Welcome back to Radio Rothbard. I'm Ryan McMacon with the Mises Institute with me as my co-host though Bishop and also joining us this week is
Zachary Yoast our foreign policy guy because this is our once a month foreign policy episode and
We're gonna talk about this week a book that came out in 2024. It's called the sources of Russian aggression
Now I suppose if you're a real Russo file this this title might seem unfair
To color the the Russians aggressive
But the but the fact is I really like this book because it's so even-handed and really tries to understand
Why Russians respond well why Moscow?
I mean obviously it should always be understood that in our discussion
We're talking about regimes not about like the average American or average Russian why Moscow responds the way it does
To certain actions on the part of NATO or other countries that impact on a Russian the sense of national security
Or it's near abroad any of that stuff
So we're gonna look at this book in a little bit of detail
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alright, well
let's talk about this book and
Well, you know to get started. I mean always the question is well, why should I care about this book?
Who wrote this book at least I don't know I look I like to
Where whereas I don't require that someone has a PhD in something
I'd like to know that they have some experience in the topic
So Zach tell us a little bit about the author and how you discovered this book because this was Zach's idea was to read this book
So I should note that should this book sound terrible in a waste of time
I blame you but we'll we'll know we'll know in 35 minutes or so
But yeah, tell us what kind of the origins of this book are. Yeah, sure. So the author is
Dr. Sumatra Mitra and this the book is based on his recent PhD dissertation
Which was at a university in the UK. I can't recall which one but he is now based in America and he's the
He's the director of research and outreach at the American Ideas Institute
Which is sort of the nonprofit that runs the American conservative, which you've probably
Read if you're listening to this show and he frequently writes for that. He's very involved in foreign policy
We're sort of friendly acquaintances on social media. We've met before and
He's you know
someone to follow to get a pulse on where sort of the
New Republican Party is headed one might say in terms of pushing for a foreign policy of realism and restraint
And this book is obviously very timely
Events did catch up. It does not really talk about the invasion that began in 2022
But it talks about the events before that and as he says in the introduction
It's like oh look at this invasion happened
but it doesn't really change anything I've said and I think it all of his arguments that he lays out make perfect sense for
Understanding what rush has been doing, you know previously and now
So it's it's also short. It's 180 pages. So not not too strenuous
Oh, and very generously he sent us a PDF copy of the book that we will be posting in the show notes
So you can read it for free because it is sort of if you want it in physical form
It's a rather pricey university press book, but
You know exclusive here radio Rothbard listeners you get a free PDF. So he wants people to read it and you should
Well, let's talk about the there's the basic setup of the book because
This is just like even if you're not particularly interested in the theory aspect of the book
it's got a lot of great history in here on
What occurred over the last 20 years or so well really the last 30 years in terms of Russian NATO
Relations and all of those little steps that led to where we are today in terms of NATO Russian relations
And if you're younger
Say you're a 30 year under you won't even remember some of these things like the 2008 Russia Georgia War
which you know, you're a little boy say if you were if you're much younger than me in 2008 and
That's just like that's gonna be news to you that this was a whole thing
Unless you've of course already researched the topic. So just lots of good history in here
But also if you're interested in the various theories of international relations lots of great introductory stuff here
in fact what struck me I liked about this book was some great summaries of realism and
what it is and
realism being the school of international relations and
I just really enjoyed that part of it's a nice recapitulation of what realism is and how it
It applies the situation now. So I guess we should just say what is his general thesis here
I think his general thesis as far as I can tell I think it's pretty clearly stated is
That Russia is a realist power and that Russian behavior over the last 30 years is generally conforms to
Theories of realism
Especially balancing theory the idea that when you have a very strong world power
That is the United States and its allies through NATO
That other powers not not not necessarily small countries, but other powers
So other large countries that have real power and it could be classified as a world power
Russia China especially I don't know if we could really if there's any others on that list to that extent
but that those other powers are going to balance against the dominant power and
So the idea here is that pretty much everything that Russia has done over the last 30 years can be explained in terms of its
attempts to balance against
US power in the international
Sphere and he so he does a lot of work here to disabuse us from other theories about
Russian aggression right? Oh, it's because the Russians have all of these dreams of being some sort of
Eastern Orthodox power or
Russians are just naturally aggressive or
Russians are trying to reestablish the Soviet Union and on top of that he also talks about
Specifically he says that Russia in this case is a defensive realist power
