Here is the full transcript of political scientist John J. Mearsheimer’s interview on Great Eurasia Podcast with host Glenn Diesen, January 7, 2026.
Brief Notes: Glenn Diesen hosts political scientist John J. Mearsheimer for a stark assessment of how recent U.S. moves in Venezuela and Greenland could accelerate the unraveling of the Western-led order. Mearsheimer argues that Washington’s overt imperialism in Latin America, coupled with the possibility of a U.S. grab for Greenland, is shredding the credibility of the “rules-based” liberal system the West claims to defend.
The discussion explores why European leaders remain so deferential to the United States, how the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have damaged liberal ideals, and why NATO may be heading toward its final phase. This video offers an unvarnished realist take on the strategic logic behind today’s crises—and what they might mean for the future of NATO and European security.
Introduction
GLENN DIESEN: Welcome back. We are here today with Professor John Mearsheimer. So thank you very much for coming back on the program.
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: My pleasure as always, Glenn.
Trump’s Venezuela Intervention: A Departure from Campaign Promises
GLENN DIESEN: So we see that the American people were sick of forever wars and nation building that were costly. They harmed America’s standing in the world and rarely successful. So for this reason, the Americans voted for Trump, who consistently criticized these kind of wars and advocated for America First instead.
So obviously we have not gone down this path. There’s a lot of criticism. Of course, his base is split. But from a realist perspective, though, what are the strategic interests of the United States in Venezuela? Besides the stated reasons, such as democracy promotion or narco-terrorism, what do you think the United States aims to achieve with this?
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: Well, when you talk about America’s interests in the Western Hemisphere, it’s important to understand that the Monroe Doctrine basically lays out what our interests are. What we want to make sure happens is that no distant great power—whether it’s Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union in Europe, or Imperial Japan or China today in East Asia—forms a military alliance with a country in the Western Hemisphere or puts their own military forces in the Western Hemisphere, as the Soviets did with regard to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
That’s what the Monroe Doctrine is really all about. It’s keeping distant great powers out of the Western Hemisphere, which we of course dominate because we’re so powerful. Now, this operation had nothing to do with the Monroe Doctrine. There’s no danger at this point in time that either China or Russia is going to form a military alliance with Venezuela or is thinking about putting their military forces in the Western Hemisphere. This is just not an issue.
This is not about great power politics, which is what the Monroe Doctrine is all about. This is, in my opinion, a good old-fashioned case of imperialism. This is a case where the United States was interested in running the politics of Venezuela. Apparently, if you listen to President Trump, his most important concern is who controls the oil in Venezuela. And he thinks basically, that’s our oil. It’s ours to determine what it is used for and how it is used. This is just blatant imperialism or neo-colonialism. This has little to do with the Monroe Doctrine.
The Brazen Nature of Modern American Imperialism
GLENN DIESEN: Well, the U.S. has intervened in the past in Latin America more than once. But do you see this as being consistent with these kind of patterns or is this something different? Because certainly it feels more brazen than it perhaps was in the past.
As you said, there were open references to taking the oil, for example. And while Trump said that “we will run Venezuela now,” he now has argued that the new acting president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, that she could hold power in Caracas as long as—and this is a quote—”she does what we want, otherwise there will be more strikes.” I mean, is this not needing to get rid of the existing government as long as they do as they’re told? How are you seeing or assessing this?
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: Well, Glenn, there’s really nothing new here, as almost everybody knows. The United States has a rich history of interfering in the politics of countries in the Western Hemisphere. We view any country that is moving toward the left to be a threat to us, and we invariably go in and try to topple the regime.
You want to remember that President Trump is not only talking about doing regime change and social engineering in Venezuela these days, he’s also hinting in a quite overt way that we may do Colombia, we may do Nicaragua, we may even do Mexico. The United States, he believes, has a vested interest in interfering in the politics of any country in the hemisphere that he doesn’t like. And this is really nothing new. The United States has a rich history in this regard—Chile in 1973, Guatemala in 1954, on and on.
But what makes this so brazen, to use your word, which I think is absolutely correct, is that Trump doesn’t try to justify what he’s done with diplomatic language or liberal rhetoric. He basically says in very blunt terms that we can run Venezuela, it’s no problem, and Venezuela’s oil is our oil. And he sounds like a blatant imperialist, and you don’t see much evidence of that.
