Did the U.S. Provoke Russia's Invasion of Ukraine?

Antiwar.com's Scott Horton and The Free Press's Eli Lake debate U.S. foreign policy and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

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Did the U.S. Provoke Russia's Invasion of Ukraine?

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Scott Horton of The Libertarian Institute and Eli Lake of The Free Press debate the resolution, "The United States started the new Cold War with Russia and provoked Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

Taking the affirmative is Horton, the director of The Libertarian Institute and the editorial director of antiwar.com. He recently published a book on the debate subject called Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine.

Arguing for the negative is Lake, a columnist for The Free Press and contributing editor for Commentary magazine, whose longtime beat has been foreign affairs and national security.

The debate was hosted at Dartmouth College by the Dartmouth Political Union and moderated by Soho Forum director Gene Epstein.

• Post Production: John Osterhoudt

Comments

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

Yes

Moving NATO to their border
Color Revolution in 2014

[Don’t get eliminated (now #1 on the list)]

Reason continues to be half a decade behind the commentariat.

[Turbocelt]

Reason provides open discourse on substantive issues. In the case of Russia and Ukraine, it is obvious that the Ukraine is a very valuable country that does not want to be subjected to the oppression of the Communists. They have been subjected to corruption on the part of the USA at the highest level , again demonstrating their value as a productive nation

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (Trump Ascendant!! )]

Then, after using a fraudulent election to get installed as president, Biden made several missteps that emboldened an enabled Putin to invade.

1. Biden issued dozens of EO’s and regulations that strangled oil and gas production, which sent futures prices skyrocketing. This has sustained Putin’s war chest.

2. Biden’s disastrous and failed withdrawal from Afghanistan showed Putin that America is weakly and poorly lead, which extends to our military.

3. During the five month Russian military build up prior to the invasion Biden did nothing.

Basically, the whole thing is the fault of Biden and the democrats. As usual.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Look, we don’t own Dems around these parts, it just isn’t cool, you dig?

[JohnZ]

Under Obama's mishandling, he sent neo-con Victoria Nudelman to Ukraine to kick start the Maiden.Nudelman is married to Bill Kagan, another Trotskyite neo-con. Also involved was another neo-con, Samantha Power. There were other players: NATO and Britain. But the real players who were behind the scenes were the talmudic zionists who hate Russia with a passion. After all they've been kicked out of the country twice now.
These are the same talmudists who call themselves conservatives but in reality are neo-conservatives-Trotskyites.
After the bloody revolt in which snipers were involved, the government fell not the hands of neo-Nazis. From then on, it's history.

[Big Ed's Landing]

What a load of nonsense! You have to work really hard to come up with this baloney.

[JasonT20]

This is some kind of joke, right? If someone starts expanding their neighborhood watch patrols close to gang territory, is that provoking them to launch home invasions in those neighborhoods?

I don't care what non-treaty agreements Russia thought it had between itself and NATO regarding sovereign countries on Russia's borders. They are sovereign countries that are free to make and break their own agreements, treaties, and alliances with whoever they want. If Russia didn't want NATO on its doorstep, maybe it could have offered those countries a better deal than to be put under Russia's thumb as Putin tries to rebuild a Russian empire.

[MasterThief]

The UN did, but yes it is fair to lay most of that at the US's feet.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

The US thought Russia would play the chump forever. Oops.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Did the U.S. Provoke Russia's Invasion of Ukraine?
I see what you did there with the question mark headline but the answer is still yes.

[Mickey Rat]

Obviously, the Ukrainians deserve to have a Russian boot stomping on their faces, forever.

It is, of course, the libertarian answer.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Such a silly post.

[SQRLSY]

Mickey Rat OBLIVIOUSLY made SUCH a silly post, that he DESERVES to have AuthorShitarian, TotalShitarian, fascist, and brainless pro-violence cummenter boots stomping on his face, forever!!!

NOW LOOK TWAT YE MADE ME DO!!!!

[Mickey Rat]

How so?

The proposition is that Russia was provoked into war. That means that Russia going to war against Ukraine was a rational and reasonable response to Ukraine exercising its sovereignty and to US policy.