Even in that Russia is trying to do the least amount of aggression it can get away with while still a
rebuffing
American and NATO attempts to
Project power right up to Russian borders or into Russia's near abroad and
To really expand NATO into Russia's backyard and front yard basically in that Russia will do what it can then
To rebuff those attempts at growing NATO power and then return to the status quo
Rather than what we hear right the US where Russia is just going to keep expanding all the way to Vienna
And then Berlin and then maybe even Paris if we don't stop them
Mitra here basically says well, that's insane
There's there's absolutely nothing about Russia's behavior in decades that would suggest that it's doing that and then of course
Mirsheimer has noted and we've noted here Russia does it in its wildest dreams doesn't even have the ability to do such a thing
Get alone really have designs on
Such a plan so this book goes into a lot of details
But before we go is there I mean can you give us a little bit more of a rundown on
Just real quick on some of the other underlying issues since since he's really trying to promote here the idea that Russia is a
realist power and
that it adheres to
basically structuralist
Motivations
Can you just kind of expand on that a little bit because I feel like I haven't really done enough to really explain that sure
Yes, this is something I've been thinking about a lot because as I mentioned before we started the show
I just read a book called an unwritten future by Jonathan Kirchner
And that book is a classical realist argument. So I've been thinking a lot about sort of the
Epistemological methodology behind these various theories because I was reading them both. It's sort of the same time and they're they're rather contrasting
So sort of the whole
Point of structural realism. It's also called neo realism
It was sort of first formulated by Kenneth Waltz and it's you know expanded on since then but
The argument in short is that the structure of the international system
sort of
boxes states in
To behaving in certain ways that can be predicted and this is not to say
That this is like praxeology where this is sort of
result of logical deduction. This is
You know under Mises's own form of epistemology
This is ultimately a form of history where we study history to then
draw
conclusions on
What seems to be cause and effect so even John Mirsheimer the most, you know
Ardent defender of structural realism in his specific brand is called offensive realism
Whereas mitra's promoting more defensive realism
He acknowledges that states do not always act in the way that realism would predict that they would act
so
Mitra in the beginning is contrasting realism with basically liberalism and constructivism and
their methods of trying to
understand
Why state one how states act and why they act how they do and I mean
It's this is a quite a simplification, but I mean liberalism and constructivism basically as you are alluding to it's like the Russians are evil
They want to reestablish the Soviet Union. They want to build this orthodox civilization. There's another school of thought called
Eurasianism which if you've heard of a Dugan, that's his school of thought and people are my Dugan the whisperer
in the Kremlin but
Structural realism I
like a lot because it is it is necessarily a simplification of
Very complicated phenomena and this is a problem. I have with classical realism. It's classical realism
basically, you know at least Kirchner here in this book is like oh
The the world's much more complicated than you say it is structural realists
But the structural realists would return and say it yes, we acknowledge it's so complicated
Which is why we have to try and distill things down to simplify things so that we can then
formulate and plan how to act in the future and I would say that this aligns a lot with
Muses is epistemology that one can find in theory and history and
epistemological problems of economics, I believe
So that's sort of the
Epistemological level and then there are five foundational assumptions of real structural realism that I can't name off the top of my head
but two of the biggest ones are
We live in a state of the international system is a system of anarchy
You can't call the police if Russia's invading to come and help you
Whereas in most places, you know in the u.s. You can call the police and someone will probably show up eventually
The other really crucial thing is that the future is radically uncertain. We can never understand
Truly the intentions of other states and that combined with the other ones
I can't name off the top of my head box people into this structure that incentivizes
the leaders of states to behave in certain ways and so we're taking that framework and
He's saying here's what defensive realism would predict Russia would do
If it was a defensive realist and then he looks at three case studies. He looks at NATO expansion
He looks at Ukraine and he looks at Georgia and he says the evidence is they behave
How you know a defensive realist would predict they behave
So that's that's more or less the nutshell of the book and I would note that Rothbard generally presents
Uses a lot of these
Inexplicitly that is he doesn't really ever say hey, I'm a realist, but clearly in his theory of the state
When it comes to wars here, he's functioning under two assumptions which fit very well in realism
One is that states act to preserve themselves above all else and this is the primary concern of states
they don't want to be destroyed and
So they will assert themselves whenever they think their interest especially their survival is threatened
And then another important aspect of it is that decisions are primarily almost overwhelmingly made by elites, right?
