
Prof. John Mearsheimer is a political scientist and a scholar of international relations in the realist tradition. He studied at the United States Military Academy (BS), University of Southern California (MA) and Cornell University (PhD). He’s the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, where he has taught for over 40 years. This is how he defines himself:
“Above all else, I am an international relations theorist. More specifically, I am a realist, which means that I believe that the great powers dominate the international system, and they constantly engage in security competition with each other, which sometimes leads to war.” https://www.mearsheimer.com/
This is a partial transcript of Prof. Mearsheimer’s interview in the Makdisi Street podcast published on January 4, 2025, see YT video below.
Here he discusses the current geopolitical situation also in light of his book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2007).
“Let me start by telling you what realism is, and then I’ll offer some speculations on how I became to be a realist.
Realists basically believe that the balance of power is of enormous importance to states. And the reason is that there is no higher authority in the system that can come to your rescue if you get into trouble. So, the basic logic that underpins realism is that, given the fact that there is no higher authority that can rescue a state in the international system, every state wants to be as powerful as possible. So, the currency of international politics is power. And the name of the game, in this zero-sum world, is to have as much power as possible.
Now, the second question is, how did I end up as a realist? It’s a very difficult question to answer, but nevertheless one that I think about all the time… I think a number of people believe it’s because I went to West Point – I was in the American military – and anybody who went to West Point is going to be a realist by definition. I actually don’t think that’s true…
I think, to be honest, the reason why I’m a realist is because it provides the best explanation of how the world works. I view human beings as highly theoretical. I like to talk about human beings as Homo Theoreticus. And I think we all need theories to understand how this incredibly complicated world that we live in works. And theories are simplifications of reality, so they’re not right all the time. There’s no such thing a perfect theory, at least in the social sciences.
But my sense is, from having studied a lot of history and having looked at a lot of theories, that realism is the best theory of the lot. It’s not a perfect theory, again, but it is a really good theory for trying to get a handle on how the world works. And over time, I’ve just come to the conclusion that it makes sense to view yourself as a realist. And this is not to say you should diss other theories and say they’re all useless and you have the truth – because you don’t want to think in those terms. But I do think, in the final analysis, the best theory out there is realism, and that is why I am a realist. […]
A lot of people think that realists have no use for international law… and that’s not the case at all. The key to understanding how realists think about institutions is to understand that the most powerful states in the system write the rules. They write the laws. So, when you look at the rule-based order… or the liberal international order, whatever you want to call it, who wrote all those rules that underpin that order? The United States did. And obviously, when the United States writes the rules, it writes them in ways that benefit the United States. […]
So, you’re always going to have a system of rules or a system of laws, and the great powers are going to write those rules and laws, and they’re going to have a deep-seated incentive to follow the rules. However, if they come to the conclusion that a particular rule or law cuts against their national interest, what they will do is either ignore it and do whatever they think it’s necessary, or they will re-write the rules. So, the great powers who write the rules are in an excellent position to take advantage of them and to use them for their benefit, and occasionally disobey the rules when it’s not in their interests. So, this is the basic realist view. […]
You asked me, in your initial question, what were some of the weaknesses of realism. And as I told you, I think that realism is hardly a perfect theory. It’s a simplification of reality. And what realism leaves out of the story is domestic politics… But occasionally, domestic politics really matters, and this is when the theory doesn’t work.
Now, as you all know, Stephen Walt and I wrote this book called The Israel Lobby [The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2007] and many people have pointed out that that book is a direct contradiction of our realist theories, to which our answer is: you are right. It is a direct contradiction, because the book basically says that domestic politics is driving American foreign policy in the Middle East, and it is doing it in ways that are not in America’s strategic interests, which of course contradicts realist logic.
Now, to switch gears a bit and to answer your question, what’s going on in the Middle East is that the United States is violating international law. It is contesting international law that is has long supported at every turn. It’s really quite remarkable, the extent to which the United States is attacking institutions like the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, etc. Why are we doing this?
Because I want to emphasize: it is not only NOT in our strategic interest, for the reasons I’ve just laid out. It is NOT the morally correct position to take either. The fact is, the United States is complicit in a genocide. How can this be morally correct? And again, it’s not strategically correct either. We’re doing this in large part because of the power of the Lobby.