Usually when the United States goes in and acts in an imperial way in the Western Hemisphere, it covers up its behavior with liberal or idealistic rhetoric. But President Trump doesn’t act that way. He’s a Texas Chainsaw Massacre kind of guy. You can see him coming a mile away. He’s very blunt. And therefore it’s appropriate to say that this does look brazen.
The Collapse of the Liberal Rules-Based Order
GLENN DIESEN: Well, what does this mean, though, for the wider world order?
Because over the past thirty years, the so-called liberal rules-based order entailed more or less the idea that international law would apply to everyone with the exception of the West under the leadership of the United States, because we were the champions of liberal democracy.
So international law could be put aside if it was required for liberal democracy or humanitarian law. So this was kind of an important part of the hegemonic order. And to a large extent, we saw this being born in Kosovo when we said that, well, it wasn’t legal, but it was legitimate. So essentially, we said liberal democracy creates legitimacy outside the rule of law. So this was kind of how we can run an empire, a hegemonic system, and give it all legitimacy.
And I feel in terms of attacking Venezuela, the Europeans, we did our part. That is, we gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Machado under the idea that if the United States would go in with its military force, this would mean to install democracy and this will be peace. I mean, this whole liberal democratic peace thesis, that democracies don’t go to war, they’re more peaceful, et cetera. And that this can be delivered by military force.
But we saw instead that Trump, he didn’t take it. It was a nice layup. He could have had this legitimacy, but he said he didn’t want this excuse. He was even dismissive of Machado taking over power. And instead it is referred to how much tremendous amount of wealth we’re going to take out of the ground.
Should it worry us, though, I mean, that Washington now doesn’t bother to keep up the pretense? On one hand, it’s nice with some honesty. On the other hand, it’s important, the stories we tell about ourselves, that we kind of have some restraint by at least pretending to abide by certain ideals.
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: Yes, for sure. Let’s just talk a little bit about international law. As you know, when the United States was the unipole—this is during the unipolar moment, from roughly 1993 until about 2017—we were really the only great power in the system, and we threw our weight around all over the world. We nevertheless paid careful attention to international law. And if we violated international law, we went to great lengths to say we really were not violating international law.
Now, what’s going on there? The fact is that you need international law, you need international institutions, you need rules. In an incredibly interdependent world like the one that we live in, rules and laws are absolutely essential. And the key point to keep in mind here is that the United States wrote almost all of the rules and almost all of the laws. So we had little problem obeying the rules or obeying the law most of the time, because, again, we wrote them in ways that were in our national interest.
But along comes President Trump, and he really is sui generis here. He has utter contempt for international law, international norms. He just thinks they don’t matter. And he thinks when he goes out and breaks the law that it’s not necessary to justify what he did. It’s not necessary to put the velvet glove over the mailed fist.
And the end result is that international law, the rules-based system, is being trashed. And the question you have to ask yourself is: is this in the American national interest, or is it in the interest of other countries around the world? And I would argue that it’s not in our interest. Again, we need rules, we need laws, we need norms. And the reason that past presidents have paid so much attention to these matters is because they understand that.
But Trump doesn’t think that’s true. He just thinks that he can go out and trash the rules-based system and the end is that we will be better off. And with regard to other countries, the truth is he doesn’t care about other countries. He only cares about the United States of America and what he thinks is right or wrong. So that’s really what’s going on here. And the end result is not going to be good because international law is important for the United States and for other countries as well.
European Complicity and the Erosion of Legitimacy
GLENN DIESEN: I noticed from some speeches by Hegseth, he treats international law as if it would be some woke plot that constrains America from pursuing its interest. But again, in situations like war, we have international law has to be some mutual constraint as we have some framework around killing each other that limits it and makes it in a civilized manner as possible.
But also, again, the stories we tell each other though. I mean, when Biden blew up the Nord Stream—or allegedly blew up the Nord Stream, but yes, very likely he did—the Germans were willing to, the Chancellor was willing to stand next by him and pretend as if when he said, “Oh, it wasn’t us,” that Biden was selling a lie. The Germans also were very willing to buy it, even though no one, I think, truly believed it was the Russians who blew up their own pipeline. But at least the pretense was there.
