Read the full transcript of a conversation between host Gita Wirjawan and international relations scholar Professor John Mearsheimer on Endgame Podcast #179 episode titled “What’s Behind Biden’s Blank Check Support for Israel?”, premiered Mar 21, 2024.
TRANSCRIPT:
Introduction
GITA WIRJAWAN: Hi, today we’re honored to have Professor John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago. And we are at the University of Chicago today. John, thank you so much.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: My pleasure to be here again.
GITA WIRJAWAN: Again. A few months ago, we met and you made a bold prediction about what was going to unfold with respect to the counteroffensive. And here we are in Chicago in February of 2024. Tell us what’s going to unfold in Ukraine.
The Failed Ukrainian Counteroffensive
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, obviously, the counteroffensive was a colossal failure. It was launched on June 4th of 2023. And the basic goal of the offensive was to penetrate the Russian lines and drive deep into the rear areas of the Russian forces, and in effect, collapse the Russian forces, conquer territory, and score a stunning victory.
But that did not happen. The Ukrainians were incapable of breaking through the Russian lines. And at the same time, they suffered enormous casualties.
Then by the end of 2023, moving into 2024, the Russians went on the offensive in Avdivka, excuse me. The city in Ukraine that the Ukrainians had held for a long time. And the Russians have finally won a decisive victory in Avdivka. And it’s quite clear that what’s going to happen now is that the Russians are going to continue to push forward and that Ukrainians are really in big trouble.
Why Ukraine Is in Trouble
And the two reasons that the Ukrainians are in big trouble is, number one, this is a war of attrition. And in a war of attrition, what matters is the balance of manpower and the balance of artillery. And in terms of the balance of manpower and the balance of artillery, the Ukrainians are badly outnumbered by the Russians.
So when you look at those two key metrics, those two key balances, it’s quite clear that the Russians have a significant advantage over the Ukrainians. And again, this is a war of attrition and that’s disastrous. And furthermore, if you look forward, the gap between the Russian capabilities and the Ukrainian capabilities is likely to widen.
So the Russians are really in the driver’s seat in terms of the balance of power. The second thing that’s happened to the Ukrainians that makes the future look very grim is that it’s quite clear that public opinion in the United States has shifted against fully supporting Ukraine. And large elements of the Republican Party are really not interested in continuing to fund Ukraine in a robust way.
And without robust funding from both the United States and the European Union, there’s no way the Ukrainians can stay in the fight. So I think moving forward, it’s quite clear the Ukrainians are going to lose and the Russians are going to win an ugly victory.
Russia’s Artillery Advantage
GITA WIRJAWAN: What do you think could have been or would have been helpful with respect to Russia’s competitive advantage from an artillery standpoint? How is it and why is it that they have the ability to produce faster and more?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, it’s clear that if you look at the history of the Russian military, and of course, at one point, the Russian military was the Soviet military. They placed a very high premium on producing huge numbers of armaments, and in a sense, defeating their adversaries. And here, we’re talking mainly about the Germans with quantity, not quality.
So when the Cold War ended, the Soviets and then later the Russians did not shut down their manufacturing base, their ability to manufacture weaponry the way the West did. And the industrial base in the West, and this certainly includes the United States, really withered away in important ways during the 1990s and the first part of the 21st century. And the end result is we don’t have the capability here in the United States or in Europe to turn on the spigot and produce huge numbers of artillery tubes and huge numbers of artillery shells.
And it’s going to take us a number of years to do that. The Russians, on the other hand, have huge amounts of artillery on the shelf left over from the past. And furthermore, they have a manufacturing base that’s rather easy to spin up and produce lots of artillery shells and artillery tubes.
So you have a situation today where the Russians have roughly a 10 to 1 advantage in artillery. And there’s some reports that in particular battles, the Russians had a 15 to 1 advantage in artillery. And you say to yourself, well, why don’t the Americans and the Europeans rectify this right away?
And the answer is they can’t rectify it right away. Because as I said, we don’t have the tubes and the artillery shells on the shelf to give them. And it takes us a long time to spin up the manufacturing capability to produce those tubes and shells.
So in terms of artillery, they’re in really desperate straits. Is it possible that Russia might have gotten some help from somebody else? Oh, there’s no question.
Both the Ukrainians and the Russians are getting help from other players, because such huge numbers of artillery shells are being expended. And there’s a need not only for shells, but more tubes. And we know for a fact that the Russians are getting help from the North Koreans on this front.
And if you look at the Ukrainians, they’re getting help from all over the world. Because the United States, for obvious reasons, is running around the planet scrounging artillery for Ukraine. But there’s just limits to what they can do.
Air Power and Manpower Imbalance
I want to make two other points here. It’s very important to understand that when you talk about the balance of firepower, artillery is the key. But air power also matters.
And what has recently happened is that the Russians have figured out a way to develop rather cheap precision guidance kits that they can put on their dumb bombs and turn them into smart bombs.
So when you think about firepower, right, you have to think about that imbalance in artillery, coupled with the fact that up in the skies where the Russian Air Force dominates the Ukrainian Air Force, the Russian Air Force has this abundance of precision guided bombs that they can use to great effect. And then on top of all that, there’s the balance of manpower. First of all, the Russians have roughly a five to one population advantage over Ukraine.
That means they have a much bigger pool of manpower that they can draw from to produce an army. On top of that, the Ukrainians have suffered much greater casualties than the Russians have over the past two years of the war. So the Russians have a significant advantage in manpower.
And the Ukrainians are trying to rectify that problem by moving to a draft. They’re talking about mobilization. And the generals in Ukraine say they need 500,000 new recruits to replace the lost soldiers so that they can hold their own against the Russians.
Virtually everybody agrees that there’s no way Ukraine can mobilize 500,000 troops. It’s just not going to happen. They don’t have the money. They don’t have the wherewithal. But furthermore, there’s huge resistance in the Ukrainian body politic. And my view is that they will be lucky if they get, you know, 200, 250,000 recruits.
And that means that that balance of manpower, you know, that balance of soldiers favors the Russians in a quite decisive way, as does the balance of artillery and the balance of air power.
Ukraine’s Aging Military
GITA WIRJAWAN: And the average age of the Ukrainian soldiers is not young either.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: No, there are all sorts of reports that the average age of Ukrainian soldiers is in the range of 43 years old. And that’s because they’re pulling people off the streets or forcing people to join the army who otherwise wouldn’t join the army because they’re too old or they’re too sick. The Ukrainians are desperate.
