John J. Mearsheimer Official 2023

PART 1. Professor John Mearsheimer addressed an audience in Brisbane on Monday, 23 October as part of an event with Tom Switzer and Peter Varghese. This video is John's standalone lecture, you can find the rest of the conversation and Q&A session in PART 2 in the coming days. The Middle East crisis will have have severe repercussions for Israel, its neighbors, and U.S. foreign policy. Israel's response to Hamas's attacks is expected to continue to provoke anger across the Middle East, potentially fueling jihadist movements and escalating conflicts with other groups, contributing to regional instability. The U.S. has a vital interest in maintaining stability in the Persian Gulf, but the Israel-Hamas conflict threatens to undermine this. It's crucial to acknowledge that Russia, rather than constituting a substantial threat to the U.S., has the potential to be an ally in containing China. However, the U.S.-supported campaign in Ukraine has inadvertently drawn Russia closer to China, contravening the principles of balance-of-power politics, and this commitment to Ukraine is likely to remain. All this conflict risks diverting American focus from East Asia, where efforts to forge a coalition to address a significant strategic challenge are underway, it's in Australia's interest to collaborate with the U.S. in deterring China. Beijing's optimal outcome involves the U.S. remaining deeply involved in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, preventing a full pivot to East Asia.

CIS Executive Director Tom Switzer’s interview with Professor Mearsheimer on ABC Radio National. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ CIS promotes free choice and individual liberty and the open exchange of ideas. CIS encourages debate among leading academics, politicians, media and the public. We aim to make sure good policy ideas are heard and seriously considered so that Australia can prosper.

John Mearsheimer: War in Ukraine Now is ISRAEL and the United States to pivot into China.

Political psychologist and the behavioral economist. To see whether states or individuals actually do act according to the dictates of expected utility maximization. But nevertheless, the key point is there is one definition of rationality, which is expected ability maximization that sits at the heart of both the rational. Toys. Political symbology, prison. And we are going after that. Definition of rationality and offering an alternative definition which focuses on theory and liberation. In their new book, How States Think Rationality of Foreign Policy, political scientist John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Sebastian Rosado of the University of Notre Dame argue that these claims, and many similar ones, are often wrong because they're based on a flawed understanding of state, rationality, and international. I questioned Mayor Shimmer and Risotto about why they think most states act rationally most of the time in developing grand strategy and managing crises. Among other topics, we discuss how their theory is state rationality, differs from rational choice theorists and political psychologists. Why understanding state rationality is important to success in international affairs, and why Mearsheimer, A harsh critic of US expansion of NATO and of the US choice to pursue liberal in Germany after the Cold War, nonetheless argues in this book those decisions were rational how states think. John and Sebastian, your book is a defense of state rationality and international politics. And to this non IR scholar, it seems obvious that states exercise a kind of rough means end rationality in the sense of defining goals and seeking to adopt means suited to achieve those goals. One of your conclusions in the book is that most states are rational most of the time. Like that's a surprising conclusion. So I guess my first question is who doesn't think that's most states are rational most of the time? And why did you need to write this book? Well, Jack, I think when we first started writing about the topic. The first thing that struck us was that. Policymakers in the West love to talk about their adversaries as non rational. So you know, Saddam Hussein was right, irrational back in the day. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he go shopping as Gaddafi. The list goes on and on. And of course today is Vladimir Putin. So there's a. There is a large contingent in the policy community that thinks of US adversaries as not rational. Then this scholarship on non rationality, This is the so-called behavioral revolution, social sciences. It started in economics with the connectivity, the thinking, fast thinking, slow iterature. So we found that both in the policy world and in the academic world there was a lot of. Emphasis on non rationality. And we were surprised by that because we, like you, had always assumed that states were rational. In fact, it's the basis for how we've thought about international politics since the get go. So let me ask you when. When leaders say when American leaders you open the book talking about how. American leaders unanimously said that Putin was irrational, illogical, etcetera to invade Ukraine. And you just gave some other examples. Do you think that they mean that? Do they really think that Putin and Saddam Hussein, the like, are rational or is that empty talk? It's hard to be absolutely certain what they really think, but based on the way they make their arguments and how frequently those arguments are made, one does have the sense that they believe it. And as the Bastion pointed out, it is important to emphasize you have this growing body of literature, both in economics and the political science of especially international relations that says that individuals as well as states often behave in a non rational. Or irrational way. So it wouldn't be surprising if, deep down, these policymakers do believe that someone like Vladimir Putin or Saddam Hussein is irrational. I would add that there's also a chance that it's because they disagree with the policies that those states are adopting, and it's easy to call that non rational. If they do something that you think is wrong and there's a natural tendency to call them irrational, I don't think you're saying that they are irrational. In terms of, you know what rationality means. But people often dismiss people. They disagree with us. Irrational, crazy or whatever it might be. Yeah, that's so. That's the sense of which I take it. And I don't wanna come back to this point later after we get your theory of rationality. On the table and ask you more questions about it. But let's why don't you just explain? You're very, very clear, very basic, easy to understand theory of what it means for a state to be rational. The whole book is admirably clear. It's really well done. Thank you for the kind words. I'll take a crack at this. Basically, error argument is that rationality is based on how individual policy makers think about the world.