Now there’s nothing. Even the Germans, now the Chancellor is asking what is the legal justification? We need something, at least give us a narrative, say that this is about an authoritarian dictator, but just oil. It seems that there’s some real anxiety.
But yeah, that brings me back to my question, though. The Europeans, they stayed relatively quiet on this. I think they hoped that their obedience would be rewarded, but instead their, I guess, spinelessness is being punished. I think Trump smells weakness and now he sets his eyes on Greenland. Is this, do you think this is real? Because it does seem to go beyond mere rhetoric to distract.
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: Are you asking me do I think there’s a real possibility that he will take Greenland?
GLENN DIESEN: Or is it just, you know, is this some like a reality show tactic where he shifts the focus? Or do you think that the United States will take Greenland now?
The Possibility of U.S. Military Action in Greenland
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: I think there is a serious possibility the United States will take Greenland in a certain sense. I think that people like you and me find it hard to imagine the United States invading Greenland and taking it and turning it into the 51st state. It’s kind of just hard to comprehend us doing that. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump did it.
If you look at Trump and how he thinks about using military force, he is willing to use military force frequently. I believe that he’s used military force seven different, against seven different countries since taking office. And he’s almost at the one year point of his term in the presidency. Remember, he became president last January 20th, so we’re close to January 20th. So in the past year he’s attacked seven different countries. This includes Iran, Iraq, Syria and a handful of other countries. Venezuela as well, obviously.
But what’s distinguishing, the distinguishing characteristic of all those attacks is that they were small scale attacks. They were, I call them pinpricks. And he’s been very careful not to get involved in nation building, not to get involved in a forever war. He understands that that’s one thing you don’t want to do.
Remember the attack against Iran on June 22nd of last year? That’s 2025. It was a one day affair. He attacked Iran, declared victory at the end of the day and said the problem is solved, finished, and then moved on. And of course, if you look at what he recently did in Nigeria, he lobbed a couple missiles at Nigeria, but that was the end. He didn’t get involved in any meaningful way.
So when you talk about Venezuela and Greenland, the big question that’s on everybody’s mind with regard to Venezuela, is he going to end up in a forever war? Is this the first case where he’s tripping himself up? Has he jumped into a quagmire? And I think the administration believes that that’s not the case, that they can do this on the cheap. It’s sort of a pinprick operation. They kidnap Maduro and they bring him to the United States and then they prop up the vice president as the new president and they use economic coercion to get her to dance to our tune. I think that’s their view. And it’s another pinprick operation in the end.
With regard to Greenland, right? It would not be difficult for the United States to conquer Greenland. It’s not going to be World War I or even a war, I think. I think they can, the American military can take Greenland with relative ease. And when you look at Trump’s pattern of behavior, how willing he is to use military force, when you can do it on the cheap and you can get away with it, I mean, he’ll get away with it politically.
I mean, the Europeans will scream for a while, but in the end, it’s not going to matter very much. They’re not going to put up very much resistance. He has no respect for the Europeans. So the fact that he can do it rather cheaply, that it could be portrayed as another pinprick operation, I think, tells you that there’s a really good chance that he’ll try to take Greenland.
And to go back to Venezuela, the big issue on the table is whether or not he’s going to get dragged into a quagmire or not in terms of getting dragged into the business of nation building or whether he will be able to pull this off quickly and easily.
European Reactions and the Collapse of Liberal Values
GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, well, I saw Stephen Miller. He was interviewed, and he made a point. He was asked, would you use military force to take Greenland? And he was kind of dismissive of the whole idea that, well, the Europeans aren’t going to fight back, so you just essentially sail in and plant a flag and that’s it. It’s probably correct, though, there wouldn’t be a fight.
But have you been surprised by the European reaction to this? Because overall, it seems over the past, even year now, all the liberal values which were supposed to unite the west, it kind of fell apart in a spectacular way. Not just the reluctance to find a diplomatic path in Ukraine, but also the genocide in Gaza, backing an ISIS leader to take power in Syria by supporting the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities, and of course, now bombing or attacking and kidnapping the president of Venezuela.
