At some point, we will have to blame Mearsheimer, Sachs, and their fellow travelers for much more than just peddling wrong explanations and misleading people. These guys have influence in policy circles, their words have policy consequences. They are partly responsible for policies that are based on their explanations. The U.S. has now said no NATO membership for Ukraine — and the Russians didn’t even bother to thank it. The U.S. has pursued deescalation — and the Kremlin merely escalated in return. The U.S. has offered lucrative deals to Moscow — and the Russians have not offered anything at all. The U.S. denigrated and pressured Zelenskyy multiple times — and the Kremlin just clapped. The U.S. pulled Putin out of increasing international isolation by rolling out the red carpet for him in Alaska — and the Kremlin just used “the spirit of Alaska” to support its demands for Ukraine to capitulate. The Russians still demand all of Donbas just to start talking. And the reason for all these failure is rather simple: the U.S. keeps offering things that should appeal to the Russians under the Mearsheimer/Sachs explanation of the war but don’t. Because their explanation is fundamentally and irretrievably wrong. The moment you ditch the Mearshemer/Sachs framework, everything will immediately fall into place and you will understand why all these initiatives never had any chance of success. Putin wants to subjugate Ukraine. That’s the starting point. From this, it follows that he does not want it in NATO. It follows that he does not want it to have an army. It follows that he does not want it to have an independent government. But, you might say, this is consistent with the other framework too. It is. But the imperialist explanation also tells you why Putin is fixated on territories, why he insists on taking Donbas, and why no economic and security concessions work on him. It tells you why all these talks will never work. Mearsheimer is reduced to blubbering utter gibberish when confronted with that reality. After denying expansionist motives for years, he had to bow to reality and so began to claim — without a shred of evidence — that the territorial demands came only after the invasion. That’s despite the Kremlin officially annexing Donetsk and Luhansk even before the invasion, and Putin ceaselessly talking about subjugation and territory. These people are immoral hacks who, to our collective dismay, have long had access and influence in Washington (and elsewhere). Their ideas are partly responsible for the failures of our foreign policy, with the consequences we now face. Their vacuous insistence on peace and blaming the West for Russia’s aggression — along with their incessant clamor for talking to Moscow and normalizing relations — are contributing directly to the prolongation of the war. They embolden the Kremlin to persist and escalate in the expectation that the West would buckle because enough people come to believe these charlatans. These people have the blood of hundreds of thousands on their hands.