There are yes, there are limits on state power that occur through a variety of political processes domestically
but a lot of that is in the realist view basically irrelevant and
That what matters is especially since so much a foreign policy decision making in a place like the United States
But also most other Western quote-unquote democracies
The the democratic process is cut out of the foreign making a foreign policy decision-making process all of this secrecy
It's all designed to make it undemocratic
And so it's elites making these decisions
so it's an elite driven process designed to preserve the state and state interests and that those are realist
assumptions and also Rothbard's assumptions that I think just kind of our
Mises Institute assumption about how states function in the international sphere. So once we got all of that thinking
Let's look at some of the history, right?
What's what's the deal with all of this stuff going on between NATO the US and Russia over the past 30 years now?
Of course, you may remember that the Soviet Union ended. I believe it was on Christmas Day in
1991
Where just as its last act
Gorbachev resigned and then a little while later
They lowered the Soviet flag for the last time and then raised the Russian flag. So keep that period
We're talking more than 30 years ago. They were very early 1990s
And so at that point we're talking about Russian foreign policy and this goes through all that history. So for the first
Eight years or so you get Yeltsin and Yeltsin, of course
having inherited a very weak and impoverished Russia in the wake of the implosion of the Soviet Union
Is doing his best to get along with the West
There was very little Russia could do in terms of asserting itself and its own it had nukes
But that was really its only method of asserting any independence from the West and what the West wanted out of Russia
but then by the late 90s
1999 you get Putin come in and Putin had the support of a large number of Russian elites including much of the civilian public
that wanted to really make sure that Russia maintained its status as a
Great power that it wasn't just being pushed around by the United States and just basic
Nationalism that most countries adhere to what made Russia different was that Russia had actually the ability to assert some
independence that most countries do not and
Being a great power it could then pursue in this book
as explained by Mitra
Russia could then assert itself as a great power to really balance against the United States. That is that's another key
theory here is that
You get all of these other countries and they're gonna join up together to try and balance against the dominant power
So Russia's gonna try and get other countries to join it
It's going to do what it can to get along with countries necessary to
diminish total relative
US power and that's really the story of the last 30 years in this theory and what Mitra is talking about and it begins
Then with the NATO expansion then in the early 90s
So as the Soviet Union implodes the Warsaw Paxises do exist and then really the first
The first conflict really was over the unification of Germany. So it's
With Germany wants to unite. So what do you think of that Russia?
I'm like, well, you know, we split up German we split Germany up for a reason because we being the Russians
Germany has been a problem for us historically and
So they finally agreed to it and it's well documented here in this book
They agreed to it after NATO and a whole bunch of Western leaders John Major in Britain
the US President
And his of course various servants the germ the West German leaders are all saying, okay
We are not going to move NATO East beyond East Germany
So East Germany will come into Germany into West Germany. It'll become a NATO country
But we're not gonna move one inch East was the promise. There's a lot of debate in the last couple of years
Oh, did NATO ever promise that it's clear that they said that that they weren't going to move it east now
Mitra says, well, it's possible that you could have interpreted that differently
It wasn't like to the level of a treaty
But it's pretty clear that the West was promising to not move NATO East and then on top of that
They these Western leaders were very explicitly promising to not move military material into farther East points
So a few years later what they're saying is okay Poland
Wants to join NATO can Poland join NATO and Russia said well, I don't know
That doesn't seem like great idea and they're like well
We promise Russia to not move any like US missiles or any US arms into Poland
Though it'll just be a defensive thing to help Poland feel better and the Russia say, okay
Fine, you can do that and then of course a few years later
Then the US starts moving weapons into Poland and you see this pattern repeated again and again now
If you said this in 2022, you were just parroting Russian propaganda, but these are all just facts
these are all just historical facts that as
NATO made promises that they weren't going to be provocative to the Russians then they just kept moving material east
They kept expanding NATO East in spite of initial promises
And so the threat kept moving east and then you had a situation where okay, George W. Bush after 911
There was like sort of a
Approachment a renaissance in US-Russian relations after 9-11
Russia was willing to ally with the US to fight terrorism because of course Russia has a problem with that also
And so George W. Bush was reframing NATO as sort of this
Western political alliance to help us fight global terror etc. said Russia said okay, we can get on board with that, but then