It means that Horton thinks Ukraine has no right to independence and national sovereignty.

[JohnZ]

Or does it mean that the neo-Nazi Azov battalion could shell the Donbass and murder twelve thousand ethnic Russians there.

[mad.casual]

Seems like plenty of Ukrainians were willing to let Putin do what he wanted as long as he didn't do it to them and Z is the one who closed the borders and put the boot on their face until they agreed to go fight Putin.

Between Putin and US-backed Zelensky, "No step on fase" was never an option.

[MollyGodiva]

Ukraine has a sovereign right to make alliances with whomever they want, including NATO. That is not in any way justification for Russia to attack.
This is international relations, not playground hissy fits.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Mexico has a sovereign right to make alliances with whomever they want, including China. If they put a nuclear missile base in Tijuana it's all good.

[Rick James]

I'm trying to imagine a situation where Russia parked a few dozen warheads 90 miles off the coast of Florida and the US President had a hissy fit and threatened wwiii over it.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Sounds like some Q Anon shit to me.

[Don't look at me! (No longer muted!)]

That could never happen!

[Mother's Lament (Salt farmer)]

TonyGodiva is a student of history and can't imagine such a far-fetched scenario.

[n00bdragon]

So... warmongering Democrat JFK good now?

[VULGAR MADMAN]

So you’re saying Ukraine has the right to keep foreigners invaders out?

[JFree]

That is what Sergei Lavrov said in 2005 in an interview in Handelsblatt [autotranslated from German]

Does the right to sovereignty also mean for Georgia and Ukraine, for example, that Russia have nothing against its accession to the EU and NATO?

Lavrov: That's their choice. We respect the right of every state – including our neighbours – to choose its partners, to decide for themselves which organization they want to join. We assume that they consider for themselves how they develop their politics and business and which partners and allies they are focusing on.

Of course - there's a bunch of diplobabble in that. A big difference between EU on economic stuff v some Euroalliance on defense stuff v a US-dominated NATO on defense/nuclear stuff

[DenverJ]

Ukraine had a democratically elected president who was about to sign a trade pact with Russia instead of the EU, and the CIA enacted one of their "color revolutions", and voila, a new president is "elected" who wants to join the EU and, most threatening to Moscow, NATO. You have no idea what you are talking about, and should go sit down and be quiet while the grownups converse.

[SQRLSY]

The CIA is responsible for the unprovoked Russian invasion? Are Ye PervFectly SURE tit wasn't the Lizard People who took away the free will and agency of the Russian kilbots? And now MollyGodiva DESERVES to have AuthorShitarian, TotalShitarian, fascist, and brainless pro-violence cummenter boots stomping on her face, forever?

BLESS ideas of, shit is SILLY to defend victims of unprovoked invasions, and... Now LOOK at twat ye just MADE me do!!!

(Ass if I am a brainless, free-will-lacking, agency-lacking meat puppet, bag of biochemicals, and Russian Kill-bot Gone Berserk. After all, WHO can blame MEEEE for being a Trumpanzee Gone Apeshit?!?!)

HANG MIKE PENCE and EXECUTE GENERAL MILLEY!!! They MADE us do shit!!!

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (Trump Ascendant!! )]

You’re a stupid fuck.

[JohnZ]

Another idiot post. Americans are stupid.!
It's not their fault. They watch the MSM and believe every word they're told by the paid liars and CIA media hacks who feed stupid Americans them bull shit day and night. The MSM should never be taken as factual.

[Nobartium]

Yes.

Should we have stood up for Ukraine, or otherwise provoked a non-communist state like 2020s Russia? No to both.

[JFree]

This is silly. In 2022 - and for that matter 2014 - RUSSIA is the one who had agency and is responsible for their actions. The time to look at the US being responsible for its actions is 1997 - when the decisions to expand NATO are being made. eg - when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is debating the issue and inviting various pros/cons; when the issues of the day are whether the Brits/French can come up with a common European defense strategy with a newly reunified Germany (which they opposed) to deal with something like a Bosnian genocide or Serbia - to which a much diminished US role also changes the potential nature of a Russia role or is there a conflict between the late Cold War arms control treaties (solely involving the US and Russia) v NATO mission changes?.

