John Mearsheimer

We were trying to force Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and the basic goal there was to turn Ukraine into a pro-Western liberal democracy.

And that meant that you'd have Ukraine, if it worked, as a pro-Western liberal democracy that was in the EU and that was in NATO.

This was our goal.

And the Russians made it unequivocally clear Ukraine was not going to become a Western bulwark on their border.

And most importantly, they made it clear that Ukraine in NATO was unacceptable.

He's made it clear that anybody with a triple-digit IQ understands that it's nuts to think about recreating the Soviet Union.

He thinks it's a tragedy that the Soviet Union fell apart, but as he made clear in that essay, the July 12, 2021 essay,

And as he made clear in speeches before, immediately before he invaded Ukraine, he accepted the breakup of the Soviet Union and he accepted the status quo in Europe, save for the fact he did not accept the idea that Ukraine would become part of NATO.

It's very hard for me to answer that question because I don't know him and I've not studied him carefully in terms of his overall performance over the course of the 23 years that he's been in power.

I've studied him as a strategist, and I've studied how he deals with the West and deals with the international system more generally since 2014.

And I think he is a first-class strategist.

This is not to say he doesn't make mistakes, and he admits he's made some mistakes, but

But I think that the West is dealing with a formidable adversary here.

And I don't see any evidence that he's either lost speed off his fastball or that power has corrupted his thinking about strategic affairs.

I think that's clear, yeah.

I think, as I emphasized early on in our conversation, that...

leaders' privilege, security, or survival over everything else.

And by the way, he gave a number of talks and press conferences in addition to writing that famous article that you referred to on July 12, 2021.

So we have a pretty clear record of what he was saying, and I would argue what he was thinking, in the run-up to the war in February 2022.

And if you read what he said, it's quite clear that he privileged security or survival.