First, the actions of Israel and the Lobby over the past decade have done much to substantiate many of the claims we made in the book, just to take one example. Going so far as to give a speech to a joint session of Congress on March 3rd Two 2015 that not only indirect attack on President Obama. Of course, he was aided by APAC, which went on to defeat the deal. This nasty fight, the Obama administration, on the other hand, played out in full public view. The second factor behind the increased awareness of Israeli policy and the lobby spaces on the Internet one can go to for information about sure, everyone in this room knows about is a case in point process, steady stream of stories. Information about Israeli and Israeli policy and the lobbies, activities, not to mention letters. Mondo Weiss, which is now 11 years old, had 8 million to incite 2016. Of course, there are other sites that provide value in people information, like The Electronic Intifada. Important source of information on the Internet is hard to take. Critical perspective on Israel? And in the age of Twitter, important or immediately spread around the world to huge numbers of people. Same pieces are also circulated on e-mail lists that go to hundreds, if not thousands of interested readers. Third, there are a host of organizations that are willing to criticize Israel and the lobby. IR MEP is a case in point, as it has played an important role in exposing lobbies activities over time. We're also a number of organizations disapprove of its behavior. They include Jay St. Americans for Peace Now and the Israeli human rights group that Sell, among others in the mainstream media, who have taken to speak the most important person in this regard, Peter Beinart, who wrote a very interesting June 10. June 2000 issue of the New York Review of Books entitled The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment. Policies in the occupied territories about these matters. Since this article appeared before buying art, there was late criticisms of Israel and its American figures in the mainstream media. We have occasionally taken aim over the past decade they would include. Project. Show fame. And some I think there has been a significant change in how Americans think and talk about Israel since they're both appeared. The second big change. Of Israel in recent years, for starters. The political center of strike word for decades. And it has now reached the point where government just comments about Palestinians. And right legislation that is. Individuals who support BDS italics on occasions are that this rightward shift will continue for the foreseeable future. Israel will become an increasingly ill of Israel's reputation is its brutal treatment of the Palestinians and the fact that it has become an apartheid state. Recently, Israel and its supporters were able to maintain the fiction that there would eventually be a legitimate Palestinian state. There is virtually no chance that will happen, and Greater Israel is here for and Richard and Virginia Taylor Tilly made clear in an important. UN study. Two former Israeli prime ministers, David Barack and Avoid Olmert, have said that if there is no big. Face a South African style struggle. Well, there is no two state solution Speaking of individuals. We're well acquainted. Israel is worse. John Dugard, the eminent South African law professor, says that the Palestinians are quote him worst, those committed by the apartment long voice in that regard for anyone who doubts how bad life can be for the Palestinians living under Israeli control One only has to consider what happened in Israel's three major assaults against Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, Operation Pillar of Defense, and Operation Protective Edge. Because of time constraints, Hubble focus exclusively on the first of those operations, Cast Lead, which took place in the weeks.