There's plenty of possible 'I told you so's from the people who did get involved then in arguing against mission creep or NATO expansion. But people like George Kennan, Paul Nitze, Sam Nunn, Paul Wellstone, Robert McNamara, Stansfield Turner, etc are dead. None of them 'non-interventionists' (x maybe Wellstone) but all whom can be allies of convenience for 'non-interventionism in this case'. To make the school of thought look more like something realistic inside the tent and less like isolationism or 'anti-Americanism' outside the tent.

Non-interventionists now have no interest in the arguments then - so they pick an easy explanation for 'what happened and why did it happen' from - Putin. And then wonder why everyone thinks they are aliens from another planet way outside the tent.

[Don't look at me! (No longer muted!)]

I blame Joe Biden.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

I’d say you can’t blame an absence of something, but I could be wrong.

[SQRLSY]

You can blame an absence of common sense and benevolence, for Vulgar Madman to BLESS ideas of, shit is SILLY to defend victims of unprovoked invasions, and... Now LOOK at twat ye just MADE me do!!!

(Ass if I am a brainless, free-will-lacking, agency-lacking meat puppet, bag of biochemicals, and Russian Kill-bot Gone Berserk. After all, WHO can blame MEEEE for being a Trumpanzee Gone Apeshit?!?!)

HANG MIKE PENCE and EXECUTE GENERAL MILLEY!!! They MADE us do shit!!!

[DenverJ]

When the Soviet Union fell, we treated the people like defeated enemies, instead of a newly liberated population. The West pillaged their previously state-owned resources, and the blob, starring Victoria Newland, decided to expand the American Empire right to the doorstep of Russia.

[SQRLSY]

Total fib! The Russians did not ALLOW free marketeers from the West to buy commie-Soviet assets, and, with knowledge and experience in how free markets work, to MAKE them work for Russia! Russian xenophobes and tribalist-nationalists PREVENTED "evil outsiders" from buying Soviet assets, thereby enabling insider Russian Big-Wigs, oligarchs, and "Good Old Boys" to steal shit all, and BURN the common Russian peons!

Butt now sure, WESTERN scapegoats are to blame!!!

[JFree]

Western 'free marketeers' are certainly to blame for Russia turning into a kleptocracy. Russians had no idea how to get state-owned assets into private hands and no idea how to produce tax revenue. Westerners advised them to sell all assets (or put up for sale all assets that were transferred to individuals as part of their 'public holding') fast for as much as possible and let markets work magic. It won't matter who the initial buyers are. Let the asset sales fund govt and reduce taxes to nothing. If individuals sell their stake for 5c on the $, good.

That shit is what created what is now a permanent kleptocracy that funds the most authoritarian govt. Countries that did it right - notably Estonia - didn't just take lazy advice from Western grifters with religious type incantations about how markets work.

[Mickey Rat]

At its core, Bolshevism was little more than a gang of criminals. The Russian kleptocracy is what happens when they dropped the pretense of ideology.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

We’re going to be paying for that decision for a long time.

[JFree]

The big problem imo is that the caliber of people involved in the 1997 discourse declined. Back then, it was a serious discussion. Careerists and expansionists stayed involved and knowledgeable and thus remained at the big boy table. 'Noninterventionists' disappeared and took no opportunity to distinguish between remaining knowledgeable v involving the US in actions.

No surprise which side prevails in the long run

[Mother's Lament (Salt farmer)]

Did the U.S. Provoke Russia's Invasion of Ukraine?

Absolutely, and deliberately. The uniparty and the deepstate wanted the Russian invasion even more than Russia did.

This doesn't absolve Russia, but what the CIA has done to Ukraine was even worse.

[JohnZ]

Indeed. Not only the CIA but the chews themselves wanted this. Their agents in D.C. the Kagans( Nudelman), Bill kristol, Samantha Power, Max Boot and others pushed this.
The massacre of 12,000 ethnic Russians in the Donbass is what drove Putin to respond.

