John Mearsheimer

When it started in 1783, it was comprised of 13 measly colonies strung out along the Atlantic seaboard.

Over time, the various leaders of the United States went to great lengths to turn that country into the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere.

And then once that was achieved in 1900, we've gone to great lengths to make sure that there's no peer competitor in the system.

We just want to make sure that we're number one.

And my argument is that this is not peculiar to the United States.

If I'm China, for example, today,

I would want to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere.

They'd be fools not to.

If I were Imperial Germany, I'd want to dominate all of Europe the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere.

Why?

Because if you dominate all of Europe, assuming you're Imperial Germany or Napoleonic France, then no other state in the area or in the region can threaten you because you're simply so powerful.

And again, what I'm saying here is that the structure of the international system really matters.

It's the fact that you're in this anarchic system where survival is your principal goal and where I can't know your intentions, right?

You're another state.

I can't know that at some point you might not come after me.

You might.

And if you're really powerful and I'm not, I'm in deep trouble.

Well, I think for many centuries now, the big divide within the world of international relations theory is between realism and liberalism.

These are time-honored

bodies of theory.