They’ve been dying in huge numbers. And they actually have a lot of draft dodgers in Ukraine. There are a lot of people who are unwilling to serve. They don’t want to be part of the meat grinder.
Negotiating from a Position of Weakness
GITA WIRJAWAN: Given the potential scenario that you’ve painted, how would you see Ukraine trying to avoid negotiating with a position of weakness for purposes of ending the war?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, the conventional wisdom in the West is that the Ukrainians can hang on and eventually we will be able to arm them to the point where they can go on the offensive and conquer the territory that they’ve lost. This is delusional. We’re not going to be able to rectify the imbalance of forces here.
And even last year, when the balance was not that bad from a Ukrainian point of view, and they launched the counteroffensive, it was a colossal failure. So the idea that the Ukrainians are going to take back the territory they lost is, as I said, delusional. What should happen here is the Ukrainians should try to negotiate a settlement now before they lose any more territory.
What exactly does this mean? I think what it means is that the Ukrainians should go to great lengths to establish a neutral Ukraine. They should tell the Russians that they are not going to join NATO.
And furthermore, they’re going to sever completely their security relationship with the West. And therefore, the Russians don’t have to worry about Ukraine becoming a Western bulwark on Russia’s borders. I think if the Ukrainians could convince the Russians of that, then the Russians would be willing to accept, or might be willing to accept, the existing status quo.
And they would not be committed to conquering more territory. So the best deal the Ukrainians can get is to freeze the status quo on the ground. And the best way to achieve that end is to tell the Russians no Ukrainian entry into NATO, no security relationship between Ukraine and the West.
That’s the best hope they have. But again, the West is not going to accept that, and I don’t believe the Ukrainians will accept that. And instead, what they’re going to do is push forward, thinking that they can capture lost territory, when in effect what’s going to happen is they’re going to lose more territory, more Ukrainians are going to die.
Territorial Losses and Peace Deal Prospects
GITA WIRJAWAN: Realistically, how much of the pre-existing territory, or the 24 oblasts, would Ukraine be able to retain in a peace deal?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, as things now stand, the Russians have annexed Crimea, and the four easternmost oblasts in Ukraine, two of those in the Donbass, and two of them are outside of the Donbass. I think that ultimately the Russians will end up annexing another four oblasts, the four that are to the west of the four that they’ve already annexed. And I think the best possible scenario from Ukraine’s point of view is to accept the fact they’ve lost those four oblasts in the east, and they’ve lost Crimea, and then to go to great lengths to make sure that no more territory is taken.
But I think that’s the basic situation staring the Ukrainians in the face.
The Impact of U.S. Presidential Politics
GITA WIRJAWAN: How would you put this in the context of the possibility of a Trump presidency, if he were to win in November this year? Or how would you contrast that with the continuation of a Biden presidency?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: I think if Biden stays in power, we will be very reluctant to push the Ukrainians to cut a deal with the Russians. And I think if a deal is cut between the Ukrainians and the Russians under President Biden, it will be because the Ukrainians decide enough is enough, and they cut the deal. The Americans will not want to cut the deal where Ukraine loses those four oblasts plus Crimea, because it will look like a Russian victory, and that would be a disaster for President Biden.
What if Donald Trump gets elected again, and moves into the White House in January of 2025? I think it’s possible, and it’s very possible that Trump would agree that the solution here is to push Ukraine to cut a deal. Because it wouldn’t be Trump who had egg all over his face, because Trump was not in power when the war started.
Biden was in power when the war started, and he indeed bears significant responsibility for the start of the war. But Trump doesn’t. And Trump can say, I’m ending another one of the foolish wars that the Democrats have started, and what I’m going to do is push Ukraine to cut a deal.
It’s good for Ukraine, it’s good for the United States, and it’s good for the West. And I think he could get away with that. I think given Republican Party sentiment toward the war in Ukraine, he would not have any trouble with his base.
Winning the Peace
GITA WIRJAWAN: Would you foresee a scenario in the event Trump were to go to the White House early next year, where the US, NATO, and Ukraine would be able to win the peace more, to the extent that they are not going to win the war?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: I’m not sure what it means to win the peace. When you use that phrase…
GITA WIRJAWAN: I’m borrowing somebody else’s phrase. Okay. One example that would have been given was the loss of the United States in Vietnam, right?
But by way of that loss, the US has won the peace, to the extent that Vietnam has become one of the most ardent supporters of the United States. Is that a scenario that could be seen with respect to Ukraine?
The Frozen Conflict in Ukraine
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, if you get a settlement, right? If you got a meaningful peace agreement involving Ukraine, Russia, and the West, there couldn’t be close relations between the West and Ukraine, at least in the short and medium term. Because the Russians are just so suspicious that we remain committed to making Ukraine part of the West, sitting right on their border.
So winning the peace here means making sure you have a neutral Ukraine and we keep our distance. My argument is that that’s not going to happen. When you talk about winning the peace, first of all, I don’t think you’re going to get a peace, right?
I think you’re going to get a frozen conflict. Very important distinction there. Frozen conflict is similar to the situation you have on the 38th parallel between North Korea and South Korea, right? No genuine peace agreement. You’ve just stopped shooting at each other. It’s a frozen conflict.
That’s what I think you’ll get in Ukraine. And then with regard to what happens afterwards, I believe that the West and Ukraine, that dysfunctional rump state that’s left over when the shooting starts, and the West will go to great lengths to undermine Russia’s position in the territories that Russia conquers in eastern Ukraine. We in the West will be sore losers and we will go to great lengths to cause trouble for the Russians.
The Russians in response will go to great lengths to cause trouble in Ukraine. They’ll do everything they can to weaken that dysfunctional rump state even more. They’ll go to great lengths to weaken the economy and to cause political chaos in Kyiv.
And furthermore, the Russians will go to great lengths to cause trouble in Europe and in NATO and in the European Union and in terms of relations between the West and Ukraine because the Russians will be retaliating against us. So, my argument is you’re not going to win the peace because you’re not going to get a peace. You’re going to get a frozen conflict and that frozen conflict is going to be ugly because the Russians on one side and the West and Ukraine on the other side will compete with each other in very nasty ways.