To understand world politics, you need to understand how states think. Are states rational? Much of international relations theory assumes that they are. But many scholars believe that political leaders rarely act rationally. The issue is crucial for both the study and practice of international politics, for only if states are rational can scholars and policymakers understand and predict their behavior. To buy, please visit www.mearsheimer.com. John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato argue that rational decisions in international politics rest on credible theories about how the world works and emerge from deliberative decision‑making processes. Using these criteria, they conclude that most states are rational most of the time, even if they are not always successful. Mearsheimer and Rosato make the case for their position, examining whether past and present world leaders, including George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, have acted rationally in the context of momentous historical events, including both world wars, the Cold War, and the post–Cold War era. By examining this fundamental concept in a novel and comprehensive manner, Mearsheimer and Rosato show how leaders think, and how to make policy for dealing with other states.

Thank you very much, Justin. Thank you to all of you for coming out to hear me talk today. Oh. Commonplace. The international relations literature today and in the public sphere for people to argue that states are irrational. That's not to say that everybody argues that, or everybody argues that states are irrational all of the time. But you hear that more and more, and again, you see it in the scholarly literature as well. Sabastian, Rosato and I thought this was not the case. Uh. First of all, if it is true, it has huge implications for international relations theory because almost all international relations theories are based on the rational actor assumption and if states. It's not rational. That's gonna cause all sorts of problems for those theories. Furthermore, if you're in the real world, you're in the White House, you're making foreign policy, and you assume that you're dealing with the world that's filled with states that are irrational. How do you make policy? It's almost impossible. So our basic intuition to start with, was that states. More rational and we decided we were gonna investigate the issue. What you have to understand this is a great importance is that to assess whether states are rational most of the time or irrational most of the time, you first of all have to have a clear definition of what rationality is. Markable how few people have a clear definition of what rationality is, but you can't assess whether states rational without clear definition of rationality. OK, and then the second thing you have to do if you could engage in the centerpieces Sebastian like did which you have to take that definition. You haven't rationality and run it up against your peripheral record of the historical record to see what the states were actually rational according to the definition that you have. So that's the enterprise that we were engaged in. Now when you look at the literature on rationality, there are two big literatures that are floating around out there. One is the rational choice literature, which is reflected in classical economics, and the other is the political psychology literature. Which is reflected in behavioral economics, which is quite fashionable today. But you see people in political science, people who study IR, saying there has been a revolution in political science or the study of IR. Those are people who fit the political psychology. Issue of the Rational Choice people, which has also been a popular way of doing international relations scholarship. Bodies of literature that are out there question you have to ask yourself is how do they define rationality? You need that baseline, right? It's quite clear both of them rely on expected utility maximization. So, what exactly is this? Let's just start with the rational choice. Rational choice literature says that states as act as if those words are very important, as if they were expected utility maximizers. Now what exactly is expected utility maximization? It's actually a magic. In many ways it's a brilliant formula. But it's magic formula that was invented by von Neumann and Orchestra back in the middle 1940s, and it says that rationality is employment of expected utility maximization. And expected utility maximization involves coming up with different policies that deal with the problem. It's got this thing called the Soviet Union out there at the end of World War 2, right? And you're not sure whether it's an aggressive state. Or it's a status quo power and you come up with policies for dealing. With the Soviet Union, right? And then when you marry the policies right with the problem, you come up with potential outcomes. And what you do is you rank order those outcomes. In other words, one policy choice would be to contain the Soviet Union. Another policy choice would be to leave Europe. And below the Europeans to contain the soap. The Soviet Union, and they're different policies and policies. Dealing with specific problems lead to different outcomes. So basically, you get 4 outcomes in this story. And what you do is you ran quarter those outcomes. And you then assign probabilities, or how likely it is that each one of those outcomes will happen. Does some math that's not terribly complicated and then you pick the outcome right? That gives you the greatest benefit or maximizes your utility. That's what's involved here. And the argument is in the international relations literature, among people who employ rational choice theory, that what states do is that they act as if they don't say. They act as they act as if they're expected utility maximizers. That's the definition of rationality. Through all sorts of problems with this. First of all, what does it mean to say that they act as if they're not saying that? If you look at how states behave, they act as expected. Utility maximizers? They're not saying that they actually use this formula to figure out. What the policy options are and then decide on the best policy option.

