John Mearsheimer
speaker
2,303 appearances
7 recordings
5 series
first heard Nov 2023
last heard 28 May
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 — 5 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 4.
Appearances
And indeed, I think the United States should have good relations with Putin. It's a remarkably foolish policy to push him into the arms of the Chinese. There are three great powers in the system, the United States, China, and Russia. China is a peer competitor to the United States. It's the most serious threat to the United States.
Russia is the weakest of those three great powers, and it's not a serious threat to us. If you are playing balance of power politics and you're interested as the United States in containing China, you want Russia on your side of the ledger. But what we have done in effect is we have pushed Russia into the arms of the Chinese. This is a remarkably foolish policy.
And furthermore, by getting bogged down in Ukraine and now bogged down in the Middle East, it's become very difficult for us to pivot to Asia to deal with China, which is the principal threat that we face.
It's just not a threat. We're going to get to it.
Do you want me to... Is it okay if I talk about this?
Okay. It is very important to emphasize, as David was saying, that Jeff and I agree on all sorts of issues, including Ukraine and Israel-Palestine, but we disagree fundamentally, as he just made clear, on China. And let me explain to you why I think that's the case, and then Jeff can tell you why he thinks I'm wrong.
It has to do with security, whether you privilege security or survival, or whether you privilege prosperity. Economists, and I would imagine most of you in the audience, really care greatly about maximizing prosperity. For someone like me who's a realist, what I care about is maximizing the state's prospects of survival.
And when you live in an anarchic system, and in IR speak, that means there's no higher authority, there's no night watchman that could come down and rescue if you get into trouble. And this is the international system. There's no higher authority. In that anarchic world, the best way to survive is to be really powerful.
As we used to say when I was a kid on New York City playgrounds, you want to be the biggest and baddest dude on the block. And that's simply because it's the best way to survive. If you're really powerful, nobody fools around with you. The United States is a regional hegemon. It's the only regional hegemon on the planet. We dominate the Western Hemisphere.
And what China has begun to do as it's got increasingly powerful economically is translate that economic might into military might. And it is trying to dominate Asia. It wants to push us out beyond the first island chain. It wants to push us out beyond the second island chain. It wants to be like we are in the Western hemisphere. And I don't blame the Chinese one bit.
If I was the national security advisor in Beijing, that's what I'd be telling Xi Jinping we should be trying to do. But of course, from an American point of view, this is unacceptable. And we do not tolerate peer competitors. We do not want another regional hegemon on the planet. In the 20th century, there were four countries that threatened to become regional hegemons like us. Imperial Germany,
Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union. The United States played a key role in putting all four of those countries on the scrap heap of history. We want to remain the only regional hegemon in the world. We are a ruthless great power. Never want to lose sight of that fact. And the end result of this is you get an intense security competition between China and The United States.
And it revolves around the concept of security, not prosperity. I think this is- Just very quickly. So what you see beginning to happen is that it's in all domains where the competition takes place, especially high tech. We do not want them defeating this.
Defeating us in the high-tech war we are competing with them economically We are competing with the militarily and this is because the best way to survive is for us the United States of America to be the only regional hegemon on the planet
Jeff, what about the energy?
Just very quickly most of you have probably never asked yourself the question Why is the United States roaming all over the planet interfering in every country's business? It's in part because it's so powerful, but it's also because it's a regional hegemon Which means we have no threats in the Western Hemisphere so we are free to roam
The great danger, Jeff, if China becomes a regional hegemon and doesn't have to worry about security concerns.
Then they behave like us. Can't we do better? That's exactly right. But my point to you, Jeff, is let's prevent that from happening by preventing them from becoming a regional hegemon. We don't want them to have freedom to roam. You were talking about them putting military bases in Mexico. That's our great fear.
Jeff, that's because they're not a regional hegemon yet.
No, it's not just Taiwan. I mean, one could argue there's sort of three flashpoints in East Asia that you folks should keep your eye on. One is obviously Taiwan. Two is the South China Sea. And three is the East China Sea. And I think, David, that the place where a conflict is most likely today is not over Taiwan.
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