NATO starts doing all these flyovers and patrols in the Baltic
Which then is a new provocative situation and then Russia starts to become very defensive again
So it's just over and over again
These these NATO attempts to move east to really project power further and further east and then they invite
George they start grooming Georgia to become a NATO member and
Then the Russians really freak out with that and I think that's where the narrative really picks up here in the book
Is when he starts talking about the example of Georgia
And how this was really a the first case in a long time
Certainly for Russia where they actually had a real military operation
against a
neighboring country
Although it was a very very limited invasion, but it was a war and it was a well anybody would recognize as a real war and had a
set end date and
And that's when we start to see some of these new patterns emerge where Russia was no longer just threatening and expressing
Displeasure, but it was willing to take real military action against a neighboring country that was looking to invite NATO right up to the borders of
Russian territory and I think that's where the the the accelerated narrative really begins here
Yeah, and I think it might be helpful to note
When we say like that there's a threat moving towards Russia
This I think it's sort of important to emphasize that
because so many people
sort of in the mainstream foreign policy bloc will say
Well, we're not threatening Russia at all. Russia's overreacting. They're you know, we're just friendly and nice and
This is why you have to I mean realism is very generally better at this at putting yourself in the shoes of someone else
And you have to look you know going back to the 90s
The 90s were horrible for Russia, you know, Soviet Union collapsed
it was just wild and crazy crime and everything through the roof the Chechen war all sorts of madness and
so Russia was extremely weak and
This allowed the West and NATO to keep expanding because what was Russia going to do about it? They're a giant mess and
In the
2000s Russia more and more got its act together and this is partly why Putin's popular because he came in and sort of ended the chaos and
Just I mean Mitra doesn't get into this a ton, but just to give an idea of why
Russia might fear
NATO and the West on the one hand
It's just you can never really truly understand what another power is thinking or planning on doing
But there's lots of dangerous rhetoric and he does touch on the color revolutions which happened in Ukraine
And Russia reacts to that and in Georgia and Russia reacts to that and they fear that that will happen to them
but
There is a lot of rhetoric usually from the people who say Russia has nothing to fear which is quite ironic
Saying crazy things like we should break Russia up
And in even years ago way back when I was in DC, this was probably in 2016 I attended an event
Where there was some general or something who had been involved in sort of like arms control with you know
Post-soviet Russia and he'd gone to Russia to you know look at their arsenal and things
And I was so I was flabbergasted when he randomly said yeah in the 90s
we probably should have just gone in and
Taken the Russian nuclear arsenal away from them. I
Mean that I was like what that's sort of crazy talk
But if you're a Russian how does how would you react to that?
It's like well they want to take away our ace in the hole
You know to defend ourselves and they think they want to you know, they say they want to break our country up
They say you know, we're backwards and have the wrong values and need new values
You know, I mean look look at what happened to Iraq, you know this sort of nation-building sort of
Thing so if this is what we're talking about when we say that the Russians view this as a threat
It's not this is not crazy talk and in the case of Russia, especially as Mitra points out since the 11th century
They've been you know subject to numerous invasions from hither thither and yawn and
That's always, you know horrible World War two
27 million Soviets were killed
Obviously which Russians were a big chunk of that so it's
This isn't just sort of paranoia
I would emphasize and I think it's also interesting that with of that Georgia example
You know the document in the book how Russia was kind of unprepared for that conflict
At the extent to which that you know
And it's kind of the classic playbook which we saw play out in the can the lead up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Is that you have an aspect of you know protecting ethnic minorities in the case of Georgia, of course it is
you have the ascetians
you have the
the other ethnic
minority that are
such than a
Yeah, and they you know you have how
You would you have those sort of of minority ethnic conflicts that obviously Russia has a fear of
Seperous movements within their own territory, but you start have that building tension that you have
Activists you have leaders within those groups
antagonizing wanting to escalate things and the extent to which in if Georgia is sort of the the original playground for
modern Russian, you know military
Adventurism from kind of Western perspective the extent by which Russia was cut off guard
I mean even document how like a lot of the senior military officials were vacationing because like it was the
Vacation season Russia now Putin was actually in the you know visiting the Olympics in Beijing in 2008
So this was not a
And I think they kind of well accepted history at this point
You know though you always have fine people that can argue up about these points, right?
