John Mearsheimer
speaker
1,250 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 2d ago
John Mearsheimer’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
What happened is that we began to move significant numbers of military assets, especially aircraft, out of the Gulf region and we moved them to Jordan.
Because Jordan is not in the Gulf itself.
It's quite far away.
And then the Iranians took their missiles and started targeting Jordan.
And then we began moving assets out of Jordan into Israel and back to Europe.
So the idea that we can maintain bases and radars and a significant military presence in the Gulf is a pipe dream.
The fact is, Chris, that ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones have reached the point where it's almost impossible for the United States to build a network of bases and radar stations in the Persian Gulf.
We just can't do it.
And just to add to what I'm saying, you want to remember that from now forward, the Iranians are going to refine and improve the capability of their ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones.
So the threat for ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones is only going to grow greater with the passage of time.
And you might say, well, John, won't the Americans and the Israelis and others build up a defensive capability, a shield that can knock down those incoming ballistic missiles and cruise missiles?
You can try to do that, but it just doesn't work very well.
First of all, the ballistic missiles, the incoming ballistic missiles have a great advantage over the defending missiles.
And many of the missiles will get through.
But the other thing is that the cost exchange ratio greatly favors the incoming ballistic missiles over the defensive missiles.
And therefore, it's only a matter of time before you overwhelm
those defensive missile systems and the ballistic missiles win the missile war and just to go back to last year's war remember there was this war between
the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other side last June.
This is the famous 12 day war, which went from June 13th to June 25th.
We ended that war in good part because the Americans and the Israelis were running out of defensive missiles and the Iranians were not running out of offensive ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.
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