By giving the stamp of approval time and time again and supporting it. It’s, yeah, again, all the things that have been packed into one year and never seen anything like this before. How much can the west actually absorb if we define the political west based on a region of values?
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: Yeah, a couple points on what you just said, Glenn. First of all, the genocide in Gaza. I think the fact that the Europeans and the United States have supported Benjamin Netanyahu in terms of his execution of genocide in Gaza was a deadly blow to the liberal international order.
The idea that a group of liberal countries, a group of countries that emphasized the importance of liberal values, blatantly supported a genocide that the whole world could see taking place in Gaza dealt, in my opinion, a truly serious blow to the liberal international order. And then when you add everything else that’s happened under Trump to support for the genocide, you can see where this order is in deep trouble.
And furthermore, it’s really hard to argue that liberal values mean very much in the West. It looks like empty rhetoric. So all of what has happened, and this goes back to the Biden years, because you want to remember that October 7th took place during the Biden years. And the Americans especially, but also the Europeans, supported the Israelis in executing the genocide in Gaza before President Trump came into office. Trump, of course, continued to support the Israelis and continues to support the Israelis as they execute the genocide. But again, this is just a huge problem.
Now the question is, what’s going on here? Why are the Europeans, why are the Europeans not pushing back against Trump? And I’d make two points there. Number one, the Europeans are desperate to have good relations with the United States because they want the United States to stay in Europe.
The United States is making all sorts of noise, and this is especially true with regard to President Trump, of pulling American troops out of Europe, of eviscerating NATO, of reducing the size of the American military footprint. And this horrifies European leaders because they understand that the United States serves as a pacifier in Europe.
So they want to keep us, the Americans, in Europe, they want to keep NATO intact. And they think that the way to do that is to appease President Trump. So anytime President Trump does something that’s outrageous and they’re opposed to it, they nevertheless back President Trump or they criticize him in a very soft way because they want to make sure he stays in Europe. They want to make sure he likes Europe.
But the problem with President Trump, from their perspective, is that he’s basically a bully. And if you show weakness, he’ll just slap you around. And we all know that Trump has unmitigated contempt for the Europeans. To start with, the European countries are nowhere near as powerful as the United States. And when they get down on their knees and they appease him, he’s just going to slap them around. He’s going to treat them with contempt. And this is, of course, what he’s done.
Now, you might expect the Europeans to learn from this and do a 180 degree turn and stand up to the Americans, but no, they’re so desperate to keep the United States in Europe, and they’re so used to being in a position where they grovel at the feet of an American president, that they do what an American president wants, that you have a situation where Trump can pretty much get away with anything and not receive or not get any serious criticism from the Europeans.
And this gets back to our discussion of Greenland. What would happen if he took Greenland? It would be very interesting to see whether the Europeans finally stood up to him. You would think they would, but I wouldn’t bet a lot of money on that.
The Future of NATO in a Multipolar World
GLENN DIESEN: We saw at the Munich Security Conference in February when J.D. Vance spoke at the closure, I forgot his name, closing the ceremony. He broke down in tears because of the speech, how he referred to the Europeans. And of course, there was a national security strategy more or less calling for regime change in Europe, blaming the EU for destroying European civilization. And now, of course, the threat to take Greenland.
We would think at some point they would start to grow a spine and do something. But it was an interesting comment by the prime minister of Denmark. She made a point that if the U.S. attacks and takes Greenland, then that would mean the end of NATO.
But do you think more or less, this is already, like we’ve spoken about the decline, if not the collapse of NATO or at least becoming a shadow of itself, but do you think that this would be something now that would just destroy NATO completely because, well, the U.S. doesn’t seem too interested in keeping it. And the Europeans can’t ignore that. Well, reality has shifted dramatically.
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: You also want to remember that the whole question of Ukraine is intertwined with this issue of the future of NATO. You know, there are many people who have been arguing before the Venezuela crisis recently broke out that NATO was in deep trouble. And if the Russians won in Ukraine, which certainly looks like it’s going to be the case that this would do serious damage to the alliance.
