Here's a great video to watch from a policy expert. It's different from the other video.
Lot's of good points all throughout the video.
I've already slogged through most of sanman's 1 hour and 40 minute video of Mearsheimer, McGovern, and some minor contributors so I think I will pass on this one.
As I have said, the problem with Mearsheimer is that he has an axe to grind, and he announces it at the beginning of the video I viewed. For M. someone, specifically some "side", must carry most of the blame and he has decided which side that will be.
A serious scholar that looks at an event never assumes that must be one cause, one side to blame, and then sets out to find facts to support it. The don't even assume that some "side" knowingly caused, or should have known it would cause, an event 8 or 15 years hence. Such upfront judgementalism and his mission to prove a fault of one side stains his credibility.
And it shows in his prior video. Many important events are left out of his analysis, he finds meaning in small events, ignores large counterfactual events, and is boxed in by his own paradigm's assumptions. His constant claim of what Russia feels, fears, believes, etc. isn't useful, because in spite of theories of "great power" needs and motivations, it is not "160,000,000" million in a group" that make choices, but individual actors influenced by political traditions as well as economic. and ideological forces.
To that end, it is obvious that Putin and his world view, his deeply imbedded history as a KGB agent for a totalitarian system, his indoctrination on the nature of the west strongly distorts reality. The problem wasn't Yeltsin, Medvedev, Clinton, Bush, Obama, or Biden...it was and is Putin.
Consider, after Putin's invasion of Georgia, his term expired, and Medvedev (2009 to Jan 2012) became President. And guess what, Obama and Medvedev had an era of cooperation. They signed and ratified a new START treaty, voted to support the most comprehensive set of sanctions against Iran, Obama convinced him to keep an American base open to supply routes to American military action in Afghanistan, got Russia in the WTO, and established far more liberal visa regime. And that era also included the re affirmation of the US, UK, and Russia memorandum persevering Ukraine's sovereignty in 2010. That doesn't sound like "Russia" who is deeply offended and driven to extremes because of NATO being an "existential threat" to Russia. (
Yet, when Putin regained the Presidency in 2012 it again fell apart. NATO was an extensional threat to his worldview, and he worked overtime promoting that delusion.
So I suggest you broaden your readings and note the shortcomings of your go to source. He's telling a highly cherry-picked story to advocate for an opinion he holds independent of scholarly deliberation.