GITA WIRJAWAN: Hypothetically, under a Trump leadership or presidency and with a potential frozen conflict scenario, how do you foresee the relations or relationship between the US and Russia in a context of how they’re going to be dealing with China?
US-Russia-China Relations
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, I think that what we have now will continue into the foreseeable future and that is that the United States has pushed the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. The Chinese and the Russians are the best of friends. They help each other out.
And a peace deal or a frozen conflict is not going to change that course. It’s not going to change that. I mean, if the Americans were smart, what they’d do is they’d work with Ukraine to get a genuine peace agreement and then they’d go to great lengths to repair their relations with the Russians so that it was the Russians and the Americans who are allied on one side and the Chinese were on the other side instead of the present situation where the Chinese and the Russians are allied and the Americans are on the other side. That’s what we would do if we’re smart, but we’re not going to do that.
We will continue to poke the Russians in the eye and the Russians will continue to poke us in the eye. We will not accept defeat in Ukraine, in my opinion, and that’s not in the American national interest.
GITA WIRJAWAN: You know, you’ve alluded to this earlier in the sense that the public opinion in the U.S. with respect to what’s going on in Ukraine may not necessarily be manifested in a policy, right? And how do you explain the divergence or the gap, the disconnect between polity and policy?
The Foreign Policy Establishment vs. Public Opinion
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, we have a foreign policy establishment which is commonly called the blob. It’s sort of a derogatory term, but it’s often used. And the blob or the foreign policy establishment often acts in ways that are at odds with what the public really wants.
You want to remember that both Barack Obama and Donald Trump ran against the foreign policy establishment. Obama said that what we have to do is end all of this emphasis on nation building abroad, intervening in the politics of other countries, and instead focusing on nation building at home. Trump was not someone who was interested in running around the world and doing social engineering at the end of a rifle barrel, like many of his predecessors were.
Trump, for all his flaws, is not a war monger. And he brags about the fact that he was the only president in recent times who didn’t start a war during his four years in the White House. And that’s true.
But both Obama and Trump were beat back by the foreign policy establishment. Obama gave a famous interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic Monthly right before he left office, where he effectively said that in his fight against the blob, the blob won. And the same thing was true with Trump.
And that’s why Trump’s present advisors are planning to do things differently if he’s elected in 2024 and moves into the White House next January. They’re going to do it differently because they understand the blob beat them back the first time around, just the way the blob beat Barack Obama back in his two terms as president. So you see, what we have in the United States is a real disjuncture between the foreign policy establishment on one hand and the public on the other hand.
And if you talk about Ukraine, it’s quite clear that public opinion on Ukraine is remarkably soft. And in fact, 12% of Americans think that Ukraine is going to win the war and the rest think that it’s going to lose the war or they don’t have an opinion. But what’s going on here is only 12% of the American public thinks we can win this war.
And the elite, of course, is pushing hard to continue the war and win the war. Now, why doesn’t public opinion seem to matter here? That’s the question.
Why is it that when you have this dissatisfaction with this ambitious American foreign policy that’s led to one disaster after another, and the public recognizes this, and the public elects presidents who they hope will change this, why doesn’t that happen? And it’s a very interesting question. But the fact is, presidents are pretty much free in the United States to do what they want.
And the public doesn’t consider those foreign policy issues salient enough that it rises up and punishes the president. The president can get away with it. See, during the Vietnam War, when I was young, and we had a draft, it was a very different matter because people were dying.
But now we have an all-volunteer military and it’s not that difficult to send that all-volunteer military to fight abroad because it’s filled with people who are willing to go abroad and fight in these foolish wars that the blob decides to enter into. And in the case of Ukraine, the United States is not doing the dying. We are not paying the blood price.
It’s the Ukrainian people who are paying the blood price. So it’s very easy for the foreign policy elites in the United States and the foreign policy elites in Western Europe to say that we should continue the war and the Ukrainians should continue to fight against the Russian military because they are not doing the fighting. Their children are not doing the fighting.
It’s the Ukrainians who are doing the fighting. And again, even when the United States gets involved in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, because it’s an all-volunteer military, the elites and their children are, for the most part, not doing the fighting. So it’s easy for them to send their troops off.
And it’s hard for the body politic to protest because it is an all-volunteer military. It’s not a draft.
The Israel Lobby and US Policy in Gaza
GITA WIRJAWAN: You know, on a similar note, I want to switch geography here to what’s happening in West Asia. And you wrote a book about the Israel lobby where it’s kind of clear that the public opinion about what’s happening in Gaza is different from the policy posture. And where do you think the policy posture is going to go forward with respect to what’s happening in West Asia, more specifically Gaza?
And I want to put this in the context of what you had alluded to earlier. There’s this juxtaposition of a seemingly declining moral case with an ever-increasing U.S. support for Israel, which is kind of manifested in the Israel lobby. The question then is, how do we make sure or how do you make sure that the Israel lobby is actually going to be beneficial for the U.S. and Israel? It doesn’t seem like it’s beneficial to both the U.S. and Israel at the moment.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Beneficial to neither one of them. Look, what the Israelis are doing in Gaza is not in America’s strategic interest. And in fact, President Biden understands this now.
And President Biden is interested in reigning the Israelis in. He’s used language like this. He has said that Israeli behavior is over the top.
He said that they are engaged in indiscriminate bombing campaign. And it’s quite clear he’s had numerous telephone conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu where he has tried to reign him in. And he’s failed.
Now, I just made the point that this is not in America’s strategic interest. From a moral point of view, it is clearly not in our interest. It’s quite clear to me that the Israelis are committing genocide in Gaza.
And in fact, the International Court of Justice just ruled that there is substantial evidence to think or to conclude that Israel is engaged in a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians. Well, the Biden administration is complicit in this genocidal campaign. This is not in America’s national interest to be involved in a genocidal campaign.
And furthermore, as I said earlier, it’s not in our strategic interest. So the question is, why can’t Biden use the immense leverage that he has at his fingertips as the president of the United States to coerce the Israelis to stop this murderous campaign? And the answer is the Israel lobby.
The Israel lobby is one of the most powerful interest groups in the United States. And it wields tremendous influence on what U.S. Middle East policy looks like. And Joe Biden is in a situation where there’s no way that he can get Israel to change its behavior without paying a huge political price.