But like the the aggression within that conflict was originated by the Georgian government and
And it's interesting means like that that's one example right now that you know
It gets a lot less headlines and the hot war that's going on Ukraine
But this dynamic of color revolutions of the rule of NGOs this entire different dynamic separate went in terms of
Softpower influences both from the West and from Russia like it is worth noting right you know the extent to which Russia subsidizes green parties in Europe
You know they you know
I was kind of you know get amused when your people that are are Russia defenders within the West right try to uphold
You know Russia some sort of great defender of conservative values and that sort of stuff like no
Like if you see that the propaganda they put outwards
It's very much kind of a left-wing bend kind disruptive there
But but you know if that as the original sort of conflict that shapes the Western's view of Russia
This was something that Russia was kind of dragged into in terms of the hot war aspect of it
I'm which is an aspect of that conflict that yeah, I was familiar with that conflict
I know some friends from Russia, but I'm in Georgia
But I was I did not realize that aspect of that history to that extent which I think is very fascinating in terms in our Western
perception of
Modern Russian foreign policy. Yeah, that's a point Mitra makes is that the war
Was really bad for Georgia because Georgia ended up looking like the aggressor
In that case and and made itself as Mitra notes
the Georgians made themselves to look like an unreliable partner that they kind of just like went off half-cocked and
We're animated by some bonkers ideas about asserting themselves in the region
And it was really bad for them because it's not even
Controversial to say that the Georgians essentially started that war
Because that's just the reality and yeah as you know the Russians were caught off guard
And but a Mitra and let's let's kind of move on to that topic of is
Russia a status quo power or not and that's really the
The point that Mitra tries to make here is and I think that's the overriding
Theme of the book
We could of course go on a lot of great details here historically
But I think the overriding theme is that yes, Russia is a
defensive realist power and it's it would prefer to be a status quo power and and return
to being status quo whenever it can and Georgia was a great example
It notes how yep the Russians were caught off guard
But then when they finally got their act together militarily and started asserting themselves in the conflict and really took control of
South Ossetia that
They they then returned to that as quickly as they could return to
Just a a peaceful situation as fast as they could okay
We've stationed some troops in South Ossetia. We're now de facto rulers of South Ossetia and also in Akhazia
Which I think is I would have said over on the western coast of Georgia
Where that's also occupied by the Russians but in both cases what they're saying is okay
We want these frozen conflicts where we can just go back to no conflict
And we'll just leave it there and let it go
Matron makes the point where they clearly we're not attempting to
Decapitate the Georgian regime the Russians had no plans to occupy Georgia or to conquer Georgia and to take it over
This was clearly not in the Russian
Calculation and then this takes us then the next step to Crimea
Where they wanted something similar where they could get a another maybe frozen conflict
Although actually they take it a step further
Because they they seem to really just truly annex Crimea whereas they they've never really done that with any of the Georgian
Properties if you will the Georgian territories
but they did try to just do piecemeal conflicts in in Ukraine and then return to as to a a
Frozen conflict status quo situation as quickly as they could
And especially in 2014 it was clear the Russians had no interest in conquering Ukraine or anything like that
But how would you characterize?
Right with it seems that clearly the Ukraine situations that is an escalation of sorts from the Georgia situation
But I think still fits in with mitra's overall as he notes still fits in with his overall theory here
I mean, what would you say was different about the Crimea Ukraine situation compared to the Georgia situation?