So if you marry that simple fact about what’s happening in Ukraine to a possible invasion of Greenland, one could make the argument that it would be a deadly one, two combination that would basically ruin the alliance. The alliance might remain in name, but in terms of being an effective alliance, in terms of looking like what it has looked like between 1949 and 2025, those days would be gone. NATO would be a shadow of itself. It would be effectively wrecked. I think you can make that kind of argument.
Again, I think the Europeans will go to great lengths to prevent that from happening, in large part because NATO means for them keeping the United States in Europe, keeping the American pacifier in place, and they’re desperate to do that. So it may be the case that if Trump were to invade Greenland, and let’s hope he doesn’t do that, the Europeans would nevertheless swallow their pride and not back him. They would criticize him, but do it in a way that wasn’t so damaging that it would wreck the alliance.
Renegotiating the U.S.-Europe Relationship
GLENN DIESEN: It just seems like a key challenge for the political west is to renegotiate the relationship between the U.S. and the EU because beyond the rhetoric about Trump, there is something significant here about the distribution of power. That is, the U.S. can’t afford to be as generous as it was after World War II. It has other priorities. It can’t be everywhere. Europe’s not a high priority. Its relative power in the world has also declined.
So the Europeans kind of want America of the past, that is, to commit and continue to, well, essentially pay for everything. It just seems that for the Europeans, they’re either, like, just super subservient to the U.S. or they become very anti-American. They always, they seem to polarize a bit.
It just seems that it would be possible to have a more reasonable relationship. We just adjusted to the new multipolar realities. That is, both sides benefit from a partnership, from security cooperation, economic ties, but at least maybe divorce. Go from being married to neighbors or something along those lines. Just something that works for the United States.
Because dismissing the new interest of the United States, I think it’s a folly. I mean, of course, Trump tends to be much cruder than other leaders, but there’s something beyond, below the personality there. There’s a real shift in power which has to be addressed. The idea that we can just continue as if it’s the bipolar, unipolar order doesn’t really make that much sense.
The West as a Cold War Construct
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: Yeah, I think you’re exactly right, Glenn, and I would marry what you just said to this whole notion that there is a group out there or a civilization out there, whatever you want to call it, which is labeled “the West.”
During the Cold War, when we came up with this term “the West,” it made eminently good sense because we were dealing with the U.S.-Soviet competition, which took place mainly in Europe. The heart of the U.S.-Soviet competition was in Central Europe. And all of the countries on the western side of the divide were closely allied with the United States. And of course, those countries on the eastern side of the divide were closely allied with the Soviets. So in that context, it made eminently good sense to talk about “the West,” and we were tightly integrated.
Furthermore, after the Cold War ends and you move into the unipolar moment, there’s obviously no Soviet threat anymore, but the countries of Western Europe are thoroughly liberal. They share the same values as the United States does. And what happens is that the West that’s left over from the Cold War decides to move NATO eastward, bring more countries in Europe into the West, and continue to argue about international politics as if there were this group of countries that you could call “the West.” And in fact, it made a lot of sense.
And furthermore, the West during the unipolar moment was interested in spreading liberal democracy all around the world. As you know, the United States during the unipolar moment adopted this foreign policy of liberal hegemony. We were interested—Frank Fukuyama—in spreading democracy all across the planet because we thought that was all for the good. The Europeans bought into this enterprise, as reflected most clearly in NATO expansion. NATO expansion was initially all about spreading liberal democracy, economic interdependence, and so forth and so on—Western institutions into Eastern Europe. So it was very easy during the unipolar moment, as it was during the bipolar moment, to talk about “the West.”
The Pivot to Asia and the Fracturing of the West
But that world has gone away. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that for the first time in American history, the most important area of the world for us, for the United States, is not Europe—it’s East Asia, because of the rise of China. So this is a very powerful imperative for the United States to pivot to Asia and pivot out of Europe. And when you get somebody like Trump, who’s the president and who has contempt for Europeans, and you marry that to the structural imperatives that are pushing us to pivot to East Asia, you’re going to see big cracks in the transatlantic relationship.
And it’s very important to emphasize that as the transatlantic relationship deteriorates, as U.S.-European relations worsen, the Europeans will be on their own in ways they have not been in a long time. I think you’d have to go back to 1945 and the years before 1945 to find evidence of cases where Europe was pretty much on its own and didn’t have the American pacifier in place.
