NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 5 (RIA Novosti) – Western leaders, meeting in Wales this week do not understand Russian fears about NATO expansion into eastern Europe, a Chicago University political scientist John Mearsheimer said.
“People talk about states having rights, that a country like Ukraine can do anything it wants... They’re living in a false paradigm,” Mearsheimer said.
“If your state is in the neighborhood of a great power, it’s imperative that you pay careful attention to how your behavior affects that great power’s actions towards you,” he added.
Mearsheimer compared Russian concerns over Ukrainian NATO membership to the United States, which follows the 19th Century Monroe Doctrine that interprets foreign powers interfering in the Americas as acts of aggression.
“The same logic is at play with regards to Russia. Russia is basically saying that Ukraine and Georgia are on our border and there’s no way we were going to allow an alliance member to move arms into those countries and threaten us. This should be understandable to those in the West, but they just don’t get it,” Mearsheimer concluded.
NATO leaders gathered in Wales on Thursday for two days of talks focused on Ukraine, where military operation, launched by Kiev government to suppress independence supporters in southeastern Ukraine claimed some 2,600 lives since April.
Over the last months, NATO has boosted its military presence in the Baltics in connection with the situation in eastern Ukraine. The alliance explained such measures with the need to ensure the security of its allies.
Moscow has repeatedly expressed its concern about NATO's increased military activities in Eastern Europe.