And for someone who is up for reelection in November of this year, the last thing that he wants to do is take on the Israel lobby. Because if he went after Israel and got tough with Israel and used all that American coercive leverage on Israel, the lobby would go after him, hammer and tong, and they’d go to great lengths to make sure that he got defeated in the fall. So Biden, even though he thinks that what Israel is doing is not in America’s strategic or moral interest, is incapable of doing anything to stop it.
And it is, again, largely because of the lobby.
GITA WIRJAWAN: To the extent that for some Israelis and for some members of the Jewish community, this lobby is not beneficial to Israel. Is there a hope for this lobby to go forward in a way that would be beneficial to both, hopefully, the U.S., Israel, and the world? Is there a hope for that?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: No, certainly not beneficial to the United States. Look, the United States and Israel are two separate countries. And like any two separate countries or any two countries on the planet, they often have different interests.
And what the lobby does is that it pushes the United States to support Israel’s interests. The lobby basically thinks that there’s no difference between America’s interests and Israel’s interests. But there are always differences between two countries’ interests.
And what the lobby wants us to do is effectively support Israel unconditionally. And there will certainly be occasions where supporting Israel makes sense from an American point of view. But you don’t need a lobby in those cases.
The reason you need a lobby, the reason the lobby works so hard, is because there are lots of cases where Israel’s interests conflict with America’s interests. And the lobby wants to go to great lengths to make sure that Israel’s interests prevail in that competition. And they are very successful at it.
And this is what you see going on with regard to Joe Biden. Joe Biden would like to get the Israelis to back off, to change their policies in terms of the war now, and also in terms of what Gaza is going to look like after the shooting starts. There’s a big conflict brewing now between the Israelis on one hand and us on the other hand regarding what sort of political system is going to be put in place in Gaza once the shooting starts.
And you can rest assured that the lobby will side with Israel against the United States, and that the United States will not put up much of protest. Because who’s ever in power will understand full well that if he or she tries to contest the lobby, that person will pay an enormous price.
Regional Escalation Risks
GITA WIRJAWAN: What’s the likelihood that this is going to escalate to a broader, deeper regional conflict?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, it’s already escalated. I mean-
GITA WIRJAWAN: Even more. Is it going to escalate even further?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, I think the $64,000 question there has to do with Iran. The question is, is Iran going to come into the fight? Very interesting if you sort of look at what’s happening in the greater Middle East today.
The Iranians are sort of in the catbird seat because they’re just sitting on the sidelines. They’re not involved in the fight. And the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the militant groups that Iran sponsors that are located in both Syria and Iraq, and are targeting the Americans, are sort of doing the Iranians dirty work. From an Iranian point of view, this is a good situation because the last thing the Iranians want to do is get involved in a war with either Israel or the United States. We certainly don’t want to get into a war with both of them.
Israel’s Strategy and Regional Dynamics
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: But the Iranians have managed to stay on the sidelines, and they want to stay on the sidelines. We do not want to get into a fight with Iran. We don’t want to fight with Hezbollah.
We don’t want to fight with the Houthis. We don’t want to fight with these militias in Iraq and Syria. We don’t want the war to spread.
We want stability in the Middle East so that we can focus on China and focus on Ukraine. But things have begun to spin out of control. But I don’t think that we will get into a war with Iran, because they don’t want it, and we don’t want it.
The Israelis would like to see us get into a war with Iran, but I think President Biden will go to great lengths to not let that happen.
The Two-State Solution
GITA WIRJAWAN: What’s the hope for a two-state solution then?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Virtually none. The Israelis have no interest.
GITA WIRJAWAN: In our lifetime. Really, virtually none. Virtually none.
Even given the political implosion within Israel, or that’s actually going to exacerbate the probability of success.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Yeah. I mean, with the Israelis, they want to cleanse the Palestinians in Gaza, and they want to cleanse the Palestinians in the West Bank. Very important to understand that what’s going on here is that Israel, as a result of the 1967 war, has effectively created a greater Israel.
And greater Israel includes the borders of Israel in 1967, plus East Jerusalem, plus the West Bank, plus Gaza. That’s greater Israel. And inside of greater Israel, you have roughly 7.3 million Palestinians and roughly 7.3 million Israeli Jews. Okay? So just think about what’s going on here. You have this big piece of territory, greater Israel, that has roughly an equal number of Palestinians and Jews.
And moving forward, it looks like the number of Palestinians will be greater than the number of Jews. That means that you cannot have a democratic greater Israel, where you have one person, one vote, because it will no longer be a Jewish state. It will end up being a Palestinian state.
So democracy’s off the table. With regard to a two-state solution, where the Israeli Jews get pre-1967 Israel, and the Palestinians get East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, the Israelis are unwilling to accept that. Period.
End of story. They are unwilling to accept that. And given the power of the lobby, the United States is not going to force them to accept that, and certainly no other country is.
So the two-state solution is off the table. One-state solution, where you have a democracy, is off the table. That leaves two other options.
One is an apartheid state, which is where the Israeli Jews treat the Palestinians as second, if not third-class citizens. And this is what you have now. Israel is an apartheid state.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B’Tselem, which is the largest human rights group inside of Israel, have all written lengthy reports that make the case, persuasively, I would argue, that Israel is an apartheid state. And in fact, there are Israeli leaders who use exactly that rhetoric. Many Israelis understand that Israel has become an apartheid state, and it’s hard to avoid that when you have 7.3 million Palestinians and 7.3 million Israeli Jews. So you have an apartheid state. The final option is ethnic cleansing, and you solve the apartheid state problem by cleansing Gaza and cleansing the West Bank. And then you have a greater Israel that is filled with Israeli Jews and where there are 20% or less Palestinians.
Zionism and Its Evolution
GITA WIRJAWAN: Is this what Zionism was supposed to be like, or you think the Zionist ideology has evolved over the last few decades?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Zionism from the get-go was all about creating a Jewish state.
GITA WIRJAWAN: But not to the extent of being genocidal or cleansing.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: No, the Zionists understood from the very beginning that you had to cleanse. There’s no way Jews or Zionists moving out of Europe can come into an area that’s filled with Palestinians and create a Jewish state without cleansing the area. They understood that from the beginning.
This is very clear from the historical record. The Zionists who came out of Europe and laid the foundation for what is Israel today were very smart people. I mean, they’re very smart, very clever.
They knew exactly what they were doing, and they understood that they would have to do horrible things to the Palestinians in order to create a Jewish state. It was just inevitable. There’s no way you could create a Jewish state otherwise.