And what this means is that you will see fractures inside of the West. And you can see this in Europe today. There are all sorts of fault lines inside the EU and inside Europe more generally. And by the way, as we’ve talked about before, the Russians will go to great lengths to exacerbate those fault lines. The Russians will go to great lengths to exacerbate deteriorating relations between the United States on one side of the ocean and the Europeans on the other side. So there’s just a lot of forces at play here that are undermining this concept of a rather homogeneous West that existed during bipolarity and existed during unipolarity, but is now beginning to wither away.
Europe Alone: The Ukraine War’s Aftermath
GLENN DIESEN: This idea of Europe being all alone—it is interesting. It was predicted by some, though. I did an interview on this channel with Harald Kujat, the general. Harald Kujat is the former head of the German armed forces and he had the highest military position in NATO. But he wrote an article, gave an interview back in January of 2023, so three years ago now, in which he predicted that, well, we already more or less lost the war in Ukraine. The Russians will take this, and when it’s obvious that it’s lost, Americans will start to pull back. And the title of the article was something along the lines of “we will be left all alone, facing a very angry Russia.”
So I was wondering how you would tie this conflict now in Venezuela to Ukraine, because if you look at Denmark, it’s a bit ironic. The Danish government prides itself to some extent that they were the first one to recognize Kosovo. So, again, a breakaway, which isn’t too—well, they find themselves on the other side now. But also they sent almost all their weapons to Ukraine and they’ve been among some of the most hawkish in this proxy war against the Russians. Whereas you have said last time we spoke, a direct war on Russia now. So what does this mean, though? Because this, of course, adds to the desperation because when we joined in on this war against the Russians, you know, we’re standing behind Biden and he would fight till the end. Now, of course, it’s very different. How do you see this playing out?
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: Well, I think that what’s happening in Venezuela, and even if you add an invasion of Greenland to that problem set in the Western Hemisphere, it pales in comparison to what’s happening in the Ukraine war. The fact is that what Trump has tried to do with the Europeans vis-à-vis the Ukraine war is shift the burden of supporting Ukraine onto the shoulders of the Europeans. And the Europeans, of course, cannot shoulder that burden. They don’t have the financial resources or the weaponry to support Ukraine. And Ukraine is going to lose the war.
And once Ukraine loses the war, there’s going to be a blame game and the Europeans are going to blame the Americans for withdrawing support for Ukraine and shifting the burden to them. And Trump will blame the Europeans. He will say they didn’t cooperate with me diplomatically and I therefore turned over the responsibility for dealing with Ukraine to the Europeans, and they did not measure up to the task, so they’re responsible.
So you’ll have this blame game, and then you’ll have a blame game inside of Europe itself. You’ll have people like Viktor Orbán on one side and Keir Starmer on the other side and Macron on the other side. And they’ll all be arguing about who’s responsible and where we go from here. And at the same time, as I said before, the Russians will be going to great lengths for good strategic reasons to exacerbate those tensions inside of Europe and to exacerbate those tensions across the Atlantic Ocean.
The Catastrophic Consequences of NATO Expansion
So I think that you’re going to have a lot of trouble in Europe moving forward. And most importantly, you’re going to have poisonous relations between Russia and Europe for as far as the eye can see. One does not want to underestimate the catastrophic consequences of the April 2008 decision to bring Ukraine into NATO. It is for the foreseeable future, and we’re talking about a long time into the future—we poisoned relations between Russia on one side and Europe on the other side.
And this is going to be, as I said before, an increasingly divided Europe. And the United States is not going to be serving as the pacifier in ways that it has done in the past. This is going to be terrible for Europe. And I think Europe is in real trouble. And I think that’s a bigger problem for Europe than the whole question of what’s going on in Venezuela or what’s going on with regard to Greenland.
Why European Appeasement Fails
And by the way, again, to go back to my point that the Europeans are desperate to keep NATO intact, which means keeping the American pacifier in Europe—this is why the European leaders appease the Americans. And here we’re talking about President Trump, why they appease President Trump at every turn. But that’s not a winning strategy, because as we talked about, you have to stand up to Trump if you have any hopes of getting your way with him.
