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Tom Nichols

@RadioFreeTom

Mar 5

@TheLastWord

I am going to write more about this, but I want to suggest something that I only mentioned briefly on @TheLastWord.

The Russians are going to lose this war no matter what happens.

/1

@TheLastWord

@TheLastWord That's not to say that they're not going to flatten Ukrainian cities and commit more atrocities. They will. NATO could ride in there tomorrow and that will happen anyway. (Perhaps even sooner and worse if NATO comes in.)

But Putin has blundered beyond recovery now.

/2

Putin could have built the Russian nation into another superpower. He could have gotten by with a "managed" semi-democracy - I expected that. He could have rebuilt Russian military power and the economy and created a giant and powerful state with an educated and tough people. /2

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Tom Nichols

@RadioFreeTom

Mar 4

@11thHour

I want to elaborate on something I just said on @11thHour and emphasize a point @McFaul was making as well.
Putin is going to try to hermetically seal Russia off from the world, as if it's the USSR in 1982. He doesn't want Russians to see what's happening in Ukraine. /1

@11thHour

@11thHour @McFaul The first time I was in the Soviet Union was 1983. Entering the USSR was like walking into an isolation chamber. No Western news. Nothing but The State, 24/7.

Putin is going to try to do that again.

He can't.

And that's why this is going to get much, much worse. /2

Putin, as Mike noted, will rely on an old, rural base for his support. (Sound familiar?) He will try to crush everyone who has a smartphone or computer who can get on the internet. He will introduce draconian measures to this end because *he doesn't know what else to do* /3

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Tom Nichols

@RadioFreeTom

Mar 3

@MMazarr

Appreciate that @MMazarr and @NGrossman81 and others are noting that Mearsheimer's problem is that his theoretical approach is, uh, problematic, but the bigger problem is that Mearsheimer is willing to punditize current events - esp in Russia - so they always fit his theory. /1

In other words, he is a proponent of a theory that a priori rejects the influence of morality and norms, and so he is willing to embrace cases that prove his case. And Russia is happy to oblige, saying "See, we're just a normal great power, like this guy says!" /2

That doesn't make Mearsheimer a stooge, but it *does* put him in the position of being an apologist, even if inadvertently, because if he does otherwise, he has to admit his theory is bunk - and that, he will never do. /3

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Tom Nichols

@RadioFreeTom

Mar 1

If you think intervention is worth World War III in Ukraine - and yes, I understand the arguments for that - then just say it. Because this cocked-up warplan in UKR is not the plan that will come off the shelf if NATO intervenes.
/1

If NATO did intervene, and Russia widens its war to go after NATO nations, they will lose. But first, there will be a rally among Russians who would MUCH rather fight NATO than their brothers and sisters in UKR. /2

And when Russia is faced with losing, and this is no longer over Putin's war in Ukraine but the General Staff's losing war in Europe, people in Moscow who might *never* agree to go to the wall for Putin might well be willing to go down in flames rather than lose to NATO. /3

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Tom Nichols

@RadioFreeTom

Feb 28

https://twitter.com/RHFontaine/status/1498101445547208704

Putin is following in the same footsteps as the Soviet predecessors he reveres so much. In the mid-70s, America was defeated, economically hurting, and NATO was a mess. Stupid Soviet policies reinvigorated NATO and helped lead to the final decade of Soviet rule. /1

https://twitter.com/RHFontaine/status/1498101445547208704

Not only did Soviet aggression turn Jimmy Carter into a new Cold Warrior, but as Politburo advisor Georgii Arbatov later admitted. the Soviets themselves helped to bring people like Reagan to power. (Interestingly, this is only in the *Russian* version of his memoirs.) /2

Putin, now as delusional and paranoid as the old men of the Kremlin 40 years ago, is doing the same thing, creating a firm Western coalition against him at a time when American and NATO would prefer, mostly, to ignore Russia and just do business. /3

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Tom Nichols

@RadioFreeTom

Feb 24

It's time for a confession.

Well over 20 years ago, I was in Poland, and we were talking with our Polish colleagues about NATO expansion. I was pretty dismissive of the idea that Russia would make war on their brothers in Ukraine.

I was wrong. /1

Maybe I was just optimistic, after living through the Cold War. Maybe I believed in the basic humanity of the Russian people.

I still believe in that.

But the idea that Russians, freed from communism, would make war on their neighbors seemed utterly fantastic to me.
/2

I want to believe that there are people -even in the Kremlin - who will stop Putin before this becomes a global cataclysm. But I cannot deny that I was too optimistic, too heady with the end of the Cold War, to believe that anyone had the stomach for another European war. /3

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