John Mearsheimer

He was deeply concerned about the security of Russia.

And Russia is a quite vulnerable state in a lot of ways, especially if you think back to what it looked like in the 1990s.

You know better than I do.

It was in terrible shape.

The Chinese talk about the century of national humiliation.

One could argue that for the Russians, that was the decade of national humiliation.

And it took Putin, I think, quite a bit of time to bring the Russians back from the dead.

I think he eventually succeeded, but it took a considerable amount of time.

And I think he...

understood that he was not playing a particularly strong hand.

He was playing something of a weak hand.

And he had to be very careful, very cautious.

And I think he was.

And I think that's very different than the United States.

The United States was the unipole.

It was the most powerful state in the history of the world.

Most powerful state relative to all its possible competitors from roughly...

1989, certainly after December 1991, when the Soviet Union fell apart, up until, I would argue, about 2017.

We were incredibly powerful.

And even after 2017, up to today, the United States remains the most powerful state in the system.