I was also thinking about what M gets wrong. I like this: "Mearsheimer cannot see that Putin is not acting in Russia’s interest—he is acting in his own, and a democratic Ukraine threatens his grip on power."
Afterthought: About which other leaders can we say the same? And how does international relations theory conceptualize how interests of the country do (not) align with the interests of the leaders?
Actually, M himself wrote about the question of how the interests of states and leaders do (not) align in the book "How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy". Maybe it would be worth looking into whether what M says in this book is consistent with his views on Putin and Russia. Another question I had about M is the following. Ms theory is supposed to be descriptive, but then in all the videos I watched, he deduces policy advice from his descriptive theory. This suggests that M has a hidden agenda. Does M have a hidden agenda? What is Ms hidden agenda? Why does he use his theory to promote it?
"We are one people, Americans and Canadians. They speak English, we speak English, fair skin, all of that," Trump said. "And the great people of Alberta, some of them want to separate, and I can't blame them. Do you know they put French on their food labels? French! I think they're being treated very unfairly. You have to think, '49th parallel, why the 49th parallel?' 50 would be a much rounder number, but we should go farther, right? We could be, just, one people living together happily..."
When asked about the 170,000 troops amassed on the border with Alberta, he said: "You know, our guys are a military, and they need military experience, they need to be able to fight in sun and rain and snow. So in this case, Idaho, it's a good place for snow, for training in snow, and they're very good, very lethal soldiers. But they're not going to invade, they're just training there."
Way back in the 90s, writing on Foreign Affairs, a smarter Mearsheimer argued that Ukraine should not surrender its nuclear weapons because Russia would not let it survive. He was closer to the truth, once.
Mearsheimer implicitly approves of the largest land mass country with Nukes invading Ukraine because of “provocations” but Israel at nine miles wide and surrounded by existential enemies has no legitimate security concerns. It’s just a transparent grift and a product of his bigotry.
The critique of realism’s “billiard ball” model is fair, particularly regarding regime vs. state interests. But dismissing security concerns so completely seems just as reductive as ignoring ideology.
The war likely reflects multiple layers—geopolitics, identity, and internal regime logic—not just one.
M's "hard realist" theory was formed during the Cold War and describes superpower state relationships as defense of mutually-recognized spheres of influence by powers with immutable state territories. The pre-breakup Soviet Union included Ukraine as its strategically most important region going back to the 1700s, not as a sovereign state, democratic or otherwise. By M's model of realist power relations, Russia would no more peacefully give up Ukraine than the US would freely allow the secession of Texas had the outcome of the Cold War gone the other way. Putin still sees Ukraine through that lens. If Ukraine truly had wished complete sovereignty, it would not -- as another poster pointed out M observed -- given up its nuclear weapons as part of the deal that led to Moscow agreeing to the formal end of the Soviet Union. If the US had stayed within the bounds of that agreement, it would not have encouraged Ukraine to try to break out of the Russian sphere of influence and join NATO.
Excellent analysis but perhaps a mischaracterization of political "realism", at least the Kissinger variant of the method. I suggest Barry Gewen's 2020 book on the topic. Mearsheimer is simply an authoritarian revanchist masquerading as an intellectual rebel. Lately, he's become more of an internet troll than a serious political analyst.
"No reasonable person believes that NATO was likely to invade or to annex Russian territory."
Uh, how can you make this argument when in fact, NATO (and related) HAVE ALREADY 'invaded' and 'annexed' other territories???
You have to remove this sentence to remain intellectually honest, and once you remove it, the entire premise of your argument fails. The fact is that nothing is off the table when it comes to power, and THAT is the premise of Mearsheimer's entire argument.
Sorry, but I have to side with Mearsheimer on this.
I remember a quip by Henry Kissinger -- back when he was trying to bomb North Vietnam (or some other place where life was cheap, like Los Angeles ...) back into the stone age -- something about how power was the greatest of all aphrodisiacs ...
I was also thinking about what M gets wrong. I like this: "Mearsheimer cannot see that Putin is not acting in Russia’s interest—he is acting in his own, and a democratic Ukraine threatens his grip on power."