Which was much more limited, right? Yeah, so the biggest difference is that Crimea is a super important
Geo geostrategic location
You know going back I can I'm not really up on the history
But it was a big deal when Russia first acquired Crimea, you know hundreds of years ago
and it's sort of how they can project power into the Black Sea and
The it was it would be an extreme blow to their security
ability, you know
To defend themselves as they view it to lose Crimea and the idea that oh Ukraine joins NATO and now there's NATO
NATO
ships, you know American ships in the Sevastopol and
American bombers at bases in Crimea that you know, they they would hit the roof as it were
so I would say it's much more a direct strategic importance whereas
Ensuring Georgia's not in NATO is important, especially for the Caucasus region
they
accomplished their mission of
Ensuring Georgia can't get into NATO because they have this
Conflict that's not resolved. So that obviously disincentivizes anyone for NATO from saying sure come on
You have this, you know border conflict with a nuclear power. No worries
So it was
And it it gets back to so that the opposite of status quo is a revisionist power
So like Germany and Japan and World War two were revisionist powers
They were really trying to shake things up
while as Russia was trying to preserve its power in either in the Caucasus or in Crimea via the
You know power projection in the Black Sea and it was quite interesting
He notes how really it worked out great for Russia. They seized basically the whole Ukrainian Navy
Gained all these important bases and everything. I had not realized there were so many important military industrial
manufacturing facilities and
In the Eastern
breakaway Ukrainian provinces which were in a similar situation to Georgia's breakaway provinces
They were technically independent countries that no one but Russia recognized and when the war this the current war started
They were annexed and I think that the Georgian breakaway provinces at the time were also like an excess to her or something like that, but
So here I think it might be
it I
to bring it to analyzing the current conflict I am
I'm not super sure what exactly the plan was
when they
launched the war
similar to Georgia it it got off on quite a not-good foot in many cases and
there's I but in my view a lot of
Mistakes made in some of the analysis especially the
What happened around Kiev Kiev?
There were not you know just numerous divisions roaming around I mean I've seen some very good analysis by you know
People in the military looking at
Satellite footage
Analyzing literally like individual fields and they're like, you know, there's obviously not you know numerous
Hundreds of you know all these numerous brigades and they're just like it would be crazy to think they could they they would be nuts if they thought they could have
attacked
Kiev in force with the forces that we can infer were there based on all this sort of satellite evidence
They have and things like that so I don't know if it was just an attempt to
Spook Ukraine into doing what they wanted to be like we're we're really serious here
You better listen to us if they thought that you know, they'd bribed slash had enough collaborators in
Ukraine that things would just fall apart
It is worth noting
That the US intelligence which at the time said this invasion is gonna happen and people were like
Yeah, that's you're crazy. This is warmongering. So they're right. The invasion is gonna happen
But they also said yeah Ukraine will fall in about a month. It'll all be over. They're really wrong on that
So potentially the Russians also thought that
but the point is
They're not engaging in crazy revisionism in terms of
Conquering all of Ukraine. They're sort of securing the interest in Ukraine
They already have and ensuring that Ukraine will not be joining NATO anytime soon. It's not really an imperialistic
war of conquest if it were
Well, they could be doing a lot more sort of strategic bombing and just leveling everywhere
and
They could be I mean, it's it's really it's a little nuts if you look at the border between Ukraine and Russia
It's enormous and there's not a lot of fighting a lot or really any fighting along vast swaths of it
So it is even though it's the largest war in Europe and I mean guess war since World War two probably
It is still a relatively restrained conflict
Whereas if they were, you know revisionist Nazi Germany
It would be an all-out effort and I mean that's part of what
It's been interesting the Kremlin has tried to preserve normalcy in Russia
and
I mean, there's lots of lots of effects on the economy that are probably going to be coming down the road where people will be
Feeling a bigger hit in their wallet
But they're not engaging in you know full-scale war mobilization as would be required where they just you know
We're re-establishing the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact
Well, I think that all issue of how it's a conservative power right is trying to preserve what it had going on
Mitra really shows that in as same with me. I was unaware of just how much
Russia depended on southeastern Ukraine
for
Manufacturing for munitions creation and then of course and that's on top of the Crimea
just
Donetsk right the the entire Donbas is
They had it was just absolutely key and critical to Russian logistics in a variety of products and services that they wanted
And so by invading they're really just trying to preserve
Goods and services they already had become accustomed to having they weren't they weren't really expanding
Access and influence much at all, but they were faced with losing all of that on top of Crimea
Right, so you can look at the whole thing right by by invading the Donbas
they're preserving access to a whole aspect of its military industrial complex as
well as important access to the Sea of Azov in very important coastline and
Then Crimea and then on top of that of course southern Ukraine
The Russians needed to preserve water access for Ukraine, which is very dry and has no natural
water sources and
Ukraine had cut that off in the years leading up to the full invasion
So Crimea was basically becoming dried out and was relying on water piped in from elsewhere
So the the new invasion right it gives it gives total control the Sea of Azov it provides water to Crimea
And it provides access to all of this absolutely essential economic stuff in southeast Ukraine all of which Mitra notes and
He answers a very important question here right and this has come up in a lot of debate over the
over NATO expansion is
Why did Russia respond as it did in response to Ukraine NATO meddling in Ukraine?