The fact is that the Lobby has awesome power in the United States. It causes the United States to support Israel unconditionally. And Israel is therefore free to go out and do horrible things to the Palestinians, to commit genocide – and we support Israel in every way. And in the end, what we’re doing is undermining the liberal international order that we helped build. […]
The United States has clear interests around the world. And if you want to talk about vital interests, there are three areas of the world that matter enormously to us: one is Europe; two is East Asia; and three is the Persian Gulf or the Middle East.
And our principal interest in the Middle East is to make sure that no single power controls all of the oil in that region – that has long been our primary interest in the region. And our secondary interest, which is not unrelated to that first interest in the region, is to have stability in the Middle East. And that’s especially true with regard to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
And as all of you know, the United States has been pushing a two-state solution for a long, long time. Why has almost every president since Jimmy Carter pushed really hard to have a two-state solution? Because we understand that that is in our interest.
Nevertheless, we have been unable to get the Israelis to move in a serious way to accept a two-state solution. We have been unable to put any kind of meaningful pressure on Israel to do what we think is in our interest. And instead, the Israelis have gone about trying to create a Greater Israel, which we have long understood was going to lead to unending trouble.
And what happened on October 7, and since then, is largely an outgrowth of that. It’s at odds with what is in our interest. So, if you look at American policy in the Middle East, what’s going on now is hardly in our interest. And if we had been able to push the Israelis toward a two-state solution a long time ago, the case could be made that we wouldn’t be having this trouble now. And we wouldn’t be bogged down in the Middle East, which is not in our national interest.
But the reason we are bogged down in the Middle East, and the reason why we never got a two-state solution, is because of the power of the Lobby inside the United States. It’s virtually impossible for any president to put meaningful pressure on Israel. Israel can do pretty much anything it wants, and get away with it.
And when you have a state like Israel, and a state like the United States, it’s invariably going to be the case that they don’t always have the same interest. In some cases, we do have the same interest. I think both countries have an interest in Iran not acquiring nuclear weapons. But on all sorts of other issues, we disagree. But nevertheless, we have to put aside our interest and do Israel’s bidding for it. […]
If you look at how the lobby operates, it basically functions on two levels. The first one is the public discourse. The Lobby cares enormously about the public discourse, because it wants to create this impression that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, it is a close ally of the United States, it shares Western values, and it’s up against a lot of bad guys – and these bad guys are our enemies as well as Israel’s enemies. And there’s a particular set of narratives that go along with that discourse. And they go to enormous lengths to control the discourse.
They’ve had a lot of trouble doing that in recent years, mainly because of the Internet and alternative media. So, down at the level of public discourse, the Lobby has been losing influence over time.
At the second level – and in many ways the most important level – is the policy level. And there, the Lobby’s influence is greater than ever. […]
Israel is extremely dependent on the United States. Israel has grown more and more dependent on American support over time, and you see it very clearly since October 7. But that means the Lobby has to work overtime to make sure the United Sates continues to support Israel, because Israel is so dependent on us.
So, the Israel Lobby has doubled down at the policy level. And it is deadly effective in getting policy makers to support Israel unconditionally – and that’s where we are today. And you hardly see any politician in the United States criticizing Israel in any meaningful way.
You would expect, given the genocide that is taking place in Gaza, that at least a handful of policy makers would be screaming about that very fact. But that’s not the case. And the end result is that Congress supports Israel unconditionally. You saw what happened when Benjamin Netanyahu came to talk before Congress… Yes, it’s really quite remarkable.
And of course, Joe Biden, Barak Obama, Donald Trump – they all support Israel unconditionally. I don’t think anybody who studies the Israel-Palestinian conflict, or Israeli policy in the Middle East, thinks that Donald Trump is going to make much difference. […]
It is very important to understand that criticism of Israel in the American Jewish community among young American Jews is really quite amazing. It’s not like Israel is winning hearts and minds among young Jews with its behavior towards to the Palestinians.”
*** ANTIVIRUS 7.0 ***
https://margheritamaleti.com/2024/05/10/criminal-complaint-rape-sex-trafficking-passport-theft/
https://margheritaviggiano.com/2024/05/10/criminal-complaint-rape-sex-trafficking-passport-theft/
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzgMtooufsk&t=1326s