[Mother's Lament (Salt farmer)]

Trudeau isn't going to let Poilievre 'DOGE' his kingdom.

BREAKING: Global Affairs Canada has abruptly deleted its entire public database of foreign aid spending, rendering the data inaccessible to the public.

[Don't look at me! (No longer muted!)]

Taxpayers have no right to know what is happening with their money.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Peasants are too stupid, and might come to the wrong conclusions.

[mad.casual]

Well that's not at all a suspicious reason to wholly justify the idea that you should just go right ahead and continue funding them.

The more I think about it all I can do is just laugh and say "Why?" Maybe they're trying to save time and the audit will go much quicker now.

[DesigNate]

In olden times, that would end with an existential head and body crises.

[Vesicant]

Yes, I distinctly remember when Dementia Joe went to Moscow and held a gun to Putin's head while Putin ordered the invasion.

[Mother's Lament (Salt farmer)]

They had Boris Johnson do it instead.

[SQRLSY]

Also, those dastardly Jews and Poles MADE Shitler and the Spermans start WW II when Spermany (AND Spermy Daniels) bombed Pearly Harbor!!!

[mad.casual]

Joe was too busy forgetting that he promised to blow up NS1 and 2.

[Mother's Lament (Salt farmer)]

It wasn't that Mayokas couldn't do it. He 'wouldn't' do it because they hate you.

Kristi Noem announces that FEMA has addressed 80% of the cases in Western North Carolina within just five days.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

It’s amazing what you can do when you don’t hate your own people.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Did you see all the Trump yard signs?

[sarcasmic]

Fuck Joe Biden?

[JesseAz (mean girl ambassador)]

Sarc. If you're confused, Scott Horton is an actual libertarian unlike your preferred libertarians named Psaki.

[DesigNate]

Yes, but it’s kinda besides the point.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Thank you, Joe Biden’s penis. You should calm down, there aren’t any little girls around here.

[MWAocdoc]

Didn't listen to the debate and don't care what these two think. But OF COURSE the United States provoked Putin's invasion of Ukraine. American governments have provoked a never-ending series of wars around the globe over two and a half centuries. American colonists provoked the American Revolutionary war by insisting on representation in the United Kingdom's government. Americans provoked the War of 1812 by objecting to American seamen being kidnapped by the British Navy. Americans triggered the Civil War by banning slavery. It was all downhill from there though. Americans declared war on Spain to acquire our own empire. Americans joined the First World War by sending war materiel support to England on the "Lusitania." Americans provoked the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor by interdicting the Empire's access to petroleum to fuel their conquest of China and south Asia. We have provoked over a hundred brushfire wars around the globe by interfering in local politics, "protecting vital national interests," opposing International Socialism, "making the world safe for Democracy," fighting a "Global War on Terror" and as world cops in the international "War on Drugs" and other impossible to define enemies and impossible to achieve or enforce aspirations. We provoked a new round of wars by failing to drop out of NATO when the Warsaw Pact unraveled and invited Putin to invade Ukraine by insisting that Ukraine give up its nuclear weapons deterrent in the unbelievably idiotic aspiration of "Nuclear Disarmament!" I don't know if it's possible to elect politicians who will stop interfering idiotically outside of American borders some day but until then our children and grandchildren will continue to be slaughtered and maimed in the name of political pissing matches to see who in Washington, D.C. has the biggest dick.

[MWAocdoc]

Spoiler alert: Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton still has the biggest dick in America.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

This guy gets it.

[MWAocdoc]

By the way "anti-war" is not a thing and "weapons of mass destruction" - don't get me started! Anyone who "doesn't believe in war" is likely to be conquered eventually by someone who DOES believe in war. On the other hand, if the big dicks in your government go looking for excuses to invade other countries, they are VERY likely to find them (think Gulf of Tonkin and WMD)

Americans should invent and maintain the best military machine in the world - and then use it ONLY in emergency defense of the United States of America!