The Chinese figured this out, by the way. Remember, early in his term, his second term, President Trump tried to get tough with the Chinese with tariffs, and the Chinese made it clear to him in no uncertain terms that they had cards to play and they would use those cards. And the end result is that Trump backed off.
Same thing with the Houthis. Remember, he said he was going to go in, slam the Houthis. He said that President Biden was a pussycat. He didn’t wage war against the Houthis in a meaningful way. He, Donald Trump, a real man, was going to go in and do it differently, and he’d bring the Houthis to their knees. Well, he went in and he tried to defeat the Houthis, and he failed, and he quit. He backed off. He said, “The Houthis are tough hombres. I can’t defeat them,” and “I’m backing off.”
And that’s how you get your way with Trump. You stand up to him. And if you don’t stand up to him, he’ll walk all over you. And, of course, he’s been walking all over the European leaders. He’s been humiliating them at every turn. And that will continue to be the case until they stand up to him. But I don’t see much hope they’re going to stand up to him anytime soon.
GLENN DIESEN: No, I don’t see that either. Well, last time we spoke, you had just given a speech at the European Parliament, the EU Parliament, arguing that Europe’s future was bleak. Do you think Venezuela has made it any bleaker, or it doesn’t really play that much into the whole political West, of course—besides, if U.S. actually takes Greenland, though?
Trump’s Cycle of Military Escapades
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: I don’t think what happened in Venezuela really matters much for the overall direction that U.S.-European relations are moving in or European-Russian relations are moving. And I think what happens in Ukraine is of great importance there.
I mean, the thing you want to remember about President Trump is that he uses military force and he does outrageous things so often that what is very important one day, a week later is not even a front page story. It could be the case that a week from now, Glenn, the United States will be attacking Iran again. It may be that the Israelis and the Americans will launch a major air campaign against Iran. I’m not saying that’s going to happen, but it’s certainly in the realm of possibility, and there are a lot of people who think it’s going to happen sooner rather than later. But once that happens, the front page story will be Iran. It will not be Venezuela.
So another dimension to this is that the Venezuela situation is not likely to remain on the front page, either here in the United States or in Europe, because we’ll be off pursuing another escapade. This is one of the ways that Trump gets away with all of these endeavors that he’s pursuing. He does something, people start to criticize him, but before the criticism can sink in, he’s off attacking another country. And then people start to criticize him. And before the criticisms sink in, he’s on to another country.
So as long as he doesn’t get bogged down in a forever war—or to put it slightly differently, as long as he doesn’t get bogged down in nation building—he’ll be able to continue this policy for the foreseeable future.
The Venezuela Question: Quick Victory or Nation Building?
And this is why the big question at this point in time is where does Venezuela lead? He thinks, and his advisors think, that they went in, they won a quick and decisive victory, and now managing Venezuela will be a minor problem that will free them up to move on to the next escapade. That’s their view. And there are a lot of people—I’m one of them—who has real doubts about whether that’s true.
I think that, you know, when you go in and you break a country like Venezuela, you effectively own it. And he claims that he owns it. He says that we’re going to run it. When he starts talking like that, you say to yourself, okay, if you, President Trump, are going to run Venezuela, doesn’t that mean you’re going to do nation building? And if you’re going to do nation building, isn’t this going to be long, difficult and messy and likely to lead to failure?
But then there are other people in the administration who argue that we’re not going to get seriously involved in running the country. We can do it on the cheap. We’ll see what happens. But if he gets bogged down in Venezuela, that will greatly limit his maneuver room to attack more countries down the road, as he’s been doing since he took office about a year ago.
GLENN DIESEN: Well, it’s great at shifting the focus. Last week we’re speaking about the Epstein files, and now, of course, they’re all gone. But I’m not sure how long you can play this game before there’s a massive miscalculation in which he gets drawn in. That could happen already. But I know you have places to run now, so I just want to thank you again for letting me pick your brain.
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: Oh, thank you, Glenn, for having me on the show. It was a pleasure talking to you. I just wish we had some more uplifting subjects to talk about these days. I mean, this is the New Year. We’re supposed to think in terms of “Happy New Year,” but given events in the world, it’s hard not to be thoroughly depressed.
GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, very much agree. So, well, thanks nonetheless.
JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: You’re welcome.
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