China and U.S. Strategic Focus
GITA WIRJAWAN: I want to switch to China. You know, with everything that we’re seeing in Ukraine and West Asia, it just seems, at least to a layman like me, that there’s been a misallocation of resource by the United States. You’ve been making reference in the past about how the United States should focus on China, which is the big, call it 6,000-pound gorilla, right?
And how do you think we can deter or prevent unintended consequences taking place in or potentially taking place in the Taiwan Straits?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, let me make two sets of points. First of all, the principal threat that the United States faces in the world is China. China is a peer competitor.
There are three great powers in the system, the United States, China, and Russia. Russia is the weakest of those three great powers, and China is much more powerful than Russia and is likely to be more powerful than Russia over time. So, from an American point of view, China is a peer competitor.
Russia isn’t. That means that we should focus laser-like on China, and we should do everything we can to pivot to Asia. Pivoting to Asia means pivoting away from Europe and pivoting away from the Middle East.
You remember right before the Gaza War broke out on October 7, right, a few weeks before, Jake Sullivan was crowing about the fact that the Middle East was so stable. He said, you know, the Middle East hasn’t been this stable in a long time. And of course, that’s a wonderful thing for the Americans because we don’t want trouble in the Middle East.
We want to be able to focus on East Asia, where China is located, obviously, right. But the Middle East has now blown up on us, and we’re deeply involved there. Although we’re thankfully not doing the fighting, we’re nevertheless deeply involved.
We’re deeply involved in the Ukraine war, and all of this is preventing us from focusing on East Asia and focusing on the China threat. And this is not to our advantage. So we have a deep-seated interest in shutting down both the Gaza conflict and the Ukraine conflict.
And of course, that’s going to be extremely hard to do. This is to China’s advantage. What’s happening in the Middle East and what’s happening in Ukraine is mana from heaven for the Chinese.
The Chinese should actually hope that the war in Ukraine continues, right. And the Americans remained focused on the Ukraine conflict and also remain focused on the Gaza conflict and therefore don’t have time to do or to put together a sufficient containment strategy in East Asia. So this is a real problem for us.
Now, what does this mean in terms of the potential for conflict in an area like the Taiwan Straits? Given that China is the greatest rival that the United States faces, we are still in East Asia in a serious way, and we’re still competing with the Chinese. Despite the fact we are pinned down to some extent in Ukraine and the Middle East, we’re still there in East Asia.
That’s not going to change. We’re still committed to containing China. And in that world, the potential for a conflict is ever present.
It just is. That’s never going to go away. I personally think if we were more focused on East Asia, the potential for conflict would be reduced because we would have more military forces in the area and we would be devoting more of our bandwidth to dealing with the China containment issue rather than Ukraine and rather than Gaza.
So I think this is not all for the good that we’re distracted. Some people may say that, look, the Chinese are going to see this situation as an opportunity for them to take advantage of the United States. Would you?
No. Would you see that? Okay.
No, I don’t see that. I don’t see that for two reasons. First of all, I think the Chinese have a number of problems of their own on the home front, especially with regard to the Chinese economy.
I think the last thing Chinese need at this point in time is a conflict with the United States. Furthermore, if you look at Taiwan, you were talking about the Taiwan Straits. It is extremely difficult for China to take Taiwan back.
There’s no question the Chinese want to take Taiwan back. But the problem that they face is that to get to Taiwan, they have to launch an amphibious operation across the Taiwan Straits. And amphibious operations are among the most difficult military operations possible.
You add to that the fact that China has not fought a war since 1979. Just think about that. They have not fought a war since 1979.
That’s good news in a lot of ways for the Chinese. I’m not saying it’s too bad they didn’t fight more wars, but they’ve not-
GITA WIRJAWAN: They’re more for peace and commerce.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Yeah, that’s exactly right.
And they’ve grown economically by leaps and bounds. They’re now translating that economic might into military might. But they have an army that’s not fought a war.
The American military has a lot of experience fighting wars. I’m not saying this is a good thing, but the United States-
GITA WIRJAWAN: A lot of bad ones too.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Yeah.
The United States is like a cocked pistol, right? Chinese military, they haven’t fought a war in a long time. And they would have to launch an amphibious operation, which is one of the most difficult military operations possible.
On top of that, the Americans are going to defend Taiwan. Joe Biden has said this four separate times. We are going to defend Taiwan.
The Chinese elites I’ve talked into over time, they know full well, we are going to defend Taiwan. The Japanese are going to defend Taiwan with us. The Australians are going to defend Taiwan with us.
So if the Chinese launch an amphibious operation to try to capture Taiwan, they’re going to do that in the face of American, Japanese, and Australian resistance. And the Koreans. And the South Koreans in all likelihood will be there too.
So I think that despite the fact that we are deeply involved, too deeply involved in my opinion, in Gaza and in Ukraine, we’re not in that bad a shape in East Asia. Now, the one qualification to that argument is, I think the greatest danger is in the South China Sea. I think there you could have a conflict.
I think a conflict in the South China Sea is more likely than a conflict in Taiwan. And if you look at what’s been happening with regard to the Filipinos and the Chinese over control of small islands, small pieces of territory in the South China Sea, there is real potential for conflict there. And the Americans could get dragged in because the Americans have a deep-seated interest in rectifying the imbalance of power between China on one hand and the Philippines on the other, so that the Chinese can’t take advantage of the Philippines in the South China Sea.
So if things begin to heat up between the Chinese and the Philippines, it would, I think, be the case that the Americans would move in to line up or ally themselves with the Filipinos against the Chinese.
South China Sea Tensions
GITA WIRJAWAN: With the potential participation by the U.S. in a South China Sea conflict or potential conflict, would that be enough of a deterrent with respect to China? Or you think they’ll just… Well, I think you presented the argument that at the rate that the United States is distracted in Ukraine, distracted in West Asia or in the Middle East, and there’s enough of a pre-existing deterrent with respect to what could happen in the Taiwan Straits, China is not going to do anything funny with the Taiwan Straits.
But China may do something funny in the South China Sea, right?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: I think it’s easier to tell a story about how you get a conflict in the South China Sea. This is not to say it’s likely or highly likely, but it’s a scenario you should worry about. The Filipinos and the Chinese have really been going at it in the South China Sea, as you know better than I do.