Ashley Tellis offering a critical review of the book John just presented. After that, the questions and answers

At our 2023 Investors’ Forum, we speak to political scientist John Mearsheimer about how the USA, Russia and China now dominate a multipolar world order. About CLSA: CLSA, CITIC Securities’ international platform, provides global investors and corporates with insights, liquidity and capital to drive their growth strategies. Award-winning research, an extensive Asia footprint, direct links to China and highly experienced finance professionals differentiate our innovative products and services in asset management, corporate finance, equity and debt capital markets, securities and wealth management. As part of CITIC Securities (SSE: 600030, SEHK: 6030), China’s leading investment bank, CLSA is uniquely positioned to facilitate cross-border capital flows and connect China to the world and the world to China. CLSA operates from 13 countries across Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas. For further information, please visit www.clsa.com.

John Mearsheimer on War in Ukraine with Katrina vanden Heuvel, Ambassador Jack Matlock, more...

The title bound to lose, which is of course revealing in which you argue that the big counter offensive that we were arming the Ukrainians for was tested to fail. I was hoping you could elaborate and explain. Well, I think that what had happened here, Glenn, is that the war had settled into a war of attrition and, you know, war of attrition. The Ukrainians were guaranteed to lose. The Russians are just much too powerful in terms of the balance of manpower. The balance of military equipment, especially artillery, for the Ukrainians to win over the long term. I might also add that there are all sorts of questions about whether the West would remain committed to providing weapons for Ukraine. They were potentially in real trouble in a war of attrition. And what they were doing was looking for a clever strategy to get out of that situation. Launch. Let's create which is. They would try to penetrate. Breakthrough the front lines, the so-called Sir Beacon line of the Russian defenses and then once they were in the rear area of the Russians, they would affect the deep strategic penetration. In other words, they drive deep into the area that the Russians controlled and they've reached the Sea of Azov. This would split the Russian forces in half and put an end to the land bridge to Crimea, and then the Russians would be back on their heels. They're great to have a negotiation and we would hold all the cards we meeting the West in Ukraine and the end result would be. We get a favorable agreement, put an end to this war, and my argument is that this was a pipe dream. This is not a serious argument. That's not to say that virtually everybody in the West. Not to say that virtually everybody in the West. In the mainstream. That doesn't include any of us at this point time, but virtually everybody in the mainstream thought this was gonna work. They thought that it was gonna work swimmingly and the Ukrainians would end up defeating the Russians. And my argument? Paper that I just wrote, of course you to a long agreed with is that this was a pipe dream. It was just not gonna work. And of course it hasn't worked. It's actually quite stunning how unsuccessful the Ukrainians have been and what a God awful price they have paid. I mean, it's actually sickening. To read the stories and watch the videos about the casualties in Ukraine. These are people who are being led to the slaughter, and in fact the West was pushing them to watch this event. And there's all sorts of evidence that the Ukrainians were dragging their feet because they understood that it wasn't going to work. But nevertheless, we pushed very hard for them to watch this offensive. And it's quite clear where we are. That's my basic storyline.

