252. John Mueller on Putin’s War: Russia, Ukraine, and NATO

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Dialogue, Science, Reason, Michaelshermer, Natural Sciences, Skeptic

4.4 • 921 Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2022

⏱️ 86 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this conversation with the renowned Ohio State University political scientist John Mueller, author of The Stupidity of War, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War, and The Remnants of War, we discuss the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and what we might expect from Putin’s Russia in the coming weeks, months, and years, along with Dr. Mueller’s outline for how to end the current conflict and compromise with Putin. That seems unlikely at this point, but the prospects of the tragedy of millions of war refugees pouring out of Ukraine into neighboring nations, along with the number killed already and likely to be killed as the fighting escalates, why not give negotiation and compromise a chance? Read John Mueller’s op-ed that accompanies this episode.

Transcript

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0:14.0	You're listening to the Michael Sherman Shower Show. Welcome to the Michael Sherman Show.
0:16.0	I'm your host Michael Sherman.
0:18.0	This is a special edition of the podcast
0:20.0	related to Ukraine and Russia and Putin. I have on a returning guest John
0:25.8	Mueller who I contacted on Friday and we recorded this on Saturday, March 5th.
0:33.2	John is the author of the stupidity of war,
0:37.6	American foreign policy in the case for complacency,
0:41.0	by which he means negotiations and other means of avoiding war in armed
0:46.6	conflict and so here we are and of course like pretty much the rest of the world he
0:51.5	thinks the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a
0:53.8	stupid war and it is. However he also shows both in this conversation and please do
1:00.5	also see the op-ed he wrote that we're publishing in E-Skeptic along with this
1:06.0	podcast in which he outlines how this could have been avoided, although what's the point
1:11.5	at this point since we're at are where we are but that in fact
1:16.3	negotiating with Putin was an option that is Putin made it clear he didn't
1:21.6	want Ukraine to join NATO.
1:24.0	Well, we never hear the other side of that story which John Mueller does give us that
1:29.0	you can't just join NATO. You have to apply and it takes years and if your country is corrupt and
1:34.6	broke you're not likely to become a member of NATO anyway so it would have been
1:40.3	easy to say well we can't assure that Ukraine will never join
1:45.4	NATO but we can delay it let's say 20 years or 25 years and by which time
1:50.8	Putin will be in his 90s and that'll be the end of the game anyway
	...

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