They’ve not been shooting at each other. We don’t have an armed conflict, but the potential for an armed conflict is there, right? It’s not like the Taiwan Straits where the Chinese have made no effort whatsoever to cross the straits and invade Taiwan.
That’s a hypothetical scenario. In the case of the South China Sea, the Filipinos and the Chinese have been bumping up against each other, and the Americans have a deep-seated interest in making sure that the Chinese don’t win against the Filipinos or any other country in the South China Sea, because the Americans want to make sure that China doesn’t dominate the South China Sea.
GITA WIRJAWAN: Despite the fact that there is this discussion and some sort of an agreement to frame this code of conduct, which could come to fruition 2026, give and take, which could be the framework within which any ASEAN state could settle with China. You don’t see that as enough of a deterrent, on top of the pre-existing deterrent that you had alluded to earlier in the context of the Taiwan Straits, for China to do anything funny in South China Sea.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: A settlement and deterrence are two different issues. I don’t think you’re going to get a settlement here. It’s a zero-sum game.
You’ve seen the nine-dot line, nine-dash line that the Chinese have put forward. They basically believe they own the South China Sea, and their neighbors around the South China Sea don’t agree with them. This is what’s going on with regard to the Filipinos and the Chinese.
So I don’t see where there’s much room for an agreement here. Hopefully, I’m wrong. I believe the Chinese are hardball players.
I believe they will.
The South China Sea: A Strategic Flashpoint
GITA WIRJAWAN: Well, the South China Sea is a place where probably about 60 percent of the maritime trade of Japan goes through, 40 to 45 percent of the maritime trade of China goes through. The vested interest is pretty significant.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Absolutely. That’s why we want that body to remain international waters.
GITA WIRJAWAN: So you’re saying that you’d be willing to assign a higher probability to something happening in the South China Sea as opposed to the Taiwan Straits? Involving China?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Yes. Yes.
GITA WIRJAWAN: And you don’t foresee that just being limited to a China-Philippines scenario? You see a scenario where the United States might get involved also in the South China Sea?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: I think so. I think the Americans cannot afford to let the Chinese beat up on the Filipinos in the South China Sea. It’d be very hard to do that.
GITA WIRJAWAN: But there’s a few other claimant states that are having issues with China, right?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Absolutely. There are a good number of them. And one of them, by the way, is Taiwan. Another one, as you well know, is Indonesia. And Vietnam.
Yeah. And you were pointing out before that Vietnam now has good relations with the United States. I would argue that a good deal of this is explained by the rise of China.
So again, I’m just saying that I think there’s greater potential for conflict in the South China Sea than there is over Taiwan. And of course, the third flashpoint is the East China Sea. The Japanese call the Senkaku Islands and the Chinese call-
GITA WIRJAWAN: Would you assign as high probability to that as you would?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: No. No. Because just to go back to deterrence, the reason that you get deterrence, I think robust deterrence now in the Taiwan case is the Americans will defend Taiwan, right?
Two, it’s very difficult to cross the Taiwan Straits. Amphibious operations are wickedly difficult. And three, you have a Chinese army that is not finally honed.
Okay? So I think the Chinese would be deterred in almost all scenarios from attacking across the Taiwan Strait. With regard to the East China Sea, you’re dealing with Japan.
Japan is a major power. I don’t believe it’s a great power. It’s a major power, has a lot of military capability, and it’s joined at the hip with the United States, right?
So the United States would come to the rescue of the Japanese if trouble started. And even if fighting started in the East China Sea, we would not sit on the sidelines. Deterrence in the South China Sea is trickier.
GITA WIRJAWAN: Well, as a Southeast Asian, I would try to make an argument that our history in the last 2000 years has been filled with our ability to deal with multipolarity in a good way. Also, in the context of us with China, there have been some skirmishes episodically. But the average Southeast Asian probably wouldn’t think of potentially unintended consequences taking place in South China Sea, especially given the fact that we’ve had discussions on its code of conduct, which would hopefully entail some sort of a framework to settle whatever issues there may be with respect to some of those islands.
I don’t think there’s going to be an unwinding of the reclamation and militarization of these 12 reefs that the Chinese have done. But I think going forward, is it really going to get that bad as you aptly describe?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Let me ask you a question. What do you think the Chinese are going to do over time in the South China Sea, militarily? You think they’re going to be content to maintain the status quo? Or do you think they’re going to take steps to increase their military presence, their military power in the South China Sea? Just how do you think about that?
GITA WIRJAWAN: Well, if what we have seen in the last few years in terms of what they have done with those 12 reefs will go through a linear progression, then it could get worse, right? Intuitively. But I think the onus is also upon us to build our economies in Southeast Asia.
And as we build our economies, there’s going to be greater degree of agency. There’s going to be greater ability to basically say what we need to say to deter or prevent anything funny happening in the South China Sea. But you don’t deter with words.
Well, if our economy gets bigger, we can afford equipments, right? So to the extent our economy doesn’t get bigger, then we’re just going to play with words.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Right. But the point is you’re dealing with a great power here. China’s a great power, and it’s getting more and more powerful, right?
I mean, one of the results of all of this economic growth and their development of sophisticated technologies in the civilian sector is that they’re also applying that wealth and those sophisticated technologies to building a quite formidable military capability. They’re not there yet by any means. They don’t equal the United States, but they’re not that far away.
And the Chinese are impressive, not to be underestimated. So they’re going to have a lot of military power. And I think individually, there’s no country in East Asia that can stand up to the Chinese, except maybe the Japanese.
The Japanese are quite formidable, but even there, I don’t believe they’re a match for the Chinese. And I think if you go down into Southeast Asia, there’s no country there that can stand up to all that military might that the Chinese are accumulating. This is the concern.
And of course, that’s why the Americans have to be there. And that’s why if the Filipinos get into trouble, they have to turn to the Americans, because there’s no way the Filipinos can stand up to the Chinese. So if you’re interested in deterrence, see, my basic view of international politics is that great powers want to grab all of the possible power that is available to them.
They want to maximize their power. I think that the Chinese are going to go to great lengths over time to dominate the South China Sea and not let the Americans continue to make this case that these are international waters and China can’t do this and China can’t do that. They’re going to want to dominate the South China Sea.
And there’s going to be pushback. And there’s going to be pushback from the Americans. And there’s going to be pushback from the Japanese, even though they’re in Northeast Asia.
