and invite them into organizations - the EU. Why was this a bad idea? Because of nationalism - Russian nationalism.
Mearsheimer is a leading proponent of the REALIST school of international relations: He says the strongest political idea in the world today is
nationalism: You tread on a country's toes, you threaten it, you meddle in its affairs, and you will encourage and embolden and trigger the nationalist instincts. And, he argues, "nationalism trumps liberalism", and "realism trumps liberalism".
His advice is for liberal democracies (he very much likes liberal democracies) to be realistic about what really motivates illiberal non-democracies, and take that into account - and that means recognize their nationalist tendencies, and act accordingly.
He says, explicitly (if jokingly) that he would rather advise his adversary to invade another country, for that is never a good idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZVIaXFN2lU
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So, if I may apply a bit of Mearheimer thinking to the current crisis: According to that theory, it was a bad idea for Russia to go into Ukraine, for that ramps up their nationalism - which is makes them at least a peer competitor.
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[*] The video is 1:26 hours, but Mearsheimer's actual analysis starts after 5 minutes, and he is done at 44 minutes, after which he takes questions.
