John Mearsheimer

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.

And before I tell you what I think the differences are between those two bodies of theory, it is important to emphasize that there are differences among realists and differences among liberals.

And so when you talk about me as an offensive realist, you should understand that there are also defensive realists out there, and there are a panoply of liberal theories as well.

But basically, realists believe that power matters, that states compete for power, and that war is an instrument of statecraft.