John J. Mearsheimer

You make these arguments enough times, you come to believe them yourself sometimes.

Yes, that is true.

I don't know what they're thinking.

I mean, there's just no evidence to support this argument in terms of what Putin has said over time or what he's written over time.

Or if you just look at the power that's built into the Russian army, this army's had a difficult time capturing the eastern one-fifth of Ukraine.

The idea that it's going to conquer all of Ukraine and roll into eastern Europe

is not a serious argument.

And again, he's never said that he was interested in doing that.

This is not the second coming of the Wehrmacht.

But for some reason, the European elites have convinced themselves that this is the case.

And it seems that they won't listen to common sense on this issue.

First of all, the Russians controlled all of those countries in Eastern and Central Europe during the entire Cold War.

And it did not work out very well.

Yeah.

The most powerful political ideology on the planet is nationalism.

Yes.

And nationalism is all about sovereignty and self-determination.

Yes.

And whether you're Polish, Czech, Hungarian, German, you want...

control your own destiny.