This is not the Red Army over Europe. Between 1942 and 1945. So we should be focusing laser like on Asia, not on Europe? And if anything. Russia should be our ally against China. We should not. From a realist point of view, or from my realist perspective, we should not. Be. Involved in an intense security competition with Russia that could escalate into a war between the United States and Russia. This is not their interest. It is not their interest to drive the Russians into the arms of the Chinese, which we have done is not narrow interest to be increasing troop levels in Eastern Europe. Which we're doing in countries especially like Romania and Poland. If anything, we should be reducing our troop levels in Europe so that we can pivot to Asia to deal with what is the main threat. But that's not what we're doing instead. We have created this situation where the Russians and the Chinese, the Iranians, the North Koreans, were all on one side and we're on the other side. With the West. And you have this bifurcated world emerging at this point in time. United States facing two great power rivals. So my bottom line is I I think there's no question liberal hegemony is in the rear view mirror, right? It's left behind for all intents and purposes and we're now in a realist world, but I think our foreign policy. Is not a smart realist for policy because it is made Russia an adversary. I would note by the way, just one final point on this. If the United States had fostered good relations with Russia and given up on NATO expansion into Ukraine. And the Russians and the Americans were basically allies in a balancing coalition against China. This would be wonderful news for Europeans, including Hungarians, because first of all, there would be no economic crisis, but second of all. The Russians would not be looking westward in Europe. They would be looking eastward. And China. They would be focused on China. And from a security point of view, that's the ideal situation for Europe, especially for countries like Poland, Hungary. And remaining in the frontline States and the Baltic states as well. But instead we have created this situation. Back to your earlier question, where the Russians are now mortal enemy, we worry about an unending war, we worry about nuclear escalation and. You worry about the economic and political damage that's gonna come out of this forward, and at the same time this is hindering, hindering America's ability to contain. Serious threat that it faces in China. China is the serious threat. If you were to rank order the three great powers of the world today, the United States is clearly still the most powerful state on the planet. China is not far behind it. Number two, Russia's a distant third. It's just not that formidable power. I know that Europeans have been told over and over again, the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming. I don't think so. And I think if you look at what's happened in Ukraine, that's happened. But anyway, that's my basic view on sort of where we are today. Yes. So uh, the realistic political approach doesn't promise space, but more peaceful world order based on balances of power. How can a realistic approach prevail in practice on the international political scene in general? Is it possible? Yeah, I mean. According to basic realist logic, you're not gonna have a peaceful world. The the Fukuyama argument, which is really. Liberal. Democratic peace theory or sometimes referred to just as democratic peace theory.

Misha talks with Professor John J. Mearsheimer about the inevitable clash between America and China, and why engagement with China was the biggest strategic blunder in recent history.

John J. Mearsheimer: Well, I think it's very important to understand that President Trump ran as a candidate against all of the international institutions that comprise the liberal international order. That includes the World Trade Organization, the E.U., the IMF, the World Bank, and NATO. And he said as a candidate that NATO is obsolete. And what he would really like to do, my opinion, is take the Americans out of NATO, take the Americans out of Europe. And he's using this issue of defense spending as a hammer to beat the Europeans over the head. But his ultimate goal is much broader.

On what the US should do about Putin’s pressure in Ukraine, and how the US accidentally created its greatest rival, China.

The Russian military is more powerful. The war will end in a cold peace that I think probably might turn into a hot war. I'm not saying it will happen.

Staged in our "unresolved" format, five esteemed foreign policy thought leaders will argue for or against a number of motions revolving around some of America’s most pressing national security issues, including: Is it time to take a hard line on Iran? Is NATO no longer fit for purpose? And is the Russia threat overblown? PANELISTS Derek Chollet, Executive Vice President, The German Marshall Fund of the United States & Fmr. U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Stephen F. Cohen, Professor of Russian Studies and History Emeritus, New York University Reuel Marc Gerecht, Senior Fellow, The Foundation for Defense of Democracies & Fmr. CIA Analyst John J. Mearsheimer, American Political Scientist & Professor, The University of Chicago Kori Schake, Deputy Director-General, International Institute for Strategic Studies