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

How dare you post libertarian ideas!

[Commenter_XY]

A link to a transcript would be nice.

[BioBehavioral_View]

Right Is Right

Mr. Horton is right. For a discussion, visit . . .
https://www.nationonfire.com/whose-war/ .

[SRG2]

US: Ukraine, do you need protecting from Russia?
Ukraine: yes we do.
Russia: in which case we'd better invade you before that happens.
Useful idiots: the US provoked Russia! It's Biden's/Hillary's/Uncle Tom Cobley's fault!

[damikesc]

We overthrew a government of theirs, democratically elected, that we did not like.

The Left holds us STILL responsible for Iran. How is Ukraine not our fault?

[SRG2]

A Useful Idiot asks:How is Ukraine not our fault?

Poor helpless Russia, forced to invade Ukraine and shell civilian areas and carry out atrocities...

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Now tell us why it is "our" problem.

[SRG2]

That is a different issue. I am not minded to address it at the moment.

[Uncle Jay]

Russia invaded the Ukraine because Putin knew Biden was the Fredo of the world community, ie. weak and stupid.
However, Putin didn't realize the Ukraine would put a better fight than he thought.
Evidently, the big bad Russian bear isn't as tough as the world thought it would be.

[n00bdragon]

Maybe if you find yourself cheering for Russian invasions you aren't as anti-war as you might think.

[Chipper Chunked Chile Con Congress (ex NCW)]

If some big dude convinces his little friend at the bar to go up to some other big dude and start poking at him, it's not signaling that one is in favor of bar brawls to point out that one is about to happen.

[n00bdragon]

"Look what you made me do" is the last moral refuge of villains and despots. It is a noxious fable that aggressors have no agency and that victims are somehow responsible for their predicament. It is the lowest form of excusing evil.

[JohnZ]

Zelensky must be sweating blood at the thought of a peace agreement. The Ukrainian people are tired of this war and desertions are rampant along the lines. Russia continues to blow the shit out of the Ukraine's front and gain ever more ground.
The front is threatening to collapse. Soldiers are deserting and equipment is being blown to pieces including American planes, tanks and missiles. Mercenaries are either being captured or killed in battle, including American, British and French.
Infrastructure in Ukraine is being decimated and Zelensky knows the end is near. The people have had enough. It better come to an end soon or the people will end it and it won't be pretty for that little coke sniffling midget either.
Someone in Washington needs to plan an escape for the little corporal before he has his own Ceausescu moment...he and his wife. He can escape to his Miami villa, parked next to Nancy and Paul.

[Ama Valde Intellectum]

REmember High School...you put a weak stupid fool in charge and hell breaks out. Biden = weak stupid fool. What do you think world tyrants thought when they saw this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz5sADmN8IE

[Ama Valde Intellectum]

What does an evil leader think to hear utter foolishness like this
It is time for us to do what we have been doing....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgizHWcS2as

[Ama Valde Intellectum]

OF course Biden did. Look at what India and China did after JOhn Kerry overlooked organ harvesting to get a clmate deal.

CHINA
China's growing use of coal including the LONGEST coal transporting railway - which carries 200 MILLION tons of fossil fuel 1,141 MILES annually - draws pundit outrage as western nations spend BILLIONS to push citizens to reduce carbon footprint
A Scottish journalist highlighted the incongruity between the green initiatives coming from Western countries and those coming from China
China is responsible for 33 percent of the world's greenhouse gas, but continues to power itself by coal and establish itself as a global superpower
In the US, the Biden Administration continues to propose tens of billions of dollars be allocated to green initiatives that may or may not be effective

INDIA
India’s Plans to Double Coal Production Ignore Climate Threat
The south Asian giant is setting new targets to use more coal, despite committing to transitioning away from fossil fuels.

NO SANE PERSON COULD DENY IT. The Afghan pullout, mega money to Ukraine...what justifies $350 BILLION when Amercans are having such a hard time

[Thought about __ all my life]

After Kerry winked at human organ harvesting in China (to get a climate accord, now being greatly violated) every bastard in power saw what Biden was made of.