But not to NATO expanding into Finland or in the Baltics
Why did Russia respond differently to that now as you notes to some extent?
It was because of Russia was really weak when they expanded to the Baltics
However, when you look at just how much key and central
Eastern Ukraine is to the Russian economy and Russian national interests. It's far beyond anything that is key in
Finland or in other parts of Eastern Europe
It's a very different situation and it keeps coming back to a phrase he repeats multiple times in the book
which is that great powers balance against threats not against countries and
That is I think covered in this issue here is that as the threats moved eastward
Russia became
more
vehement about balancing against those threats and those threats
Materialized in Ukraine more than anywhere else more than right expanding NATO to Finland did not
Expand a threat the way expanding into Ukraine would so he's making some important distinctions there that a lot of people just kind of
mockingly noted saying that oh
Russia's just crazy and illogical in its expansion because it's freaking out about Ukraine, but didn't hardly do anything about Finland
Okay, but that's explained here in the book and he just makes the point over and over that if we look at the details of it
Russia is crazy like a fox as the phrase goes right is there there's nothing crazy about or
Unexpected or irrational about Russia's response to the Ukraine situation or to the Georgia situation is very much explained
By the proximity of the threat which is an important issue right he notes that the threat becomes larger the closer
It gets to Russia's borders
Right the US could do something in Zimbabwe and has nothing and Russia's just not even if Russia had like a lot of
Interests there in terms of trade
Or it had a military base there Russia is not going to respond in the to the way to things in Africa
the way it would respond to things in Ukraine or Georgia which are right on Russia's borders because proximity matters and
So this book is just I think a good explanation of why the war in Ukraine
Why the freak out over Crimea in Georgia?
We call it a freak out, but it's actually very much to be expected and makes perfect sense given the facts on the ground
Yeah, and on Finland
There another important contrast is
Ukraine is sort of the historic highway for invading Russia. It's it's you know
Does not have many geographic barriers
Whereas Finland. Oh, yes, we've just added this enormous NATO border with Russia
but
There's not it's unlikely. There's it's
people will be
That Coralia, which I think is the Russian province next to Finland is going to be a highway for invading
I mean you can look
In in World War two when Finland rejoined the war
They didn't get very far. I mean it was pretty static warfare for my, you know limited understanding
I mean they were not blitzkrieg-ing down. They didn't even reach
Lenin grad I mean Lenin grad was besieged, but it was still able to be reached in all that
So yeah, it I think really it the book one as we were noting before it's a great introduction to sort of realist thinking and logic
So, you know, it's it's worth that
You know, it's worth the price of reading for that alone, but it also
Gives to the idea that you know
States, you know, the people the elites as you were saying they are
rational
And in and which there's lots of debate about what rational means and I but I think you know
I like the Misesian definition of rationality. It's purposeful action and
People seem to think that you know, unless you're the US or
Supposedly, you know Western democracy that you just are a crazy person who is you know schizophrenically
Doing things and there's all this speculation Putin's been isolated by COVID. That's why he's doing these crazy things. It's like
we can we can
use
history to draw conclusions about cause and effect and it is not
viological deduction like
economics math or formal logic
So it's not going to be ironclad
But we can have a general idea of why people are doing things and then when he gets to the end of the book
He has just a few policy recommendations, which are based on this premise of
People aren't just acting like Adams randomly bouncing around
They, you know states are acting
Under the constraints of the international system and we therefore can say doing this will probably lead to this result
And I mean people did that John McKay of John Mearsheimer
famously wrote in 2014 exactly how this was going to go down and
it did so I
Think this is a great book intro really to realism if you're not super familiar with it
But also to having a better understanding of current goings on. It's very relevant for sure
Well with that we'll go ahead and wrap up this episode of radio Rothbard. Thank you, though
Thank you, Zach for joining me today. Thank you everyone out there for listening and we'll see you next time