Afterthought: About which other leaders can we say the same? And how does international relations theory conceptualize how interests of the country do (not) align with the interests of the leaders?
That's a good question, which is why it is important to look at the empirical reality to gauge any theory.
Actually, M himself wrote about the question of how the interests of states and leaders do (not) align in the book "How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy". Maybe it would be worth looking into whether what M says in this book is consistent with his views on Putin and Russia. Another question I had about M is the following. Ms theory is supposed to be descriptive, but then in all the videos I watched, he deduces policy advice from his descriptive theory. This suggests that M has a hidden agenda. Does M have a hidden agenda? What is Ms hidden agenda? Why does he use his theory to promote it?
"We are one people, Americans and Canadians. They speak English, we speak English, fair skin, all of that," Trump said. "And the great people of Alberta, some of them want to separate, and I can't blame them. Do you know they put French on their food labels? French! I think they're being treated very unfairly. You have to think, '49th parallel, why the 49th parallel?' 50 would be a much rounder number, but we should go farther, right? We could be, just, one people living together happily..."
When asked about the 170,000 troops amassed on the border with Alberta, he said: "You know, our guys are a military, and they need military experience, they need to be able to fight in sun and rain and snow. So in this case, Idaho, it's a good place for snow, for training in snow, and they're very good, very lethal soldiers. But they're not going to invade, they're just training there."
Way back in the 90s, writing on Foreign Affairs, a smarter Mearsheimer argued that Ukraine should not surrender its nuclear weapons because Russia would not let it survive. He was closer to the truth, once.
To be specific: "The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent," Foreign Affairs 72.3 (Summer 1993), pp. 50-66.
I see this as compatible with his current views.
Care to elaborate?
Mearsheimer is an example of how very smart people can come to embrace preposterous positions that ordinary people know are ridiculous.
Mearsheimer implicitly approves of the largest land mass country with Nukes invading Ukraine because of “provocations” but Israel at nine miles wide and surrounded by existential enemies has no legitimate security concerns. It’s just a transparent grift and a product of his bigotry.
The critique of realism’s “billiard ball” model is fair, particularly regarding regime vs. state interests. But dismissing security concerns so completely seems just as reductive as ignoring ideology.
The war likely reflects multiple layers—geopolitics, identity, and internal regime logic—not just one.
M's "hard realist" theory was formed during the Cold War and describes superpower state relationships as defense of mutually-recognized spheres of influence by powers with immutable state territories. The pre-breakup Soviet Union included Ukraine as its strategically most important region going back to the 1700s, not as a sovereign state, democratic or otherwise. By M's model of realist power relations, Russia would no more peacefully give up Ukraine than the US would freely allow the secession of Texas had the outcome of the Cold War gone the other way. Putin still sees Ukraine through that lens. If Ukraine truly had wished complete sovereignty, it would not -- as another poster pointed out M observed -- given up its nuclear weapons as part of the deal that led to Moscow agreeing to the formal end of the Soviet Union. If the US had stayed within the bounds of that agreement, it would not have encouraged Ukraine to try to break out of the Russian sphere of influence and join NATO.
Excellent analysis but perhaps a mischaracterization of political "realism", at least the Kissinger variant of the method. I suggest Barry Gewen's 2020 book on the topic. Mearsheimer is simply an authoritarian revanchist masquerading as an intellectual rebel. Lately, he's become more of an internet troll than a serious political analyst.
"No reasonable person believes that NATO was likely to invade or to annex Russian territory."
Uh, how can you make this argument when in fact, NATO (and related) HAVE ALREADY 'invaded' and 'annexed' other territories???
You have to remove this sentence to remain intellectually honest, and once you remove it, the entire premise of your argument fails. The fact is that nothing is off the table when it comes to power, and THAT is the premise of Mearsheimer's entire argument.
Sorry, but I have to side with Mearsheimer on this.
I remember a quip by Henry Kissinger -- back when he was trying to bomb North Vietnam (or some other place where life was cheap, like Los Angeles ...) back into the stone age -- something about how power was the greatest of all aphrodisiacs ...
Power corrupts, 1066 and all that.