And there’s going to be pushback from the Indonesians, the Vietnamese, the Taiwanese, you name it, for understandable reasons. And the question is, where does this all end?
GITA WIRJAWAN: The more reason you got to go to Southeast Asia.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Yes.
The Role of Ideology in International Relations
GITA WIRJAWAN: Your voice will be heard by Southeast Asians. You know, we’ve talked about Ukraine, the Middle East, China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia. I want to take you to the next level of this macro international order.
In the context of realist thinking, are we witnessing the death of ideology in international relations?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: My view is no. And the simplest way for me to answer that is that I think that nationalism is the most powerful ideology on the planet. And I think nationalism is not going away.
It is incredibly powerful. It has a profound effect on interstate relations. And therefore, I think ideology is with us for the foreseeable future because of nationalism alone.
But to unpack this even a bit further, liberalism, which is the dominant ideology in the West, is a potent ideology. And it leads the United States and its allies to think that it has, or they have, a God-given right to run around the world doing social engineering, all for the purposes of transforming non-democracies or non-liberal democracies into liberal democracies. If you think about the unipolar moment, which ran from roughly 1991 when the Soviet Union fell apart to 2017, when I think we had basically reached a multipolar world.
But you think about that unipolar world, American foreign policy was guided by liberal ideology. It’s a policy of what I would call liberal hegemony. So liberalism is alive and well as an ideology.
And nationalism, of course, is the most powerful political ideology on the planet. Communism used to be, when I was young, a formidable ideology. And in fact, the Cold War had a really important ideological dimension to it.
Of course, at root, it was a geostrategic competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. But superimposed on that geostrategic competition was an ideological foundation, communism versus liberal democracy or liberal capitalism. But I think communism is not a meaningful force in the world anymore.
Nationalism and liberalism. The thing I like to say about liberalism that gets at this is that liberalism has a crusader impulse baked into it. Liberals are crusaders at heart. They want to run around the world doing good. They want to run around the world and make every state into a liberal state.
And that matters.
GITA WIRJAWAN: What happens when the moral precept is not aligned with a realist precept?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: There’s no question that if one’s moral compass says to do something that’s fundamentally at odds with one’s realist concept, the realist takes over. Yeah. The realist compass, not compact.
If you have a conflict between what the realist logic and the liberal logic say, the realist logic will win every time. And there’s one very simple reason for that.
Realism is predicated on the assumption that the principal goal of states is to survive. Realism is all about how best to survive in the international system. And since survival is almost always the principal goal of states, realist logic dominates other logics.
Just to give you an example, we talked here about the moral compass versus the realist compass. Let’s switch gears. Let’s talk about what realist logic says you should do and what economic logic says you should do.
Let’s talk like an international economist on one hand and a realist on the other hand. If you’re an international economist, your basic goal is to facilitate prosperity, your own prosperity and the prosperity of the world. This is what globalization is all about.
It’s the idea that everybody’s going to get rich. Not only do you get rich, but I get rich, he gets rich, she gets rich. It’s that kind of line of thinking.
And it’s very attractive for sure. I don’t want to make light of it, but the focus is on prosperity. Prosperity is the principal goal in international economics.
In international politics, in the realist world, the principal goal is not prosperity. Prosperity matters. Don’t misunderstand me, but survival is the principal goal.
So if you have a clash between realism and international economics, realism wins every time because of the survival imperative. And again, just to go to ethics or the moral dimension, certainly most people want to do what’s morally correct. You want a policy that makes moral sense as well as strategic sense.
But if they’re in conflict, you invariably go with realist logic because survival is the principal goal of states. Because if you don’t survive, you can’t pursue other goals.
The Role of Multilateral Institutions
GITA WIRJAWAN: I want to ask you about the role of multilateral institutions. The UN’s budget on an annual basis is about $3 to $4 billion. The US defense budget is $860 billion.
If you add up the military budgets of the United States, NATO, and their allies, it adds up to about $2.1 trillion in the context of a global military budget of about $2.75 trillion. Just the US, NATO, and their friends, they add up to about 75% of the global military budget. What sort of hope do we have for a multilateral institution like the UN, which works on a budget of $3 to $4 billion to pacify the world?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, it’s very important to understand that multilateral institutions are set up by and dominated by the most powerful states in the system. So implicit in your comments is the belief that multilateral institutions are different than great powers and that multilateral institutions like the United Nations can have an influence on international politics and maybe even curb the misbehavior of a great power. I would say that that’s the wrong way to think about it.
The United Nations could never push the Americans, the Russians, or the Chinese today, or the Americans and the Soviets during the Cold War, to do anything that they didn’t want to do. The great powers would not allow an institution to have that kind of capability. And in fact, if you look at all the institutions that have existed since World War II, the Americans set almost all of them up, and they did it in ways that privileged America’s position in the world.
And one of the reasons that the United States usually obeys the rules is that we run the rules. And if a situation arises where we don’t like the rules, we disobey the rules or rewrite them. That’s the way international politics works.
Now, to illustrate this point further, take the Chinese. China has turned into a great power in recent years. It was considered a major power, but not a great power.
Just go back to the Cold War. It was a bipolar world. There were two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, not China.
Today, we talk about three great powers, the United States, China, and Russia. So China is now a great power. It wasn’t in the unipolar world when the United States was the only great power, okay?
Well, how does China think about multilateral institutions today? There are two answers to that question. One is they want to create their own institutions.
GITA WIRJAWAN: They did.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: They did. They did, and they are doing, okay? This is hardly surprising.
This is what great powers do. They want to write the rules. So they’re creating new institutions of their own.
Think the Asian Development Bank. Think Belt and Road. We could go on and on, right?
All new institutions. Secondly, in the institutions that they belong to and have long belonged to, they want to rewrite the rules so that they’re more favorable to China. And this makes perfect sense because China is more powerful today than it was, let’s say, in 1960, 1970, 1980, even 1990 or 2000.
The Role of Institutions in a Multipolar World
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: And as China has gotten more powerful, its interest, not only in creating new institutions, but rewriting the rules in existing institutions has gone up. So that’s how institutions work. So there’s no way the United Nations, no matter how much money you give it, is ever going to have much independent influence in the world.
It’s in many ways going to be a tool of the great powers.
Nuclear Proliferation in a Multipolar World
GITA WIRJAWAN: Would you see multi-polarity as being helpful in sustaining the non-proliferation of nuclear?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Endangering. There’s a brilliant article that was written by a woman named Eliza Georga in International Security.
And her basic argument is that you are likely to get more proliferation in multi-polarity than you get in bipolarity and then you get in unipolarity. Her argument is that you get less proliferation in unipolarity because the unipole doesn’t have to coordinate with other great powers. And the unipole is in a great position to police the system and make sure that proliferation does not take place.
When you get into a bipolar world, she argues, and you get competition between two great powers, sometimes that security competition prevents them from cooperating to prevent proliferation. So her argument is if you’re in a bipolar world and you have intense security competition, which you had in the first half of the Cold War, it’s hard for the two superpowers to slow down proliferation. Her argument is after roughly 1968, starting in the late 1960s, you get a detente between the United States and Soviet Union.
And they do an excellent job of shutting down proliferation. Then you go to multi-polarity, which is where we are today. And you want to remember, this is the first time we’ve had a multi-polar world that’s also nuclear.
Last time we had a multi-polar world was before 1945, and that was not a nuclear world. For the first time, we have a multi-polar world. And then the question comes to the four that you raised, what are the prospects of preventing proliferation in that world?
And her argument is that it’s more difficult in multi-polarity than bipolarity and more difficult in bipolarity than unipolarity. So this is the worst possible world. And her other argument is that if the competition, the security competition is intense inside that multi-polar world, it’s very hard to prevent proliferation.
Okay. That’s her argument. And if you look around the world today, there’s a lot of evidence to support her point.
Let me just point to one or two examples. Xi Jinping talking about cooperation, not on proliferation, but on climate change, has made it very clear that given the intensity of the security competition between China and the United States now, don’t expect much cooperation on efforts to control the climate problem or deal with the climate problem. Well, you can apply that to proliferation, that the Chinese and the Americans, right?
The Chinese are not going to cooperate with us today to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, just not going to do that. And if you look at the Russians and Iran, we don’t want Iran to get nuclear weapons, right? The Iranians have jumped into bed with the Russians and with the Chinese.
It’s going to be increasingly difficult for us moving forward to get the Russians and the Chinese to cooperate with us on preventing nuclear proliferation vis-a-vis Iran. And this is the Eliza Georga point, right? And then finally, I would note to you that as the security competition heats up in East Asia, right?
What you see happening is the Japanese and the South Koreans are now talking about developing nuclear weapons, right? So this multipolar world, this multipolar world is one in which it’s going to be difficult to keep a cap on that volcano. And again, it was much easier in the unipolar world.
And that’s why we had hardly any proliferation. We had some. North Korea is the most glaring example, but during the unipolar world, we did a quite good job of keeping proliferation under control.
And in the second part of the Cold War, we did a quite good job. But moving forward, it looks like there’s going to be big trouble.
Advice for Young Students of International Relations
GITA WIRJAWAN: John, you’ve been very kind with your time. I’m going to ask you the last question. What advice would you have for the young generation with respect to their aspiration to study international relations?
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, I think that everybody has a vested interest in understanding the world that they operate in. I think that everybody should be intellectually curious in the extreme. You should want to know how domestic politics works.
You want to know how life inside a family works. You want to understand how international politics works. So my first point would be to everybody who is listening to me, you want to be intellectually curious in the extreme.
And what this means, my second point, is that you want to constantly be asking questions about how the world works. And you want to constantly be listening to what the sort of big thinkers are saying about how the world works. And you want to think about where you agree with them and where you disagree with them.
You want to be an independent thinker. You want to come up with your own ideas on how the world works. I often say to students, one of the great advantages of dealing with me is that it’s not that I’m providing you with the truth.
Here’s the template that you should take, put in your brain, and that will be all you need for the rest of your life. It’s not the way we want to think about this. You want to understand is that John has simple theories about how the world works.
And you can figure out in your own mind how the world works by bouncing off my ideas. Now, you may agree with them in part, you may agree with them in large part. Maybe you’ll even fully agree with what I have to say about IR theory.
That’s fine. Or maybe you’ll completely disagree. That too is fine.
But the point is you want to have theories in your head. You want to have explanations in your head. You want to have stories in your head about how the world works.
And here we’re talking about international politics. Although I’ve tried to emphasize, this is my first point. You just don’t want to do this with regard to international politics.
You want to do it in all realms of life. But with regard to international politics, you want to be constantly thinking about how the world works. Because some of the people who are listening will become leaders someday.
And if you’re running the ship of state, you want to have very clear views in your head about how the world works. But even if you’re not a leader someday, if you’re a citizen in a country, whether it’s Indonesia or the United States or France or South Africa, the fact is you want to have an influence in your country on what your country’s foreign policy looks like. You want to be in a position where you can contribute to the debates.
And to do that in a smart way, you have to understand how the world works. So my basic advice to young people is to be intellectually curious. Be open-minded too.
Yeah, be open-minded. Yes, I guess I had forgotten that. You want to be open-minded.
A long time ago, my good friend, Steve Van Evera, who teaches at MIT, he and I invented this concept one night when we were drinking cognac and smoking cigars.
GITA WIRJAWAN: Amongst other things.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Yeah. The concept, we called it the hubris humility index.
And our argument was that it’s very important for individuals to have a lot of hubris, to be bold, to think that you can solve a problem, that you have an answer. But at the same time, it’s very important to have a great deal of humility, right? And to understand that sometimes you’re wrong.
And to understand that sometimes when you deal with other people, those people have better ideas than you do, or those people can shoot down particular ideas that you have. This is the humility side of the story. I may have a theory of international politics that I tell you about.
And you may say, John, I think you’re missing a fundamental point about X or Y. And then you point it out to me and I say, oh my, he’s exactly right. That’s the humility part of the story.
The hubris part of the story is I come to you and I think, listen, I have a story that I can tell you about how the world works. Let me tell you, I have my theory of international politics. That’s the hubris, right?
And you want to have hubris. You want to have self-confidence. But at the same time, this gets back to your point, you want to have humility.
So your hubris humility index, right, has to be intact, right? And by that, I mean, you have to have a healthy dose of both of those qualities.
GITA WIRJAWAN: Thank you so much, John.
JOHN MEARSHEIMER: You’re more than welcome. My pleasure.
GITA WIRJAWAN: Thank you. That was Professor John Mearsheimer at the University of Chicago. Thank you.
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